Roy Beck, age 10, of Linden, Pennsylvania, for his question:
Who started the Pledge of Allegiance?
Once in a while, every sensible citizen feels a wonderful. thing called patriotism. Usually it starts gently and sweetly, way down inside a person's secret heart. It whispers, I'm proud of my country, the land I share with all the others. Then we learn something splendid about our country's history, patriotism swells up to a grand feeling and we want to express it to the whole world. The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag tells us just how to express it.
Columbus never heard it, but the fact that he discovered America in 1492 had something to do with it. Exactly four centuries later, people decided to celebrate the 400th anniversary of his famous discovery. This was, naturally, in 1092. In the United States of America, President Benjamin Harrison thought first of the children. He invited all the schools to celebrate by letting the children show the pride and patriotism they felt for their country.
At that time, many young persons enjoyed a magazine called the Youth's Companion. It was published in Boston, M.ass. and one of its associated editors was a nice person named Francis Bellamy. All sorts of people did their very best to make the anniversary a proud and happy event. Francis Bellamy wrote A Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag for the young readers of his magazine. It was recited for the first time by school children, way back in 1892 exactly 400 years after Columbus discovered this whole New World.
Some people seem to think that great sayings must be full of long words that almost nobody understands. This is not so. Throughout history, the greatest sayings used simple words to tell people the simple truth. And far too often the pompous statements with long mysterious words were meant to fool people.
Francis Bellamy used just a few simple words to express a simple, true to life truth that everybody understands. A pledge is a promise, allegiance means faithfulness. That high lying flag, of course, stands for the proud land we share with all the other Americans. Then we make that promise to be true to our country's flag, it's nice to know that millions of others have said the self same words.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written especially for children. But, as usual, the adults liked it, too, and the children continued to like it after they grew up. Almost from the beginning, it was popular with every¬body especially with soldiers who felt proud to defend their country. Nowadays, it is a formal part of the code and procedure associated with our National Flag.
The original Pledge of Allegiance was not quite like the one we say today. The American Legion held National Flag Conferences and in 1923 and 1924 they made a few changes in the original words. Then, in 1954, the U.S. Congress added the words 'under God' to the famous Pledge.