...turies United States On October 12, 1892, the Bellamy salute was demonstrated as the hand gesture to accompany the Pledge of Allegiance in the United States. The inventor of the saluting gesture was James B. Upham, junior partner and editor of The Youth's Companion. Bellamy recalled Upham, upon reading the pledge, came into the posture of the salute, snapped his heels together, and said "Now up there is the flag; I come to salute; as I say 'I pledge allegiance to my flag,' I stretch out my right hand and keep it raised while I say the stirring words that follow. There exists evidence suggesting that the gesture had been used previous to Upham in the secret rituals of the Knights of Labor. Because of the similarity between the Bellamy salute and the Nazi salute emerged in Germany in the 1920s, which was derived from the Roman 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 June 22, 1942. There was initially some resistance to dropping the Bellamy salute, for example from the Daughters of the American Revolution..
