[Congressional Record Volume 149, Number 174 (Tuesday, November 25, 2003)]
[Senate]
[Pages S15935-S15937]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THANKFUL FOR THANKSGIVING

  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, Thanksgiving is one of the oldest and most 
cherished American holidays. Along with the Fourth of July, it is a 
uniquely American holiday. I realize that other countries and other 
cultures have their days of feasts, some even have them in autumn to 
glorify their harvests. But our Thanksgiving, our day of thanks, is a 
truly American holiday.
  Thanksgiving is our special day. It is a day on which we celebrate 
with Turkey, gravy, dressing, cranberry sauce. You should try Erma's 
cranberry sauce; there is nothing like it anywhere in the world, my 
wife's cranberry sauce. Just to think of it, just to think of it makes 
me want to go home now--cranberry sauce, sweet potatoes, pumpkin pie.
  In addition to being a time of family togetherness, it is a day of 
football games, parades, and the beginning of the Christmas holiday 
season--a little early for the Christmas holiday season, but that is 
the way it is in this commercial time in which we live.
  But more profoundly, Thanksgiving is a day for recognizing and 
celebrating our Pilgrim heritage--that small group of men and women who 
left their homeland, crossed a mighty ocean, and settled in a 
wilderness so that they could worship God as they chose.
  Before disembarking from the ship that brought them to these lands, 
the famous and legendary Mayflower, this gallant group of early 
American settlers gathered together and they formulated a government 
for their new world--a government based on the principle of self-rule. 
It was also a government under God--a government under God. The 
document that created that new government, the Mayflower Compact--we 
should have on our office walls. That government was anticipated in the 
Mayflower Compact. The Compact read in part--listen to this:

       In the name of God, amen, we whose names are underwritten . 
     . . Having undertaken for the Glory of God . . . Do by these 
     Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of

[[Page S15936]]

     God and one another, covenant and combine ourselves together 
     into a civil Body Politik. . . .

  How about that? That was the Mayflower Compact. A copy of that 
Compact ought to hang or appear in every schoolroom in this country. I 
know there are a few atheists around who wouldn't like it, but who 
cares that they wouldn't like it? Maybe we could win them over.
  But let us read it again. How wonderful it is to read that. I wonder 
if there would be those who would say it is unconstitutional.

       In the name of God, amen, we whose names are underwritten . 
     . . Having undertaken for the Glory of God . . . Do by these 
     Presents, solemnly and mutually in the Presence of God and 
     one another, covenant and combine ourselves together into a 
     civil Body Politik. . . .

  A year after landing--after months of privation, suffering, sickness, 
hunger, and death--these men and women set aside time to express their 
gratitude to God for protecting them and for the preservation of their 
community. With all the hardships and agony they had endured, they 
still set aside time to thank God for being good to them. They were not 
only men and women of great courage, they were also men and women of 
great religious faith.
  Two years later, in 1623, the Pilgrims made this day of thanks a 
tradition. The spirit of that glorious day, which some people recognize 
as the first official Thanksgiving, was captured in a proclamation 
attributed to Governor Bradford that read:

       Inasmuch as the Great Father has given us this year an 
     abundant harvest of Indian corn, wheat, peas, squashes and 
     garden vegetables, and made the forest to abound with game 
     and the sea with fish and clams, and inasmuch as he has . . . 
     spared us from the pestilence and granted us freedom to 
     worship God according to the dictates of our own conscience, 
     now I, your magistrate, do proclaim that all ye Pilgrims, 
     with your wives and ye little ones, do gather at ye meeting 
     house, on ye hill, between the hours of nine and twelve in 
     the daytime on Thursday, November ye 29th, of the year of our 
     Lord one thousand six hundred and twenty-three, and the third 
     year since ye Pilgrims landed on ye Plymouth Rock, there to 
     listen to ye Pastor and render Thanksgiving to ye all 
     Almighty God for all his blessings.
  The tradition of Thanksgiving was reaffirmed again during the 
American Revolution. Following the Battle of Saratoga in October 1777, 
the American victory that marked a crucial turning point in the war and 
the birth of our Nation, the Continental Congress approved a resolution 
designating a day of ``Thanksgiving and praise.'' George Washington 
wrote of the day set apart--these are words I quoted--the ``day set 
apart by the honorable Congress for Public Thanksgiving and praise, and 
duty calling us to devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgments to 
God for the manifold blessings he has granted us.''
  This was George Washington, the Father of our Country, Commander of 
the American Forces at Valley Forge--George Washington, the first 
President of the United States, the greatest of all Presidents of these 
United States--who said in part when he wrote of the ``day set apart by 
the honorable Congress for public Thanksgiving and praise, and duty 
calling us devoutly to express our grateful acknowledgments to God for 
the manifold blessings he has granted us.''
  That was George Washington.
  Following the Revolutionary War, the Continental Congress used 
Thanksgiving as the day to give thanks to the proper authority for 
delivering the country from colonization and war into independence and 
peace.
  These were our forefathers--George Washington, of whom there is none 
greater--nay, of whom there is no peer, George Washington.
  On October 11, 1782, Congress proclaimed ``the twenty-eight day of 
November next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to God for all his 
mercies.''
  Think about that.
  On October 11, 1782, Congress proclaimed ``the twenty-eight day of 
November next, as a day of solemn THANKSGIVING to God for all his 
mercies: and they do further recommend to all ranks, to testify to 
their gratitude to God for his goodness.''
  I was just verifying from the fine man who serves on my staff that 
this coming Thanksgiving again falls on the calendar on the day of 
November 28.
  The proclamation further stated:

       It being the indispensable duty of all Nations, not only to 
     offer up their supplication to ALMIGHTY GOD, the giver of all 
     good, for his gracious assistance in a time of distress, but 
     also in a solemn and public manner to give him praise for his 
     goodness in general, and especially for great and signal 
     interpositions of his providence in their behalf.

  Following the establishment of the new government of the United 
States in 1789, President George Washington--he is now President; the 
President is George Washington--issued the first Presidential 
proclamation calling for ``a day of public thanksgiving and prayer.'' 
He asked that the public observe that day ``by acknowledging with 
grateful heart the many favors of Almighty God.'' At President 
Washington's request, Americans assembled in churches on the appointed 
day and thanked God for his blessings.
  Then during the awful Civil War, President Abraham Lincoln officially 
asked the people of the United States to set aside the last Thursday of 
November ``as a day of Thanksgiving and praise to our beneficent 
Father.'' ``In the midst of a civil war of unequal magnitude and 
severity,'' President Lincoln proclaimed in 1863 that the country 
should take a day to acknowledge the gracious gifts of the most high 
God.
  Perhaps we have noticed that in every one of these proclamations, the 
Founders and the early leaders of our country carefully and 
purposefully recognized and thanked Almighty God for their blessings.
  So in a year when we have been told that it is wrong to post the Ten 
Commandments in our courthouses, and we have Federal courts ruling that 
ours is not a nation under God, it is well to remember how the Founders 
of our country, going back to the Pilgrims, continuing through the 
Continental Congresses and our foremost Presidents, Washington and 
Lincoln, certainly considered ours to be a nation under God.
  I was a Member of the House of Representatives on June 7, 1954, when 
the House voted to insert the words ``under God'' in the Pledge of 
Allegiance to the flag. That was June 7, 1954. I was a Member of the 
House 1 year from that day, perhaps just coincidentally, when the House 
voted to place the words ``In God We Trust'' on the currency and coins 
of these United States. June 7, 1955, that was.

  There you have it, June 7, 1954, the words ``under God'' were 
inserted in the Pledge of Allegiance, and 1 year from that day, June 7, 
1955, they put the words ``In God We Trust'' on the currency of our 
Nation. And there they are, the words ``In God We Trust.''
  Do you think we would ever have to remove those words from the walls 
of this Chamber? Let us trust in God that those words will never be 
removed. No court will ever think that it can remove those words ``In 
God We Trust'' from the walls of this Chamber.
  So our foremost Presidents, Washington and Lincoln, certainly 
considered ours to be a nation under God. They used Thanksgiving, our 
special unique American holiday, as a time and a reason to celebrate 
it.
  That acknowledgment of divine blessing did not stop there. After 
1863, President Lincoln issued other Thanksgiving proclamations, and 
subsequent Presidents who followed him, followed his example.
  In 1905, President Theodore Roosevelt talked of how appropriate it 
was to ``set apart one day in each year for a special service of 
thanksgiving to the Almighty.'' ``It is eminently fitting,'' he 
proclaimed, ``that once a year our people should set apart a day of 
praise and thanksgiving to the Giver of Good . . . [therefore] I ask 
that through the land the people gather in their homes and places of 
worship and in rendering thanks unto the Most High for the manifold 
blessings of the past year.''
  In his 1938 Thanksgiving proclamation, President Franklin Roosevelt 
noted:

       [F]rom the earliest recorded history, Americans have 
     thanked God for their blessings. In our deepest natures, in 
     our very souls, we, like all mankind, since the earliest 
     origin of mankind, turned to God in time of happiness.

  Mr. President, 20 years later in his 1958 Thanksgiving proclamation, 
President Eisenhower proclaimed:

       Let us be especially grateful for the religious heritage 
     bequeathed us by our forefathers, as exemplified by the 
     Pilgrims, who,

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     after the gathering of their first harvest, set apart a 
     special day for rendering thanks to God for the bounties 
     vouchsafed to them.

  In 1962, President John F. Kennedy asked the American people to 
``renew the spirit of the Pilgrims at the first Thanksgiving, lonely in 
an inscrutable wilderness, facing the dark unknown with a faith borne 
of their dedication to God and a fortitude drawn from their sense that 
all men were brothers.''
  So it is that we celebrate this unique American holiday, a day 
devoted to family, to country, and to God. It always has been. I pray 
it always will be a day for giving thanks. With the turmoil of the past 
year with our sons and daughters in far away lands putting their lives 
in danger, we still have so much for which to be thankful.
  We can be thankful for the heritage of liberty bequeathed to us by 
our ancestors, and from whom we are entrusted to preserve for future 
generations of Americans.
  Mr. President, we can be thankful for the wisdom and the foresight of 
our Founding Fathers, who bequeathed to us a form of government unique 
in history, with its three strong pillars of the executive, the 
legislative, and the judicial branches, each balanced and checked one 
against the other.
  Like President Washington, we can be thankful for ``the many favors 
of Almighty God,'' including a government that ensures our ``safety and 
happiness.''
  And like President Lincoln, we can be thankful for the ``gracious 
gifts of the most high God, who, while dealing with us in anger for our 
sins, hath nevertheless remembered mercy.''
  While we are saddened that there are so many young American men and 
women in uniform who will not be able to be with their families on this 
holiday, we can be thankful for their courage, thankful for their 
devotion to duty, and thankful for their service to our Nation.
  We can be thankful for those men and women who, 383 years ago, had 
the courage, the faith, and the devotion to our Almighty Father, to 
God, to embark upon the most difficult and dangerous of journeys and 
face the darkest unknown so that they, and we, could worship freely.
  We can be thankful, can we not, for the abundance of America, an 
abundance that includes an annual production of millions of turkeys, 
millions of pounds of cranberries and sweet potatoes and pumpkins.
  Mr. President, a few minutes ago, I read from President Lincoln's 
Thanksgiving Proclamation of 1863. Permit me now to read from the 1863 
White House Thanksgiving menu.
  According to that menu, in 1863, the White House Thanksgiving dinner 
consisted of the following, and I quote from that menu: cranberry 
juice; that is good. How sweet it is, cranberry juice; roast turkey 
with dressing, cranberry sauce.
  Look at that man sitting in the chair, presiding over this Senate. 
Yes, there he is. I can see his mouth is watering like mine is 
watering.
  Sweet potatoes, creamed onions. Well, I like my onions just plain 
onions, not creamed, but that was on the menu. Squash, pumpkin pie, 
plum pudding, mince pie, milk, and coffee.
  Does that sound familiar? How about it, does it sound familiar?
  I hope my wife Erma is watching right at this moment because nobody 
in my lifetime can spread a table like my wife Erma. She has been 
spreading that table in my family now for 66 years, bless her heart.
  But does it sound familiar? It sure sounds like the 2003 Thanksgiving 
menu at the Byrd house. Boy, how I look forward to it. I am getting 
hungry just thinking about it. I am getting hungry. How about that?
  I hope that my listeners are getting hungry also, and thinking about 
the first Thanksgiving. The first Thanksgiving, how would you have 
liked to have sat with that incredible, intrepid band of men and women?
  So I am going to stop talking now, and I am going to head home, 
before too long, for our great Thanksgiving meal with my wife Erma and 
our two daughters and their husbands and our five grandchildren, their 
spouses, and our three great-grandchildren and our little dog, Trouble.
  Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Happy Thanksgiving.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from New Mexico.
  Mr. DOMENICI. Mr. President, I note the presence of Senator Burns. 
Does he wish to speak? I will tell him how long I will be.
  Mr. BURNS. Mr. President, not on the Senator's time.
  Mr. DOMENICI. I will only be a few moments.

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