The Thanksgiving Proclamation by W. A. C.

Review and Herald Publishing Association · Tacoma Park Station, Washington, D. C. · Dec 9, 1909

The Thanksgiving Proclamation

By W. A. C.

AFTER reciting various reasons for gratitude and thanksgiving, the Thanksgiving proclamation issued, on November 15, by President Taft, said:—

“Therefore, I hereby appoint Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of November, as a day of general thanksgiving, and I call upon the people on that day, laying aside their usual vocations, to repair to their churches and unite in appropriate services of praise and thanks to Almighty God.”

Should this, after designating the day, have read: “I command the people on that day to lay aside their usual vocations, and to repair to their churches and unite in appropriate services and praise and thanks to Almighty God,” instead of “I call upon,” etc., how quickly every American would have detected the mistake and the unwarranted assumption of power and authority. But just this is what the mistaken church people throughout the country are demanding that Congress and the President shall do regarding the observance of Sunday. They do not mean that there shall be a mere proclamation “calling upon” the people to observe the day. Modeled after the present Thanksgiving proclamation, and put in terms in harmony with their desires, they would have it read:—

“I hereby appoint Sunday, the first day of the week, as a day of rest and worship, and command the people on that day to lay aside their usual vocations, and repair to their churches and unite in appropriate services to Almighty God.”

This is the style of law they would have Congress and the President of the United States make. Neither would this be an unheard-of thing. The Sunday law of Charlemagne, in A. D. 800; that of Charles II, in 1676; and the first Sunday law enacted upon American soil, that of Virginia, in 1610, all read very much like this. All required church attendance. And the Blair Sunday Rest bill, introduced into Congress in 1888, was not far removed from it in either spirit or letter. In its title it was openly declared to be a bill to secure Sunday to the people “as a day of rest, and to promote its observance as a day of religious worship.” And the fifty Sunday bills which have been introduced into Congress since then, whatever their phraseology, have all been of the same character, and were introduced for the same purpose.

W. A. C.