Mural, Santa Fe, NM. Photo by Naomi SachsMy favorite fun facts from the recent NYT book review by Beverly Gage about Jeffrey Owen Jones' The Pledge: The History of the Pledge of Allegiance:
The original salute, written by Francis Bellamy in 1892, was
"I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands--one nation indivisible--with liberty and justice for all."
Gage writes, "In the 1920s, patriotic groups like the American Legion campaigned to change 'my flag' to 'the flag of the United States of America,' anxious that immigrant children might secretly be pledging to the flags of their original homelands. Three decades later, Congress added the words 'under god' to distinguish American patriotism from 'godless Communism'..." I never did feel comfortable with that whole under god thing. Whatever happened to separation of church and state?
Another fun fact: The original pledge posture was not hand over heart, but hand held straight out in a salute, "a gesture that mysteriously began to lose popularity in the 1930s."
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/10/17/books/review/Gage-t.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=under%20god...or%20not&st=cse
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