Orleans County monitor. [volume] (Barton, Vt.) 1872-1953, 1916-11-29

ii celebrate Thanksgiving day
S 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 a 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 we'll
how many hazards they had passed
through, for those days as compared
with today were days of pinching pow
erty The New England historian, DR..
Palfrey, says, with a certain dryness,
which shows probably some personal
preferences, "Baked beans point to the
time when it was desirable to make
the most of the commonest 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 today gives thanks that
famine is well nigh impossible.
First of all, he remembers that he is
no longer dependent on the crops of a
few hundred square miles or the fish
ing voyage Of single summer.
Thanks to the providence Of God as
it has worked in history and to the
Of ho1i
were children Of God, the petty colo
MES which were thus described are
now one nation. Of that nation the
. neanest 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 the 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
salmon caught at the falls of the SpO-
| kane, without let or hindrance from
any power of earth. If there is food
in plenty in one region, as by the fall
of an avalanche down a mountain, it
will certainly seek consumption in an
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.
It is too much the blindness of our
time to speak as if such a simple bust
ness as daily food came to us as a mat
ter Of course. There IS, indeed, a care
| less habit in which Americans often
speak, as if, because they are Amer
leans, they have everything without SO
much as asking for it. Fourth of July
orators and street corner braggarts
alike talk Of the natural products of
this country almost in the tone of the
emigrants who expect to pick up a
| 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 a desert? Why
were the hills Of Alabama only a hid
ing place for a few thousand Greek
Indians? Why did they not forge the
iron under their feet? Why did not
the Iroquois in western New York pick
from their trees the 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. It comes in the daily miracle
Of daily life, where children Of God
led by God, taught by God, alive ii
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, o.
increasing trade of new mines, of oil
Of iron or Of gas as if these things wer,
wealth in themselves. They are only
wealth when man strikes the rock an(
its waters flow. And this man mus
be not the savage man who cares onl,
! for his own personal appetite It mus
be man, the child of God, seeking flu
ture better than today, determined t,
| bring in a nobler age than that whicl
} he lives in.