Posted on 11/21/2018 12:13:33 PM PST by SMGFan
In September of 1939, Franklin Delano Roosevelt issued a presidential proclamation to move Thanksgiving one week earlier, to November 23, the fourth Thursday of the month, rather than the traditional last Thursday of the month, where it had been observed since the Civil War.
That year, the last Thursday of November fell on the 30th, the fifth week and final day of the month, and late for the start of the shopping season. The Retail Dry Goods Association, a group that represented merchants who were already reeling from the Great Depression, went to Commerce Secretary Harry Hopkins who went to Roosevelt. Help out the retailers, Hopkins pleaded. Roosevelt listened. He was trying to fix the economy not break it.
Thanksgiving would be celebrated one week earlier, he announced.
Apparently, the move was within his presidential powers since no precedent on the date was set. Thanksgiving, the day, was not federally mandated and the actual date had been moved before. Many states, however, balked at Roosevelt’s plan. Schools were scheduled off on the original Thanksgiving date and a host of other events like football games, both at the local and college level, would have to be cancelled or moved.
One irate coach threatened to vote “Republican” if Roosevelt interfered with his team’s game. Others at the government level were similarly upset. “Merchants or no merchants, I see no reason for changing it,” chirped an official from the opposing state of Massachusetts.
In contrast, Illinois Governor Henry Horner echoed the sentiments of those who may not have agreed with the presidents’s switch, but dutifully followed orders. “I shall issue a formal proclamation fixing the date of Thanksgiving hoping there will be uniformity in the observance of that important day,” he declared, steadfastly in the president’s corner.
Horner was a Democrat and across the country opinions about the change were similarly split down party lines: 22 states were for it; 23 against and 3 went with both dates.
In jest, Atlantic City Mayor Thomas Taggart, a Republican, dubbed the early date, “Franksgiving.”
“Roosevelt made the change official for the succeeding two years, since Thursday would fall late in the calendar both times. But in 1941 The Wall Street Journal released data that showed no change in holiday retail sales when Thanksgiving fell earlier in the month. Roosevelt admitted he was wrong, but in hindsight, on the right track.
Thanks to the uproar, later that year, Congress approved a joint resolution making Thanksgiving a federal holiday to be held on the fourth Thursday of the month, regardless of how many weeks were in November.
Roosevelt eagerly signed it into law.”
It should be in mid October..................
One thing I like it that it did separate Thanksgiving and Christmas a week more making these early ads more ridiculous and commercialized.
The man had no shame.
FDR was a typical progressive-Left social-engineer.
The idea that trained, elite, scientific-management could improve not only on mankind’s behavior and economics, but even its genetics - was all the rage in political movements of the early 20th century - from Wilson to FDR to Hitler to Stalin - all had faith in this general belief.
Oh, and FDR was a politician too, so anything to curry favor with a key voting bloc never hurt as well.
Playing the national anthem b4 all sporting events became law around that time. It had to do with taking our minds off the great depression. Congress had a hand in it.
Doesn’t really matter anymore. Retailers start the holiday season around Halloween these days.
It was a good move. It forced it into actual legislation. If it were just a proclamation you can bet that one of the current crop of Dem presidents or lawmakers would have forced it to be abandoned. As it is every year the government has to THANK GOD.
The author is a complete idiot. FDR was the most anti-business, anti-capitalist president in US history. One example...
In March 1938, FDR appointed Yale University law professor Thurman Arnold to head the antitrust division of the Justice Department. His book The Folklore of Capitalism (1937), a satire on antitrust laws, had been a bestseller. He remarked, “The advantage of the antitrust laws is that they are sufficiently vague,” meaning they gave government officials like Arnold a great deal of arbitrary power. Historian Ellis W. Hawley remarked that Arnold “was at first regarded as something of a joke, another Marx brother who had strayed into the government by mistake.”Some say FDR "saved capitalism" because he was such a socialist / communist.Arnold soon hired some 300 lawyers to file antitrust lawsuits against businesses. A key part of Arnold’s strategy was to file both criminal and civil lawsuits simultaneously. Government attorneys could offer to drop the criminal charges if the target company agreed to make the changes they demanded and sign a consent decree. Often, too, Arnold launched a case not just against a single company but against an entire industry. There were lawsuits against the milk, oil, tobacco, shoe machinery, tires, fertilizer, railroad, pharmaceuticals, school supplies, billboards, fire insurance, liquor, typewriter and movie industries, among others. Altogether Arnold was responsible for some 99 criminal actions and 22 civil suits. Journalist Joseph Alsop quoted Arnold as saying that he aimed “to hit hard, hit everyone, and hit them all at once.”
Thanksgiving/holiday time is something I dread. In Dec. 2012 my dad died a week before Christmas. In 2014 my mom was taken to the hospital and put on ventilator two days after Thanksgiving in a distant city where she had travelled to see her sister. In 2015 at the Thanksgiving table, which was the small group of me, my husband, brother and son, I said that we could be thankful this year we had not lost a close family member “this” year. Someone said, “yet” and I said there wasn’t much time left in the year. Two days later, again two days after Thanksgiving, we found my 43-year-old son dead on the floor of his room of a brain aneurysm. That kind of did it for me and Thanksgiving. I can’t so far get past my insistence that we were going to go ahead with Thanksgiving and have good feelings despite the previous year having lost our mom in a sort of strange string of circumstances. I wanted us to not dwell on that and just try to appreciate what we still had. I am still trying to not be tethered to the calendar and the meaning of dates, etc. It isn’t such a good idea to focus so much on particular dates and then “feel” some way just because of the date.
Good move. We get an extra week of Christmas Music!
Oh, I am so sorry! You have been through so much at this time of year. Anyone would have a hard time getting through that time of year with all you have been through . Praying for comfort for you in this season.
I have always had extra sympathy for those whose loved ones pass anytime between mid-November and mid-January.
It is for such grief that Christ took human flesh and lived among us, and conquered Death by death.
Progressivism started earlier than that. At the latest with Teddy Roosevelt, who in 1912 even ran on the Progressive Party ticket against Taft and Wilson.
Many of the progressive Republicans of the Teddy Roosevelt era ended up becoming New Dealers with Teddy’s young cousin FDR.
And I imagine not many freepers know that the godmother of eugenics Margaret Sanger ended her years as a bigwig of the Tucson Republican Women.
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