History of Thanksgiving from 1920

    This was written in 1920 after the end of World War One.The great social and religious festival known as "Thanksgiving" dates back to the Pilgrims and Puritans of New England. The sentiment of graditude for favors granted is as old as humanity, and ages before the Massachusetts settlers were born mankind was in the habit of expressing its thankfulness by some form of public celebration. But the institution of thanksgiving as an annual festival of thanks and praise for blessings received at the hands of the Great Author of our being had its origin among the founders of New England.
    For reasons which were "good and sufficient" unto themselves, the Puritains abolished Christmas, and feeling the need of some other day to replace it, they instituted Thanksgiving day. After the first harvest of the New England colonies Governor Bradford ordered a public rejoicing with prayer and praise. This was in October or November, 1621. On July 30, 1623, was held the second Thanksgiving, the first ever appointed by a governor in an authoritive way. On February 22, 1631, there occured in Boston the first Thanksgiving celebration of which any written account remains among the colonial archives. The first regular Thanksgiving proclamation was printed in Massachusetts in 1677.
    The first Thanksgiving proclamation ever issued by a president of the United States was by George Washington in 1795. From Massachusetts the custom spread to other colonies, in 1830 the governor of New York appointed a day for public Thanksgiving and other northern states quickly followed.
    The turkey began to take first place at Thanksgiving feasts back in colonial days. It was the wild variety that won favor then---a fowl with a fine flavor, but no longer known either to commerce or the hunters. The magnificent bronze creatures that have taken the place of the wild forerunners leave no reason to regret the latter's disappearance. So handsome are these high-bred birds that slaughtering them to make a holiday feast seems something like a crime. It is a crime who's heinousness is forgotten when dinner is served, however.
    The vastness of America's cause for rejoicing today cannot be reached even by the international outpouring, for never before have we had such colosal reason for Thanksgiving in the liberation of some nations, the succor of others, and the release of our own highest impulses for free play. Since the days of the Nazarene no such words have been spoken, no such doctrine preached, as we hear from day to day at the close of humanity's tragedy. Our thanks are deep and loud, sounding around the world.