Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1933-11-26

BY HENRY w. LAWRENCE.
IN THE social calendar of early New Eng
land, Fast day and Thanksgiving day were
big events; so big that they have been
called the two saints days of the Puritans,
in honor, respectively. of Saint starve and
Saint Stuff.
Several million times orators and writers
have gravely broken the news to patient public
that the very first Thanksgiving celebration in
New England occurred at Plymouth, in 1921.
and during the succeeding three hundred-odo
years it has been matter Of pardonable pride
to all good Plymouthians that their town
started this praiseworthy and perennial inSti-
tuition.
Rarely, if ever has any Bostonian risen to
claim for his home city share in this glorious
achievement and to challenge PlymouthS
monopoly of the praise that arises each No
vember from millions of dinner tables heavily
laden in honor of Saint Stuff. Yet there is
much to be said for Boston as the town that
really put Thanksgiving on the map.
In the first place, the Boston Thanksgiving
celebration was far more dramatic than the one
at Plymouth, and the next motion picture pro-
ducer who plans to film 1.-THE Birthday Of
Thanksgiving will do well to take note of this.
The Plymouth performance was, after all,
largely ShreWd diplomatic conference with the
dangerous Indian neighbors, a sort of CASTRO
nomic powwow in which pumpkin pie and
plum pudding took the place of gtnpowder and
cold steel as instruments of foreign policy.
h lot so the Boston scene. There have
thrilling run to the rescue" in which
the provision ship from England comes roaring
onto the screen at the very moment when the
grim, gaunt specter Of death by starvation is
about to run off with the emaciated and de-
spairing little Colony
Authentic records tell us that the people
were necesstated to live on clans and muscles
and ground-nuts and acorns." Even the Gov
ernor was up against it; he had the last batch
of bread in the oven," and somebody caught
him in the act Of giving 1.-The last handful of
meal in the barrel unto poor man distressed
by the wolf at the door,
Six months earlier ship had been sent to
England for supplies, but, alas she carried no
wireless, and no news of her had come back.
BY this time she might be submarine, with
her crew as dead as, but no deader than, the
starving Colonists were likely soon to be.
Under the desperate circumstances, fast day
was proclaimed possibly it should have been
called faster" day., when everybody was
urged ito seek the Lord by fasting and
prayer
In between the prayers the hopeful ran down
to the shore to scan the seascape, and there
they saw-nothing but the and sky. Then
more prayers, and afterward more scanning;
then less hope.
But neither Providence nor the movie pro-
Queer would be willing to let the thing end this
way, so after just the right amount of agoniz-
ing suspense the most far-s.ghted of the scam
ners thinks he sees speck on the distant
waves, and, oddly enough the speck grows into
a SAIL and a ship, and then the glad whoops
begin to resound from the threats of those not
yet too starved to whoop, and into the harbor
comes the vessel, laden with provisions for
them ALL
After they had somewhat eaten, and slightly
So0thed the gnawing pangS Of emptiness by
stufing what more natural and appropriate
than that their reviving gratitude should be
given a chance to express itself in solemn
public way? So they held sincere and spon-
taneous Thanksgiving celebration.
I'VE held a day of thanksgiving for this
ships arrival" says the Governors Journal, by
order from the Governor and council, directed
to all the plantations" No diplomatic confer
ence about this. There is record that In
dams were even invited
1 AOREOVER-and this fact should weigh
wi with all devout admirers Of the great first
President of these United StateS-the date
chosen for this first Boston Thanksgiving
I'VE NHN NNSNNW n