It Happened Here -- Making the Pledge

1891 had been a good year for the editor of The Youth's Companion,  a weekly periodical that began its life as a moralistic tract for children, 64 years before. Though no longer exclusively dedicated to encouraging youth "virtue and piety" and warnings against the "ways of transgressions," TYC had maintained its wholesome image while beginning to successfully transform itself into a family magazine with stories and poetry written by the likes of Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mark Twain, Emily Dickinson and Jack London, and was riding high on a wave of popularity of reading-for-entertainment.  Decades before radio and television would become evening focal points for families, mothers and fathers could get together with their children to read to each other and share stories and poems.

1738 Helderberg Trail, Berne (Albany Co.)

Another reason for TYC's success--(in 1891 it had 500,000 subscribers)--was its marketing program.  Premiums were awarded to boys and girls and adults who sold subscriptions. The more subscriptions, the better the "prize".  Stationery, hair brushes, watches, air rifles, sewing machines and even a piano could be earned.  But the most successful promotion was a cotton United States flag, marketed to teachers. For most of the 19th century, before school centralization, every neighborhood, every town had one or more one-room schools and if teachers could be encouraged to seek a flag for their schools, platoons of eager young subscription salespeople would be unleashed on local communities. By the beginning of 1892, 26,000 schools were flying American flags from TYC.

Main St. at Erie, Mount Morris

A third reason for editor David Sharp Ford's sanguinary outlook was the people he had hired for his sales/promotions department.  One was a relative, James B. Uphams; the other was Ford's pastor, or more accurately--former pastor, Francis Bellamy.

 Bellamy had been born in Mount Morris, New York, in the Genesee Valley, educated at the University of Rochester, and become a Baptist minister. After a short ministry at the Baptist church in Little Falls, New York, his eloquence and personality recommended him for a much larger church, the Dearborn Street Church in Boston, where he became acquainted with Ford.  But there had been a problem. Bellamy's reading of the gospels had led him to a belief in Christian Socialism.  In this belief he was supported/inspired by his cousin, Edward Bellamy who had written a best selling book, Looking  Backwards: 2000 to 1887, imagining a utopian socialist society at the beginning of the 21st century.  It probably didn't take too many sermons about "Christ, the Socialist" before the elders of his church (merchants, businessmen, and good capitalists) inevitably decided he and their congregation was not a good fit.

The Bellamy Home,  Mt.Morris

 Socialist Bellamy might also have seemed a poor choice to organize a campaign to sell more periodicals, too, except that he enthusiastically embraced an idea that Uphams had thought up.  1892 was the 400th anniversary of the discovery of the Americas.  Arguably, Columbus' discovery might be considered the first act of what transpired in the settlement of North America, the development of Democracy, the divorce from the Old World, and the creation of a new American Civilization.  Developers had planned a grand extravaganza of patriotism, the Columbian Exposition for Chicago, beginning on the anniversary.  Uphams suggested the idea of a nationwide public American flag ceremony in which students in schools across the country would pledge their allegiance to the American flag and the nation which it represented, on the opening day of the Columbian Exposition.  And, of course, the foremost purveyor of American flags to schools through periodical subscriptions would benefit immensely.

But sales was not foremost in the mind of the preacher from Mt. Morris.  Francis Bellamy worried about the divisions and diversity in American society that threatened to pull it apart. Civil War reconstruction had been brought to a sudden end only a dozen years ago. Could the children of Confederate veterans, raised on romantic hopes that "the South will rise again!" be trusted to become good American Citizens, especially since they were no longer under the watchful eyes of federal troops?  And more ominously--What about the flood of immigrants, in recent decades?--People from southern and eastern Europe were so different from the earlier immigrants from northern and western Europe--many totally unfamiliar with notions of democracy, exhibiting strange beliefs, customs and values.  A common pledge of allegiance was no guarantee of acceptance of American democratic norms and values but if taught and practiced in American schools Bellamy believed it could be an important tool in assimilation and training in American citizenship.

This belief drove Bellamy to proceed with missionary fervor.  Bellamy talked to teachers and to state conferences of school superintendents. He got the National Education Association to recognize The Youth's Companion as a sponsor of the Columbus day observances. He spoke with President Benjamin Harrison to proclaim October 12th, the opening day of the Columbian Exposition, "Columbus Day" and he lobbied Congress for a resolution recognizing the day as the "National Public School Celebration of Columbus Day" with a flag ceremony being a central part of the day.

The support had been lined up, and initial preparations made,  but a pledge and a ceremony had still not been written.  David Sharp Ford asked Francis Bellamy to do it because 'you have a knack with words.' Bellamy created a short, dignified, statement that took about 15 seconds to recite. " I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible with liberty and justice for all."*

 Over the years several changes were made.  Bellamy, himself, added a second "to" in the second phrase "to the republic" for better balance.  In 1923 an American flag conference replaced "my flag" with "the flag of the United States" for greater clarity. The following year they added "of America".  A big change came in 1954 when "one nation, indivisible" became "one nation, under God, indivisible"**, as the result of extensive lobbying by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men's group. Their efforts were supported by people concerned about Communist infiltration in society. They reasoned that Communists, being atheists would be reluctant to recite the pledge with the words "under God" in it!

There have been many court challenges to the pledge.  Jehovah Witnesses and some other Christian groups have objected to having to swear fealty to a "graven Image" (the flag.); Atheists have objected to the "under God" clause; Conservatives and Libertarians have objected to the compulsory aspect of having to submit to a pledge of allegiance or an implication of subordination of the individual to the state***; even some members of polytheistic religions have raised objections to the phrase "under God", not "Gods."

Like many elements of our complex society the Pledge of Allegiance will continue to be subject to reinterpretation and reevaluation.

Main St. at Lackawana Av., Mount Morris

*Bellamy also created a flag salute which began with the participants holding their right arm, palm down in front of their chest. As they recited the Pledge they would straighten their arm and raise it palm down, to about a 60 degree angle where at the end of the salute they would rotate their wrist to a palm up position. By the early 1940's it became apparent that this salute was distressingly similar to the German Nazi salute. Congress changed this salute in 1942 in favor of the hand-over-the-heart salute used to this day.
 
**Bellamy spoke publicly advocating the separation of church and state. He would not have supported this change.

***Gene Healy, senior editor of the Cato Institute, a  conservative "think tank" spoke out against the Pledge in 2003 calling it "a ceremony of subordination to the government" and a ritual that "smacks of promoting a quasi-religious genuflection to the state."


Marker of the Week--Do you suppose Duchess Meghan appreciates how much harder it used to be to be a British Royal?

U.S. Rte 4, N. of Rte 149, Ft. Ann

      I'll bet she never gets sent to the colonies to dig wells :)