CHAPTER 498
STATE OF DELAWARE
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT
PROCLAMATION
Our Pilgrim Fathers landed on Plymouth Rock in December of 1620, and the following year they set aside a special day for a feast of Thanksgiving. They had ventured into the unknown in search of a new way of life, where they could enjoy certain freedoms which had been denied them in the land of their birth. After a bitter struggle they had found that new life of freedom, and they had much for which to be thankful.
Our blessings have more than doubled since that first Thanksgiving Day. No people on earth have such abundant cause for Thanksgiving as we who are Americans. Our nation has been blest by peace and prosperity, and we live in a land of plenty. And so it is fitting and proper that we give thanks unto God, with deep humility and reverent gratitude, for the blessings He has bestowed upon us.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, Walter W. Bacon, Governor of the State of Delaware, do hereby set apart and proclaim Thursday, the twenty-fifth day of November, 1948, as a
and I urge the citizens of Delaware to appropriately observe this day in their homes, their places of worship, and wherever they may gather. In counting our blessings let us not forget our friends across the seas who are hungry, ill and homeless, and let us willingly and sincerely strive in every way, through our church committees and other benevolent organizations, to share our blessings with those who are less fortunate than we. TO further observe this day of prayer and thanksgiving, it is my desire that our National and State Flags be flown from all public buildings, honoring our forefathers who courageously paved the way for the liberty and freedom which we enjoy in these great United States.
IN TESTIMONY WHEREOF, I have set my hand and caused the Great Seal of the State of Delaware to be hereunto affixed at Dover, this twelfth day of November, in the year of our Lord one thousand
(GREAT SEAL) nine hundred and forty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and seventy-third.
WILLIAM J. STOREY, Secretary of State.