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Show Maivijx I . HE Thanksgiving idea is con- i trolled by relativity. The g-y.- -men and women who estab- LfJ lished this strictly American j t" -festival three centuries ago ! 5yvL were thankful because the j iiij' famine threatened by the l summer drought did not come. They found them- i selves possessed of plenty that Is, I enough to eat. Indeed, to those who had endured the perils of the sea In the Mayflower and the hardships of the first winter In the Plymouth colony col-ony their Thanksgiving dinner was a rare feast. Now, of course, everybody In this country has enough to eat. And if we had been through the tilings that the Pilgrims experienced a plenitude of beef stew would seem wonderful. Providence has helped to preserve Thanksgiving relativity. It prevents turkeys from being too numerous, keeps the price of them so high that they are a holiday luxury and thus reminds re-minds the ultimate consumer of his benefits. The Pilgrims had plenty of wild turkey, venison, ducks, codfish and bass, all obtained at non-profiteering rates. But they had no butter, sugar or coffee, and their bread was made of Indian corn. The general dinner, however, was such a contrast to the pitiful meals of the hungry months that they indulged in feasting and mirth. A citizen of 1923 would not be happy If he were transported to the Pilgrim Thanksgiving dinner of long ago. He would remember what his doctor told him about eating too much meat. He would find that the duck had not hung long enough. He would not understand under-stand why the people were so genuinely genu-inely grateful to the Almighty, for he had not been with them In the days when an ear of corn was the only dinner. Nor would one of the good old colonists col-onists be happy in the large cities. What were Indian arrows as compared com-pared with flying taxicabs? What were the stocks beside a full dress collar? What is this pale, rather neutral neu-tral turkey meat as compared with the breast of a wild gobbler? "What can you be thankful for?" the Puritan would ask; "he who has everything knows not the goodness of anything." And his neighbor at dinner could only tell him of the horrifying item in the newspapers saying that strawberries were $2.50 a quart I ' It is hard, with the granaries of the country stuffed to bursting, to base this Thanksgiving on the old reasons. rea-sons. But there are things to be grateful for. There are no epidemics and there is practically no unemployment; unemploy-ment; so men have health and the chance to work. Men are out of the sloth of the Era of Inflation and working harder. The country Ignores the howls of the bolshevlst and the 'flatteries of foreign politicians. It gets along. With all its faults it is still the best part of this wicked world. Nor will we eat our turkey alone on this our own particular holiday. No hungry nation has asked u for help and seen ui turn away. |