“My friends, if you would see men again the beasts of prey they seemed in the nineteenth century, all you have to do is to restore the old social and industrial system, which taught them to view their natural prey in their fellow men, and to find their gain in the loss of others.” — this quote could have come from Karl Marx, but it came from a novel by a Christian utopian author, Edward Bellamy. His brother Francis similarly worked to spread socialist ideas by creating an international pledge.

On this day, September 8, in 1892, the Pledge of Allegiance was first published in The Youth’s Companion, a Christian-oriented children’s magazine.

In its first written version, the Pledge read “I pledge allegiance to my Flag and the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.” As Francis Bellamy became the head of the National Education Association, he enacted mandatory recitation of the pledge at every flag-raising ceremony. In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference added the phrase “…to the flag of the United States of America,” and in 1954, in response to the threat of atheist Soviet communism, Eisenhower added “under God.” Bellamy’s objections to both changes were ignored.