Gloucester County Democrat. (Woodbury, N.J.) 1878-1932, 1911-11-30
THANKSGIVING.


Today brings another pause in our
national life. A year has passed
since we last gave heed in an unani-
nous way to the material blessings
which have been our portion. and the
season for again Rendering to Gaze
sar the things that are Caesars is
with us. For truly. Thanksgiving
Day is not day set apart on which
to give thanks for political rest and
political happiness, nor the day when
we ought to be mindful of religious
liberty (although the two are closely
linked together, but it is primarily
and above all. the day when we should
be prayerfully thankful for our ma
terial gifts, and the satisfaction OF
material and physical wants.
Thanksgiving in its origin brings
us back to that day in 1921 when the
Pilgrim Fathers knelt in the little
village of Plymouth to give thanks for
the abundant harvest which had just
been gathered, the occasion being re-
peated often during that and the fol-
lowing century
During the war of the Revolution,
the Continental Congress recommend
ed days for thanksgiving annually and
again in 1854 for the return of peace
as did President Madison in 1915. AZ
ter the adoption of the Federal Com
stitution, Washington appointed such
a day in 1889, and again in 1895 for
the general benefits and welfare of the
nation. Beginning with 1917, the fes-
tival has been observed annually in
New York, and since 1863, the presi-
dents have always issued 4proclama-
lions, appointing the last Thursday of
November as Thanksgiving Day.
Some, there are, who feel they have
been sadly neglected in those things
which are supposed to make happi-
ness. But with such men, their idea
of what happiness is is often distorted
or perhaps and more likely. they do
not recognize it when it is within their
grasp. Woodrow Wilson has said MANY
good things, and to those who think
themselves as the "under-dog his
views of what happiness consists of
will be well worth the reading:
Many men pile up great fortunes
and fail to find happiness at the heart
OF them. Happiness comes with a
pure heart. Happiness comes with
unselfish motives. Happiness comes
with the consciousness that you have
served and sacrificed and done for
men what you would have them do for
you. 1t does not come. it never has
come, it never can come. from the
knowledge that you have tranlpled
men under foot and spoiled human
lives IN order to attain it. Release
the generous energies of our people
ana you viii come upon time when
the hearts of men will flower and
Will see that the true happiness Of life
IS not in deyising schemes of power.
49, IL \ Cdl414AS LII themselves the
common aspirations of the race"
But with the great mass of man
kind, happiness is not an unknown
quantity, although most of us do not
appreciate it when it is ours. 70
those who have not the material pros
perity to be thankful for, many at
least have health and enough to sus-
tain life comfortably, and no matter
how hard their lot may seem to he
and how hard they may have to strug-
gle to keep from succumbing they
should at least be thankful for life it
self, and breathe again the prayer of
the tortured galley-slaye of the mag
nation Of Rudyard Kipling, when he
says:
God be thanked whate'er comes after,
] have lived and toiled with men.
*