[rollei_list] Re: A Rambling Discourse on Thanksgiving
- From: Marc James Small <marcsmall@xxxxxxxxxxx>
- To: rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx,<rollei_list@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Thu, 23 Nov 2006 14:54:09 -0500
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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