1.
Los Angeles County, California
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Los Angeles County, officially the County of Los Angeles, is the most populous county in both the United States and the state of California, the countrys most populous state. Its population is larger than that of 42 individual U. S. states and it has 88 incorporated cities and many unincorporated areas and at 4,083 square miles, it is larger than the combined areas of the U. S. states of Delaware and Rhode Island. The county is home to more than one-quarter of California residents and is one of the most ethnically diverse counties in the U. S and its county seat, the City of Los Angeles, is also its most populous city at about four million. Los Angeles County is one of the counties of California. The county originally included parts of what are now Kern, San Bernardino, Riverside, as the population increased, sections were split off to organize San Bernardino County in 1853, Kern County in 1866, and Orange County in 1889. According to the U. S. Census Bureau, the county has an area of 4,751 square miles, Los Angeles County borders 70 miles of coast on the Pacific Ocean and encompasses mountain ranges, valleys, forests, islands, lakes, rivers, and desert. The western extent of the Mojave Desert begins in the Antelope Valley, most of the population of Los Angeles County is located in the south and southwest, with major population centers in the Los Angeles Basin, San Fernando Valley and San Gabriel Valley. Other population centers are found in the Santa Clarita Valley, Pomona Valley, Crescenta Valley, the county is divided west-to-east by the San Gabriel Mountains, which are part of the Transverse Ranges of southern California, and are contained mostly within the Angeles National Forest. Los Angeles County includes San Clemente Island and Santa Catalina Island, non-Hispanic whites numbered 2,728,321, or 28% of the population. Hispanic or Latino residents of any race numbered 4,687,889, 36% of Los Angeles Countys population was of Mexican ancestry,3. 7% Salvadoran, and 2. 2% Guatemalan heritage. The largest Asian groups of the 1,346,865 Asians in Los Angeles County are 4. 0% Chinese,3. 3% Filipino,2. 2% Korean,1. 0% Japanese,0. 9% Vietnamese,0. 8% Indian, and 0. 3% Cambodian. The racial makeup of the county is 48. 7% White,11. 0% African American,0. 8% Native American,10. 0% Asian,0. 3% Pacific Islander,23. 5% from other races, and 4. 9% from two or more races. 44. 6% of the population are Hispanic or Latino of any race, the largest European-American ancestry groups are German, Irish, English and Italian. 45. 9% of the population reported speaking only English at home,37. 9% spoke Spanish,2. 22% Tagalog,2. 0% Chinese,1. 9% Korean,1. 87% Armenian,0. 5% Arabic, and 0. 2% Hindi. At the census of 2000, there were 9,519,338 people,3,133,774 households, the population density was 2,344 people per square mile. There were 3,270,909 housing units at a density of 806 per square mile. 25% of all households were made up of individuals and 7% had someone living alone who was 65 years of age or older, the average household size was 2.98 and the average family size was 3.61. In the county, the population was out with 28% under the age of 18, 10% from 18 to 24, 33% from 25 to 44, 19% from 45 to 64
2.
Hilda Solis
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Hilda Lucia Solis is an American politician and a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for the 1st district. Solis previously served as the 25th United States Secretary of Labor from 2009 to 2013, Solis was raised in La Puente, California, by immigrant parents from Nicaragua and Mexico. She earned degrees from the California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, returning to her native state, she was elected to the Rio Hondo Community College Board of Trustees in 1985, the California State Assembly in 1992, and the California State Senate in 1994. She was the first Hispanic woman to serve in the State Senate, Solis sought to pass environmental justice legislation. She was the first female recipient of the John F. Kennedy Profile in Courage Award in 2000. Solis defeated a long-time Democratic incumbent as part of getting elected to the U. S. House of Representatives in 2000 and she was reelected easily to four subsequent terms. In December 2008, President-elect Barack Obama announced his intention to nominate Solis as the next U. S. Secretary of Labor. She took office after being confirmed by the United States Senate in February 2009, there she focused on workplace safety issues and on strengthening compliance with wage and hour laws. In January 2013, Solis stepped down from her post as Labor Secretary, returning to the area of her upbringing, in April 2014, Solis formally announced a campaign for a seat on the non-partisan Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. Solis won the seat outright in a June 3 election and was sworn in on December 1, Solis was born in Los Angeles, California, as the daughter of immigrant parents who had met in citizenship class and married in 1953, Juana Sequeira and Raul Solis. Her father was a Teamsters shop steward in Mexico and, after coming to the United States, there he again organized for the Teamsters, to gain better health care benefits for workers, but also contracted lead poisoning. Her mother worked for over 20 years on the line of Mattel once her children were all of school age, belonged to the United Rubber Workers. She stressed the importance of education and was a devout Roman Catholic, hilda Solis is the third oldest of seven siblings and grew up in a tract home in La Puente, California. She had to raise her youngest siblings, and later said of her childhood. We had to very quickly. Maybe she should follow the career of her sister and become a secretary. ”However, another counselor did encourage her to attend college. She took her sisters to the library to get them to follow her lead. She graduated in 1979 with a Bachelor of Arts in political science and she then earned a Master of Public Administration degree at the University of Southern California in 1981
3.
Janice Hahn
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Janice Kay Hahn is the incumbent member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors for the Fourth District. A member of the Democratic Party, she was the Representative from Californias 44th congressional district from 2011 to 2016 and she was previously a Los Angeles City Councilwoman representing the 15th district from 2001-11. From 1997-99 she served as a representative on the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission. On July 12,2011, Hahn won an election for Congress to fill the seat vacated by Democrat Jane Harman. She defeated Republican Craig Huey, a Tea Party-backed direct marketer from the Torrance area, in February 2015, Hahn announced she was retiring from Congress to run for the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors. In the November 8 general election, Hahn defeated Steve Napolitano to succeed Don Knabe to become the next Los Angeles Supervisor from District 4 and she was sworn in on December 5,2016. Hahn was born in Los Angeles and raised in a politically involved family and she is the daughter of Ramona Belle and Kenneth Frederick Hahn, a 40-year Los Angeles County Supervisor who started his career in elective politics as a Los Angeles City Councilman. Her uncle, Gordon Hahn, was a member of the California Assembly and her brother, James Hahn, served as Los Angeles City Controller from 1981–85, City Attorney from 1985 until 2001, and Mayor of Los Angeles from 2001 until 2005. Hahns maternal grandparents served as missionaries in Japan in the 1920s and 1930s, Hahn attended Abilene Christian University in Texas, earning a bachelor of science in education in 1974. She taught at the Good News Academy, a school in Westchester from 1974-78. Hahn was elected to represent the Fifteenth District on the Los Angeles Charter Reform Commission, in 1998, U. S. Congresswoman Jane Harman declined to run for re-election, choosing instead to run for Governor of California. Hahn then won the Democratic nomination to succeed Harman, but lost the election to Republican State Assemblyman Steven T. Kuykendall 49%-47%. Hahn served on the Los Angeles City Council, representing the 15th District, the 15th District encompasses the San Pedro Harbor and includes the ethnically diverse communities of Harbor City, Harbor Gateway, San Pedro, Watts and Wilmington. She was reelected to her third and final term in November 2009 and she has been called one of the most pro-labor members of the City Council, and a consistent opponent of layoffs and furloughs for city workers. Hahn walked the lines with unionized dockworkers in 2002. After the Bush administration suggested it would intervene in the dispute by using government troops to operate the ports. Theres no room for the federal government, theres only one reason for them to get involved, and thats to break the union, she said. Hahn cites her efforts to clean up the Port of Los Angeles as one of her main accomplishments while on the City Council
4.
California
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California is the most populous state in the United States and the third most extensive by area. Located on the western coast of the U. S, California is bordered by the other U. S. states of Oregon, Nevada, and Arizona and shares an international border with the Mexican state of Baja California. Los Angeles is Californias most populous city, and the second largest after New York City. The Los Angeles Area and the San Francisco Bay Area are the nations second- and fifth-most populous urban regions, California also has the nations most populous county, Los Angeles County, and its largest county by area, San Bernardino County. The Central Valley, an agricultural area, dominates the states center. What is now California was first settled by various Native American tribes before being explored by a number of European expeditions during the 16th and 17th centuries, the Spanish Empire then claimed it as part of Alta California in their New Spain colony. The area became a part of Mexico in 1821 following its war for independence. The western portion of Alta California then was organized as the State of California, the California Gold Rush starting in 1848 led to dramatic social and demographic changes, with large-scale emigration from the east and abroad with an accompanying economic boom. If it were a country, California would be the 6th largest economy in the world, fifty-eight percent of the states economy is centered on finance, government, real estate services, technology, and professional, scientific and technical business services. Although it accounts for only 1.5 percent of the states economy, the story of Calafia is recorded in a 1510 work The Adventures of Esplandián, written as a sequel to Amadis de Gaula by Spanish adventure writer Garci Rodríguez de Montalvo. The kingdom of Queen Calafia, according to Montalvo, was said to be a land inhabited by griffins and other strange beasts. This conventional wisdom that California was an island, with maps drawn to reflect this belief, shortened forms of the states name include CA, Cal. Calif. and US-CA. Settled by successive waves of arrivals during the last 10,000 years, various estimates of the native population range from 100,000 to 300,000. The Indigenous peoples of California included more than 70 distinct groups of Native Americans, ranging from large, settled populations living on the coast to groups in the interior. California groups also were diverse in their organization with bands, tribes, villages. Trade, intermarriage and military alliances fostered many social and economic relationships among the diverse groups, the first European effort to explore the coast as far north as the Russian River was a Spanish sailing expedition, led by Portuguese captain Juan Rodríguez Cabrillo, in 1542. Some 37 years later English explorer Francis Drake also explored and claimed a portion of the California coast in 1579. Spanish traders made unintended visits with the Manila galleons on their trips from the Philippines beginning in 1565
5.
Governor of California
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The position was created in 1849, the year before California became a state. The current governor is Jerry Brown, a Democrat who was inaugurated January 3,2011, in October 2013, Jerry Brown surpassed Earl Warren for the longest cumulative period of time served as governor. Governors are elected by ballot and serve terms of four years. Governors take office on the first Monday after January 1 after their election, there are two methods available to remove a governor before the expiration of the gubernatorial term of office. Impeachment and removal by the legislature The governor can be impeached for misconduct in office by the State Assembly, recall by the voters Petitions signed by California state voters equal in number to 12% of the last vote for the office of governor can launch a gubernatorial recall election. The voters can vote on whether or not to recall the incumbent governor. If a majority of the voters in the vote to recall the governor. The 2003 California recall began with a drive that successfully forced sitting Democratic Governor Gray Davis into a special recall election. It marked the first time in the history of California that a governor faced a recall election and he was subsequently voted out of office, becoming the second governor in the history of the United States to be recalled after Lynn Frazier of North Dakota in 1921. He was replaced by Republican Arnold Schwarzenegger, the Lieutenant Governor of California is separately elected during the same election, not jointly as the running mate of the gubernatorial candidate. California has had a governor and a lieutenant governor of different parties 26 of the past 31 years, the lieutenant governor is also the President of the California State Senate. In practice, there is an agreement for the Lieutenant Governor not to perform more than perfunctory duties while the Governor is away from the state. This agreement was violated when Mike Curb was in office, as he signed several executive orders at odds with the Brown administration when Brown was out of the state. Court rulings have upheld the lieutenant governors right to perform the duties, peter Burnett had the longest post-governorship,44 years. He left office in 1851 and died in 1895, excluding governors who died in office, Robert Waterman had the shortest post-governorship. He died on April 12,1891, a three months and four days after the expiration of his term. Sworn in at the age of 30, J. Neely Johnson was the youngest governor from 1856 to 1858, sworn in at the age of 72, Jerry Brown became the oldest governor in 2011. Earl Warren was the governor to serve more than two consecutive terms in office
6.
United States presidential election
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These electors then in turn cast direct votes, known as electoral votes, for President and Vice President. The candidate who receives a majority of electoral votes for President or Vice President is then elected to that office. The Electoral College and its procedure is established in the U. S, Constitution by Article II, Section 1, Clauses 2 and 4, and the Twelfth Amendment. C. Casts the same number of votes as the least-represented state. Also under Clause 2, the manner for choosing electors is determined by state legislature. Many state legislatures used to select their electors directly, but over all of them switched to using the popular vote to help determine electors. In modern times, faithless and unpledged electors have not affected the outcome of an election. The Electoral College electors then formally cast their votes on the first Monday after December 12 at their respective state capitals. Congress then certify the results in early January, and the term begins on Inauguration Day. These primary elections are held between January and June before the general election in November, while the nominating conventions are held in the summer. Article Two of the United States Constitution originally established the method of presidential elections and this was a result of a compromise between those constitutional framers who wanted the Congress to choose the president, and those who preferred a national popular vote. Each state is allocated a number of electors that is equal to the size of its delegation in both houses of Congress combined. With the ratification of the 23rd Amendment to the Constitution in 1961, however, U. S. territories are not represented in the Electoral College. Constitutionally, the manner for choosing electors is determined within each state by its legislature, during the first presidential election in 1789, only 6 of the 13 original states chose electors by any form of popular vote. Gradually throughout the years, the states began conducting popular elections to choose their slate of electors, resulting in the overall. Under the original system established by Article Two, electors could cast two votes to two different candidates for president, the candidate with the highest number of votes became the president, and the second-place candidate became the vice president. This presented a problem during the election of 1800 when Aaron Burr received the same number of electoral votes as Thomas Jefferson. In the end, Jefferson was chosen as the president because of Alexander Hamiltons influence in the House of Representatives and this added to the deep rivalry between Burr and Hamilton which resulted in their famous 1804 duel
7.
Mayor of Los Angeles
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The Mayor of the City of Los Angeles is the official head and chief executive officer of Los Angeles, California. The mayor is elected for a term and limited to serving no more than two terms. Under the California Constitution, all judicial, school, county, the 42nd and current Mayor is Eric Garcetti. Los Angeles has a mayor council form of government, giving the mayor the position of chief executive of the city. The mayor is given the authority to appoint general managers and commissioners, remove officials from city posts, most of the mayors appointments and proposals are subject to approval by the Los Angeles City Council, but the mayor has the power of veto or approval of City Council legislation. The organization of the mayors office changes with administration, but is almost always governed by a chief of staff, deputy chief of staff, director of communications, and several deputy mayors. The mayor has an office in the Los Angeles City Hall and resides at the Mayors Mansion, Getty House, as of Fiscal Year 2015–16, the salary for the mayor is set at $239,993. The mayor is elected in citywide election, the first round of the election is called the primary election. The candidate receiving a majority of the vote in the primary is elected outright, if no candidate receives a majority, the top two candidates advance to a runoff election, called the general election. The City Charter allows for candidates for the primary election. The mayor is elected to a term, with a limit of two consecutive terms. The office of Mayor is officially nonpartisan by state law, although most mayoral candidates identify a party preference, elections for mayor were held in odd-numbered years from 1909 until 2013. In October 2014, the Los Angeles City Council recommended consolidating city elections with gubernatorial and presidential elections in even-numbered years in an effort to increase turnout. On March 3,2015, voters passed an amendment to extend the term of the mayor elected in 2017 to five-and-a-half years. From 2022 and onward, mayoral elections will be consolidated with the gubernatorial elections held every four years. The most recent election was held in May 2013, incumbent mayor Antonio Villaraigosa was ineligible to run for reelection due to term limits. Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel received the most votes in the March primary, Garcetti assumed office July 1,2013, becoming the 42nd mayor of Los Angeles. In the case of a vacancy, the City Council has a choice to appoint a new mayor or to hold a special election
8.
Los Angeles County Fire Department
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As of 2013 the department is responsible for just over 4 million residents spread out in over 1.2 million housing units across an area of 2,305 square miles. The department is commanded by Chief Daryl L. Osby with an budget of $939 million. The Los Angeles County Fire Department began in 1920, and was known as the Los Angeles County Forestry Department and Los Angeles County Fire Protection Districts. The Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors enlisted Stuart J. Flintham to lead the new department and he succeeded in opening 30 Fire Protection Districts, which served, and continue to serve, towns and the unincorporated areas of Los Angeles County. Cities could choose to join the Fire Protection District by allocating property tax for this service, cities formed as contract cities in the post-World War II period normally retained membership in the Fire Protection District. Following the passage of Proposition 13 in 1978, property taxes were capped at 1%, properties within the district that are not covered under a fee for service arrangement also pay a special fire tax as a result of Proposition E, passed in 1997. The Los Angeles County Fire Department Emergency Operations are commanded by Chief David R. Richardson, the 4 Bureaus that the Chief Deputy oversees contain the bulk of the firefighting and rescue personnel and apparatus that the Fire Department provides, as well as the Technical Services Division. The 3 Operations Bureaus consist of the fire stations and camps that are geographically based. The 3 Operations Bureaus of LACoFD serve 58 cities with 22 Battalions and 9 Divisions, each Division is commanded by an assistant chief, the only exception being the Lifeguard Division, which is led by the Chief Lifeguard. The LACoFD has 8 fire camps with handcrews which are used for fire prevention and wildland firefighting. Inmates assigned to the camps are nonviolent offenders who have completed physical and they are trained by county firefighters to help fight fires and assist with clearing brush and debris. The camps are run in conjunction with the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation, the Los Angeles County Lifeguards are an entity within the Los Angeles County Fire Department, serving the 72 miles coastline that Los Angeles County shares with the Pacific Ocean. As of 2013 the division employed 151 year-round lifeguards with an additional 630 seasonal lifeguards for the busy summers and these personnel staff the 159 lifeguard towers and 23 stations. All lifeguards are EMT certified and have training in rescue operations as well as swift water rescue. The LACoFD sponsors one of the eight FEMA Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces in California, County Fire Apparatus are painted reddish-orange as opposed to Los Angeles City Fire Department which are fire engine red. The benefit of a quint is that it also has a built in pump and water tank, the LA County Fire Department has 9 helicopters available for search and rescue as well as aerial firefighting. With the exception of Copter 10 which is used primarily for command purposes, all copters are outfitted with water tanks for aerial firefighting. The headquarters for the Air Operations Section is located at Barton Heliport, three Sikorsky S-70A Firehawks Copter 15, Copter 16 and Copter 19, are each capable of transporting up to 4 patients and are fitted with 1,000 US gallons tanks
9.
Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department
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With 17,694 total employees the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, officially the County of Los Angeles Sheriffs Department, is the nations largest Sheriff’s Department. The Department’s three, and the housing and transportation of inmates within the county jail system, the Departments headquarters are located in downtown Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County Hall of Justice. The Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department is the largest sheriffs department, there are approximately 17,926 employees, over 9,972 sworn deputies and 7,954 non sworn members. There are an additional 4,200 civilian volunteers,791 reserve deputies and 400 explorers, on December 1,2014, Jim McDonnell took the oath of office and was sworn in as the 32nd Los Angeles County Sheriff. Court Services Division - Provides security and support services to the Superior Court in the County of Los Angeles and this includes staffing bailiffs, operating courthouse lock-ups, and serving and enforcing civil and criminal process. The Detail also trains personnel in the handling of labor disputes. South Patrol Division - Carson, Cerritos, Lakewood, Lomita, Norwalk, east Patrol Division - Altadena, Crescenta Valley, Industry, San Dimas, Temple, and Walnut/Diamond Bar. Central Patrol Division - Avalon, Century, Compton, Marina Del Rey, reserves may use either STARS Center or College of the Canyons for academy training. Academy training is 22 weeks long, many law enforcement agencies throughout Los Angeles County utilize STARS Center and deputy sheriff trainees graduating as deputy sheriffs also undergo detention-specific training. There are separate academy curricula for Deputy Sheriffs, Custody Assistants, Security Officers, the Los Angeles County Sheriffs Department operates the largest jail system in the world. The Los Angeles County Jail provides short-term incarceration services for all of the County, the Mens Central Jail and Twin Towers Correctional Facility are located in a dense cluster northeast of Union Station that is next to the stations rail yard. The North County Correctional Facility is the largest of the four facilities located at the Pitchess Detention Center in Castaic. County womens jail, called the Century Regional Detention Facility or the Lynwood Jail, is located in Lynwood, the Los Angeles County Jail incarcerates about 200,000 individuals each year, and with such large numbers, the jail has faced numerous problems with its facilities. In May 2013, the Mens Central Jail and the Twin Towers Correctional Facility ranked as one of the ten worst prisons in the United States, one of such issues is visitation controversy, exemplified by a recent event in the Mens Central Jail. 23-year-old male Gabriel Carillo was severely beaten and pepper sprayed by a deputy in Los Angeles Mens Central Jail on Saturday, Carillo was there with his girlfriend, Grace Torres, to visit his younger brother. Both Torres and Carillo brought their cell phones into the jail and were caught having the phones on them, the deputies confiscated both phones shortly after, handcuffed Carillo, and took both Carillo and Torres into the break room, where Carillo was assaulted. Following the controversy, Los Angeles County Sheriff, Lee Baca, construction of a new jail has been proposed to replace the Mens Central Jail. Another challenge that the Los Angeles County Jail faces is violence within the jail community, many researchers assert that the violence seen in jails is in part due to males wanting to maintain a position of superiority
10.
Downtown Los Angeles
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Downtown Los Angeles is the central business district of Los Angeles, California, as well as a diverse residential neighborhood of some 58,000 people. A2013 study found that the district is home to over 500,000 jobs, Downtown Los Angeles is known for its government buildings, parks, theaters and other public places. The earliest known settlements in the area of what is now Downtown Los Angeles was by the Tongva, on September 4,1781, the city was founded by a group of settlers who trekked north from present-day Mexico. Land speculation increased in the 1880s, which saw the population of the city explode from 11,000 in 1880 to nearly 100,000 by 1896. Infrastructure enhancements and the laying of a street grid eventually brought development south of the settlement into what is today the Civic Center. By 1920, the private and municipal rail lines were the most far-flung and most comprehensive in the world in mileage. By this time, an influx of residents and aggressive land developers had transformed the city into a large metropolitan area. Rail lines connected four counties with over 1,100 miles of track, during the early part of the 20th century, banking institutions clustered around South Spring Street, forming the Spring Street Financial District. The Los Angeles Stock Exchange was also located on the corridor from 1929 until 1986 before moving into a new building across the Harbor Freeway, Broadway became the nightlife, shopping and entertainment district of the city, with over a dozen theater and movie palaces built before 1932. Numerous specialty stores also flourished including those in the business which gave rise to the Downtown Jewelry District. Among these early jewelers included the Laykin Diamond Company and Harry Winston & Co. both of which found their beginnings in the Alexandria Hotel at 5th and Spring Streets. The Los Angeles Union Passenger Terminal opened in May,1939, unifying passenger service among local, regional. It was built on a scale and would be one of the last of the Great Railway Stations built in the United States. Following World War II, suburbanization, the development of the Los Angeles freeway network, many corporate headquarters slowly dispersed to new suburbs or fell to mergers and acquisitions. The once-wealthy Bunker Hill neighborhood became a haven for low-income renters, the drastic reduction in the number of residents in the area further reduced the viability of streetfront businesses that would be able to attract pedestrians. For most Angelenos, downtown became a destination as they would come into the area for a particular objective. This period saw the clearing and upzoning of the neighborhood as well as the shuttering of the Angels Flight funicular railway in 1969. Angels Flight resumed operation in 1996 for a period of five years, on March 15,2010, the railway once again opened for passenger service following extensive upgrades to brake and safety systems
11.
Pledge of Allegiance (United States)
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The official name of The Pledge of Allegiance was adopted in 1945. The last change in language came on Flag Day 1954 when the words under God were added, congressional sessions open with the recital of the Pledge, as do many government meetings at local levels, and meetings held by many private organizations. All states except four give time for the pledge to be recited as part of the school day, when not in uniform men should remove any non-religious headdress with their right hand and hold it at the left shoulder, the hand being over the heart. Persons in uniform should remain silent, face the flag, members of the Armed Forces not in uniform and veterans may render the military salute in the manner provided for persons in uniform. However, there existed a version created by Colonel George Balch. Balchs pledge, which existed parallel to the Bellamy version until the 1923 National Flag Conference, read, We give our heads and hearts to God and our country, one country, one language, one flag. Bellamy, however, did not approve of the pledge as Balch had written it, referring to the text as too juvenile, the event was conceived and promoted by James B. Upham, a marketer for the magazine, as a campaign to instill the idea of American nationalism in students, according to author Margarette S. Miller, this campaign was in line both with Uphams patriotic vision as well as with his commercial interest. Bellamys original Pledge read, I pledge allegiance to my Flag, the Pledge was supposed to be quick and to the point. Bellamy designed it to be recited in 15 seconds and this arrangement was formalized when Harrison issued Presidential Proclamation 335. In his recollection of the creation of the Pledge Francis Bellamy said, At the beginning of the nineties patriotism, the patriotic ardor of the Civil War was an old story. The time was ripe for a reawakening of simple Americanism and the leaders in the new movement rightly felt that education should begin in the public schools. Would have a flag raising, under the most impressive conditions, Bellamy recalled that the event had to be more than a list of exercises. The ritual must be prepared with simplicity and dignity, edna Dean Proctor wrote an ode for the event, and There was also an oration suitable for declamation. Bellamy held that Of course, the nub of the program was to be the raising of the flag and he found There was not a satisfactory enough form for this salute. The Balch salute, which ran, I give my heart and my hand to my country, one country, one language, one flag, seemed to him too juvenile and lacking in dignity. After working on the idea with Upham, Bellamy concluded, It was my thought that a vow of loyalty or allegiance to the flag should be the dominant idea, I especially stressed the word allegiance. Bellamy considered the country, nation, or Republic, choosing the last as it distinguished the form of government chosen by the founding fathers
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