Taking The Pledge

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The pledge caught on, and by World War I it was routinely recited in public schools. In 1924 the words "my flag" were amended to "the flag of the United States of America." The formal stiff-arm salute was discontinued in 1942 by an act of Congress; its similarity to the Nazi gesture may have been a contributing reason. In 1954 Congress added the words "under God" after "one nation."

Although the pledge has seeped into the popular imagination as a paean to patriotism, religious groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses, who are forbidden to swear secular oaths, have repeatedly gone to court to keep it from becoming a mandatory ritual. In 1972 a federal appeals court ruled that an upstate New York teacher had a right to refuse to participate in the pledge in her classroom. "Patriotism that is forced is a false patriotism," Judge Irving R. Kaufman wrote, "just as loyalty that is coerced is the very antithesis of loyalty."

Kaufman's argument no doubt appeals to Dukakis' belief in what the Founding Fathers stood for, as well as his sense of legal nicety. But Bush's aides believe they have struck a vein of patriotic gold with the issue. "It's a winner for us," says Chief of Staff Craig Fuller. "If Dukakis wants to debate the Pledge of Allegiance with us, we're happy to oblige." In the sound-bite brouhahas of a presidential campaign, the dispute over definitions of patriotism has hardly been edifying, and hardly the stuff of a significant national dialogue.