No Politics, Please. It’s Thanksgiving.
Once upon a time in America we had two Thanksgivings —
a Republican Thanksgiving and a Democratic Thanksgiving.
Maybe they had in common a great American tradition, some turkey and respect for Native Americans… but they just couldn’t bring themselves to share the same day.
For those of us who take our Day of Thanks as a given, this US national holiday has a political history. Oh, yes…we didn’t always agree on everything like we do nowadays.
Most of us know the history of American tradition: early English settlers shared their autumn bounty with friendly native Americans in the 1620s. A harvest festival.
But who remembers that in 1789 it was George Washington himself who called for a day to nationalize the tradition? In the very first presidential proclamation, Washington called for all Americans to celebrate for Thanksgiving on the last Thursday of November.
Washington’s Thanksgiving nearly caused a national revolt. Members of Congress (who were as cooperative and as forward-thinking back then as they are now) objected. Their argument: the president does not have the authority over the states.
You can imagine the reaction of those Congressional representatives from each state, the righteous indignation: “Washington has no right to tell us when to celebrate.”
Back then, as today, it seems no one wants Washington to tell them what to do.
The “founder of our nation” was forced to give in and Washington followed the only option Congress left him. He sent a copy of his suggested proclamation to each state, hoping the governors might like the idea and hold their own “state” day of Thanksgiving.
Some did, some didn’t.
After that victory for states’ rights, Thanksgiving Day was left for years to each state to decide. Not all made time to give thanks.
Another great President, a Republican, stepped in… in 1863, an aggressive campaign by a powerful magazine editor pushed Abraham Lincoln to decree that Thanksgiving would be a national holiday on the last Thursday of November.
The magazine editor, Sarah Josepha Hale, was the Oprah of her day. You probably remember her more by her famous nursery rhyme: Mary Had a Little Lamb.
Mary may have had a lamb but not all states had turkey. They fought Lincoln, again citing states’ rights as a reason to defy him.
The annual presidential Thanksgiving-on-the-last-Thursday-in-November proclamation would continue. Year after year other presidents would make the same hopeful announcement —while their presidential declaration of Thanksgiving Day was not legally binding.
State governors would issue their own Thanksgiving proclamations — even if most named the same day the president had announced.
This is like when your boss tells you to make sure you wash the company car each Thursday. You tell him you don’t do car washes: it’s not in your job contract. Although it just so happens each Thursday you will be going to the car wash, so you’ll wash the car because you will be there anyways. Not because you were told to. So there. Showed you.
States’ rights is a bitch because you can’t ever agree with Washington (or Lincoln, for that matter) just because they might be right. Instead states’ rights is all about who has the right (as in the power to make you do something that wasn’t your idea in the first place).
In catechism class, we were taught if we didn’t want to do something right because it wasn’t our idea, it was pride, one of the deadly sins. And we would go to hell, not Congress.
Despite Congress, after Lincoln’s push, Thanksgiving began being celebrated annually in USA.
Then, in 1939, Franklin D. Roosevelt, a Democrat and another of our most famous presidents, changed the celebration of Thanksgiving to the third Thursday of November.
Roosevelt believed if Thanksgiving was earlier, consumer spending during the Great Depression would rise (because it would add more time between the holiday and Christmas.)
At the time, advertising goods for Christmas before Thanksgiving was considered inappropriate. Today it’s our biggest season of consumer spending. This smacks of a psychological principle known as “reverse psychology,” the art of inspiring Americans and teenagers into action by telling them what they can’t do.
The giant retailer Macy’s is credited with persuading Roosevelt to move Thanksgiving. Macy’s have the world’s largest parade at Thanksgiving in New York City, a televised event many Americans once cherished. The now-famous parade started first in Newark, New Jersey, by another of America’s largest stores: Bamberger’s. In 1924, Macy’s bought out Bambergers, took away their parade, and moved it to New York. And that, my friends, became the real “Miracle on 34th Street.”
Not everybody agreed with Franklin Roosevelt and Macy’s. Republicans called it an affront to the memory of Lincoln. People began referring to November 30th as the “Republican Thanksgiving” and November 23rd as the “Democratic Thanksgiving.”
Some, mostly Republicans, called November 23rd “Franksgiving,” although in those days they lacked the LOL or a rude emoji to add emphasis to their wisecrack.
Since a presidential declaration of Thanksgiving Day was STILL not legally binding, Roosevelt’s Thanksgiving change (like Washington’s and Lincoln’s) was generally disregarded. Twenty-three states went along with Roosevelt’s recommendation, 22 did not. Some, like Texas (don’t mess with Texas) could not decide and took both days as government holidays. It seems everything is bigger in Texas, even Thanksgiving holidays.
In 1941, Congress got together and — against the wishes of the President — made Thanksgiving fall on the fourth Thursday of November. Back then, Congress had more power than the Presidents. Presumably because Congress reflected the will of the states, avoiding the presidential handcuff of states’ right.
Yes, Roosevelt did sign their bill, although probably because Franklin had bigger problems at hand. America was just about to get sucked into WWII.
For the first time Thanksgiving in USA was a matter of federal law. Only Texas, with impunity, ignored the law for another twelve years. (New Hampshire, a state of very forthcoming citizens, chose Live Free or Die as its state motto. One suspects less transparency when Texas adopted “Friendship”as its state motto.)
All those heated, thankless arguments over whether the national holiday of gratitude should be on the third or the fourth week of a month must have seemed extremely petty in light of unfolding global events. But most people hardly noticed and went about their business..
One day in late November after America had finally agreed to show national unity on its Thanksgiving holiday, several rural counties in southern Oregon and northern California joined together to secede — not from the United States but from the states of California and Oregon. They believed as rural populations they suffered at the hands of city and state politicians.
Giving thanks was clearly not on their minds those Thursdays in November of 1941.
Men with hunting rifles stopped traffic on U.S. Route 99 and handed out copies of a Proclamation of Independence. Their new state, the State of Jefferson, was in “patriotic rebellion against the States of California and Oregon” and would continue to “secede every Thursday until further notice.” Every Thursday? Like a man’s night out?
It took an attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7th to end this short “Thursdays-only” rebellion.
Almost one year later the “State of Jefferson” was one of the few places in the continental USA to be attacked during World War II when a Japanese pilot dropped bombs on that part of the rural Oregon Coast.
By then, most probably, the former rebels were more grateful to spend at least one of their Thursdays enjoying a nationally-mandated Thanksgiving.
Today when we enjoy Thanksgiving, it pays to remember a little history.
Celebrity presidents with divisive followings, states’ rights, powerful media, retail giants who influence government, red-necks and gun-toting rebels, rural populists fighting big cities, badly-behaving politicians…all these are not new elements to the American story.
They are as common to American political life as turkey is to Thanksgiving. Democracy works via the dynamic tension of dissent.
While we may feel the pain of political division in America, we can feel proud that somehow it all still works out. The sharp sticks that we use to poke each other gradually dull and turn into utensils.
We can all sit down at Thanksgiving together this year and say a genuine thanks… thanks that later generations will probably be as ignorant of our bad behavior this year as we are of the generations before.
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Bob Snyder is an editor, author, public speaker and high tech consultant. He spends his time in the present divided equally by his interest in history and his interest in the future.
