The Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag


       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.

      This, the current offical version of the Pledge of Allegiance, has
   developed from the original pledge, which was first published in the
   September 8, 1892 issue of the Youth's Companion, a weekly magazine
   then published in Boston.  The original pledge contained the phrase 
   "My Flag" which was changed more than 30 years later to "Flag of the
   United States of America.  An act of Congress in 1954 added the words
   "Under God."

      The authorship of the pledge had been in dispute for many years. 
   The Youth's Companion stated in 1917 that the original draft was
   written by James B. Upham, an executive of the magazine who died in 1910.
   A leaflet circulated by the magazine later named Upham as the originator
   of the draft "afterwards condensed and perfected by him and his 
   associates of the Companion Force".

   Francis Bellamy, a former member of the Youth's Companion editorial staff,
   publicly claimed authorship of the pledge in 1923. The United States Flag
   Assn., acting on the advice of a committee named to study the controversy,
   upheld in 1939 the claim of Bellamy, who had died 8 years earlier.
   The Library of congress issued in 1957 a report attributing the author-
   ship to Bellamy.