‘Under God’ came from Red Scare

Published 4:43 pm Tuesday, March 11, 2014

When I was in school back in pre-World War II, the Pledge of Allegiance was meant to reaffirm loyalty to our country with no need to change it.

After WWII, we went through a period of paranoia, thinking that Communists were everywhere, infilitrating the movie industry, politics and unions. The fundamentalist politicians in D.C. saw this as a golden opportunity to push their agenda and put “under God” in the Pledge of Allegiance. There was no way for a politician to oppose it — they would have been accused as a Red sympathizer.

Damon D. Davis

Everett