Re: Removing hat during playing of our National Anthem
We just returned from Oahu and a visit to the Arizona Memorial in Pearl Harbor. For those who've never been there, the National Park Service has a visitor center in which a film is shown, and from the theater the visitors are led to a boat that takes them to the actual Memorial in Pearl Harbor. Without making a big deal out of it or singling anyone or any group out, we were politely reminded that we were visiting essentially a tomb and to exercise appropriate demeanor. A quiet reminder, as with the baseball announcer in Pawtucket that Russ mentioned, is likely all that's necessary.
BTW, since the Pledge of Allegiance was mentioned in this thread, for those not familiar with its history, I quote the following:
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In 1892 Francis Bellamy was ... a chairman of a committee of state superintendents of education in the National Education Association. As its chairman, he prepared the program for the public schools' quadricentennial celebration for Columbus Day in 1892. He structured this public school program around a flag raising ceremony and a flag salute - his 'Pledge of Allegiance.'
His original Pledge read as follows: 'I pledge allegiance to my Flag and (to*) the Republic for which it stands, one nation, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.' He considered placing the word 'equality' in his Pledge, but knew that the state superintendents of education on his committee were against equality for women and African Americans. [*'to' added in October, 1892.]...
In 1923 and 1924 the National Flag Conference, under the 'leadership of the American Legion and the Daughters of the American Revolution,' changed the Pledge's words 'my Flag' to 'the Flag of the United States of America.' Bellamy disliked this change, but his protest was ignored.
In 1954, Congress, after a campaign by the Knights of Columbus, added the words 'under God' to the Pledge. The Pledge was now both a patriotic oath and a public prayer. [We were taught that this was a political change as well, to differentiate the United States from the "godless Reds" in the Soviet Union. I remember when this change was made, much to the confusion of both schoolchildren and adults.]
Bellamy's granddaughter said he also would have resented this second change. He had been pressured into leaving his church in 1891 because of his socialist sermons. In his retirement in Florida [!], he stopped attending church because he disliked the racial bigotry he found there.
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Imagine that he was considered a socialist (in the 1890s!) because he was for 'equality for women and African Americans' and 'he disliked ... racial bigotry.' Interesting, eh?
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