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Volume 5 Number 47
21 November 1960
BACKGROUND OF THANKSGIVING
Thanksgiving is distinctly an American holidays
There is nothing like it elsewhere- in the wcrU.
It celebrates neither a savage battle nor the' fall
of a great city. It does not mark the anniversary
of a great conqueror or the birthday of a farhous
statesman. It does not commemorate the writing
of a historic public document or the launching of
a new constitution. The American Thanksgiving
Day is the expression of a deep feeling of grati
tude by our people for the rich productivity of
the land, a memorial of the dangers and hardship
through which we have safely passed, and a fitt
ing recognition of all that God in His goodness
has bestowed upon us...In early New England' it
was the custom at Thanksgiving time to place five
grains of corn at every plate as a reminder of
stern d,ays in the first winter when the food of
the Pilgrims was so depleted that only five grains
of corn, were rationedto each individual at a time.
The Pilgrim Fathers wanted their children to re- /
member the sacrifice, suffering, and hardship
which made possible the settlement of a free_ peo
ple in a free land. They wanted to keafa-^live
the memory of that long sixty-three-day tripsAaken
in the tiny Mayflower. They desired to keen gagLive
the thought of that "stern and rock bound _
its inhospitable welcome, and the firs^-~t<5
winter which took such a toll of lives/ They'did
not want their descendants to forget ft hat ;o.h~the',^
day in which their ration was reduced to':five__
grains of corn only seven healthy col^.nis^yTQs^:;'
mained to nurse the sick, and nearly
numberlay in the "Windswept graveyard” onthe hftEf-^
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