Editorial November 21, 1908 Issue

THANKSGIVING

John B. Willis

If one were to look simply at the fact and make no investigation as to the how and wherefore of another's possessions, his conclusion would likely be that he who has abundant creature comforts, opportunities for travel and for the gratification of his educated tastes, has multiplied occasions for thanksgiving. The moment one begins to think about the matter, however, he realizes that more than the mere legal possession of things is demanded as a ground for gratitude on the part of the possessor.

First of all, he must have come by his holdings honestly, without having infringed upon the rights of others. The man whose possessions record the cruelty and rapacity of his ancestors, or the unscrupulous and unjust advantage which he or his agents have taken of other men, surely has no occasion to thank God for his gains, since divine law has not been honored, but rather dishonored, in their accumulation; and no man need envy those who have secured their riches or "legal rights" by such means. One has but to look about him to discover that the division of the products of labor among men has not been entirely equitable, and that if moral desert had determined the returns, some would have much less, and many much more.

Moreover, one's gains must not only be fairly acquired, he must possess them rather than they him, if they are to prove a blessing. One of the most pitiful facts pertaining to our wondrous recent strides in the mastery of natural forces and the accumulation of wealth is this, that in the process men have so generally come under the domination of money. When men go "money mad," and simply abdicate in favor of the things "of the earth, earthy," then the creature rules the asserted creator, and we have a type of bondage in comparison with which chattel slavery is an inoffensive trifle. Whether it be in political or commercial life, in philosophical or religious faith, whenever and with whomsoever belief in and love of the material has come to rule, it is certainly a time for grief rather than gladness. He who, in subjection to the glamor of gold, thinks he has the greater advantage, is chiefly to be commiserated, and his friends may well pray, "God save him from himself and the things he calls his."

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