Public Law 77-829
It still matters. For now.
The first national Columbus Day took place on October 21st, 1892. That date was chosen to commemorate the 400th anniversary of that “discovery” of America. The announcement of the new holiday meant celebratory and patriotic events would happen across the country all year long. This included a national public school celebration, which put great big cartoon dollar signs in the eyes of media magnate Daniel Sharp Ford.
Ford was the publisher of the most popular weekly magazine in the country, The Youth’s Companion. One of the keys to Companion’s success was its many readership competitions. The magazine would hold writing contests and give premiums to readers who reached certain quotas of subscriptions.
Patriotism was another key. For years, Ford had been selling American flags to schools as a marketing strategy, encouraging Companion subscriptions, but this year was going to be different. 1892 was going to be a big year. It would be such a big year for Companion flags that the country would be forever changed.
With patriotism being forced on children for the new holiday, Ford saw an opportunity for more flag sales—and maybe something more? Attaching an activity to the flag could boost sales through the roof! Maybe a fun little jingle for the kids to sing or a poem or something? Companion staff writer Francis Bellamy was tasked with making an attempt at lyrics, but what could he possibly create that suited Ford’s needs?
Maybe the greatest hurdle Bellamy faced was the fact that he happened to be a dipshit bigot who wrote shit like this:
“Where all classes of society merge insensibly into one another every alien immigrant of inferior race may bring corruption to the stock. There are races, more or less akin to our own, whom we may admit freely, and get nothing but advantage from the infusion of their wholesome blood. But there are other races which we cannot assimilate without a lowering of our racial standard, which should be as sacred to us as the sanctity of our homes.”
How was a hateful turd like Bellamy going to come up with anything to be recited by a general audience of children? Luckily for Bellamy, a little while earlier a child had entered one of Companion’s writing competitions with just the thing:
“I pledge allegiance to my flag and the republic for which it stands; one nation inseparable with liberty and justice for all.”
Bellamy added “to” and changed “inseparable” to “indivisible” and now whose flag are you gonna buy? Some competitor’s humdrum little thing barely noticeable, limp on the wall? Why, when you could buy The Youth’s Companion flag complete with its own genuine pledge of allegiance?
But maybe it needed just one more thing? Not a dance, necessarily, but some kind of physical act to really nail the allegiance part? This is when the “Bellamy salute” was born!
Regrettably, it looked like this:
And this:
And this:
Yeah, not great, but it sure worked! Ford sold flags to more than 26,000 public schools that year and before long children across the country were pledging their allegiance to the American flag with just the most horrifying salute imaginable!
The pledge has been added to and adjusted over the years, but the Bellamy salute went a different way. Mussolini started doing a similar thing, calling it the “Roman Salute” and then Hitler came along with his bullshit and then America changed its mind. Like, really changed its mind. Veterans groups like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars ferociously lobbied the government to change the way our children salute the flag and it worked. In 1942 Congress passed Public Law 77-829 stating the proper pledge salute would be “standing with the right hand over the heart.”
It mattered immensely to those who barely survived fighting for this country that the next generations of Americans not behave like Nazis. It doesn’t seem like a big ask, but now, 83 years later, the richest and probably most powerful man in the world has given two very proud and vehement fascist salutes during a presidential inauguration.
Of course, somehow, someway, this is being denied.
Now, I know that compared to other current happenings, this may seem like a small thing—and Lord knows the scale of the horrors ahead—but our ability to stop what’s coming is dependent on whether or not we win these fights over reality.
Right now, the fight is winnable. Yeah, there are pundits and trolls and cowards telling you that the man with a long documented history of white nationalism didn’t emphatically do that white nationalist thing he obviously did, twice. But none of his defenders are actually walking the walk. No one has a story about the time they were overcome with excitement and started accidentally and repeatedly honoring the fucking Führer. They’re not posting pics with the ol’ Hitler hand held high or throwing up a couple of sieg heils as they walk into that Monday morning meeting. Their non-actions betray their words. For now, anyway. But make no mistake, their aim, at the very least is to wear you down, to keep telling the lie until the lie becomes truth—which is exactly and entirely what will happen if we let it.
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/02/us/pledge-of-allegiance-francis-bellamy.html
https://en.wikisource.org/wiki/Public_Law_77-623
https://www.oregonhumanities.org/rll/magazine/encore-fall-winter-2011/under-god/
Thank you for this!