Thanksgiving Mass and Pan-American Unity
President Taft and eight members of his Cabinet attended the annual Thanksgiving mass sung by Cardinal Gibbons. There were also present members of the United States Supreme Court, and representatives of the twenty-one republics of the Western Hemisphere. The object was to commemorate Pan-American unity. Held in St. Patrick's Catholic Church, Cardinal Gibbons occupying a scarlet throne on the right of the altar, the ceremony was one of almost pontifical grandeur. The cardinal's train was carried by pages dressed in rich red velvet. President Taft was met at the door and escorted to a seat at the front of the church, and attended while there by a white-laced "messenger of peace," the Rev. Smythz, an assistant at St. Patrick's. Pillars of the church were wreathed in United States flags and the dark blue and white of the Pan-American Union. Most Reverend James J. Keene, Archbishop of Dubuque, delivered the sermon. Cardinal Gibbons "blessed the assemblage, and prayed for the prosperity of all the nations represented." It was a Roman Catholic international function. At the close of the mass, the President, accompanied by Mrs. Taft and Secretary Hillis, went to All Souls Unitarian Church, where they listened to the "official" Thanksgiving sermon, preached by the Chaplain of the Senate, Rev. E. G. D. Pearce.