The Pledge of Allegiance, attributed to socialist editor and clergyman Francis Bellamy.

 It was first published in 1892 in The Youth’s Companion, a children’s magazine for which Bellamy worked.

 The pledge was meant to echo the sentiments and ideals of Bellamy’s cousin, Edward Bellamy.

 Edward Bellamy is the author of the socialist utopian novel, Looking Backward

BBellamy crafted the pledge to be an oration to bolster the idea that the middle class could fashion a planned political and social economy, equitable for all.

President Benjamin Harrison issued a proclamation so that the pledge was first used in public schools on Columbus Day in 1892.

“I pledge allegiance to my flag and to the Republic for which it stands: one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all”

 Change #1: Flag Day in 1924, “the flag of the United States of America” was officially adopted as a substitution for the phrase “my flag”

 Change #2 – 1954: The words “under God” were added, after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, a Catholic men’s service organization and other religious leaders who sermonized that the pledge needed to be distinguished from a similar orations used by “godless communists”

 The prospect of an atomic war between world superpowers so moved President Eisenhower that he directed Congress to add the two small but controversial words

 “From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and every rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty”

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.”