The silver state. [volume] (Winnemucca, Nev.) 1909-1925, 1921-11-22
THE THANKSGIVING
DATE

The day after tomorrow has been
designated as Thanksgiving Thurs
day. Commencing with the period
when the Pilgrim Fathers worked
in their fields throughout the warm
New England summers, with guns
alongside of their crude hand farm
implements, and went to church on
Sunday, armed to repell hostile In
dams, the date has been observed
as time to give thanks for the
seasons harvest largess.
In the early days of North Amer
lean settlement Thanksgiving had
| greater religious significance than
now. Divine dispensation was rec
ognized in the favor Of the season
and Christian beatitude reigned su-
preme at the simple firesides. To-
day the full meaning Of Thanks
giving Thursday is lost to the av-
erage mind.
The gourmand now anticipates
heavily laden festal board as a
result of an extremeley hard days
| work by the housewife and looks
forward to great steaming turkey
as the centerpiece, stuffed with
dressing and baked to a degree of
tenderness that will make his cpl
curean marathon easy.i Cranberry
sauce and plum pudding are now
regarded as inevitable concomitants
of the national bird, notion that
survives because the hardy folks
who first settled Massachusetts
found these dietery articles within
easy reach. The plum pudding
practice antedated to their previous
residence in Good Hold Hengland,
the cranberries came from Cape
Cod, just as they do very largely to
this day, while turkeys, unlike
those consumed today, were shot
afeld with the clumsy guns Of the
period.
What constituted a princely re-
past in the early days cost little.
The attempt to duplicate the Pill
grim menu now costs much. Tur-
key at fifty cents a pound leaves
little for the average head of a
household to be thankful for.
Yet the turkey cost is only start
in the >present-day disbursement for
the celebrative feast. In the early
days dinner was followed by Bible
reading and prayer. Today the
twisting, cavorting, galloping dance
gets the young on Thanksgiving
night while their elders, too fat
and senile to dance, work at home
at bridge at half cent a point.
The origin Of the practice Of re-
turning thanks at the conclusion |
Of the harvest period goes back in
to mythology. Plenty of evidence
is at hand to show that the observ-
ance did not originate in the Unit
ed States. In truth, the Thanks
giving date has come in this coun-
try to be merely a holiday devoid |
Of religious significance in the |
broad sense Of the term. 1t is now
just time to rest; just one of |
many days when men, but not |
housewives, cease their labors until |
the morrow.
Never before in the history of |
this country has an approaching |
Thanksgiving date SO fully empha-
sized the need of a revival Of the
old time household arts and econo-
mics as the one that impends.
Never before in the history Of our
country have the little things that
go with prudence been as firmly in
mind.
From across the seas come stor-
les Of suffering and self-denial and
the average American community
is not without its illustrations of
grinding poverty. Yet we live to-
day in the hope Of brighter to-
morrow and look forward to the
time when mankind will be purged
Of unholy desire. One of the
bright spots in American history
concerns the efforts of the, admin
istration at Washington to curtail
national ornaments on land and
on sea. To the thinking man this
step is taken by our president as
preliminary to the annulment of
wars activities.
Here we find great single
cause for rejoicing. To save the
youth of the world from wars
horrors and the civilian popula-
tons from wars reflexes would
constitute the greatest accomplish
ment Of all time. Prayerful people
will bend knees on this Thanks
giving Day and beseech the Su-