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07/31/2004 Archived Entry: "Is the Pledge an artifact of a Nazi era?"

Posted by steve @ 06:33 PM EST [Link]

IS THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE A NAZI DEVICE?: Boy, I know I'm going to get email over this so please remember I'm not endorsing this, merely presenting it as something interesting to read.

Rex Curry is filing a brief in a court case attempting to get rid of the Pledge of Allegiance in classrooms. Curry argues that the Pledge itself was written by a Nazi named Francis Bellamy.

Newdow fails to mention that the author of the Pledge, Francis Bellamy, was a self-proclaimed National Socialist in the U.S. and belonged to a group known for "Nationalism," published the "Nationalist" magazine and created "Nationalist Clubs" worldwide, whose members wanted the federal government to nationalize most of the American economy. Bellamy saw socialist schools (government schools) as a means to that end. Bellamy also belonged to a religious socialist movement known as the "Society of Christian Socialists."

Newdow fails to mention that the original salute did not begin with the hand over the heart but began with a military salute that was in keeping with the goal of the Pledge's author, Francis Bellamy, to create an "industrial army" (a Bellamy phrase) modeled after the military, via a government takeover of education, eliminating all of the better alternatives, to achieve the authoritarian vision portrayed in his cousin Edward Bellamy's book "Looking Backward."

Curry includes some horrifying old pictures of American children saluting the American flag with a Nazi salute.

Read it all here.

Replies: 3 comments

It's been a while since I researched this, so I'm open to persuasion that I'm wrong but: I don't believe Bellamy was a National Socialist in the sense of Hitler's Nazi Party. My recollection is that Bellamy was a Christian socialist who believed in the idea of "socialism in one country," as opposed to the international, "workers of the world, unite" type socialism that was the rage back then.

In any case, Congress purged the pledge of any overt socialism and eventually appended the controversial "under God" phrase that makes it more appealing to conservatives. What it means to the overwhelming majority of people who recite it, and to the general shared public conciousness of Americans today, is far removed than whatever Bellamy's agenda was at the time. A libertarian case can certainly still be made against the pledge, but decrying it as the equivalent of a Nazi salute is a bit farfetched.

Posted by W. James Antle III @ 08/01/2004 02:48 AM EST

I agree with you, though pledging allegiance to me was always something a bit statist. I guess it's the libertarian in me.

Posted by Steve Martinovich @ 08/01/2004 03:04 AM EST

I curious to know what Congress stripped out.

Posted by James Barnett @ 08/01/2004 08:12 PM EST