The Pledge_ A History of the Pledge of Allegiance - Jeffrey Owen Jones [45]
Moreover, the Pledge had been conceived as a one-event exercise. It was written for the purpose of commemorating the four hundredth anniversary of America’s discovery by Christopher Columbus. Its recitation would accompany President Benjamin Harrison’s proclamation of the 1892 Columbus Day as a national holiday. It was not commissioned for flag-raising rituals or patriotic expressions going forward.
Bellamy was content with his work at the magazine and was stimulated by the national endeavor in which he was involved. He respected the publisher, Daniel Ford, and no doubt found him to be the “modest and self-effacing editor” that others described. (Ford’s name did not even appear in the magazine until after his death in 1899; this also helps to explain the no-attribution policy.) Bellamy appreciated that “Mr. Ford selected me to aid [the] patriotic work of putting the Flag over the Schools.” He was also proud of the “great opportunity” to chair the NEA executive committee. As for his immediate supervisor, James Upham, who was related by marriage to Ford, Bellamy said he always enjoyed a collegial relationship.
When Bellamy left the Companion at the end of 1895, he made no public effort “to attach his name to the Pledge as the author.” A “spirit of loyalty” prevented him from doing so, he said. But it was not long thereafter that the first challenge was mounted.
The challenge came from a grade-school student from Cherryvale, Kansas, a small town in the southeast corner of the state. His name was Frank Bellamy, but he was not related. Frank submitted the Pledge as his entry in a school contest in 1896. Apparently, the Columbus Day celebration of 1892 (four years previous) had not been remembered by the Cherryvale contest organizers because Frank won. He gained some local repute, and confused some national media. But Frank’s fraud was quickly revealed, and Francis did not take much notice.
Francis Bellamy did notice an article that was published in the Companion on December 20, 1917. It was offered in response to an inquiry from Herbert Fison, the Malden, Massachusetts, librarian, asking who had written the Pledge. The editor’s reply carried a story by staff member Seth Mendell and a photo of James B. Upham. The magazine’s official view of the creation and authorship of the Pledge was unequivocal: “Mr. Upham had already written a form of the Pledge very much like that which is now so well known, and with the help of other members of the firm and of members of the editorial staff the present and final form was written.”
Bellamy was astonished. And he became more so when the story was followed by a pamphlet affirming this claim was sent to libraries across the country. The pamphlet, which was also distributed to anyone who wrote to the magazine asking for clarification on authorship, clearly attributed the full creation of the pledge to Upham:
Various patriotic men . . . have been mentioned as the authors, but there is no evidence to show that they did more than discuss and approve the rough draft prepared by Mr. Upham, and afterwards condensed and perfected by him and his associates of the Companion force.
A written debate between Bellamy and the Companion ensued.
The author’s challenge to his former employer became progressively heated. Imposed anonymity might be okay; acquiescence to credit given to someone else was not. Though it could not offer substantiated evidence to the contrary, the magazine refused to deal with Bellamy’s claim and recant its attribution to Upham.
Emotions simmered for several years—until