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THANKSGIVING DAY, 1960
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA - A PROCLAMATION
WHEREAS it has long been our custom as a people to pause from our labors for one day at the close of the harvest season and give special thanks to Almighty God for the bounty which He has bestowed upon our land; and
WHEREAS again this year we have been blessed with an abundant harvest; and
WHEREAS it is fitting and appropriate at this time of national thanksgiving that we should remember and respond to the needs of those of other lands; and
WHEREAS the Congress of the United States, by a joint resolution approved December 26, 1941 (55 Stat. 862; 5 U.S.C. 87b), has designated the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day:
NOW, THEREFORE, I, DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the aforesaid resolution of Congress, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 24, 1960, as a day of national thanksgiving; and I urge the people of the United States to give grateful thought to the observance of this day.
Furthermore, I call upon our people, while giving thanks for our blessings, to direct their thoughts to the peoples of other lands less fortunate than we. In particular, I urge my fellow Americans to support and assist the efforts which we as a Nation, working individually and in cooperation with other nations, are directing toward the solution of the world-food problem.
Under the Food-for-Peace Program, a distinguished company of voluntary citizens’ groups and religious societies is making heart-warming contributions to this effort. I ask our people to give them continued support.
At the same time, I urge my fellow Americans to assist in the Freedom-from-Hunger Campaign of the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization. Our Government fully supports the objectives of this organization. But success of its campaign requires the active cooperation of generous citizens, and of public and private groups, in our country and around the world.
Let us hope that some day, under a benevolent Providence and through the best use of the world’s God-given resources, each nation will have reason to celebrate its own thanksgiving day.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States to be affixed.
DONE at the City of Washington this 11^th day of November in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty, of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-fifth.
DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

PROCLAMATION 3438 : THANKSGIVING DAY, 1961
OCTOBER 28, 1961
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES A PROCLAMATION :
"It is a good thing to give thanks unto the Lord."
More than three centuries ago, the Pilgrims, after a year of hardship and peril, humbly and reverently set aside a special day upon which to give thanks to God for their preservation and for the good harvest from the virgin soil upon which they had labored. Grave and unknown dangers remained. Yet by their faith and by their toil they had survived the rigors of the harsh New England winter. Hence they paused in their labors to give thanks for the blessings that had been bestowed upon them by Divine Providence.
This year, as the harvest draws near its close and the year approaches its end, awesome perils again remain to be faced. Yet we have, as in the past, ample reason to be thankful for the abundance of our blessings. We are grateful for the blessings of faith and health and strength and for the imperishable spiritual gifts of love and hope. We give thanks, too, for our freedom as a nation; for the strength of our arms and the faith of our friends; for the beliefs and confidence we share; for our determination to stand firmly for what we believe to be right and to resist mightily what we believe to be base; and for the heritage of liberty bequeathed by our ancestors which we are privileged to preserve for our children and our children's children.
It is right that we should be grateful for the plenty amidst which we live; the productivity of our farms, the output of our factories, the skill of our artisans, and the ingenuity of our investors. But in the midst of our thanksgiving, let us not be unmindful of the plight of those in many parts of the world to whom hunger is no stranger and the plight of those millions more who live without the blessings of liberty and freedom. With some we are able to share our material abundance through our Food-for-Peace Program and through our support of the United Nations Freedom-from-Hunger Campaign. To all we can offer the sustenance of hope that we shall not fail in our unceasing efforts to make this a peaceful and prosperous world for all mankind.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOHN F. KENNEDY, President of the United States of America, in consonance with the joint resolution of Congress approved December 26, 1941, which designates the fourth Thursday in November of each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, the twenty-third day of November of this year, as a day of national thanksgiving.
I urge all citizens to make this Thanksgiving not merely a holiday from their labors, but rather a day of contemplation. I ask the head of each family to recount to his children the story of the first New England thanksgiving, thus to impress upon future generations the heritage of this nation born in toil, in danger, in purpose, and in the conviction that right and justice and freedom can through man’s efforts persevere and come to fruition with the blessing of God.
Let us observe this day with reverence and with prayer that will rekindle in us the will and show us the way not only to preserve our blessings, but also to extend them to the four corners of the earth. Let us by our example, as well as by our material aid, assist all peoples of all nations who are striving to achieve a better life in freedom.
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 twenty-seventh day of October in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-sixth.
JOHN F. KENNEDY

PROCLAMATION 3505 : THANKSGIVING DAY.
NOVEMBER 7, 1962.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION:
Over three centuries ago in Plymouth, on Massachusetts Bay, the Pilgrims established the custom of gathering together each year to express their gratitude to God for the preservation of their community and for the harvests their labors brought forth in the new land. Joining with their neighbors, they shared together and worshipped together in a common giving of thanks. Thanksgiving Day has ever since been part of the fabric which has united Americans with their past, with each and with the future of all mankind.
It is fitting that we observe this year our own day of thanksgiving. It is fitting that we give our thanks for the safety of our land, for the fertility of our harvests, for the strength of our liberties, for the health of our people. We do so in no spirit of self-righteousness. We recognize that we are the beneficiaries of the toil and devotion of our fathers and that we can pass their legacy on to our children only by equal toil and equal devotion. We recognize too that we live in a world of peril and change - and in so uncertain a time we are all the more grateful for the indestructible gifts of hope and love, which sustain us in adversity and inspire us to labor unceasingly for a more perfect community within this nation and around the earth.
Now, THEREFORE, I, JOHN F. KENNEDY, President of the United States of America, in accord with the joint resolution of Congress, approved December 26, 1941, which designates the fourth Thursday in November of each year as thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, the twenty-second day of November of this year, as a day of national thanksgiving.
I urge that all observe this day with reverence and with humility.
Let us 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.
Let us renew that spirit by offering our thanks for uncovenanted mercies, beyond our desert or merit, and by resolving to meet the responsibilities placed upon us.
Let us renew that spirit by sharing the abundance of this day with those less fortunate, in our own land and abroad. Let us renew that spirit by seeking always to establish larger communities of brotherhood.
Let us renew that spirit by preparing our souls for the incertitudes ahead - by being always ready to confront crisis with steadfastness and achievement with grace and modesty.
Let us renew that spirit by concerting our energy and our hope with men and women everywhere that the world may move more rapidly toward the time when Thanksgiving may be a day of universal celebration.
Let us renew that spirit by expressing our acceptance of the limitations of human striving and by affirming our duty to strive nonetheless, as Providence may direct us, toward a better world for all mankind.
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 7^th day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-seventh.
JOHN F. KENNEDY

PROCLAMATION 3560 : THANKSGIVING DAY.
NOVEMBER 5, 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 colonists 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 time 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 peril. Today we give our 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.
JOHN F. KENNEDY

PROCLAMATION 3627 : THANKSGIVING DAY.
NOVEMBER 13, 1964
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION :
As the harvest season draws to a close and our storehouses bulge with the bounty of the land, it is our desire to observe, in the custom and tradition of our forebears, a special day dedicated to giving thanks to God - a day on which to lay aside our daily tasks and cares and pay joyous homage to Him. We are impelled to raise our voices in His praise and to proclaim our heartfelt gratitude for another year in which we have been blessed with a bountiful harvest, with intellectual, humanitarian, economic, scientific, and technical advances and achievements, and with other gains too numerous to mention.
Although we have been blessed with unsurpassed prosperity, we recognize that poverty and want exist throughout the world - even among us - and we pledge ourselves to the eradication of those evils.
We know, too, that the foundation for a peaceful world is still to be built and that even now armed strife exists in parts of the world. We are saddened that gallant men of our Armed Services have fallen in the eternal quest for peace with freedom, dignity, and justice for all. We share with their bereaved families and friends a sense of tragic loss. In the words of Abraham Lincoln, we resolve "that these honored dead shall not have died in vain," and vow that their loss will spur us ever onward until man’s great dream of universal peace is realized.
Yet we are filled with an instinctive impulse to give thanks for

For these are the things that set us apart as a Nation - that made our Nation great - that will keep our Nation great.
So as our forefathers in Virginia, in New England, and throughout this land have done for more than three and one-half centuries, let us appoint a special day on which all of us, in keeping with the dictates of our own conscience, will give thanks to the Lord for His manifold blessings. And on that day, let us rededicate ourselves to meeting the challenges of the present with the fortitude and faith with which our forefathers met the challenges of the past.
Now, THEREFORE, I, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, 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 26, 1964, as a day of national thanksgiving.
On that day, let us gather in our homes and in our places of worship and in other suitable places to give thanks to God for His graciousness and His generosity to us - to pledge to Him our everlasting devotion - to beseech His divine guidance and the wisdom and strength to recognize and follow that guidance - and to pray to Him that the forces of evil, violence, indifference, intolerance, and inhumanity may soon vanish from the face of the earth and that peace, reason, understanding, and good-will may reign supreme throughout the world.
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 thirteenth day of November in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-ninth.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON

THANKSGIVING DAY, 1965. PROCLAMATION 3687. DATED NOVEMBER 10, 1965.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION
For all the blessings that have been bestowed upon our nation during the past twelve months, it is a small thing to give thanks to Almighty God.
When the pilgrims first observed Thanksgiving nearly 350 years ago, life was harsh and unrelenting. Cold and sickness had diminished their ranks. Their shelter was crude. Their future was uncertain. Yet when their harvest was abundant, they considered themselves blessed - and their hearts were filled with gratitude.
Today we have much more than an abundant harvest. Our nation is rich and strong and united in the cause of liberty and justice. Our physical comforts are unmatched anywhere in the world. Our medicine has conquered ancient diseases.
In the past year we have added greatly to that national legacy. We have guaranteed the right to vote to all our citizens. We have pledged dignity to our elderly - even in sickness. We have added new dimensions to the education of our youth. We have broadened the horizons of opportunity for our poor. And all the while, we have enjoyed the greatest prosperity in history.
But our real blessings lie not in our bounty. They lie in those steadfast principles that the early pilgrims forged for all generations to come : the belief in the essential dignity of man; the restless search for a better world for all; and the courage - as shown by our sons in Viet Nam today - to defend the cause of freedom wherever on earth it is threatened.
These are the eternal blessings of America. They are the blessings which make us grateful even when the future is uncertain. They are the blessings which give us the strength to complete the unfinished tasks that remain before us.
For these blessings should we thank God most of all.
Now, THEREFORE, I, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, 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 25, 1965, as a day of national thanksgiving.
On that day, let us gather in our homes and in our places of worship to thank God for His generosity. Let us make ourselves worthy of that generosity by pledging to Him our everlasting devotion. And let us pray to Him that the forces of violence, indifference and intolerance may soon vanish from the face of the earth so that peace and understanding and love may reign supreme.
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 tenth day of November in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninetieth.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON

PROCLAMATION 3752, THANKSGIVING DAY, 1966.
OCTOBER 18, 1966.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION
They came in tiny wooden ships. On an unknown and alien shore, they planted and built, settled and survived. Then they gave solemn thanks to God for His goodness and bounty. America, well over 300 years ago had its first Thanksgiving Day.
For many years your Presidents have had the opportunity to proclaim Thanksgiving Day, to address themselves to the American people, to remind us of the blessings we enjoy and the thanks that we owe.
If we consider the fervor with which those colonists in Virginia and Massachusetts gave thanks, when they had so little, we are taught how much deeper should our thanks be - when we have so much.
Never, in all the hundreds of Thanksgiving Days, has our nation possessed a greater abundance, not only of material things, but of the precious intangibles that make life worth living.
never have we been better fed, better housed, better clothed. Never have so many Americans been earning their own way, and been able to provide their families with the marvelous products of a momentous age.
Nor has America ever been healthier, nor had more of her children in school and in college. Nor have we ever had more time for recreation and refreshment of the spirit, nor more ways and places in which to study and to enrich our lives through the arts.
Never have our greatest blessings - our freedoms - been more widely enjoyed by our people. Nor have we ever been closer to the day when every American will have an equal opportunity and an equal freedom.
No, we do not yet have peace in the world. Our men are engaged again, as they have been on so many other Thanksgivings, on a foreign field fighting for freedom, but we can be thankful for their strength that has always kept our liberty secure. We can be thankful for our science and technology that helps to guard our America.
Thanks are better spoken by deed rather than word. Therefore, it behooves a grateful America to share its blessings with our brothers abroad, with those who have so little of the abundance that is ours.
Simple justice and a concern for our fellow man require that we be ready to offer what we can of our food, our resources, our talents, our energies, our skills, and our knowledge to help others build a better life for themselves.
We should thank God that we are able.
Let us, therefore, in this splendid American tradition, thank Him who created us and all that we have. Let us do so with a firm resolve to be worthy of His abundance blessings. Let us assemble in our homes and in our places of worship, each in his own way.
Let us thank God for the America we are so fortunate to know.
Now, THEREFORE, I, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, President of the United States of America, in consonance with Section 6103 of Title of the United States Code designating the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 24, 1966, as a day of national thanksgiving.
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 seventeenth day of October in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-first.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON

PROCLAMATION 3819, THANKSGIVING DAY, 1967.
NOVEMBER 9, 1967
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION
The first American tradition grew out of gratitude for survival.
It began - long before independence was a dream - with families responding to an even deeper human impulse. They had suffered the rigors of winter in a new world - and they had endured. They put aside their plows and thanked God for the harvest’s bounty.
Over the years, we have made Thanksgiving a unique national occasion. Thanking God for His goodness, we thank Him as well for the promise and the achievement of America.
Our reasons for gratitude are almost without number. We are grateful for the endurance of our government for one hundred and eighty years. We are grateful that the founding fathers planned so wisely for the generations that followed them. We are grateful for a material abundance beyond any mankind has ever known. In our land, the harvests have been good.
Much as we are grateful for these material and spiritual blessings, we are conscious, in this year, of special sorrows and disappointments. We are engaged in a painful conflict in Asia, which was not of our choosing, and in which we are involved in fidelity to a sacred promise to help a nation which has been the victim of aggression. We are proud of the spirit of our men who are risking their lives on Asian soil. We pray that their sacrifice will be redeemed in an honorable peace and the restoration of a land long torn by war.
We are grateful for the tremendous advances which have been made in our generation in social justice and in equality of opportunity, regardless of racial background. But we are saddened by the civil strife which has occurred in our great cities.
Recognizing the trials we have endured and are enduring, I have turned to the Thanksgiving Proclamation of President Abraham Lincoln in 1863. President Lincoln faced, with equal emphasis, both the blessings and the sorrows of the people.
He recommended to his fellow citizens that, "while offering up the ascriptions justly due to Him for such singular deliverances and blessings, they do also, with humble penitence for our national perverseness and disobedience, commend to His tender care all those who have become widows, orphans, mourners, or sufferers in the lamentable civil strife in which we are unavoidably engaged."
In a similar spirit I ask my fellow citizens to join their thankfulness with penitence and humility. Let us implore Almighty God that, to all our other blessings, He may add the blessings of wisdom and perseverance that will lead us to both peace and justice, in the family of nations and in our beloved homeland.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, President of the United States of America in consonance with Section 6103 of title 5 of the United States Code designating the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 23, 1967 as a day of national thanksgiving.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this ninth day of November in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-second.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON

PROCLAMATION 3881, THANKSGIVING DAY, 1968.
NOVEMBER 15, 1968
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, A PROCLAMATION
Americans, looking back on the tumultuous events of 1968, may be more inclined to ask God’s mercy and guidance than to offer Him thanks for his blessings.
There are many events in this year that deserve our remembrance, and give us cause for thanksgiving:

These events inspire not only the deepest gratitude, but confidence that our nation, the beneficiary of good fortune beyond that of any nation in history, will surmount its present trials and achieve a more just society for its people.
In this season, let us offer more than words of thanksgiving to God. Let us resolve to offer Him the best that is within us - tolerance, respect for life, faith in the destiny of all men to live in peace.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, President of the United States of America, in consonance with Section 6103 of title 5 of the United States Code designating the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 28, 1968 as a day of national thanksgiving.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-third.
LYNDON B. JOHNSON

PROCLAMATION 3944, THANKSGIVING DAY, 1969.
BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA, A PROCLAMATION
On October 3, 1863, President Abraham Lincoln invited his fellow citizens to "set apart and observe the last Thursday of November next as a day of Thanksgiving…"   This was the year of the battle of Gettysburg and of other major battles between Americans on American soil. To many, this call for a national day of Thanksgiving must have seemed strange, coming as it did at a time of war and bitterness.
Yet Lincoln knew that the act of thanksgiving should not be limited to time of peace and serenity. He knew that it is precisely at those times of hardship when men most need to recognize that the Source of all good constantly bestows His blessings on mankind.
Today, despite our material wealth and well-being, Americans face complex problems unknown before in our nation’s history. In giving thanks today, we express gratitude for past bounty and we also confidently face the challenges confronting our own nation and the world because we know we can rely on a strength greater than ourselves.
This year, let us especially seek to rekindle in our respective hearts and minds the spirit of our first settlers who valued freedom above all else, and who found much for which to be thankful when material comforts were meager. We are, indeed, a most fortunate people.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICHARD NIXON, President of the United States of America, in consonance with Section 6103 of Title 5 of the United States Code designating the fourth Thursday of November in each year as Thanksgiving Day, do hereby proclaim Thursday, November 27, 1969, as a day of national thanksgiving.
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred sixty-nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-fourth.
RICHARD NIXON.