Bellamy salute

The Bellamy salute is the hand gesture described by Francis Bellamy (1855-1931) to accompany the American Pledge of Allegiance, which he had authored. During the period when it was used with the Pledge of Allegiance, it was sometimes known as the "flag salute". It was first demonstrated on October 12, 1892 according to Bellamy's published instructions for the "National School Celebration of Columbus Day":

The initial civillian salute was replaced with a hand-on-heart gesture, followed by the extension of the arm as described by Bellamy. Because of the similarity between the Bellamy salute and the Nazi salute, President Franklin D. Roosevelt instituted the hand-over-the-heart gesture as the salute to be rendered by civilians during the Pledge of Allegiance and the national anthem in the United States, instead of the Bellamy salute. This was done when Congress officially adopted the "Flag Code" on 22 June 1942. [cite book|last=Leepson|first=Marc|title=Flag: An American Biography|publisher=Macmillan|date=2006|pages=171|isbn=0312323093] In 1943, the Daughters of the American Revolution, initially resistant to the change, endorsed the hand-on-heart gesture during the Pledge. [cite book |last= Fried |first= Richard M. |title= The Russians Are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!: Pageantry and Patriotism in Cold-War America |year= 1999 |publisher= Oxford University Press (USA) |location= New York |pages= p. 12 |isbn= 0-19-513417-6 ]

From 1939 until the attack on Pearl Harbor, detractors of Americans who argued against intervention in World War II produced propaganda using the salute to lessen those Americans' reputations. Among the anti-intervention Americans was aviation pioneer Charles Lindbergh. Supporters of Lindbergh's views would claim that Lindbergh did not support Adolf Hitler, and that pictures of him appearing to do the Nazi salute were actually pictures of him using the Bellamy salute. [Citation
url=http://www.charleslindbergh.com/pdf/Lindbergh.pdf
title=Is Lindbergh a Nazi?
publisher=charleslindbergh.com
accessdate=2008-04-21] In his Pulitzer prize winning biography "Lindbergh", author A. Scott Berg explains that interventionist propagandists would photograph Lindbergh and other isolationists using this salute from an angle that left out the American flag, so it would be indistinguishable from the Hitler salute to observers.

ee also

*Roman salute
*Hitler salute

References

External links

* [http://www.undergodprocon.org/pop/PledgeHistory.htm Pledge of Allegiance History]
* [http://www1.va.gov/opa/feature/celebrate/pledge.asp United States Department of Veteran Affairs]
* [http://www.ushistory.org/betsy/faqs/q61.htm US History.org-Betsy Ross]