The Wolf Point herald. (Wolf Point, Mont.) 1913-1940, 1922-11-30
FESTIVAL now
ALL AMERICAN
Though It's Origin Was Pagan,
Thanksgiving Is Peculiarly
of This Country.
Pilgrim Fathers Gave Religious Char
acter to Celebration Which for
Centuries Had Been Occasion Only
fer Material J~oIiiheation.


sense Of fun before starting to e a
history have had many a chuckle over
the Pilgrim and Puritan festival OF
Thanksgiving. These early settlers OF
New England were so m%ilitantly Chris
ian that they could not bear any sug
gestion Of an earlier creed. They
objected to Christmas as "heathenish,
because it contained-as 1t still con
tains-so many relics Of pre-Chr1Stian
days. Having done this, they turned
round, seized on the most thoroughly
pagan of all celebrations, that OF the
gathered harvest, and made 1t an insti-
tuition that has grown and spread fol-
three centuries, Is the indictment
drawn by a writer In an eastern maya
zine.
But the joke Is not all on the PHI
grims. True, they went back to a fes-
tival which has been held ever since
man began to plant and gather crops
but they made of it something peculiar
ly modern, Christian, and, at the last,
American.
They gave a religious character to
d CcicDldIlOn WHICH, lOI dSCo a OCOh
a purely material Notification, and
made 1t a part of the community's pub
lie policy an occasion for coming to-
gether in common aspirations, hopes
and gratitude. All the changes and
developments of the last 300 years
have not been able to change the es-
sential character of the Pilgrim
Thanksgiving. How many inventions
of today will last SO long?
The first Thanksgiving feast, held
in the fall of 1921, was not ordained
by formal proclamation. The colony
was too small to need such a notice.
But the circumstances under which
the celebration was held are told in
Governor Bradford's history In a way
well worthy of quotation:
"They> (the colonists) BECAME now to
gather in the small harvest they had,
and to itte up their houses and dwell
ings against winter, being all well re-
covered In health & strength. & had
all things in good plenty for as some
were thus Employed in a~ffaires abroad,
others were exercised in fishing, aboute
codd, & bass, & other fish, of which
they tooke good store, of which every
family had their portion. And
now begane to come in store of foule,
as winter approached, of which this
place did abound when they came
first, but afterwards decreased by de
grees. And besides water foule, Their
was great store of wild Turkies, of
which they took many, besides vension,
&C. Besids they had aboute a peck
a meale a weeke to a person, or
now, since harvest, Indean corne to
that proportion. Which made many
afterwards write so largely of their
plenty hear to their friends in Eng
land, which were not famed, but true
reports"
Excepting small boys, one can hard
ly imagine the folk of a modern com
munity Boosting about their plenty
under the stimulus of a peck a meale
a weeke to a person." plus such game
as could be trapped, or shot with flint
lock firearms. But such things depend
mainly on the point OF view, and that
not have improved so much In
the last three centuries as we think.
We Of today know more Of a thousand
things than did Governor Bradford and
his companions, but 1t is not so certain
that we know more Of the basic bust
ness of living.
Excellent hearts had our fathers of
and for steady, cheerful cour
- IT, Dfr-~;-& a111~;eka NV hoxyn
been surpassed.
Twelve years later, the colony had
grown 80 much that a formal procla-
seemed necessary. The first
one was issued on October /, 1888,
and the Thanksgiving celebration was
held two weeks later, October 10.
The custom soon spread throughout
New England. Then, on October 3,
1889, the new President of the new
George Washington, called on
the American people to assemble on
Nov. 26 and give thanks, among other
For the signal and manifold Mer-
,ies, and the favorable Interposition
Of His Providence In the course and
conclusion of the late War
FOR the peaceful and rational manner
which we have been enabled to es-
Constitutions and Governments
'or our safety and happiness and par
the national one now lately
instituted"
Washington, 1t might be deduced
from this alone, was a nationalist,
With no leaning whatever toward state
sovereignty, M with a perfect readi-
hess to make his preferences mani
lest, In prayer as well as in any other
way. An amusing instance OF this
'rankness occurs later in the same
proclamation, where he asks the peo-
Die to pray heaven. ITO protect and
'uide all Sovereigns and Nations (es-
such as have shown kindness
o usl."
An honored lineage. that of this
'~est-beloved festival. 1t started in
he days when the NeoIithic dweller
the lakes Of Switzerland finished
p in - IL A--- naH /