The Semi-weekly leader. (Brookhaven, Miss.) 1905-1941, 1908-11-21
THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION.
Next Thursday, Goth. Named as the Date.

Next Thursday, 10th, Named as the Date.
Following is the text of the Pres
Iident's Thanksgiving 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 a
day OF prayer and of thanksgiving
to God.
Year by year this nation grows
in strength and worldly power.
During the century and quarter
that has elapsed since our entry
into the circle of independent peo-
pies we have grown and prospered
in material things to degree
never known before, and not now
known in any other country. The
thirteen colonies which struggled
along the sea coast Of the Atlantic
and were hemmed in but few
miles west of the tide water by the
Indian-haunted wilderness, have
been transformed into the mighti-
est republic which the world has
ever seen. Its domains stretch
across the continent from one to
the other of the two great oceans
and it exercises dominion alike in
the arctic and tropic realms. The
growth in wealth and population
has surpassed even the growth in
territory. Nowhere in the world
is the average of Individual COM
fort and material well-being as
high as in our fortunate land.
For the very reason that in ma
terial we'll being we have thus
abounded, we owe it to the AL
mighty to show equal progress in,
moral and spiritual things. With
a nation, as with the individuals
who make up a nation, material
well-being is an indispensable
foundation. But the foundation
avails nothing by itself. That life
is wasted, and worse than wasted,
which is spent in piling, heap upon
heap, those things which minister
merely to the pleasure of the body
and to the power that rests only on
wealth.
SPIRIT LIFE NEEDED.
Upon material well-being as
foundation must be raised the
structure of the lofty life of the
spirit. if this nation is properly to
fulfill its great mission and to ac-
complish all that we so urgently
hope, and desire. The things of the
body are good; the things of the
intellect better; but best of all are
the things of our soul; for, in the
nation as in the individual, in the
long run it is character that counts.
Let US, therefore, as a people, set
our faces resolutely against evil and,
with broad charity, with kindliness.
and good will toward all men, but
with unfiinching determination to
smite down wrong, strive wi ith all
the strength that is given US for
Righteousness in public and in pri
vate life.
Now, therefore l, Theodore
Roosevelt, president of the United
States, do set apart Thursday, the
twenty-sixth day of November,
next, as day of general thanks
giving and prayer, and on that day
l recommend that the people shall
cease from their daily work, and,
in their homes or in their churches,
most devoutly to thank the AL
mighty for the many and great
blessings they have received in the
past, and to pray that they may be
given strength so to order their
lives as to deserve continuation
of these blessings in the future.
In witness whereof | have here
unto set my hand and caused the
seal of the United States to be
affixed.
Done at the city of Washington,
this thirty-frst day of October in
the year of our Lord, one thousand,
nine hundred and eight, and of the
independence of the United States,
the one hundred and thirty-third.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
By the president:
ALVEY A. ADEE,
Acting Secretary of State.