By: KEVIN JOLLY
Staff Writer
The American Pledge of Allegiance is engrained in almost every American child’s brain, as many of them have been reciting it morning after morning for their whole school careers. Since the late 19th century, most states have been legislating public schools to encourage or require a reciting of the pledge from students to an American flag. For over a century, the pledge has been the target of vast criticism, however. Multiple legal battles have been fought over the pledge, and to some is seen as a symbol of oppression. So what are some of the main arguments concerning the pledge, and what is the history behind this controversial American tradition?
Historian consensus believes that the origins of attitudes towards the pledge come from post-civil war patriotism after defeating the rebel confederate states, as Americans wanted to test themselves and each other in a demonstration of devotion to the Union. This only increased in the 1880s when immigration surged across all American fronts and paranoia of possibly disloyal immigrants took place. The first edition of the pledge was written and published in 1887 by Captain George T. Balch, the de facto army chief of ordnance during the civil war on the side of the Union. After his military career, Balch dedicated his life to education, becoming auditor of the New York Board of Education. He published a book on children’s education in America, and in it, he recommended using the pledge of allegiance in classrooms, especially for immigrant children to instill loyalty and patriotism. He worked extensively with the government and private organizations to get American flags in as many classrooms as possible. Balch’s pledge was used in many schools into the early 20th century and was very popular among various educational organizations and movements into the 1940s.
George T. Balch
As important as Balch’s pledge was, the more significant story has its origins shockingly in socialism. Composed in 1892, Francis Bellamy’s pledge is the version used today with a few minor adjustments of course. Bellamy was an avid socialist and Christian, an early believer of the concept that Jesus himself was socialist. The reasoning behind why a socialist would create such a seemingly right-wing tradition was that Bellamy believed in ridding the public image of America as a federalist country made up of independent states, and fostering support of a more centralized government which would have the power to nationalize institutions like education, health, banking, etc… It’s important to remember that at the time, the view of states being more independent had contributed to states feeling like they could secede which had just prior caused the most deadly war in US history (Civil War), and Bellamy was just following the trend of looking at the US as one entity rather than a collection of sovereign states. When you put it into perspective, it becomes much easier to understand why American nationalism of this time was actually found across much of the political spectrum and especially left-wing.
Francis Bellamy
Fascinatingly, the most controversial part of the pledge, “under God”, wasn’t actually in Bellamy’s original pledge despite Bellamy’s fervent Christianity. Louis Albert Bowman, an Illinois attorney, was the first to suggest adding “under God” to the pledge in 1948, almost half a century after the pledge was first published by Bellamy. Bowman claimed he sourced the phrase from President Abraham Lincoln’s Gettysburg address. The addition of the phrase gained popularity from Cold War sentiments, as Americans desperately wanted to embrace religion as a national characteristic to distinguish themselves more from the state-enforced atheism of the Soviet Union. In the years following, numerous religious groups and organizations, namely catholic, embraced the addition and advocated for an official amendment. It was George MacPherson Docherty, pastor of a major Presbyterian Church, who gave the final push. Docherty gave a sermon to then-President Dwight D. Eisenhower, where he said, “There was something missing in the pledge, and that which was missing was the characteristic and definitive factor in the American way of life” Eisenhower responded enthusiastically, signing the addition of “under God” into the pledge the day after Docherty’s sermon in 1954.
President Eisenhower Meeting WIth George MacPherson Docherty
The hand-over-the-heart salute also wasn’t originally a part of the pledge. In fact, the original salute was created in 1892 and was called the ‘Bellamy salute”. It had the pledger outstretch their right arm with their palm down and then move towards their head. The salute had an eerily similar appearance to the Nazi salute, and so unsurprisingly when America entered WW2, the Bellamy salute was removed by Congress in 1942 in favor of the hand-over-the-heart salute we have today.
School Children Practicing the Bellamy Salute
Some of the earliest outspoken critics of the pledge were religious minorities, specifically Jehovah’s Witnesses. Even before the addition of “under God”, Minersville School District vs. Gobitis was a Supreme Court case that saw Jehovah’s Witnesses claiming that the pledge was idolatry and therefore unacceptable to coerce Jehovah’s Witnesses children into performing it. The case was lost and even led to an upswing of violence against Jehovah’s Witnesses in the area. Joseph L. Lewis was an atheist publisher and activist and led two significant but fruitless cases questioning the constitutionality of including “under God” in 1957 and 1960. Lewis argued that requiring children to pledge “under God” was in violation of the first amendment’s texts on religious freedom, especially since schooling is required and it was public schools that enforced the pledge. This was all under heavy scrutiny during the Cold War, again in opposition to the Soviet’s atheism, and so critics were often seen as suspicious or treacherous. In the case of Parker vs. Board of Education, history teacher Haswell Parker challenged the constitutionality of ‘under God’ again, and received immense backlash in 1963, with Senator Sam Ervin even stating, “We suggest that the history teacher study his history. The trend toward eradicating all reference to God from every official document and act in this country is not merely protecting a few tiny minorities from a fancied infringement of their rights. It goes far deeper than that. If carried to the ultimate conclusion, it would destroy the whole American philosophy of human liberty.”
Other critics argue that the pledge of allegiance is of a similar or same nature to compelled speech or compulsory oaths. Others argue that the pledge promotes ‘blind patriotism’ which doesn’t encourage critical and or civic engagement/action. Supreme Court Justices Black and Douglas in Barnette stated, “Words uttered under coercion are proof of loyalty to nothing but self-interest. Love of country must spring from willing hearts and free minds, inspired by a fair administration of wise laws enacted by the people’s elected representatives within the bounds of express constitutional prohibitions” and later, “f there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein.”
Victories for critics of the pledge of allegiance came during the mid to late 2000s, as multiple states had their own independent cases in which requiring the pledge was found unconstitutional. This is not entirely true though, as many of the rulings and decisions come with various loopholes and complications which make it difficult to avoid the pledge. In Florida for example, in 2006 the state found the pledge violating the First and Fourteenth Amendments, but the catch is that a student can only really opt out if a parental figure consents as well. Other states don’t require the pledge on a state level but allow local districts to decide for themselves. There are only really three states in total that have allowed true expulsion of the pledge, Wyoming, Vermont, and Hawaii. Even California requires a recitation but allows local districts their own enforcement and oversight. So despite these cases winning, the pledge has still managed to remain mandated for almost all American students, and we can probably expect more debate and criticisms in the future, and possibly even more court cases, but hopefully, this has offered some more historical context and understanding of different arguments made.