Los Angeles Times 11/26/2020

A2 THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 26, 2020 LATIMES.COM

PERSPECTIVES

The most beloved hymn of
Thanksgiving bids us to gather to-
gether to ask the Lord’s blessing.
So do perhaps the most poignant,
and unjustly forgotten, presi-
dential remarks in our history,
many delivered at times of national
turbulence and tumult.
Just months after his election,
George Washington — who had led
his beleaguered Revolutionary
War troops in Thanksgiving rituals
outside Valley Forge, Pa., in 1777 —
began the tradition of presidential
proclamations at this season.
In the autumn of 1789 he urged
the young nation to pause in
thanks and to express hope that
“our national government [will be]
a blessing to all the people, by con-
stantly being a Government of
wise, just, and constitutional laws,
discreetly and faithfully executed
and obeyed.”
For more than two centuries,
Washington’s successors have
promulgated Thanksgiving proc-
lamations, urging the country to
reflect on its bounty, as Theodore
Roosevelt did in 1901 when he said
that “no people on earth have such
abundant cause for thanksgiving
as we have,” and to dedicate itself
to preserving what Rutherford B.
Hayes described in 1879 as “the su-
premacy and security of the great
institutions of civil and religious
freedom.”
These proclamations surely are
among the most neglected of presi-
dential remarks. They haven’t had
the staying power of inaugural ad-
dresses (“ask not what your coun-
try can do for you”) or calls to ac-
tion (“a day which will live in in-
famy”) or remembrance (“we can-
not hallow this ground”).
But the Thanksgiving ad-
dresses are instructive, reflecting
how presidents marked the holi-
day in their own periods of chal-
lenge.
For decades the date of Thanks-
giving varied from state to state,
but Abraham Lincoln, heeding the
plea of magazine editor Sarah Jo-
sepha Hale that the day of our an-
nual Thanksgiving be “made a Na-
tional and fixed Union Festival,”
placed the holiday firmly in No-
vember. And so amid the national
distress of the Civil War, Lincoln in
1861 became the founding father of
the modern Thanksgiving.
Perhaps now, after the political
strife of the 2020 election and amid
a galloping pandemic, we might
take comfort in the long-ignored
remarks.

I recommend to [Americans]
that while offering up the ascrip-
tions justly due to Him for such sin-
gular deliverances and blessings,
they do also, with humble peni-
tence for our national perverse-
ness and disobedience, commend
to His tender care all those who
have become widows, orphans,
mourners or sufferers in the lam-
entable civil strife in which we are
unavoidably engaged, and fer-
vently implore the interposition of
the Almighty Hand to heal the
wounds of the nation and to restore
it, as soon as may be consistent
with the Divine purposes, to the
full enjoyment of peace, harmony,
tranquility, and Union.
— Abraham Lincoln, 1863

These remarks from the 16th
president came when the nation
was quite literally, and geo-
graphically, divided. They were is-
sued amid a Civil War that pro-
duced by far the most deaths of any
conflict undertaken by Americans
at a time when the survival of the
country was anything but assured.
This proclamation, moreover,
was issued for a Thanksgiving that
would occur only days before his
Gettysburg Address, in which he
refined this theme and expressed
his devout hope that “government
of the people, by the people, for the
people, shall not perish from the
earth.”
But this proclamation also fore-
shadowed Lincoln’s remarks at his
second inaugural address, when he
dedicated the country “to care for
him who shall have borne the bat-
tle and for his widow and his or-
phan — to do all which may achieve
and cherish a just, and lasting,
peace among ourselves and with
all nations.” And in his 1863
Thanksgiving remarks he spoke of
“the gracious gifts of the Most High
God, who, while dealing with us in
anger for our sins, hath never-
theless remembered mercy” — a
theme he would return to in mor-
dant terms in his 1865 inaugural ad-
dress.

That custom [of Thanksgiving]
we can follow now even in the
midst of the tragedy of a world
shaken by war and immeasurable
disaster, in the midst of sorrow and
great peril, because even amidst
the darkness that has gathered
about us we can see the great bless-
ings God has bestowed upon us,
blessings that are better than mere
peace of mind and prosperity of
enterprise.

We have been given the oppor-

tunity to serve mankind ... by tak-

ing up arms against a tyranny that

threatened to master and debase

men everywhere and joining with

other free peoples in demanding

for all the nations of the world

what we then demanded and ob-

tained for ourselves.

— Woodrow Wilson, 1917

These Thanksgiving remarks

came seven months after Wilson

led the country into World War I.

Wilson, the son of a preacher, was

one part scholar and one part poli-

tician, one part idealist and one

part visionary.

This proclamation reflects the

tones he struck in his war message

in the spring, when he said that

“our object now ... is to vindicate

the principles of peace and justice

in the life of the world as against

selfish and autocratic power.” Two

months after Thanksgiving he

would issue his Fourteen Points

that he hoped would shape the

peace that followed what became

known as the Great War, themes

that he presaged in his Thanksgiv-

ing proclamation.

Inspired with faith and

courage by [the 23rd Psalm], let us

turn again to the work that con-

fronts us in this time of national

emergency: in the armed services

and the merchant marine; in facto-

ries and offices; on farms and in

the mines; on highways, railways

and airways; in other places of

public service to the Nation; and in

our homes.

— Franklin D. Roosevelt, 1942

FDR would deliver three

wartime Thanksgiving proclama-

tions but this one, nearly a year

into Americans’ involvement in the

conflict, has special resonance.

Though U.S. forces prevailed that

month in the Battle of Guadal-

canal, the outcome of the war was

still uncertain. The titanic and

tragic struggle around Stalingrad

had just begun. American troops

were fighting in Operation Torch,

the invasion of French North

Africa.

Roosevelt still found occasion

in 1941 to ask the country to join

him in expressing thanks “for the

bounties of the harvest, for oppor-

tunities to labor and to serve, and

for the continuation of those

homely joys and satisfactions

which enrich our lives.” A man who

was able to conjure optimism even

during the darkest moments of the

Depression and war also glowed

with hope and confidence at

Thanksgiving.

We are deeply grateful for the

bounties of our soil, for the un-

equaled production of our mines

and factories, and for all the vast

resources of our beloved country,

which have enabled our citizens to

build a great civilization. We are

thankful for the enjoyment of our

personal liberties and for the loy-

alty of our fellow Americans.

We offer fervent thanks that we

are privileged to join with other

countries in the work of the United

Nations, which was founded to

maintain peace in a troubled

world and is now standing firm in

upholding the principles of inter-

national justice.

— Harry S. Truman, 1950

Thanksgivings for Truman

posed a peculiar problem. In 1947

his administration — in the first

White House decision announced

on the new technology of television

— began a program of Meatless

Tuesdays and Poultryless Thurs-

days designed to share food with

Europe, which was threatened

with famine.

That made the traditional con-

sumption of turkey and of the pres-

ident’s much favored pumpkin pie

(which required milk in its produc-

tion) problematic.

Truman in 1950 marked his

sixth Thanksgiving as president by

having his turkey, along with

candied sweet potatoes, baked

stuffed peaches, buttered peas and

braised celery, on the Wednesday

before the holiday.

But for Truman — whose presi-

dency overlapped the last months

of World War II and the beginning

of the Korean War — this was no or-

dinary Thanksgiving. Five months

earlier the nation had entered bat-

tle in Korea under the flag of the

United Nations. A month before

Thanksgiving, troops from China’s

People’s Liberation Army had

poured into the conflict, creating

some of the fiercest fighting of the

war.

We give our thanks, most of all,

for the ideals of honor and faith we

inherit from our forefathers — for

the decency of purpose, steadfast-

ness of resolve and strength of will,

for the courage and the humility,

which they possessed and which

we must seek every day to emulate.

As we express our gratitude, we

must never forget that the highest

appreciation is not to utter words

but to live by them.

— John F. Kennedy, 1963

This proclamation, full of the

language of national purpose that

was the Kennedy idiom and the

soundtrack of the New Frontier,

was issued 18 days before the presi-

dent was assassinated. Kennedy

was born 41 miles from Plymouth

Rock and was an admirer of the

rhetoric of the Pilgrim leader John

Winthrop. The holiday would be

celebrated three days after his fu-

neral.

Our real blessings lie not in our

bounty. They lie in those steadfast

principles that the early pilgrims

forged for all generations to come:

the belief in the essential dignity of

man; the restless search for a better

world for all; and the courage — as

shown by our sons in Viet Nam to-

day — to defend the cause of free-

dom wherever on earth it is threat-

ened. These are the eternal bless-

ings of America. They are the bless-

ings which make us grateful even

when the future is uncertain.

— Lyndon B. Johnson, 1965

Johnson made this proclama-

tion as 184,300 American troops

were serving in Vietnam, a conflict

that already was becoming the pre-

occupation of the president — and

the nation.

The context is poignant. Two

days after Thanksgiving came two

significant events: an antiwar

demonstration by 35,000 pro-

testers, the first mass expression of

dissent over the war, and a Penta-

gon report saying that troop levels

in Vietnam should be increased to

400,000 in the next year and per-

haps to 600,000 the year after that.

A Gallup poll that fall showed that

64% of the American public ap-

proved of U.S. involvement in Viet-

nam. By the next Thanksgiving

that figure would drop by about a

quarter.

As we recover from the terrible

tragedies of September 11, Ameri-

cans of every belief and heritage

give thanks to God for the many

blessings we enjoy as a free, faith-

ful, and fair-minded land.

Let us particularly give thanks

for the selfless sacrifices of those

who responded in service to others

after the terrorist attacks, setting

aside their own safety as they

reached out to help their neigh-

bors.... And let us give thanks for

the millions of people of faith who

have opened their hearts to those

in need with love and prayer,

bringing us a deeper unity and

stronger resolve.

— George W. Bush, 2001

For a Thanksgiving shrouded in

grief and introspection, these

words, coming more than two

months after the Sept. 11 terrorist

attacks, reflected the country’s

distress at a time of great national

turmoil. Already American troops

were engaged in combat in Af-

ghanistan.

The country, meanwhile, was

gripped in a debate that weighed

security against civil liberties.

Bush would face stormy days

ahead, but his Thanksgiving proc-

lamation hit just the right notes.

In his last year as president,

Barack Obama, in prescient re-

marks applicable to our time, said

that “the American instinct has ne-

ver been to seek isolation in oppo-

site corners; it is to find strength in

our common creed and forge unity

from our great diversity.” He went

on to cite that first Thanksgiving,

in Plymouth, noting that “these

same ideals brought together peo-

ple of different backgrounds and

beliefs, and every year since, with

enduring confidence in the power

of faith, love, gratitude, and opti-

mism, this force of unity has sus-

tained us as a people.”

We cannot be drawn together

this year, even as we might yearn

to, after the great divisions of the

presidential campaign. But we

might recall the year 1958 — a time

of relative tranquility — when

Dwight D. Eisenhower issued an

unusually lyrical Thanksgiving

proclamation. He spoke of how

Americans “rejoice in the beauty of

our land; in every brave and gener-

ous act of our fellow man; and in the

counsel and comfort of our friends”

and he remarked upon how “we

deeply appreciate the preservation

of those ideals of liberty and justice

which form the basis of our na-

tional life and the hope of interna-

tional peace.”

To these many words we, in our

time of national testing, might add

a single word: Amen.

David M. Shribman is a special

correspondent.

U.S. presidents’ Thanksgiving wishes

Washington and his successors have offered messages that reflect their era’s challenges

WOODROW WILSON is shown circa 1920. For Thanksgiving in 1917, Wilson, who led the U.S. into

World War I, spoke about “taking up arms against a tyranny that threatened to ... debase men.”

Fotosearch

FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT,wife Eleanor and aide Marguerite LeHand, center, in 1933. He

expressed thanks in 1941 “for the bounties of the harvest, for opportunities to labor and to serve.”

Associated Press

JOHN F. KENNEDYreceives a gift from the nation’s turkey industry in 1963. In his Thanksgiving

proclamation, he gave thanks for “the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from our forefathers.”

Harvey GeorgesAssociated Press

By David M. Shribman