When next you sing the Hymn of Harvest Home, think kindly of our Pilgrim Fathers, for they were not "communists with a small c" nor any other kind of communists, Some conservative editors and commentators in recent years have given the impression that the Pilgrims were starry-eyed idealists intent upon founding a socialist utopia in the wilderness. One such editor, zealous to refute socialism, has written: "Socialism is not a new experiment in the United States. Neither is Communism. The Socialist community was tried by the Pilgrims in New England over three hundred years ago. The dream of the Pilgrims didn't work and the Mayflower Compact was a total failure."

A full week was given to the first Thanksgiving feast in New England in 1621. Governor Bradford sent men to hunt deer and turkey and to call Massasoit's tribe to the Pilgrim's table. Out of this harvest festival came the American institution of Thanksgiving Day. It is peculiar to our people. No other nation has a celebration exactly like it. It does not honor a victory, mark a revolution, or commemorate the birth or death of a national hero. It is the great holiday of the common people. Thanksgiving is a national family celebration to thank God for the bounty wrought in liberty by our own labors.