About That Pledge of Allegiance
RICHARD, POOR
Perspectives ABOUT THAT PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE BY POOR RICHARD It was almost 200 years ago, in 1790 to be exact, that I left you with a promise to return. You must remember the epitaph I...
...But how shall we rouse the people...
...Devotion to country, like devotion to God, cannot be measured by what comes out of the mouth...
...Knowing my own feelings then, I understand why in 1892, when the country was flooded with immigrants from southern and eastern Europe, our lawmakers were moved to propose a Pledge of Allegiance as a way to rally the people around one flag...
...But let it be real and not the pietistic prattling of "hypocrites" who perform for the public...
...A republic does not perpetuate itself...
...They were not free to do as their conscience dictated, just as Americans were not free to abstain from saluting the flag...
...Compulsory unification of opinion achieves only the unanimity of the graveyard...
...Then came this election of 1988, with George Bush's assault upon his opponent because as governor of Massachusetts Michael S. Dukakis vetoed a bill "requiring" teachers in public schools to lead their classes in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance...
...Would that every soul, upon arising every morning, silently recited a pledge of allegiance to our motherland...
...The most prevalent notion promoted by tyrants over the centuries is that the people must yield a little liberty in exchange for safety against the dissident, the nonbeliever, the nonconformist...
...asked Jamey...
...That decision was written in 1943, when Germany was still heiling Hitler...
...What is happening should come as no surprise...
...Supreme Court...
...Supreme Court holding the West Virginia law unconstitutional, Justice Robert H. Jackson reasserted the American citizen's "right to differ as to things that touch the heart of the existing order...
...That member of the Court was troubled in mind because he had seen a news film of Germans rifting their hands in unison and shouting "Heil, Hitler...
...I recall his ringing words: "Struggles to coerce uniformity of sentiment in support of some end thought essential to their time and country have been waged by many good as well as by evil men...
...The views of Jefferson and Madison prevailed in 1784...
...Tom interrupted...
...Tyranny does not begin with brute force imposed on bodies but with ideas pounded into human minds...
...You must recall my warning that 'Every government degenerates when trusted to the rulers of the people alone...
...This does not mean that it is indifferent to a nation whether its citizens hold a sense of allegiance to the motherland...
...Tom was equally forceful and clear on the issue...
...Why don't we have Poor Richard send off a missive to The New Leader, that most influential periodical in America," said Tom...
...You must remember the epitaph I composed for myself: "The body of Benjamin Franklin, Printer (like the cover of an old book, its contents torn out, and stripped of its lettering and gilding), lies here, food for worms...
...If the Lord does not need us shouting in public to establish our love for Him, shall our dear Uncle Sam make demands beyond that of our Infinite Father...
...When we read Jackson's position—Thomas Jefferson and Jamey Madison and I—Tom grinned: "I guess we're not as dead as some may think we are...
...Not for long...
...I thought we had settled this matter 170 years ago," said Jamey...
...If I believed in compulsion, I would compel every American to memorize Justice Jackson's memorable words...
...And a nation, like a lover, should earn the affection of the people, not coerce it...
...In my time, there was no Pledge of Allegiance, even though there were moments when we were sorely tempted to remind our citizens, by law, that so long as they had homes in this bounteous land their hearts belonged here as well...
...As far back as 1795, I wrote in the Historical Review of Pennsylvania: "They that give up an essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety...
...But one night I heard a member of the Court mumbling to himself, "What have I done...
...The newcomers became part of America because they had a part in America...
...I have been listening to the debate over this question for many years, both inside and outside our U.S...
...it is the right of every man to exercise it as these may dictate...
...they love to say their prayers standing up in synagogue and at the street corners, for everyone to see them...
...Consider the consequences...
...What is true of God is true of country...
...When you pray, do not be likethe hypocrites...
...In the light of the Court's 1943 decision we were not in despair, however, since the Pledge was now voluntary...
...and I answered, "A republic—if we can keep it...
...We were pleased...
...In 1954, after the reference to"God" was added to the Pledge, the three of us were disconsolate...
...One of the advantages of being bodily dead and surviving only in spirit is that you can thus be privy to the innermost mumblings of other beings...
...In a majority opinion of the U.S...
...He must recall my words: 'While we assert for ourselves a freedom to embrace, to profess and to observe the Religion which we believe to be of divine origin, we cannot deny an equal freedom to those whose minds have not yet yielded to the evidence which has convinced us.' I said then, and I say now, that any move by government to compel observance of any God or gods, distant as it may be in its present form from the Inquisition, differs from it only in degree...
...The ultimate futility of such attempts to compel coherence is the lesson of every such effort from the Roman drive to stamp out Christianity as a disturber of its pagan unity, the Inquisition as a means to religious and dynastic unity, the Siberian exiles as a means to Russian unity, down to the fast failing efforts of our present totalitarian enemies...
...Jamey was perplexed: "Does the Vice President of the United States not know the U. S. Supreme Court held that to require the recitation of the Pledge in a public school is unconstitutional...
...I repeat that now because of the unexpected controversy in the Presidential election this year over the Pledge of Allegiance...
...So here I reappear in my improved version, as Poor Richard...
...Becalm thyself, Jamey," he said...
...If they should refuse, then they must be punished...
...I believe that the person whose unspoken voice was decisive in determining the outcome was Adolf Hitler...
...the discussion about inserting the two words "under God" was desultory...
...exploded Jamey...
...In that debate, Jamey said: "The religion of every man must be left to the conviction and conscience of every man...
...Samuel Johnson averred, "patriotism" has been "the last refuge of a scoundrel...
...It neither picks my pocket nor breaks my leg...
...For I am persuaded that each generation must hearken to my response when I was asked, "Well, doctor, do we have a republic ora monarchy...
...I shall never forget how distressed I was when the first Congress cast a tie vote over the question of whether its proceedings should be published in English only or in both English and German...
...Shall we then compel children of six or teachers of 60 to recite the Pledge...
...the mood of the day was polluted by the totalitarian antics of a Senator Joseph McCarthy...
...Yet would not such "temporal punishment," as Jefferson has warned us, "beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness...
...But does he not know what I said about this in that same debate of 1784...
...In the French court there were many rumors about the women who showed a measure of affection for me when I was ambassador to that fair country...
...Indeed, he must," I said, "butBush maintains that he would have signed the bill anyhow and have left it to the Court to overrule his action...
...We all understood his reference to the time when a resolution had been introduced to make public monies available for teachers of religion...
...The legitimate powers of government extend to such acts only as are injurious to others...
...but the work shall not be lost, for it will (as he believed) appear once more in a new and more elegant edition, revised and corrected by the Author...
...The exact year was 1954...
...To the extent that I am credited with some expertise in such matters, I would record that whatever harmony of hearts there may have been came from the persuasive word or deed and not from compulsion, for love compelled is but rape...
...Lest there be some who look upon this as unpatriotic or, worse, as sacrilege, let me recall the words of Jesus of Nazareth as He spoke them on the mount: "Beware not to make a show of religion before men...
...My young colleague, Jefferson of Virginia, insisted that words that did not flow from the heart or mind were sounds that would corrode the soul...
...Does he not hold a conviction of his own on this matter...
...When the Palatine boors from Germany, the "white savages" of Londonderry, the French-speaking Huguenots, the Dutch patroons, the Spanish pirates, the Italian Papists began to overrun our land, polluting our language with their strange tongues, we were often fearful that the United States would fly apart on the centrifuge of alien antagonisms...
...To avoid any misunderstanding, I wish to affirm that I am a patriot—although I prefer not to proclaim it too loudly...
...Too often, those who mouth their love for country are trying to turn the flag into a fig leaf to conceal some crime against the commonweal...
...But when you pray, go into a room by yourself, shut the door, and pray to your Father who is there in the secret place...
...Tyranny has never lacked for noble words to rob the people of their freedoms, usually bit by bit, amid promises of security against some foe real or imagined...
...Still, from the quiet of my grave, where I do have time to think things over, I have had to conclude that what made one nation out of many, epluribus unum, was not the recitation of any pledge but the realization of a promise— the promise of "liberty and justice for all...
...To " keep it," a people has to be sensi tive to threats that come in many disguises— in the name of national defense, cultural cohesion, or patriotism...
...True, the Court had decided that it was proper to require a free American citizen to salute the flag...
...Should the full opinion be too much for small minds, I would limit the edict to just one summary sentence: "If there is any fixed star in our constitutional constellation, it is that no official, high or petty, can prescribe what shall be orthodox in politics, nationalism, religion, or other matters of opinion, or force citizens to confess by word or act their faith therein...
...Those who begin coercive elimination of dissent soon find themselves exterminating dissenters...
...Remember, prithee, that it was I who said at the signing of the Declaration: "We must indeed all hang together, or, most assuredly, we shall all hang separately...
...Does he believe it proper to require a child of six to make a public declaration ofhisbeliefinGodeven while that child is in his or her nonage, without the experience or learning to have come to that conclusion by his or her own reason...
...Almighty God hath created the mind free," he wrote...
...If they came to love America —if the DuPonts, the Eisenhowers, the Van Rensselaers, the Morgenthaus, the Roosevelts, the Kennedys, the lacoccas, the Gompers, the De la Warrs, the Frelinghuysens, and the Tejas ultimately gave to America as much as they found here—it was due to the lives they could make in the New World and not to words repeated by rote, no matter how lofty the sentiment...
...Ipse dixit, and I did it...
...cried Jamey...
...Yet love, whether for another human being, for country or for God, cannot be demanded...
...Too often, as Dr...
...The people themselves are its only safe depositories...
...He knew that if they failed to salute this hideous beast, they would suffer temporal punishment...
...No community can long exist where the parts do not cohere to the whole...
...From this film, that Justice learned a lesson...
...The Vice President says," I interjected, "that both you and Tom would readily have signed the Massachusetts bill...
...He prayed that another case might come before the Court that would enable him to register his change of heart and head...
...Some 50 years before the Declaration of Independence, in writing about "belief and "religion," I said: " I cannot conceive otherwise than that He, the Infinite Father, expects or requires no worship or praise from us, but that He is infinitely above it...
...It must be a voluntary act of the heart or of the mind...
...Maybe we're dead after all," lamented Tom...
...But it does me no injury f or my neighbor to say there are 20 gods, or no God...
...Yes, let the pledge be an act of love that is won by proper attention...
...A decade later, the Pledge of Allegiance was amended to read "one nation under God...
...His prayer was answered when a Jehovah's Witness challenged the right of the West Virginia Board of Education to compel a child to recite the Pledge of Allegiance...
...if you do, no reward awaits y ou in y our Father's house in heaven...
...it is what lies in the heart that matters...
...All attempts to influence it by temporal punishment, or burthens, or by civil incapacitations, tend only to beget habits of hypocrisy and meanness...
Vol. 71 • October 1988 • No. 17
