As to biographical information, i. e., who I am; well I'm still trying to figure that one out. For more than half a century, I've hidden behind words, first as a news and sports reporter with a BS in Journalism from UT-Knoxville, my hometown.
Following that career, a quarter century was spent writing historical non-fiction. So, it was with a lot of naiveté and way too much self confidence that I decided some five years ago to write a novel, a mystery. I managed to get a well-known mystery writer with some forty books published to review my first manuscript. He sent me an eleven-page, single spaced letter. The first page and a half told me what I had done correctly. The other nine and a half pages listed the things I needed to learn. I am still learning.
THE PROVIDENCE OF DEATH can be ordered as a POD trade paperback through Amazon, B&N or your local book stores, as well as an ebook for your Kindle.
The Pledge of Allegiance to the US flag is a popular subject. Ask Amazon for a list of books. The response will be over 75,000 titles. There is
an adage that the more books and articles written on a historical subject; the
higher will be the number of differences regarding facts. Research on the
Pledge proved the truth of that adage. For what follows below, original
documents or quotes from sources I deemed reputable, were used to separate fact
from fiction.
Speaking of fiction: to those of you among
Kaye’s readers who’ve asked about the second Joe McKibben novel, I can only say
that a few of life’s surprises, including an unanticipated move to Raleigh,
North Carolina, have created a longer delay than planned. I’m at that stage
where Dorothy Parker (no relation) said, “I
can’t write five words but that I change seven.”
The thirty-one-words in the Pledge probably represent America’s most
widely known and most often recited phrase. However, what is not as well known
is how the Pledge became a part of our culture. The original version, nine
words shorter than the current version, first appeared in a Boston magazine
titled The
Youth’s Companion on September 8, 1892.
At this
time in our history, less than three decades after the end of the Civil War,
there were no state or federal regulations at to where the American flag could
be displayed, or how it could be used. It has been written that beyond military
bases, the flag was seldom seen at public venues.
Daniel
Sharp Ford, owner and editor of the magazine want to change this through the
publication’s premiums department. For
some time, one of the heavily promoted premiums had been the sale of the
American flag to schools. The ultimate goal was to sell a flag to every
school. The Pledge and its proposed use
was a logical next step in this plan.
Every
morning, as envisioned by the magazine, students at each school would stand and
recite the pledge as the flag was raised. To further involve students
in the daily ritual, the magazine published what it called the pledge salute,
to be performed by students while reciting the words. Instructions on
performing the pledge included these directions.
“At the
words, ‘to my Flag,’ the right hand is extended gracefully, palm upward, toward
the Flag, and remains in this gesture till the end of the affirmation;
whereupon all hands immediately drop to the side.”
The first
“official” use of the Pledge and salute would to be on opening day of the World’s Columbian Exposition, scheduled to open in Chicago
in October 1892. It would an event to honor the 400th anniversary of
Christopher Columbus’s arrival in America.
Officials at the
magazine, led by the owner’s nephew by marriage, James Upham, and Francis Bellamy,
a minister who had joined the magazine’s staff, began a campaign among national
educators and politicians to gain support for the plan. It won
the backing of the National Education Association, and President Benjamin Harrison
who issued Presidential Proclamation 335.
It reads, in part, as follows: “Now, therefore, I, Benjamin Harrison … do hereby appoint Friday,
October 21, 1892, the four hundredth anniversary of the discovery of America by
Columbus as a general holiday for the people of the United States.”
[Note: In
1492, when Columbus recorded in his ship’s log that America had been reached on
October 12th, the Julian Calendar (O.S.) was still in use. The Gregorian Calendar (N.S.) had become the
standard calendar used throughout most of the world at the time the
proclamation was written. On the Gregorian calendar (N.S.), which dropped some
dates, added a plan for leap years, and changed the beginning of the New Year, the
21st (N.S.) aligns with the 12th (O.S.). That seems to be the logic used
to select the date for the proclamation.]
But construction at the expo site fell behind. The
Chicago Historical Society offers this explanation.
“Although dedication ceremonies were held on October 21, the
fairgrounds were not opened to the public until May 1, 1893.” Francis Bellamy is quoted as saying he heard
the Pledge for the first time on the 21st when “4,000 high school
boys in Boston roared it out together.”
The Pledge of Allegiance took the nation by
storm, receiving overwhelming public acceptance and usage. Ford
and his staff celebrated their success with a special edition of the magazine.
The first dispute regarding the Pledge focused on
its authorship, a question that was not settled until 1957. In accordance
with magazine policy, the author had not been identified when the Pledge was
first published. However, it was a common assumption that Francis Bellamy wrote
both the pledge and instructions for the salute.
After
James Upham’s death in 1905, his family discovered documents that were
presented to the public as proof that he, not Bellamy, wrote the pledge. In
1939 the United States Flag Association appointed a committee to heard
arguments from the Bellamy and Upham families. The committee ruled that Bellamy
was the author.
In 1956,
when the question of authorship once again arose, the Library of Congress joined
the fray. It appointed a panel to review the issue. A year later, the Library
of Congress Legislative Reference Service issued a 148-page report, which in
part was published in the Congressional Record for Sept. 11, 1957.
“It is the opinion of the members of this committee that
the author of the Pledge of Allegiance to the American Flag was Francis Bellamy
of Rome, New York, and not James B. Upham of Malden, Massachusetts.”
In addition to the debate of authorship, other
groups began in 1923 to “refine” the wording of the Pledge This action is
described in an abstract written under the sponsorship of the Smithsonian
Institution.
“A National Flag
Conference, presided over by the American Legion and the Daughters of the American
Revolution, ordained that ‘my flag’ should be changed to ‘the flag of the
United States,’ lest immigrant children be unclear just which flag they were
saluting.” The following year, the Flag Conference put a finer point of
clarification on the issue further by adding “of America” after United States.
As the nation moved through the 1920s and into
the 1930s, a national controversy arose¾not with
the Pledge itself, but with the salute. Mussolini’s National Fascist Party in
Italy, and later Hitler’s Nazi party in Germany, adopted the “Saluto Momano,” a salute used by leaders during
the Roman Empire. Scenes showing this salute became a part
of newsreels in American theatres.
The visual similarity became a point for
debate in the public eye. Newspapers took sides. Some made the debate more
contentious by publishing pictures of children giving the salute without the
flag being shown. This was pointed to as proof that the salute showed support
for the Nazi cause.
It was at this point in the Pledge’s history
that the Jehovah’s Witnesses became part of the story. The group had been in
existence since the 1870s, but events of the 1930s moved them front and center
in the debate regarding the Pledge and the salute.
In 1933, Adolf Hitler ordered that
Jehovah Witnesses in Germany be banned for their refusal to participate in
saluting Nazi flags in schools and other events. Two years later, the leader of
the Jehovah Witnesses in America denounced all flag salutes. He urged his
followers to refuse compliance.
Later that year, in the fall of 1935, in
Minersville, Pennsylvania, two students from a Jehovah’s Witness family refused
to stand and say the pledge. The local school board expelled the students. Their
parents sued, and won decisions in lower courts.
But the school district fought the
battle up the judicial ladder to the U. S. Supreme Court. In 1940, the court
agreed to hear Minersville School
District v. Gobitis
(“a printer's error enshrined a
misspelling of the Gobitas family name in constitutional case law”). The
court ruled in favor of the school district by an 8-1
margin. Yes, students could be required to stand and recite the pledge.
Jehovah Witnesses ignored the court’s
ruling. Their continued refusal to stand and recite the pledge was based on
their beliefs that forbade a pledge of allegiance to anything but God. What
followed during the days after the Court decision led parts of the country into
a dark moment in the nation’s history.
In a report to the Justice Department,
the American Civil Liberties Union documented the violence. At least 1,500
Witnesses were physically attacked or harassed in over 300 locations, mostly in
small rural towns. The report also included the following.
A mob of 2,500 burned the Kingdom Hall in Kennebunkport, Maine.
In Litchfield, Illinois, police jailed sixty Witnesses, “ostensibly protecting
them from their neighbors.” In Parco,
Wyoming, Witnesses were tarred and feathered.
American Legion posts organized to join the protest. Legion members
“forced Witnesses from a trailer camp in Jackson, Mississippi and escorted them
across state lines to Louisiana where they were passed from county to county,
finally winding up in the vicinity of Dallas, Texas."
Others were “jailed for sedition, for distributing literature, for
holding a parade, and for canvassing without a license.” There was one report of castration,
but no documentation that any Witnesses were killed. However, as newspapers
across the country carried reports on the acts of violence, a public backlash
against the Supreme Court grew among the general population.
In
1943, the court found a way to end the national furor it had created. It agreed
to hear the case entitled West Virginia
State Board of Education v. Barnette. By a 6-3 margin, the 1940 ruling was
reversed. Students could not be punished for refusing to stand and recite the
pledge. But the Court left many of the details regarding usage of the Pledge to
individual states.
The
issue of the “Saluto Momano” salute was put to rest on Dec.
22, 1942. Congress, through Federal legislation, commonly called the Flag Law, added
the following language. The salute would be “standing with the right hand over the heart”
during the recitation. The arm raising involved in the original salute was
eliminated.
Adding
“under God” to the Pledge became a controversial issue that has been debated to
this day. An attorney, a chaplain in the Illinois Society of the Sons of the
American Revolution, is given credit for first adding the phrase to the Pledge
in the 1940s. The National Society of the Daughters of the American Revolution
officially recognized him as the originator with an Award of Merit.
The Board
of Directors of the Knights of Columbus made the change official within its
organization. In 1951, it adopted a resolution stating that “under God” would be
a part of the pledge used to open KoC meetings.
Then
began the campaign to make the change official via federal legislation. All
efforts failed until Congress, with the urging of President Eisenhower, passed
a bill adding “under God” to the Pledge. The president signed the bill on Flag
Day, June 14, 1954.
Leaving
details of administering the Pledge to individual states and adding the words
“under God,” have fueled debates, disagreements, and lawsuits that are ongoing
regarding the Pledge’s role in public schools. The headlines from a series of
ten articles, published since 2011, in one publication, The Huffington Post, reflects
the polarization of opinion that exists.
“Make Recitation of Pledge of Allegiance
Mandatory as an Educational Tool” (December 6, 2013)
“Teacher Suspended For Making Student Say The
Pledge Of Allegiance” (November 7, 2013)
“School's Pledge Of Allegiance Canceled
Because... Government Shutdown” (October 16, 2013)
“Stand Up for Liberty by Sitting Out the
Pledge of Allegiance” (June 3, 2013)
“Ariz. Bill Requires Students To Swear Oath To
Constitution Under God To Graduate” (January 28, 2013)
“Michigan House Passes Pledge Of Allegiance,
Flag Mandate” (September 18, 2012)
“Nebraska To Require Public Schools To
Allocate Time For Pledge Of Allegiance” (August 14, 2012)
“State Senate Backs Bill Requiring Pledge Of
Allegiance In Schools” (January 12, 2012)
“Why One Group Wants This Out Of Schools”
(November 8, 2011)
“One Nation Under God?” (May 25, 2011)
While there appears to be no end in sight regarding
differences of opinion as to the Pledge’s place in our public educational
system, there is one important fact to remember. What started as an idea
published in a magazine as a sales promotion has survived for 123 years without
a single serious effort to seek the Pledge’s total elimination.
POSTSCRIPTS
Columbus
Day
Differences of opinion surrounding
the Pledge also extend to Columbus Day. It did not become a federal holiday until 1937. But on October
12, 1899, “New York City’s Italian population organized a celebration of the
discovery of America.” In 1907, Colorado became the first state to formally
adopt October 12 as Columbus Day. The city has held a parade on that date since
1909 according to the parade organization’s website.
An
area’s history determines on what date and how the day is observed.
The official day varies between the 8th and the 14th, except one. Our
forty-ninth state ignores Columbus Day to celebrate “Alaska Day” on October 18,
the date in 1867 when Russia formally ceded the land to America.
Others bow to local history for a
name. Hawaii calls it “Discovers’
Day” to commemorate the Polynesian discovers of the islands. In South Dakota, it is called
“Native American Day.” In
California, some cities have hedged their bets by not taking sides. In
Berkeley, Sebastopol, and Santa Cruz, it’s “Indigenous People’s Day.”
The Youth’s Companion
There is a bit of historical trivia associated with the name of the
Boston firm that published the magazine, The Perry Mason & Co. This company
name was a fictitious one, which may have been the reason it later became well
known among fans of Earle Stanley Gardner. He has been quoted as saying that the
magazine was a favorite of his when he was a small boy. Later, as a writer, he
used the publishing company’s name for his now famous fictional character.
