Evening Republican, Volume 19, Number 279, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 24 November 1915 — STORY OF THE DAY [ARTICLE]

STORY OF THE DAY

Thanksgiving Observances Have Been General Only a Comparatively Short Time. THE day which is now called Thanksgiving day,” and which is a formal observance by proclamation of presidents of the United States, usually followed, by proclamations of governors of nearly all of the states, has had its poetry, its rhyme which is not poetry, and prosaic literature which is better than either poetry or the rhyme. It was in its origin really a religious observance, the first proclamations being promulgated by provincial governors of very religious New England, Bradford having in history the credit of the first proclamation.

Observance was in the beginning desultory, that is, not simultaneous; and it was not general and synthetic, really, until 1864, when the first presidential proclamation was issued by Lincoln for a day of thanksgiving because of the apparent approaching end of the Civil war. Naturally that day was not observed by the seceded states, but now it has come to be recognized in nearly all of the states, though in many of them it is not a statutory holiday. It is not, and never was, a national holiday by legislative enactment

Just when the turkey flew in as one of. the almost imperative accompaniments of the Thanksgiving table is not worth mentioning, as it is an incident so vague. That fowl, with mince or pumpkin pie as a part of the dessert of the time-honored dinner of the day, has for long years come to be so well recognized that it has been urged as the only logical bird for blazoning on the national escutcheon, the eagle having become mighty "skase," and having been much missed both in this and other countries.

In 1859, the morning of June 5, frost killed all that was killable throughout the entire North. In October of the previous year, as will be well remembered by elderly people who were children then, the Donatl comet suddenly blazed across the heavens, and for months was one of the most beautiful of spectacles, but, to the superstitious, fear and direful. When the nucleus was low in the northwest tn the early evening the “tall” dominated all other celestial phenomena, flowing far past the zenith. The presage of a great Civil war to come was in the air and to those who. were in the least superstitious the comet was a sign of calamity near at hand. The freeze of the following June clinched the premonition, and in the fall of the year of the frost there was a quite generally observed day of fasting and prayer.

It was this sort of recognition of the omnipotence of Deity, solemn and profound and utterly sincere, which in the earlier days of the nation gave foundation to the origin of the days of thanksgiving for the good things of human existence, and, when they were not as good as they might have been, that they were no worse than they were. Then the whole custom of setting apart , a day for giving thanks to the Almighty grew gradually into that present beautiful intermingling of religious services, reunion of families and friends, feasting and general rejoicing, even if the tlmes were portentous of adversity for some of the peoples of this and other parts ot the world.

It is peculiarly an American “institution,” and our fat and frivolous fowl of paradise is its fetish. It is in all its forms and colors, wild or domestic, essentially an American bird, our Thanksgiving dinner bird, yesterday and today and forever, beloved by all ages and races, and for at least that one day putting the Roman nose of the eagle out of joint.