Western Kansas world. [volume] (WaKeeney, Kan.) 1885-current, 1908-11-14
President issues Annual thanksgiving
Proclamation.

steady growth of the nation
in strength, worldly power.
wealth and population, and that
our average of individual comfort
and we'll being is higher than
that of any other country in the
world For this, he declares,
Americans owe it to the Almighty
to show equal progress in moral
and spiritual things.
The proclamation follows:
By the President of the United
States of America procla-
nation;
Once again the season is at
hand when, according to the an
cient custom of our people, it be-
comes 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 a quar-
ter that has elapsed since our
entry into the circle of indepen-
dent people we have grown and
prospered 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
haunted wilderness, have been
transformed into the mightiest
republic which the world has
| ever seen.
It's domains stretch across the
continent from one to the other
of the two greatest 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 else in
the world is the average of in
dividual comfort and material
well being as high as in our
fortunate land.
For the very reason that in
material well being we have thus
abounded, we owe to the AL
mighty to show equal progress
in moral and spiritual things.
With nation, as with the indi-
viduals who make up a nation,
material well being is an indis-
pensible 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 to the power that rests
only on wealth.
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 it's great mission and to
accomplish all that we so ardent
| ly 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 indi-
vidual, in the long run it is char
acter that counts. Let US, there
fore, as a people set our faces
reSolutely against evil, and with
broad charity, with kindness and
good will toward all men, but
with unfinching determination
to smite down wrong, strive with
all the strength that is given US
for righteousness in public and
private life.
Now, therefore, I, Theodore
Roosevelt, president of the
United States, do setapart Thurs
day, the Goth day of November,
next, as a day of general Thanks
giving and prayer, and on that
day | 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 receiv-
ed in the past, and 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, I have
here unto set my hand and cauS-
ed the seal of the United States
to be affixed.
Done at the city of Washing
ton, this thirty-frs day of Oc-
tober, 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.
T1naalOro R0oCox-a1f