THE WHITE HOUSE -
Office of the Press Secretary -
For Immediate Release - November 1963
THANKSGIVING
DAY, 1963 BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
A PROCLAMATION
Over three centuries ago, our forefathers
in Virginia and in Massachusetts, far from home in a lonely wilderness,
set aside a time of thanksgiving. On the appointed day, they gave
reverent thanks for their safety, for the health of their children, for
the fertility of their fields, for the love which bound them together
and for the faith which united them with their God.
So too when the colonies achieved their independence,
our first President in the first year of his first administration proclaimed
November 26, 1789, as "a day of public thanksgiving and prayer to be observed
by acknowledging with grateful hearts the many signal favors of Almighty God" and
called upon the people of the new republic to "beseech Him to pardon our national
and other transgressions...to promote the knowledge and practice of true religion
and virtue...and generally to grant unto all mankind such a degree of temporal
prosperity as He alone knows to be best."
And so too, in the midst of America's
tragic civil war, President Lincoln proclaimed the last Thursday of November
1863 as a day to renew our gratitude for America's "fruitful fields," for our "national strength and
vigor," and for all our "singular deliverances and blessings."
Much time has passed since the
first colonies came to rocky shores and dark forests of an unknown continent,
much time since President Washington led a young people into the experience
of nationhood, much times since President Lincoln saw the American nation
through the ordeal of fraternal war -- and in these years our population,
our plenty and our power have all grown apace. Today
we are a nation of nearly two hundred million souls, stretching from coast to
coast, on into the Pacific and north toward the Arctic, a nation enjoying the
fruits of an ever-expanding agriculture and industry and achieving standards
of living unknown in previous history. We give our humble thanks for
this.
Yet, as our power has grown, so has our spirit. Today
we give thanks, most of all, for the ideals of honor and faith we inherit from
our forefathers -- for the decency of purpose, steadfastness of resolve and strength
of will, for the courage and the humility, which they possessed and which we
must seek every day to emulate. As we express our gratitude, we must never
forget that the highest appreciation is not to utter words but to live by them.
Let us therefore
proclaim our gratitude to Providence for manifold blessings --
let us be humbly thankful for inherited ideals -- and let us resolve
to share those blessings and those ideals with our fellow human beings
throughout the world.
NOW,
THEREFORE, I, JOHN F. KENNEDY, President of the United States of America,
in consonance with the joint resolution of the Congress approved December
26, 1941, 55 Stat. 862 (5 U.S>C. 87b), designating the fourth
Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday,
November 28, 1963, as a day of national thanksgiving.
On that day let
us gather in sanctuaries dedicated to worship and in homes blessed by
family affection to express our gratitude for the glorious gifts of God;
and let us earnestly and humbly pray that He will continue to guide and
sustain us in the great unfinished tasks of achieving peace, justice,
and understanding among all men and nations and of ending misery and
suffering wherever they exist.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my
hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed. DONE at
the City of Washington this fourth day of November in the year of our Lord
nineteen hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States
of America the one hundred and eighty-eighth.