Where the Past Begins: Memory and Imagination

by Amy Tan

I would have pointed out that the first time “In God We Trust” was used it was on a penny in 1864, not when the United States was established. It took a while for those words to be added to a nickel, and much longer before they were added to a dollar bill. Trusting in God when it came to money matters did not make it a historic American position, I would have said. And the reason it supplanted E Pluribus Unum was because of McCarthyism fears. It was a Commie Pinko litmus test. If a man coughed in trying to get out the words “In God We Trust,” he was un-American. It was adopted in 1956, only seven years before he gave his sermon, which was a rather brief amount of time to describe it as a “historic American position.” The words “under God,” were not added to the Pledge of Allegiance until 1954.