The Ocala evening star. [volume] (Ocala, Fla.) 1895-1943, 1918-11-28

THIS DAY OF THANKSGIVING

This IS the greatest day or IhankS-
giving America has ever known. 1t
Immediately follows Americas great
est victory.
The greatest one before it was
that of fifty three years ago, when III
a million American homes thanks
were given for the nations victory
and the safe return of their sons.
But, over third of the country lay
the shadow of defeat, the crushing
poverty of the day and a distrust of
the future that it took third of a
century and another war to remove.
Today we may all be thankful-we
are all Americans, there are no more
sections, the soldiers and sailors from
every state have fought side by side,
the people at home have all worked
together, for victory for the nation
and for all humanity, and have won.
We should be thankful that our
country has proven itself the peer of
the other great nations that calmly
chose the furnace seven times heated
of war to the death rather than bow
the knee to the Prussian Baal.
We should be thankful to the heroes
who died that humanity might live,
and to those other heroes who suffer-
ed wounds and sickness for the same
greatest cause, and with our thank
fulness should go the resolve that for
them at least the reproach that re-
publics are hngrateful should have no
meaning.
We should be thankful that the fire
that was lit at Jamestown and Ply
mouth Rock, that blazed up at Lex
ington to prove beacon to the OPP
pressed of the earth, and to burn on
thru the long years has leaped into a
consuming fire in which the worst of
tyrannies has crumbled.
We should be thankful that the
America of Wilson is the America of
Washington and Lincoln, only greater
and more united.
We should be thankful that the
spirit that men showed at Bunker
Hill and Valley Forge has not only
come down to the sons Of their sons
sons, but that it's divine fire has also
entered into the souls of the sons of
the men who later came across the
sea.
We should be thankful that our
boys, on the battlefield, the march
and the voyage have shown the ten
acious bravery of Grant and the chiv-
alric courage of Lee.
We should be thankful that in its
ability to help itself and to help
others our country has shown itself
the greatest and most resourcefu, on
the face of the earth.
We should be.thankful for the tens
OF millions of seIf-denying and hard
working people who by their efforts at
home have SO efficiently backed the
millions who went to the battlefield.
We should be thankful for the
statesman who calmly and despite the
vituperation of the rabble led US into
the war and planned our way to VIC
tory, and whose words of justice and
reason caused long enthralled nations
to break their bonds and even the
besotted victims of autocracy to stop
and think that they, too, might be
men.
We should be thankful for brave
little Belgium, who with her slender
body blocked for awhile the wheels OF
the Prussian Juggernaut, who thru
four years of the foulest oppression
so bravely kept the faith that no ma
ton will ever again have any excuse
for being recreant, and who of all ma
lions is the most grateful to America
We should be thankful, twice thank
fui, to France, whose army like a
long, shining rapier flashed ever be-
lore the eyes and drove deep into the
body of the beast and however much
it might drip with the gore of the en-
envy, or blood from the arm that
welded it, was never befouled with
treachery or cruelty.
We should be thankful to Britain