[rollei_list] Re: A Rambling Discourse on Thanksgiving

At 02:40 PM 11/23/2006, Robert Meier wrote:
>Marc -- Thanksgiving is often the final Thursday in November, but not
>always.   Not this year.  It's the 4th Thursday in November.   Robert
You are correct, of course. I wrote too rapidly. Per the WIKIDPEDIA entry, FDR's effort to move it to the next-to-last Thursday led to 23 states following his lead, 22 refusing to do so, and the other three, including Texas, celebrating two Thanksgivings -- in those days, the President proclaimed the holiday but this proclamation, then and now, only applies to Federal agencies and US possessions, with the several States being responsible for actual making the holiday a real one. (Virginia, to this day, does not celebrate Martin Luther King day on the same basis as does the Federal government but, rather, has added it to the Commonwealth's Lee-Jackson Day, in a rather odd and whimsical mixture of themes which would probably have been viewed with favor by both Lee and Jackson; in most years, Virginia and the Federal Government have different but adjoining days for these holidays.)
Following the "Franksgiving" problems in 1939 and 1940, Congress in 1941 split the difference by passing an Act declaring that the fourth Thursday in November would be celebrated as Thanksgiving Day, an Act signed by FDR on 26 NOV 1941 (a day epic to military and diplomatic historians as one which marked the issuance of that controversial "War Warning" directive to the Army, Navy, and Territorial administrations in the Territories of Alaska and Hawaii, the Commonwealth of the Philippines, and the Canal Zone). Thus, this year is one of the few which sees an observance of "Franksgiving", as this year Thanksgiving Day is on the next-to-last Thursday in November. 

Thanks for pointing this out.

Marc


msmall@xxxxxxxxxxxx
Cha robh bàs fir gun ghràs fir!

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