Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 103 Part 3.djvu/1096

 103 STAT. 3164 PROCLAMATION 6073—NOV. 17, 1989 NOW, THEREFORE, I, GEORGE BUSH, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of November 1989 as Himger Education Month. I urge all Americans to take time to study the problem of world hunger and discover how they can help alleviate it. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this sixteenth day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty- nine, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and fourteenth. GEORGE BUSH Proclamation 6073 of November 17, 1989 Thanksgiving Day, 1989. By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation On Thanksgiving Day, we Americans pause as a Nation to give thanks for the freedom and prosperity with which we have been blessed by our Creator. Like the pilgrims who first settled in this land, we offer praise to God for His goodness and generosity and rededicate our- selves to lives of service and virtue in His sight. This annual observance of Thanksgiving was a cherished American tradition even before our first President, George Washington, issued the first Presidential Thanksgiving proclamation in 1789. In his First Inau- gtu-al Address, President Washington observed that "No people can be bound to acknowledge and adore the Invisible Hand which conducts the affairs of men more than those of the United States." He noted that the American people—^blessed with victory in their fight for Independ- ence and with an abundance of crops in their fields—owed God "some return of pious gratitude." Later, in a confidential note to his close ad- visor, James Madison, he asked, "should the sense of the Senate be taken on... a day of Thanksgiving?" George Washington thus led the way to a Joint Resolution of Congress requesting the President to set aside "a day of public Thanksgiving and Prayer, to be observed by ac- knowledging with grateful hearts the many and signal Favors of Al- mighty God." • .i V:• 5" Through the eloquent words of President Washington's initial Thanks- giving proclamation—the first under the Constitution—^we are reminded of our dependence upon our Heavenly Father and of the debt of grati- tude we owe to Him. "It is the Duty of all Nations," wrote Washington, "to acknowledge the Providence of Almighty God, to obey his Will, to be grateful for his Benefits, and humbly to implore His Protection and Favor." ?•";"«• '• President Washington asked that on Thanksgiving Day the people of the United States: unite in rendering unto [God] our sincere and humble Thanks for his kind Care and Protec- tion of the People of this Country previous to their becoming a Nation; for... the great degree of Tranquility, Union and Plenty which we have since enjoyed; for... the civil and religious Liberty with which we are blessed, and... for all the great and various Favors which he hath been pleased to confer upon us.

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