Editor’s note: We thought it was important to take a look back to see how those in our industry saw Thanksgiving once upon a time — a time in our country’s history when, we all assume, was a simpler time marking a simpler way of life. The following editorial originally appeared in the Wednesday, Nov. 26, 1958, edition of the Concord Daily Monitor.
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Thanksgiving is a family day, a day of happy gatherings; of feasting and football; of youngsters’ play and oldsters’ reminiscences. It is a wholly American festival and it is right to mark it with spirit and gusto.
But it is more than a day of reunions and sports, turkey and mince pie. The Pilgrim Fathers who almost three and a half centuries ago set aside a special day to give thanks for their blessings set a historic precedent as momentous in our time as in theirs.
For every year in this country’s annals has brought its own ordeals, its own dangers and its own requirement to appeal for Divine guidance. Surely the need for vision and strength of purpose is no less impelling now than on that first long ago Thanksgiving Day.
The doughty Pilgrims had braved the perils of the unknown and had begun to conquer them. In 1958 Americans face responsibilities so vast they are difficult of comprehension.
Our familiar world, our ways of life and thought, our food and fuels, our modes of transportation and communication, our myriad conveniences and luxuries, the mechanics of our daily jobs – all are changing too fast for our thorough understanding.
Wonders of nuclear fission and fusion have opened shining vistas of a still better, more abundant life. But they have also brought threats of catastrophe more fearful than the ancient terrors of frontier existence. Observance of Thanksgiving has not been without its conflicts. Thomas Jefferson called government-proclaimed holidays a monarchical practice and ignored any observance of Thanksgiving in his eight years in office.
And more recently President Roosevelt switched the date of the holiday from the fourth to the third Thursday in November. He wanted to help business by making the shopping period longer between Christmas and Thanksgiving, but this change drew sharp criticism. Three years later Congress restored Thanksgiving to the fourth Thursday.
In view of these and other incidents, maybe it might be well to give thanks that there is still a Thanksgiving.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“Community means that people come together around the table, not just to feed their bodies, but to feed their minds and their relationships.” (Henri J.M. Nouwen)