The Pledge_ A History of the Pledge of Allegiance - Jeffrey Owen Jones [5]
After the oath, a women’s a capella octet, dressed in mauve blazers with pink carnations, relieved the somber tone of the proceedings. The altos began: thrum, thrum, thrum . . . Then the sopranos: Mine eyes have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord . . . I couldn’t help wondering, as they sang, how many of the new citizens were Christian. Given the moment, though, and the exuberance of the octet, no one was likely to quibble.
Next came the guest speaker, a county court judge. I braced myself for perfunctory remarks long on wind and short on inspiration. Instead, the Honorable John J. Connell spoke with emotion about how, eleven years before, he had taken the same oath on behalf of a young boy whom he and his wife had adopted from a foreign country in turmoil. “I feel privileged to be here,” said Judge Connell. “This is a day to celebrate.”
Then, after each new citizen had received a certificate and a small American flag, the group stood and recited in unison the Pledge of Allegiance. Except for the simple “I do” that they had said in affirmation of their naturalization oath, these were the only words the forty-six new citizens uttered during the ceremony. For many, I imagine, it was the first English-language text they had committed to memory. I am sure that, more than most of us, they savored the meaning of every word.
The text of the Pledge has been changing almost from the moment Bellamy set down the original twenty-two-word version:
I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands—one nation indivisible—with liberty and justice for all.
Bellamy himself made the first edit, soon after the initial version went into print. He added “to” before “the republic” because he felt it gave the lines better cadence.
As Bellamy’s flag salute became more popular, there arose a temptation to edit the text further. In the 1920s, a National Flag Commission made up of DAR ladies and American Legionnaires changed the intimate phrase “my flag” to “the flag of the United States of America.” Their stated purpose was to be sure that immigrant children arriving on American shores would know which country’s flag they were saluting. This change reflects the era of isolationism and mistrust of all things foreign that followed World War I. Ironically, Congress sharply reduced immigration quotas during this period, ensuring that there would be fewer children from overseas to salute the Stars and Stripes.
The most resounding change in the Pledge also reflected a national preoccupation with threats from abroad. This was the addition of “under God” in 1954.
I remember in that year being at school on a late-spring afternoon in the Connecticut town where I grew up. Itching to get outside and play kickball, I stood with hand over heart in Mrs. Sholz’s fourth-grade classroom, practicing the new version of the Pledge due to take effect on Flag Day, June 14. My classmates and I kept stumbling. We were accustomed to the fluid cadence of the existing text—“one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” It was hard to shake the rhythm of the old version; even the following fall a few of us would blurt out the former text in school assemblies. Eventually, though, the new Pledge became routine. Now, fewer and fewer Americans remember it any other way.
By 1954, Congress had assumed authority over the Pledge as part of the official flag code. The sponsors of the bill to insert “under God” declared that the addition would underscore the difference between our system and “Godless communism.” World War II was less than a decade in the past, and the allied commanding general was now in the White House. The Soviet Union and Red China were the new threats. Anticommunism had become a national obsession,