Thanksgiving 2007 Message

Let's read about Robert Freer's Thanksgiving 2007 Message.

By Robert E. Freer, Jr., President of The Free Enterprise Foundation

386 years ago, 46 hearty settlers in what is now Massachusetts, survivors of the horrible winter of 1620-21, joined with 91 Wampanoag Indians for a three day harvest festival to celebrate their survival and the Indian kindness that had made the difference. After their struggles, these pilgrims had much for which to be thankful. Their harvest, after their near starvation the previous winter, had been bountiful, and it seemed their foothold in this new land was now secure.

The intervening years have hardly been a cake-walk, however, and with each hard fought step, the way ahead seems strewn with hydra headed challenges daring us to persist in our quest. Thanksgiving, itself, has endured its own challenges to universal acceptance as our most significant day to provide national recognition for the bounty that has come along with our burdensome responsibilities.

Thanksgiving was repeated in 1623 but not again until 1676. In October of l777, and in 1789, more than a hundred years later, George Washington, called the new nation to celebrate a national day of Thanksgiving. His message for 1789 was particularly eloquent. In setting Thursday, November 26, 1789 as a "day of Service" to that ..."Great and Glorious Being who is the...author of all the good that was, that is or that will be," Washington proclaimed it was the "duty of all nations to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey His will, to be grateful for His benefits and humbly to implore His protection and favor." But again the holiday fell into neglect until rescued in the midst of that horrible war that would finally complete the promise of our War for Independence.

President Lincoln, not long after the Battle at Gettysburg, called for the last Thursday in November to be a day of "Thanksgiving and Praise to our beneficent Father" that has provided the "large increase in freedom." His call restored Thanksgiving to a prominence from which it has not receded. It did take until 1941, however, for Congress to officially sanction the day as a national holiday.

The America of those early days of thanks was substantially different from today. The early U.S. and colonial America was predominately populated (about 75%) by farmers who, at least in the colonial period, enjoyed a rather high standard of living because of large farms and good transportation and distribution facilities. The farming class would have been the closest to what we would call the middle class today;

Regarding the standard of living, Peter A. Coclanis wrote in the Journal of Interdisciplinary History about Americans right before the Revolution, "British America’s free population was extremely wealthy on the eve of the Revolution.…[I]t is becoming increasingly apparent that nowhere else in the world did a population of comparable size live so well. Indeed, the free population of British North America – by all accounts far less wealthy than that in the British West Indies – enjoyed higher incomes and living standards in 1774 than roughly 70 percent of the world’s inhabitants"

Today, the United States is the second wealthiest nation in the world, second only to Kuwait. In 2000 the mean wealth in the U.S. was $144,000 per person. The United States in 2000 owned about 32.6% of the world’s entire wealth according to one reputable study. The challenge to our responsible use of those resources is highlighted by Julian Simon, in his book Population Matters, "The United States has 5 percent of the world’s population but uses 40 percent of the world’s resources …"

A surprising statistic is church membership in America. Mark Chaves tells us in his book that "[i]n 1789 only 10 percent of Americans belonged to churches, a figure increasing to 22 percent in 1890 and reaching 50 to 60 percent in the 1950s. Today, about two thirds of Americans say they are members of a church or synagogue." However, this doesn’t necessarily mean there are more active members than previously in our history. I suspect that Americans of these earlier eras were thankful for those values of family and home that resonate with Americans today, but "polling" wasn’t an art form practiced by our forebears so we may never know. I am not so limited and asked my colleagues here at The Citadel to tell me what made them most thankful.

Some of what I heard is as follows. They are most thankful for:

• "...young people with the courage and discipline to step up for the most agonizing difficult jobs"
• "...the freedom to vote given to even the ill-informed, the shallow-thinking, the uncaring, unfeeling, and unsacrificing (sic)."
• "...a doorknob on my side of the door" (a reference to a remark made by a former POW in Vietnam, who said a good day was any day with "a doorknob on his side of the door.)
• "...the living examples of the unsung heroes who conduct their lives with integrity and determination, giving more than they receive but counting it as all good;"
• "...the selfish pleasures of good food, good company, good gardening and good health"
• "...colleagues who stir the best in me"
• "...the opportunity to live in a land where I am free to say what it is I am most thankful for."

Additional examples include:

• "I think I'm most thankful for the Freedom of speech we have in the US. Even with all the "politically correct" Nazi’s , we can still do things (like being a confederate re-enactor) here."
• "Even the anti-war protestors can make their case publicly thanks to our nation's government and its military."
• "I'm thankful for life itself; and for family, friends and loved ones."

While agreeing with my colleagues’ expressions of thankfulness for the freedoms we enjoy, I have always been most thankful for the great heart of the American People. America is the biggest hearted place on earth and our people the most generous of heart. It has not always been to our best interest as a people, but it is what makes us unique. I would rather cope with the problems our feeling first and thinking second have caused us than change one chromosome of our DNA.

Thanksgiving, remains my favorite time of year. Devoid of the commercialism of the yuletide season, it is an annual gift we give ourselves before succumbing to the frantic dash to the end of the year and the challenges that await us there. No gifts other than a giving attitude are required at the Thanksgiving table. Just bring your love for your family and your prayerful thanks for our bounty and soak in the reciprocated feelings of those you care for the most. As we prepare for this special time, let’s reflect upon the many blessings of this land and carry with us into the New Year what is at the heart of this uniquely American holiday. May our Creator continue to bless all of you, and may your Thanksgiving 2007 be all that it is supposed to be.

Copyright © 2007 by Robert E. Freer, Jr. All rights reserved

About the author: Robert E. Freer, Jr. is President of The Free Enterprise Foundation. He is a Visiting Professor, at The Citadel and elected in 2005 to be their first John S. Grinalds Leader in Residence. A regular contributor to the Mercury, He can be reached by E-mail at The Citadel . Copies of his earlier columns can be found The Free Enterprise Foundation.

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