The Chesterfield advertiser. [volume] (Chesterfield C.H., S.C.) 1884-1978, 1916-11-30
National Thanksgiving
By Edward Everett Hale.

| Inc people OF the United States
celebrate Thanksgiving Day with
more and more accord every year.
Indeed, one might say they have more
and more reason.
| The fathers Of New England, hem
med in between wilderness and the
sea, watched their doubtful crops in
anxious memories of other years of
famine. When they found that once
more there was fish enough and pork
enough and corn and beans and pump
kins and squashes and turnips enough
to carry them through the winter they
met to thank God, knowing full well
how many hazards they had passed
through, for those days as compared
with to-day were days of pinching
poverty. The New England historian,
DR.. Palfrey, says, with a certain dry
ness, which shows probably some per-
sonal preferences, Baked beans point
to the time when it was desirable to
vegetable by flavoring it with the
flesh of the commonest animal"
All this is happily changed. For the
world, indeed, the old peril of famine
is well nigh forgotten. And why?
The American of to-day gives thanks
that famine is we'll nigh impossible.
First of all, he remembers that he
is no longer dependent upon the crops
of few hundred square miles or the
fishing voyage of a single summer.
Thanks to the providence of God as
it has worked in history and to the
work of brave men who believed they
were children of God, the petty colo
nies which were thus described are
meanest citizen, the most foolish, the
weakest and the poorest, has every
right and privilege before the law
which belongs to the strongest, the
richest and tho wisest, though he were
born in the purple of luxury. To the
widows son of the poorest citizen of
that nation, then, there will come his
daily bread in answer to his daily
prayer, though it come from the mill
ing of California wheat or be the sal
mon caught at the falls of the Spo-
kane, without let or hindrance from
any power on earth. If there is food
in plenty in one region, as by the fall
| of an avalanche down a mountain, it
will nrfa l,yc ,,>
other region. And this the American
boy and girl owe to the good Provi-
dence and to the brave men who made
this country one and have kept it one.
1t is too much the blindness of our
time to speak as if such simple bust
ness as daily food came to us as a
matter of course. There is, indeed, a
| careless habit in which Americans Of
ten speak,, as if, because they are
Americans, they have everything
| without so much as asking for it.
Fourth of July orators and street cor
ner braggarts alike talk of the natural
products of this country almost in the
tone Of the emigrants who expect to
pick up doubloon upon the sidewalk.
One is tempted to ask such braggarts
why the country did not produce such
wealth 100 years ago or 200 years
ago. Why was Dakota then des-
ert? Why were the hills of Alabama
only hiding place for a few thou
sand Creek Indians? Why did they
not forge the iron under their feet?
Why did not the Iroquois in western
peaches and the pears such as have
been growing there this autumn?
The answer is this: All the wealth
of America comes to her from the
work of her men and women. The
victory which yields it is their victory
1t is the victory of spirit conquerine
matter 1t comes in the daily miracle
of daily life, where children of God
led by God, taught by God, alive ir
his life and fellow workmen with him
carry out his designs and subdue the
earth. 1t is neither sensible nor CRATE
full to speak of teeming granaries, OF
increasing trade, of new mines, of oil
of iron or of gas as if these things
were wealth in themselves. They are
only wealth when man strikes the
rock and its waters flow. And this
man must be not the savage man who
cares only for his own personal appe'
tite. 1t must be man, the child OF
God, seeking a future better than to-
day, determined to bring in a noblcl
age than that which he lives in.