THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Friday, October 28, 1994 TAG: 9410280587
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B1 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Guy Friddell
LENGTH: Medium: 66 lines
Being a conservative, one who wants to keep things as they are, I side with the James Madison University students who wanted to take the words ``under God'' out of the nation's Pledge of Allegiance.
In a fit of piosity in 1954, Congress inserted the two words into the pledge. Their meddling was an example of political correctness long before the term cropped up.
Let's look at the pledge, with the two-word change italicized:
``I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the Republic for which its stands, one Nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.''
The two words interrupt the flow of the language as surely as a pair of potholes breaks the stretch of a straight, smooth road.
From the first grade, we began the school day reciting the pledge. We took it seriously. The stately march of the words settled us down, bonded us as a body for the rest of the day.
We didn't need, nor do I now, any dutiful reminder that God created the world and was and still is about perfecting it, daily, omnipresent.
Many of us hear the pledge at civic luncheons. I remember, on first hearing the revised version, the well nigh physical jolt those two additional words delivered.
I yet feel an impulse to rebel at their intrusion. It is as if the insistence to add ``under God'' is an admission of being unsure God exists.
I would go further than the students at James Madison and urge deleting ``of the United States of America'' from the pledge. Those six words, added in 1922, also encumber the original version Francis Bellamy gave us. Here is how the pledge came from his hand: ``I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it stands - one Nation indivisible - with liberty and justice for all.''
His original is sweet, straight from the heart. There's not a wasted word. Each one counts. ``My Flag'' is as sure and proud, as personal, as if he were grasping it.
That natural profession breathes patriotism. The six-word insertion delays the easy unfolding affirmation of love of country.
The James Madison students also objected to the phrase ``with liberty and justice for all''; but that is a fit reminder of the goal to which we are always tending, and gaining ground.
An ordained Baptist minister working in Boston for the ``The Youth's Companion,'' Bellamy wrote the pledge in 1892 commemorating the 400th anniversary of Columbus' discovery of America.
The spirited weeklong debate at James Madison culminated when the student senators voted 37 to 8 to open their sessions with the pledge, reversing an earlier 3-to-1 veto by their executive council.
The administration stayed above the fray. ``It's a student issue,'' said official Fred Hilton. ``They're here to learn and that's what they're doing.''
Would that more deliberative bodies were as reasoned. ILLUSTRATION: THE ORIGINAL PLEDGE
``I pledge allegiance to my Flag and to the Republic for which it
stands - one Nation indivisible - with liberty and justice for
all.''
by CNB