The Bellamy Salute

"I pledge allegiance to the Flag of the United States of America, and to the Republic for which it stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all."

That's the Pledge of Allegiance of the United States, to be recited - if you are a civilian (1) - whilst standing at attention, facing the flag, right hand over your heart.  I'm not a US citizen, so I've never done this (in fact to me it seems a little odd, the sort of thing more suited to a touchy, insecure South American backwater than the world's most powerful country). But it's the tradition, isn't it, set in stone for two hundred years or so?

Well, not exactly. The pledge - and even the salute that accompanies it - have a more recent genesis than that, and both have undergone significant changes in the meantime.

 Francis Bellamy, inventor of the Pledge.

Firstly, the pledge was unknown until the late 19th century, was not officially adopted till the Second World War, and remains in some ways controversial (2). It was originally invented by Francis Bellamy, who worked in promotions for a magazine called Youth's Companion; the magazine was a supporter of the idea that all public schools should display the national flag (and incidentally sold flags for this purpose). They had successfully shifted 26,000 flags but the market was dwindling - in conjunction with the 400th anniversary of Columbus's "discovery" of the Americas (3), Bellamy came up with the idea of the pledge to increase takeup. Bellamy himself was a Christian Socialist, not a nationalist blowhard, who had been driven out of preaching in Boston for his socialist sermons. His original intent was to also include the words equality and fraternity in the pledge, but he was forced to acknowledge that conservative education superintendents would be uncomfortable with this tacit promotion of the rights of women and blacks.

The pledge was first published  in the September 8, 1892 edition and shortly afterwards Bellamy pitched it to a national education conference, where it was enthusiastically received. However, the pledge was not the same as the current version, nor was the salute. The original went as follows:

I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

The first modification, scant weeks later, was to add an additional "to" prior to "the republic". From 1923 the pledge explicitly refer to the flag "of the United States" (in 1924, "Of America" was added), so as to reinforce to immigrants which flag they were pledging allegiance to.

The most radical amendment, however, took place after a lengthy campaign by the Sons and Daughters of the American Revolution and the Knights of Colombus, for the addition of the words "under God" to the pledge. In 1954, President Eisenhower, who had not coincidentally been admitted to the Presbyterian Church a few months previously, concurred with a suggestion by the pastor of Washington's New York Avenue Presbyterian Church, George McPherson Docherty, that these words be added. This duly occurred, despite persistent objections that this violates the constitutionally mandated separation of church and state.

The original Bellamy Salute - a bit unfortunate, really.

As for the change to the salute, this was a casualty of history. The original gesture - the Bellamy Salute - was defined thus: "right hand lifted, palm downward, to a line with the forehead and close to it". However, by 1942 the similarity of this to the Roman salute adopted by the Italian fascists and, subsequently, the Nazis, was causing confusion and embarrassment. At the same time as the Pledge was officially adopted, the salute was modified to the current, less offensive version.

Though this 1899 picture seems to show a less retrospectively embarrassin variant...

So, there you have it. The Pledge of Allegiance is barely one hundred years old, was originally developed to sell flags, only started mentioning God half a century later, and used to involve giving a fascist salute.

 Here's those other guys, just in case you'd forgotten.

Notes
(1) Members of the armed forces should give a military salute during the pledge but remain silent.
(2) A school student cannot, for instance, be compelled to perform it or punished for refusing to do so.
(3) Leaving aside the fact that Columbus didn't know what he had discovered, or that it had been discovered before.
(4) Wierd random fact of the day - Apollo astronaut David Scott was once engaged to Anna Ford. 

EDIT: Souncloud link retired 2/1/2013. Which makes Comment #4 above an orphan. But a beautiful one.