Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 277, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 December 1917 — What the American Thanksguving Day Means to Suffering Europe [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

What the American Thanksguving Day Means to Suffering Europe

Oar army in France wM celebrate the occasion fittingly and tell their French comrades its significance at This "Yankee Feast Day" will be adopted by nations oar great Red f Cross organisation is helping to fight starvation, disease and exposure at

H RANCE is adding a new feast day to her calendar —Thanksgiving Day. All along the line behind the battle front where the French and British are hammering back the invading Germans, and General Pershing's boys are beginning to “go to it;” all up and down their lines of communication; at all their training camps; at their naval bases and depots; wherever there are Americans in uniform—there Uncle Sam’s boys will be eating turkey and cranberry sauce, and listening to sermons by their chaplains on the last Thursday of November this year. France has never before been In close touch with this, the most characteristically American of all our holidays. Of course their ©hristmas, their Easter, their New Year’s Day, and their various church festivals, correspond to our own. They have an adequate Understanding even of our Fourth of July, for it is close akin to their own Fourteenth of July, the anniversary of the fall of the Bastile and the dawn of real liberty in France. But Thanksgiving Day has always been Uncle Sam’s own private and personal feast day, in which nobody else had a part. It had its origin in no great International, nor even national, event. At first it was not really American in scope, but was confined to the few hundreds of religious enthusiasts who fixed a day of public devotion and | thanksgiving for deliverance from Indians and cold and hunger. Even the materials for the feast were indigenous to America. Despite his name, which would seem to indicate an oriental origin, the turkey is a native of America, and was unknown in the domain of the sultan until imported there. The potato, which plqys a minor but very important part at the feast, though later adopted by Ireland, was discovered in America. So was corn, which in one of its many forms usually makes a part of the meal. And even the tobacco which follows the meal in most homes, was not known outside of America until Sir Walter Raleigh and his compeers took it back to England. Further, the American manner of celebrating this most American of all days has never been of a nature to call the attention of other nations, or of their citizens visiting here. On this day of all days the American has been wont to retire from public gaze, to refrain fromany great public demonstration, and tp give thanks in his own way and eat the meal in the privacy of his own family. The only notable seeming exception to this is the institution called the Thanksgiving Day games of the college football teams. But this is no real exception. The games themselves are always amateur affairs, primarily for the students themselves, and after the game every student who can possibly get home goes into retirement with his family for the great and solemn feast. This year war has brought a change. Young Americans to the number of 20,000 —or is it 3bo,000? Nobody knows, or is permitted to say if he does know —are in France, 3,000 miles from the family circle and the accustomed turkey. Most Americans had little hope that the day could be observed at the front, but General Pershing thought otherwise. “The boys shall have their Thanksgiving Day.” said the general. That was alt but it was enough. It showed that the general had thought it all out beforehand, and that turkeys and cranberry sauce and all the “fixins’ ” for the feast, had been provided months before. Without doubt there will be football games, for many of the country’s famous gridiron stars are wearing the khaki. And Uncle Sam’s boys will sit dowtayto their Thanksgiving Day feast, their bojjigs in France, but their spirits in the old home circle, with those whtrtu they have gone forth to defend. j And France —wha|*of her? It is her first experience with the Yankee holiday. But it will fituier case exactly. Thanksgiving Day haffl its origin in the religious spirit of gpatitude for deliverance from very'real and pressing danger. France today is full ot that same spirit of thankfulness, for the presence of those CWan-limbed, squarejawed, clear-eyed young Americans is the guarantee that Fiance will be de-

by Charles Lee Bryson

This was once a picturesque mill and village beside a beautiful forest in France. The picture shows what the Germans did to it; not a house, not a tree left The enemy soldiers are doing their best to follow the orders of their great Bismarck: “Leave them nothing but their eyes to weep with.” The American Red Cross has underway gigantic plans for co-operation in rebuilding devastated sections of France, Belgium and Serbia.

livered frous*the danger of German conquest. Not only in the spirit of feasting, but in the religious aspect of the holiday—especially in the religious aspect —we may expect the French to join heartily with the Americans in giving thanks, and we need not be surprised if they take Thanksgiving Day to their hearts as they have taken the American soldier, and make it their own for the rest of their national life. Not the American army alone is giving the French reason to be thankful to that Providehce which has raised up a powerful ally, but the American Red Cross, which stands ever back of the army and navy, helps to care for them, and takes on its shoulders the burden of feeding and sheltering and clothing the pitiful thousands of refugees. Back of the French fighting lines are now these homeless, shelterless, women, old men and little children, in numbers almost unbelievable. On October 1 the American Red Cross was caring for 850,000 of them, anti more were coming at the rate of 1,000 a day through one city alone, and no one has estimated how many others. The Germans, who had held them prisoner in the lines for three years, were driving them across the lines that the French government might have to feed them.

It was not possiblp for the Red Cross to provide a Thanksgiving Day feast for’ this multitude, even if they had known what it was. But the help given them —the portable houses in which reunited families might find shelter; the little furniture and few tools supplied them that they might begin the family life anew; tjie food to keep them alive and the clothing to keep them from freezing to , death —such services as these have aroused in the volatile and emotional French heart a love for tire American and his Red Cross which may easily encompass also the American feast day. In the one little corner of Belgium which is free from the German heel, there also is the spirit of thanksgiving, though the Belgians know nothing of the For there has come the American Red Cross, and only a few days ago it voted .$589,930 for the relief of the Belgian refugees crowded behind their army in the little strip of soil still held. by King Albert and Queen Elizabeth. This fund will be used especially to care for Belgian children, and to run a Belgian; hospital for wounded soldiers, because the Belgian government hospital is now overtaxed. P For the feeding of the refugees, warehouses are built along the many canals, and supplies will be sent by boat all over that corner of the little kingdom into which are huddled the helpless ones who have fled from the German invader. Serbia, too, has cause to be thankful for what the American Red Cross is doing. Serbian war prisoners in Austro-Gennan camps are on the verge of starvation, and only the Red Cross could reach them. The Serbian government has placed $500,000 to the credit of the American Red Cross, and it has already bought 5,000 sacks of flour and shipped them through Switzerland and Austria, to be furnished the starvlng»prisoners. But of all the nations the Red Cross has befriended, France alone is privileged to, witness a real American celebration of Thanksgiving Day, and of all those peoples the French are most likely to catch the American point of view. It is a safe predict,ion that the French will take enthusiastically to

the idea of a day set apart on which to express their gratitude for blessings received. And if the war lasts another year, and the next Thanksgiving Day finds the American army still on French soil, watch the whole French people seize upon the great American feast day, and celebrate it as enthusiastically as if it had originated in Paris.