“We give our heads and our hearts to God and our country; one country, one language, one flag.”
This is the Pledge of Allegiance as it first stands, from the pen of George Balch—a former Civil War colonel, then a member of the New York Board of Education. That version faded; few people alive today ever recited it.
No school days have begun with that version for a while. However, it shows how the Pledge has changed over time. It didn’t descend from heaven, a perfect uneditable expression of America. It is as real as the rest of the nation. It has the flaws and the aspirations of our nation.
The pledge that we all know today originated a little later. Francis Bellamy—Baptist minister, committed socialist, magazine writer—wrote it for the 400th anniversary of Columbus’s voyages to the Americas. In schoolhouses from sea to shining sea, young children recited the familiar words every morning.
Or, almost familiar words. Bellamy’s pledge isn’t quite the same as the one we say. He wrote, “I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.”
The changes came later. First, the 1923 National Flag Conference added that the flag was specifically the American flag. Then there’s the more controversial change: “under God.” It hearkens back to Balch’s original pledge, but became official under Eisenhower. Some wanted “under God” to distinguish the United States from “godless” Soviet communism. Some wanted to claim that atheism was incompatible with America.
Now we pledge “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.” It echoes over the intercom, day in and day out.
Here at East, most people ignore it. Part of this is the audio quality of the intercom. Part of this is its association with a toxic, Trumpian style of patriotism. Part of this is people talking with their friends, looking at their phone and ignoring what’s happening. And at some point, it’s a norm to not partake.
There are good reasons not to say the pledge. It does feel a little hokey, a little forced, especially when recited in unison. Compulsory patriotic exercise is stained with dictatorship.
There’s also the newcomer: under God. Firstly, it’s un-American. “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion.” We shouldn’t have a pledge in direct contravention of one of the fundamental rights of our Constitution.
Secondly, it’s a relic of bygone days. The Cold War is over; at least one card-carrying Communist holds office in the United States. Legions of atheists exercise their civic duties every day.
Thirdly, it just doesn’t flow as well. There’s a steady rhythm to Bellamy’s pledge, and even the 1923 version. “Under god” meanders—the beat is gone.
The pledge also is stained by the sins of the past. Bellamy was, at least at times, xenophobic. He thought immigrants would not become Americans, would be insufficiently loyal to the American story. He was no outlier among supporters of the pledge.
However, if we no longer pledge, if the intercom no longer intones the familiar words, there’s a hole in our society, a hole in our schools. Only a few flags, sitting forlornly on filing cabinets, remind us daily of our commitment to America.
Of course, this assumes we need a commitment to some form of an American ideal. Some would argue that the ugly biases of nativism unavoidably tinge this kind of language. That, however, leaves us uncentered as a nation, and consequently vulnerable.
Furthermore, we could always use more civic spirit, a currency of trust in our compatriots. Our nation is garlanded with challenges: anti-vaccine sentiment, riots at the Capital, our relationship with the world. A sense of a common national ethos will help us pull together to face these challenges.
There’s no one clear answer to fill this lack of civic spirit; I would be dismayed if the problem were that easy to fix. But we should begin to rethink the pledge. What can we say that best captures America as a nation?
Possible changes are everywhere. The pledge can be internal, rather than said aloud. We could revert to an older version—1923, Bellamy, even Balch. We could write an entire new statement of the most important American ideals, what everybody on this land should think about every day. It doesn’t have to be a pledge. It doesn’t have to be to America. It doesn’t even have to have words.
It’s true that the Pledge of Allegiance can feel flawed, warped and broken. It can seem a poor expression of American principles, tarnished by association with preening, performative patriotism. But we must scrape away the imperfections and fix the dents in the surface, to remind ourselves of our experiment as a nation.
