The Green Forest tribune., 1909-11-19

ing as being peculiarly an American holiday and it is the truth that at of the em- bassies there is a more marked recognition of the day than there is in the households of Washington Americans whose Pilgrim fore fathers set the example of giving thanks for the harvest home.
 President Taft is of New England ancestry, and the celebration of Thanksgiving in the old and approved style of New England is to him not only matter of pleasure but of duty. The president goes to church on Thanksgiving day morning just as all other presidents before him have gone to church the holiday since custom established it that the chief executive should urge the people in public proclamation to get together for praise offerings. It would not do for president to decline to follow the advice that he has given the people.
 For great many years presidential fami- lies have eaten Rhode Island turkeys for their Thanksgiving dinner. The Taft family follows precedent in most things. It isn't, perhaps, that Rhode Island turkeys are better than h. diana turkeys, Oklahoma turkeys or the turkeys of any other state, but gentleman named Vose who lives down in Rhode Island, has made it practice for years to fatten a special turkey for White House consumption. The bird that goes to the presidents table never weighs less than 25 pounds.
 About five years ago the Rhode Island tur- key gift to the White House caused something of a sensation. It was not the birds fault, however Before the turkey is shipped from the Rhode Island breeding ground to the White House, it is killed and plucked. This fact did not prevent the publication of story in a cer- tain newspaper, story which aroused the ire of President Roosevelt to such extent that he issued a warm statement that could in no wise be called a second Thanksgiving procla- nation.
 An eastern newspaper declared in it's col umns that the Rhode Island turkey arrived at the White House, alive and kicking, and that Theodore Roosevelt turned it loose in the lot back of the executive mansion and allowed his children to run the bird to death catching it and then, and plucling from it. wing and tail feathers, only to loose the bird once more, and to go on again with the chase.
 This story of cruelty to animals charged against himself and Kermit, Archibald and Quentin made the president mad. There is other word to be used. He forbade access to the White House offices and to the various de- partments of government to the correspond ents of the offending paper. How the story originated, no one ever knew for the turkey was dead and cold long before it left it's native turkey yard. It is supposed that some one told it as a joke and that the newspaper core spondent took it seriously. At any rate, one Thanksgiving turkey days after it had passed from life gave the country something to talk about for a week
 The White House Thanksgiving dinner is like the Thanksgiving dinner in the homes of most good Americans who able to buy a dinner of holiday proportions The president, his wife and children eat roast turkey with stufing cranberry sauce, mashed potatoes and other vegetables and wind up with pumpkin pie.
 It is entirely probable that the presidents wife has to watch the cook when the pumpkin pie making is in progress, and be especially watchfui if the cook born and raised in Washington. There is firm conviction in the minds of all District of Columbia people that squash and pumpkin are the same thing. Ask for pumpkin pie in Washington restau- rant and they give you squash pie, and if you are courageous enough to protest, you will be told that there is difference between squash and pumpkin, and the information will be giv en you with air of pity for benighted igno- rance. The wise Washingtonian who has gone to the capital from other sections invariably imports his pumpkins, for if one is dered from the market man squash invari- ably turns up in the kitchen. The New Eng lander holds that no Thanksgiving dinner is complete without the pumpkin pie. President Taft knows pumpkin when he sees 1t.
 It has been said that the foreigners the am- bassadors, the envoys extraordinary, the min- isters plenipotentiary and all the attaches of tho different legations, give heed to Thanksgiv- ing day An American secretary of state who hailed from New England once said that the foreigners rejoiced in Thanksgiving because it gave them chance to eat all the turkey that they wanted to without feeling that they called on to give excuse for overlooking. The foreigners love turkey. It is the si- monpure American institution to which they have sworn allegiance. The turkey is an Amer lean bird and while it is found in Europe, it is