I recently saw a bumper sticker that said “One Nation. UNDER GOD!” It got me thinking. Who wrote that anyway? I didn’t remember that being among the founding father’s collection of country birthing texts so I did a simple search. Yahoo Answers had an interesting blurb about it. We all grew up saying it, but I doubt many of us even knew why and who wrote it. The answer may be a bit disheartening to the folks crying themselves to sleep over socialism’s great takeover of America…
| Dear Yahoo!: |
| Who wrote the Pledge of Allegiance and when was it written? |
| David |
| Dear David: |
| The Baptist Minister Francis Bellamy wrote the Pledge of Allegiance in 1892. He was forced to leave his Boston church the previous year because of the socialist bent of his sermons. (He shared the political sentiments of his first cousin, Edward Bellamy, who wrote two socialist utopian novels, Looking Backward and Equality.) Francis Bellamy was later hired by the The Youth’s Companion, a popular family magazine at the time. His writings reflected a Christian Socialist vision of a government-managed economy with “political, social and economic equality for all.”While writing for the journal, he was also on the Massachusetts State Education Board and was charged with organizing the state’s Columbus Day celebrations in 1892. He decided to craft a pledge that school children would say aloud in front of the flag — a pledge that would reflect his socialist beliefs. As published in Youth’s Companion, the first version read, “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
Mr. Bellamy considered using the word “equality” as well, but was aware that several members of his education committee were firmly against equal rights for women and African Americans. The phrase “under God,” which was added by President Eisenhower in 1954, would not have met with Mr. Bellamy’s approval. In his later years, Mr. Bellamy stopped attending services, dismayed by the openly racist sentiments of his church. |
Tags: Pledge of Allegiance, who wrote