Cape man thinks globally — and pupils act locally
By Cynthia McCormick, Staff Writer

WEST YARMOUTH — Images of Chernobyl, acid rain, tropical deforestation, war and other disasters with international impact are enough to keep one awake at night.

Jerry Schmeer Jr. of West Yarmouth says he would sleep a little easier if schoolchildren all over the world daily recited the “Global Pledge of Allegiance” he wrote to focus attention on the interdependence of all peoples.

Short and to the point, Schmeer’s pledge goes, “I pledge allegiance to the planet Earth, to make it a better, healthier and safer world for all mankind.”

Schmeer, 32, an employee of Radio Shack and the Mill Hill Club, got the idea for a global pledge during the last presidential campaign, when Gov. Michael Dukakis’s 1977 veto of a mandatory Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag of the United States became a campaign issue.

The idea of making a pledge mandatory bothered Schmeer almost as much as the thought of people pledging allegiance just to their little plots of earth.

He says it reminded him of gang warfare in Los Angeles and other places and how the gangs strictly control their territory and repel outsiders. “They draw these imaginary lines and they get their colors.”

He says he thought there has to be a better way to develop a sense of identity, belonging and caring concern.

The global pledge of allegiance was born when Schmeer had to write a letter to the editor for an English class assignment during his final year at Cape Cod Community College last spring.

...Cape man writes a global pledge

“It’s a simple pledge, but it would no longer isolate us,” Schmeer wrote in a letter that appeared in the community college newspaper, Main Sheet, and — in shortened version — in the Cape Cod Times.

“It’s a pledge that our children can choose to say with pride. It’s a pledge we can offer the Soviet children, the Chinese children, and all the children of the world.

“Think just for a minute what a feeling it would be to wake up, knowing that all children in the world are pledging, this very day, to make this a better and safer place for all mankind. Of course, we may not see any instant results, but in a generation or so, we may have created a whole new world.”

Schmeer’s original idea was to get Congress to adopt the pledge in the hopes that other countries would follow suit.

The campaign for a global pledge took a more local turn when Susan Peters’ fifth-grade class at Osterville Bay Elementary School wrote Schmeer to express their delight with his proposal, which they’d read in the newspaper.

“I really like your(r) idea for the pledge for the whole world. And it is short and simple and you can understand all the words. Maybe sometime there will be a pledge to the world and people will thank you,” wrote Meg Sullivan, now a sixth-grader.

Kiley Kraskouskas thought the pledge was a great idea, too. “The whole world will be doing something together,” he said. “You can’t say it is against your religion. You are right you won’t see quick results, but it can happen. We could have a kinder, gently earth.”

In a second round of letters, the children decided to change the words in the pledge a bit. The new pledge went, “I pledge allegiance to the planet Earth, to make it a better, healthier and safer world for all creatures who live here and for the generations of all living things that follow us.”

Schmeer visited the class and explained that he would like to keep the pledge in its original form because it is simpler and probably easier to translate.

He says he was touched by the children’s new policy of saying the global pledge while looking out the window, after they had recited the Pledge of Allegiance to the flag.

To make his point about the unity of the earth, Schmeer gave the children a framed poster of a photograph of the planet earth, taken from outer space. “There are no lines there,” he says.

Schmeer hopes to get his global pledge featured on CNN Newsroom, a new cable-news show for schoolchildren. In the meantime, he hopes local teachers spread the word about the global pledge.

At Osterville Bay, Ms. Peters says she will expose her new class of fifth-graders to the pledge and already has given others copies of the pledge. Ms. Peters is taking the words of one of her treasured sayings to heart: “Think globally. And act locally.”