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But it is unknown exactly how precisely all the various schools followed the Companion’s script on the official national date of October 21. While many newspapers made note of the school observation ceremonies, the only community that can be certain to have followed the “programme” to the letter was Malden, Massachusetts—the hometown of James B. Upham. Bellamy was on hand in Malden to witness this accurate unfolding of the Companion’s “Official Programme.” And he himself gave a speech to the gathered crowd.

After hearing the Pledge recited aloud on that day by schoolchildren, Bellamy felt that the rhythm wasn’t exactly right. He thought hard about it, parsing the sentence over and over until finally deciding what was wrong: there should be an additional “to” in front of “the Republic.” The change was made immediately and from that day, until the next time the Pledge was altered in 1923, the Pledge stood at twenty-three words.

In today’s version of the Pledge, which has nine additional words, the elegant architecture of the original text is still visible, and the fundamental themes still shine through. Bellamy packed a lot of meaning into that single sentence. But how, during those hours of fervid scribbling and scratching out, did the ideas in the Pledge find their way to the page? To begin to answer that question, it will be helpful to know what shaped the man behind the ideas.

6. I PLEDGE ALLEGIANCE: THE FABRIC OF LIFE

Francis Bellamy may have possessed the exceptional writing talent needed to compose the Pledge, but the idea (and necessity) for a patriotic salute to the flag was not unique. The “flag-raising movement,” as it was known, was well under way when Bellamy joined Youth’s Companion in 1891.

By then the Companion was a national family paper read by parents and teachers as well as children, the Life magazine of its day. It produced 52 issues a year, published 7 book-length serials, 50 lead stories, 150 “special contributions,” 260 good short stories, 1,000 brief notes, and 2,000 anecdotes, poems, and humorous sketches. Each new subscription included 10 issues and a calendar “in 12 colors and gold.” At the time Bellamy penned the pledge, the Companion had a circulation of 500,000.

The ideas, the style, and the feeling of the words Bellamy set down in the Pledge were a product of his time, to be sure, but also, more particularly, his life experience, his intellectual and philosophical journey, his ideals and prejudices all are the sources of the Pledge. Like many of his peers, Bellamy feared the new generation was losing touch with the extraordinary sacrifice of the Civil War generation.

But why a push to salute or pledge allegiance to the flag at this particular time—in the late nineteenth century?

Anxiety over increasing immigration loomed large at that time and men like Bellamy, George Balch, and James Upham were concerned about the country’s future and identity. The wave of immigration that occurred during the late 1890s brought people “who looked different”—from southern and eastern Europe—as well as large numbers of Catholics and Jews.

Bellamy was also concerned about the “enemy within,” immigrants or native-born Americans who were “not patriotic enough.”

It is unclear whether Bellamy thought he was writing for the ages when he penned the Pledge. But after the practice of reciting it spread during the early years of the twentieth century, he became more outspoken about it, including defending his authorship of it. In the wake of World War I and the Russian Revolution, he discussed using the Pledge to help combat internal subversion. He viewed the Pledge as “an inoculation” against the “virus” of radical thought and subversion. And he could not escape the “melting pot” issues of his time,* as is clear from these ruminations written several years after he wrote the Pledge:

The hard, inescapable fact is that men [are] not born equal, neither are they born free, but all in bonds to their ancestors and their environments. The success of government by