The Brattleboro reformer. (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1907-1912, 1908-11-06
THANKSGIVING DAY NOV. 20.
President Roosevelt Issues His Annual
Proclamation.

President Roosevelt has issued the an
nual Thanksgiving day proclamation a
follows:
by the president OF the United States.
A Proclamation.
Once again the season IL al hand when
according 10 the ancient custom OF ou
people. II becomes the duty OF the prcsi
dent 90 appoint day Of prayer and o.
thanksgiving to God. Year by year thi,
nation grows in strength and world,
power. During the century and a quar-
ter that has elapsed since our entry into
the circle Of independent peoples, 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 seacoast Of the Atlantic and were
hemmed in but few miles west OF tide.
water by the Indian haunted wilderness,
have been transformed into the mightiest
republic which the world has ever seen.
Its domains stretch across the continent
from one TO the other OF the great oceans,
and il exercises dominion alike in the
Arctic and tropic realms. The growth in
wealth and population has surpassed even
the growth in territory. Nowheres else
in the world is the average OF individual
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 it to the Almighty to show equal
progress in moral and spiritual things.
With a nation, as with the individuals
who make up a nation, material we'll
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 which rests only upon
wealth. Upon material well-being as
foundation must be raised the structure
of the lofty life of the spirit if this ma
ton is properly to fulfill its great mission
and to accomplish all that we SO ardently
are good; the things of the intellect bet
ter, but best of all are the things of the
soul, for in the nation as in the individ |
ual, in the long run it is character that |
counts. Let us therefore, as a people set |
our faces resoutely against evil and with |
broad charity, with kindness and good |
will toward all men, but with unhinching |
to smite down wrong |
strive with all the strength that is given
us for righteousness in public and in pri-
,ate life.
Now, therefore, |, Theodore Roosevelt,
president of the United States, do set
apart Thursday, the 26th day of Novem-
Der next, as day of general thanksgiv-
ng and prayer, and on that day ! recon-
mend that the people shall cease from
heir daily work and, in their homes or
n their churches, meet devoutly to thank
he Almighty for the many and great
blessings they Have received in the past
nd to pray that they may be given
trength so to order their lives as to de-
erve continuation of these blessings in
he future.
In witness whereof, I have hereunto
ct my hand and caused the seal of the
Tnited States to be affixed.
Done at the city Of Washington. this
LIST day of October in the year of our
ord one thousand nine hundred and
ght, and of the independence of the
nited States the one hundred and thirty
lird. Theodore Roosevelt.
By the president,
Alvey A. Adee, acting secretary of
ate.