The Black Hills union and western stock review. [volume] (Rapid City, S.D.) 1904-19??, 1908-11-13

clares Americans owe 1t to the Al
mighty to show equal progress in
moral and spiritual things. The
proclamation follows:
"By the President Of the United
States of America proclamation:
"Once again the season Is at hand
when, according to the ancient Gus
tom of our people, it becomes the
duty of the president to appoint q
day of prayer and OF thanksgiving
to God.
Year by year this nation grows
in strength and worldly power. Dur
ing the century and quarter that
has elapsed since our entry into the
circle of independent peoples, we
have grown and prospered in material
things to degree never known be-
fore and not now known in any other
country.
THE thirteen colonies which strug-
gled along the seacoast of the At
lantic and were hemmed in but a
few miles west of tidewater by the
[ndian-haunted wilderness have been
transformed into the mightiest re-
public which the world has ever
seen. Its domains stretch across the
continent from one to the other of
the two greatest oceans, and it ex-
ercises dominion alike in the artic
and tropic realms. The growth in
wealth and population has surpassed
even the growth in territory. No
where else in the world is the aver
age of individual comfort, and ma
terial well-being as high as in our
fortunate land.
For the very reason that in ma
terial well-being we have thus
abounded, we owe to the Almighty
to show equal progress in moral and
spiritual things. With a nation as
with the individuals who make up a
,ation, material well-being is an in
lispensable foundation. But the
oundation avails nothing by ITSELF
THAT life is wasted, and worse
han wasted, which is spent in pill
ing, heap on heap, those things which
minister merely to the pleasure of
the body and to the power that rests
only on wealth.
upon material well-being as a
foundation must be raised a struc-
ture of the lofty life of the spirit
if this nation is properly to fulfill its
great mission and to accomplish all
that we so ardently hope and desire.
The things of the body are good;
the things of the intellect better; but
best of all are the things of the soul;
for, in the nation as in the individual
in the long run it is character that
counts. Let us therefore as peo-
pie set our faces resolutely against
evil, and with broad charity, with
kindness and good will toward all
men, but with unflinching determin-
alton to smite down wrong, strive
with all the strength that is given
us for righteousness in public and in
private life.
Now, therefore, I, Theodore Roose-
velt, president of the United States,
10 set apart, Thursday, the 26th day
IF November, next, as a day of gen
eral Thanksgiving and prayer. and
on that day l recommend that the
people shall cease from their daily
work, and, in their homes or in the
churches, meet devoutly to thank
the Almighty for the many and great
blessings they have received in the
past and to pray that they be given
strength so to order their lives as
to deserve continuance of these
blessings in the future.
In witness whereof I have here
unto set my hand and caused the seal
Of the United States to be affixed.
Ozone at the City of Washington
his first day of November, in the
ear of our Lord, 1908. and Of the
| independence of the United States
the one hundred and thirty-third.
Theodore Roosevelt.
'By the President.
Alvey A. Aaee,
acting Secretary of State"