Decorah public opinion. (Decorah, Winneshiek County [Iowa]) 1895-1928, 1908-11-18
THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION.
President Roosevelt Calls Upon Americans
TO Give Thanks for Manifold Blessings.

i)J niiO lCSlOoAb VI bIl6 Oulbtu
States of America-a proclamation !:
"Once again the season is at hand
when. according to tie ancient custom
of our people. it became the duty of
the President to appoint a day Of
PRAYER and of thanksgiving to God
Year hy year this nation grows in
strength and power. During the GEN.
tury and quarter that has elapsed
since our entry into the circle of in
dependent people have grown and pro-
spered in material things to a 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 a
few miles west of tidewater by the
Indian hunted wilderness have been
transformed into the mightiest repub-
lie which the world has ever seen.
Its domains stretch across the contin-
ent from one to the other of the two
greatest oceans, and it exercises dom.
inion alike in the arctic and tropic
realms. The growth in wealth and
population has surpassed even the
growth in territory. Nowhere else in
the world is the average of individual
comfort and material well-being as
high as in our fortunate land.
For every reason that in material
well l-being we have thus abounded.
we owe to the Almighty to show equal
progress in moral and spiritual
things. With nation, as with the
individuals who make up nation.
material we'll being is an indispens-
able foundation. But the foundation
avails nothing by itself
''That life is wasted. and worse than
wasted, which is spent in .piling,
heap on heap, those things which
minister merely to the pleasure of the
body and the power that rests only on
wealth.
Upon material well.being as a
foundation must be raised structure
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 soul: for, in the nation
as in the individual, in the long run
it is character that counts. Let us
therefore as people set our faces re-
solutely against evil. and with broad
charity, with kindness and good will
toward all men, put with unflinching
determination to smite down wrong,
strive with. all the strength that is
given us for rightenous in public and
in private life.
Now, therefore, /, Theodore
Roosevelt, President of the United
States. do set apart Thursday, the
Goth day of November, next. as day
of general thanksgiving and PRAYER,
and on that dav l recommend that
the people shall cease from their daily
work, and. in their homes or in their
churches, meet devoutly to thank the
Almighty 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 a continuation of these
blessings in the future.
In witness whereof l have herean-
to set my hand and caused the sea-
of the United States to be affixed.
"Done at the City Of Washington
this 31st day of October. in the yeal
of our Lord 1908. and of the indepen
dence # the United States. the one
hundred and thirty. third.
THEODORE ROOSEVELT.
by the President:
ALVEY A ADEE,
Acting Secretary OF State.