[Congressional Record Volume 155, Number 144 (Wednesday, October 7, 2009)]
[Senate]
[Pages S10171-S10172]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         SENATE TRADITION OF RECITING THE PLEDGE OF ALLEGIANCE

  Mr. REID. Mr. President, the Senate is nothing if not a temple to 
tradition. We debate and we deliberate according to the same rules 
where Daniel Webster, Henry Clay, and John C. Calhoun considered the 
future of this young Nation. We vote without the help of modern 
electronics, as the first Senators did. We refer to each other in the 
third person during even the most heated discussions.
  Senators take pride in the desks they occupy. Senator Ted Kennedy 
surrendered his rights as a senior member of the body at one time to 
move closer to the front so he could share the same desk in which his 
two brothers' names are inscribed.
  On the top of those desks, we still keep the same inkwell. Mine has 
paper clips in it now. But this is an inkwell. It has been there since 
we moved to this Chamber and even before.
  Also, we have something from the past. There is a spittoon. Most all 
Senators chewed tobacco and did a lot of spitting. But we still have 
these here. I use mine to throw a few pieces of wastepaper in it. But 
it is traditional. That is the Senate.
  There are other things that can be referred to if Senator Byrd were 
here. He is an expert. In fact, he is the custodian of Senate 
traditions. He can add countless more examples. I could add a few more, 
but Senator Byrd could add an endless list.
  Last week, the Republican leader and I spoke here about the Pledge of 
Allegiance to our flag. When we first came to the Senate--Senator 
McConnell and this Senator--there was no Pledge of Allegiance before we 
started our sessions.
  So today I will speak of one of our new traditions which we have 
observed daily for more than a decade and, again, just a few minutes 
ago when we recited the pledge. It has not always been this way.
  The sentence itself, barely more than 30 words long, is not even 120 
years old. The pledge was born like many American rituals, out of 
capitalism. It was written by a children's magazine trying to sell 
American flags on the 400th anniversary of Columbus's arrival in the 
Americas.
  The magazine sought to sell flags to every school in the country, and 
a minister and author named Francis Bellamy penned the pledge to 
promote unity among schoolchildren as the Nation reeled from the recent 
Civil War.

[[Page S10172]]

  Almost a half century later, at the end of World War II, Congress 
formerly recognized the pledge, but it was not yet a Senate staple, not 
until 10 years ago, when a New Hampshire schoolgirl wrote to Senator 
Bob Smith of New Hampshire and asked why the Senate did not recite the 
pledge every morning. She noted the House of Representatives recited it 
and her school did but not the Senate. Francis Bellamy would have been 
proud. The line he wrote to instill allegiance in schoolchildren 
ultimately became part of the Senate procedure at the behest of a 
student from New Hampshire.
  We now recite the Pledge of Allegiance before any Senate business 
begins, and we are reminded of our common procedures and our shared 
loyalty, despite our often opposing outlooks politically.
  The first day the pledge was recited in public schools across the 
country was Columbus Day in 1892. So ahead of this Columbus Day, which 
will fall this coming Monday, I take a brief moment to remind my fellow 
Senators and all those who are watching and listening to the Senate of 
one of our newest and proudest traditions, the salute to our flag.

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