They always remind me of just what it means to be an American. Our predecessors left us a wonderful country, and now it's our turn to pass this on to future generations.
The first editorial recounts the Pilgrims' voyage to America in 1620.
Titled The Desolate Wilderness, it poignantly lays out what awaited the Pilgrims upon landing at Plymouth:
"Being now passed the vast ocean, and a sea of troubles before them in expectations, they had now no friends to welcome them, no inns to entertain or refresh them, no houses, or much less towns, to repair unto to seek for succour; and for the season it was winter, and they that know the winters of the country know them to be sharp and violent, subject to cruel and fierce storms, dangerous to travel to known places, much more to search unknown coasts.
Besides, what could they see but a hideous and desolate wilderness, full of wilde beasts and wilde men? and what multitudes of them there were, they then knew not: for which way soever they turned their eyes (save upward to Heaven) they could have but little solace or content in respect of any outward object; for summer being ended, all things stand in appearance with a weatherbeaten face, and the whole country, full of woods and thickets, represented a wild and savage hew.
If they looked behind them, there was a mighty ocean which they had passed, and was now as a main bar or gulph to separate them from all the civil parts of the world."
Thus began what we've come to know as our American society. We truly are a nation founded on really big ideas including, but not limited to, individual risk taking, hard work and basic human rights and freedoms.
The second editorial, titled And the Fair Land, has been repeated for at least the past fifty years. Here's the bottom line, "And a traveler cannot but be struck on his journey {through America} by the thought that this country, one day, can be even greater. America, though many know it not, is one of the great underdeveloped countries of the world; what it reaches for exceeds by far what it has grasped."
In other words, our best days lie ahead, as always. Our many current travails are transitory, and American Exceptionalism is very much the real thing.
Taken together, the editorials advise that rather than having reason to be discouraged about today's situation, we instead have every reason to be optimistic about America's future.
What's the secret to our success? Well, it's we the people. The free, self governing people.
An excerpt from And the Fair Land reads as follows:
"How can they {Americans} turn from melancholy when at home they see young arrayed against old, black against white, neighbor against neighbor, so that they stand in peril of social discord. Or not despair when they see that the cities and countryside are in need of repair, yet find themselves threatened by scarcities of the resources that sustain their way of life. Or when, in the face of these challenges, they turn for leadership to men in high places—only to find those men as frail as any others.
So sometimes the {American} traveler is asked whence will come their succor. What is to preserve their abundance, or even their civility? How can they pass on to their children a nation as strong and free as the one they inherited from their forefathers? How is their country to endure these cruel storms that beset it from without and from within?
Of course the stranger cannot quiet their spirits. For it is true that everywhere men turn their eyes today much of the world has a truly wild and savage hue. No man, if he be truthful, can say that the specter of war is banished. Nor can he say that when men or communities are put upon their own resources they are sure of solace; nor be sure that men of diverse kinds and diverse views can live peaceably together in a time of troubles.
But we can all remind ourselves that the richness of this country was not born in the resources of the earth, though they be plentiful, but in the men that took its measure. For that reminder is everywhere—in the cities, towns, farms, roads, factories, homes, hospitals, schools that spread everywhere over that wilderness.
We can remind ourselves that for all our social discord we yet remain the longest enduring society of free men governing themselves without benefit of kings or dictators. Being so, we are the marvel and the mystery of the world, for that enduring liberty is no less a blessing than the abundance of the earth.
And we might remind ourselves also, that if those men setting out from Delftshaven had been daunted by the troubles they saw around them, then we could not this autumn be thankful for a fair land."
Enough said. Enjoy the turkey and the fellowship.
Happy Thanksgiving. Bob.
No comments:
Post a Comment