Etiquette for Proclaiming Thanks

Sending gratitude and Thanksgiving greetings to all of our Etiquipedia Etiquette Encyclopedia readers.

THANKSGIVING PROCLAMATION

Strict Code of Etiquette in Handling the Sacred Document

It has been customary in recent years for the Department of State to draft each Thanksgiving proclamation. After the draft has been O. K.'d by the president, it is handed to the State Department's expert penman, who in his copper plate chirography writes it upon a large sheet of excellent parchment, which is sent to the president for his signature, and then. returned to the State Department to be signed by the Secretary of State.

Next it must be impressed with the great seal of the United States, whose custodian will refuse to place it even upon so important a document unless authorized to do so by a formal warrant signed by the President, for the use of the great seal or the possession of an impression without the chief executive's written authority is a grave offense, punishable by law. Indeed, the great seal -which was made by a jeweler at a cost of $10,000 and which is kept locked in a great rosewood case - is the most sacred instrument used by the government.

Having had this hallowed cipher of the republic pressed into it, the new Thanksgiving proclamation is filed away in the State Department archives, later to be found in its chronological order, with other accumulated proclamations.

Uncle Sam takes all of these technical pains merely to retain the handsomely written proclamation as his own souvenir. But before the instrument has been filed away a typewritten copy is sent to the state Department’s official printer, who has a shop of his own in the basement of our foreign office. His printed copies are given to the newspapers or to anyone who wishes.

Each of the state governors must also be sent an exact copy, but the department’s strict code of etiquette demands that these copies must not be printed. They are typewritten, and signed by the President’s and Secretary of State’s own hands. Each governor then seconds this move of the President in appointing the annual feast day of thanks and prayer and, in their turn, the mayors of cities now generally second the move of their governors. 

By such indirect means does the prompting of the nation’s thanks theoretically reach the people, who actually receive it directly from the President himself through that eliminator of red tape – delays in the daily newspaper. In some localities, the bishops receive the proclamation from the governors and hand it down in circular form to the lesser clergy, who read it from their pulpits upon the Sabbath following its issuance. 

In parts of New England it is still the custom to read the proclamation from the pulpit on two successive Sundays. These infinite pains are taken, despite the fact that there is nothing in the federal statute authorizing a President to set apart such a holy day. But the proclamations make the holiday legal.  –The Stockton Independent, November 1920

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