Show PEOPLE OF THIS LAND OF PLENTY LACK comparison of our times and the pilgrims thanksgiving day has become aso clatch in a natural enough manner with the lya of plenty an idea that la translated into the concrete on all american tables that day ours Is the land of plenty a fat land a rich land and on that day of the year americans commemorate and celebrate the tact by partaking of good cheer the custom comes down to us as we all know from a generation of american which did not have plenty and had the best of reasons for being thankful and testify ins their gratitude when the lean season was past and a tat one cime there have been vast changes in our land since the pilgrims rated this practice which their descendants ants still tollow the early ghers of thanks were thankful for the little that came to them after faithful labor and harsh struggle we who have much and have it without hard struggle also are thankful tor what we lieve but probably are a trifle too complacent about it and a little too likely to imagine it comes wholly through our deserving hav ing much and regarding what we have chiefly as means of administer ing to our pleasure and comfort we rather curiously testify our thankful nis for it by administering to our pleasure and comfort tn extra fashion on the daiy diy of thanksgiving we suppose it really would be more appropriate if we should fast on that day some cause for thought but all this Is to consider only one phabe of our plenty the plenty depre scented bv n full table this Is a sym bol of our material prosperity and aps Is not the one we should too fixedly what we should do probably on this day I 1 to look nhoun and inquire a to see whether our plenty exists in other forms f w and it loen loe n t perhaps wf ahne occasion some time to anke day what it oreg was u commemoration of our tn our own labor and what we have lacked ne would have a little better und of the meaning of saving most of us ft agree we think aberlin s plenty Is not as well rounded out as it should be our fatness 1 a little too much in our so lu speak our richness in alie iii tokens that are useful nl in us possession of mate tur plenty does not ex and in our aur patriotism our i justice tolerance or pub lit in these possessions I 1 and for the very ranson tt at we have not la hairl undergone and inn dilill in acil ithem nor can we fuei bliem in any ottar any we can n i IK in etli as we d ark and if ve could we never hn of iston to bp thankful for 1 auml some oi mind and that can line nv n bense of lie n be truly thankful fir thill tuii tome eftim tenil h why the arlt ash limp i re 11 led stub n problem bv tn 11 te li nil fi r it ims t of nil who r IP it need for more humility it Is st of 11 question then ili hn i un otili only on ohp il or side on jj f alile tiiu kep up T nil I 1 ful nouli carlyle tell t u la L S 1 i t sl am nothing more hateful than a form or symbol from which all meaning has departed simulacrum he calls it a thing to become empty thanksgiving day Is worth ing it we can preserve ita meaning with it but we hall never be able to do that if we come to think that plenty Is fittingly celebrated by the display of plenty in the forms we have it and hiding our lacks as things with which such a day has no concern if thanksgiving partakes something of humiliation ard humbleness as our forefathers conceived it it Is the things we tack in our national life and character and lack because we have made no proper effort to possess pos seas them that should be most in our thoughts that day it is doubtful whether they are our thanksgiving we fear Is more a boast than an ex pres slon of gratitude an humble and a contrite heart must precede any genuine expression of thanks america Is not particularly knonk tor its humility pilgrim times and ours if we want to preserve this alon in the spirit of its founders we have only to follow their exam pie the things they lacked they acquired by effort we do not lack the same things as it happens we do not fur example lack turkey and we are rather missing the lesson of the pilgrims it we confine our efforts to acquiring only the things they had need to acquire we suspect if they had lacked in the same measure the things we lack today they would have directed their efforts toward lag those ti lings but the pilgrims had form of plenty that 1 spirit and their wants were material our as to ohp direct opposite but whereas our ancestors rounded out their plenty supplying their de clelen les by labor and striving we are satisfied to allow ours to one sided and our thanksgiving to be a praise 0 plenty that represents too little of a races struggle to acquire something it needs much more than the fatness of a thanksgiving turkey rita star |