Get To The Point

Thursday is Toastmasters and I have really tried to be more active in it. So far I have, since retruning to it signed up for something each week. This coiming week I am giving a speech. I always write out the speech with the good intentions of sticking to what I write but I always stray from it.

With this one I hope not to but I know how I am. Here though is what I hope to stick to...

It was a while back at the beginning of a meeting that during the pledge it really seemed that our voices were low, quiet, there was no excitement in what we were saying. It was from that meeting where I chose this topic.

But in order to explore it correctly you have to know where it has been. The same is true when it comes to the direction of a group, a country, and the pledge is no exception.

So first we’re going to talk about where it came from, and in doing that we’ll be able to determine where it is today, and in doing that we’ll be able to determine what our responsibility with it will be in the future.

I.
The Pledge of Allegiance was written for the 400th celebration of Columbus Day in 1892 and later was published in the Readers Digest of it’s time called “The Youth’s Companion.” But to understand what was going on you have to realize what was happening in the minds of people of that time; We were only 30 years, not even a full generation past the Civil War. It was a new America that was stronger than before because we had finally come together, indivisible, and people from around the world were coming to the Land of Opportunity. In fact in 1891 nearly half a million immigrants had entered the United States through the Battery Park offices in NY (It was that same year, 1892, that Ellis Island was opened). A month after it appeared in the Youth’s companion nearly 12 million children around the country were saying the pledge every morning in classrooms.

It read:

I Pledge allegiance to my flag, and to the republic for which it stands: One Nation, Indivisible, with Liberty and Justice for All.

In 1923 our growing nation, again in a post-war era, with millions of immigrants coming every year caused concern in the wording of the Pledge, enough to have it changed to:

I Pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States…

And again in 1924 the word America as added making that line, “ I Pledge Allegiance to the flag, of the United States of America…

It became “popular” during the onset of WW2 and in 1945 was given the official title of The Pledge of Allegiance. The last change was in 1954, Flag Day which is June 14. The last change was adding “Under God”

II.
So what is the Pledge about today? The easiest way to eat an elephant is one bite at a time, the easiest way to find out what the Pledge is today is the Same.

I (me)
Pledge (a binding promise or agreement)
Allegiance (a devotion or loyalty)
To the flag (a symbol or representation of our country)
Of the United States of America (which is more than the expanse of land that spreads from the Atlantic to the Pacific, more than the expanse from the Mexican border to the Canadian, More than the Alaskan wilderness, more than the isles of Hawaii. It’s an ideal that freedom is a responsibility, not a right)
And to the Republic ( Interesting word republic. Webster says it means: a government in which supreme power resides in a body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by elected officers and representatives responsible to them and governing according to law)
For which it stands (referring to the body of citizens it represents)
One Nation under God (what can be said here that those words don’t already say?)
Indivisible (proven 30 years before it’s creation that this nation, though we can have differences of opinion, we cannot be divided even amongst ourselves).
With Liberty (of all the definitions I liked, the power of choice)
And Justice for All (the principle or ideal of just dealing or right action- For All)

III.
What do we do now?

Bellamy knew what he was doing when the Pledge was put together in August of 1892. He said that when choosing the words that August he thought:
It began as an intensive communing with salient points of our national history, from the Declaration of Independence onwards; with the makings of the Constitution...with the meaning of the Civil War; with the aspiration of the people...

Furthermore look at another document that Bellamy refers to:

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness

How does this all tie into the Pledge? Where it ties in is with you. The people that say it. The Parents whose children say it. They, whoever they are, say that statistically the pledge could change in the next few years and when and if, that time comes, it’s going to be up to us, you and I to decide what of our national history is important enough to keep, what of our national history is important enough to protect.

Look over the words and decide for yourself what does it mean to you. But to know is only half the battle.

Knowledge without action is useless.

Acting on this knowledge makes you responsible for what goes on in your home, on your street, in your neighborhood, your community, your town, city, your county, state and country.
It’s your Pledge. It’s your country.