Unregistered Bull in a Hotel Lobby

"Well," said John, "here it is Thanksgiving again, and of course we should be thankful for our blessings. Let’s see, now what are they? Oh, yeah. They’re the same things we had to be thankful for last year, or 50 years ago: fitness, friends and faith.

"That’s all the Pilgrims had to be thankful for, and that’s all we have to be thankful for. If a man’s healthy, has friends and loved ones, and if he can have faith in a better life here and hereafter, he’s lucky.

"As for the rest of it, I can’t see where we have any right to be so proud. I see where the British have warmed a building in England with atomic heat. That’s encouraging, but hardly grounds for a universal celebration in view of the fact that the building they’ve heated with atomic power is occupied with people living in constant fear of being obliterated by an atomic bomb.

"Sometimes it looks like the human race is making some progress, but when you get right down to adding up the score, I’ll be dogged if it isn’t hard to see where we’re so much ahead, after all. Scientists have given us many tools which we could use for better living, but we don’t seem to be able to use them right. Modern doctors can save the life of a child or a young man that, half a century ago, would have been doomed; on the other hand, we hear that over 5000 helpless boys have been shot down in cold blood by the Communists. I don’t remember anything like that happening to Americans during the horse-and-buggy days.

"Along with things we have to be thankful for, there are plenty that we have to be ashamed of, all right. I guess we’ve heard more about crookedness in high places in the government in the last year than we heard in the preceding 10 years. Maybe we can be thankful about the latest scandal about the revenue department. From now on, when the income tax man accuses us of fudging on our returns, we ought to be able to tell him we won’t investigate him if he won’t investigate us.

"Too many people get to be successful these days through phony tactics. I used to listen to Walter Winchell a lot, but I had to quit when he got so he couldn’t report any news for bragging on himself. The last time I listened to him, he apologized for it and said he had to do it to meet the low-down competition.

"Maybe he was talking about Drew Pearson. I’m off of him, too. The other night, in making his much-bragged-about predictions, he forecast that the meat lobby in Washington is losing ground and some of these days people will be able to buy certain kinds of meat under ceiling prices. I guess he didn’t know it’s been going on for some time and is liable to continue to do so as long as big cattle runs continue and people have to sell breeding cows to packers on account of the drouth. It reminded me of the time Truman called Pearson that three-letter word. I guess we can be thankful that even Truman is right some of the time.

"Politicians, bureaucrats, public shysters — you’d think they’re multiplying in direct proportion to the national debt, and maybe they are. But, on the other hand, the total population is increasing, too, and maybe the percentage of good, hard-working people is holding its own with the percentage that figure the world owes them a living.

"I do think country people still have more to be thankful for than people in big cities. You let a man work in a field from daylight till noon, or round up ten or fifteen sections of sheep or cattle, and then watch him eat. He gets more enjoyment out of a pot of frijoles and sow belly than a city man does from filet mignon — more kick from a cup of coffee than a Wall Street resident does from a high-octane highball. If he lives in West Texas he gets more thrill from a two-inch rain than a city man does from a nightclub floor show."—(S.F. 11/22/51)