On June 14, 1954, Flag Day that year, President Eisenhower signed a joint resolution of Congress amending the 1942 Flag Code, adding the words “under God” to the Pledge of Allegiance. The president had only recently been baptized a Presbyterian and was apparently in a religious feeling when he declared “the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty.”
Digging Deeper
Not surprisingly, not everyone agreed. The backdrop to this issue was the Cold War, the struggle of atheistic communism against “Christian” democracy and capitalism. Eisenhower and Congress clearly wanted to differentiate us from them.
Many people already were against the Pledge of Allegiance on religious or philosophical grounds. Jehovah’s Witnesses thought the saying of the Pledge to the Flag was a form of idolatry. Forcing schoolchildren to recite the Pledge in the classroom was a breach of religious freedom, they said. Making a provision where the non-pledgers could silently sit or stand without reciting the Pledge was unacceptable because of the ostracism sure to come down on the children not saying the pledge from the other kids.
