For This Freedom We are Thankful – Sunday, November 21, 1943
With almost unbelievable swiftness, another year has come and gone, to bring us again to the season of Thanksgiving—a season in which we make grateful acknowledgment of the yield of the good earth and of the providence of the Father of all men. Here in America Thanksgiving has deep significance for us, because, unfailingly through the years, in war and in peace, despite all the factors of disturbance and all the failings of men, we have been richly blessed.
This is partly because we have inherited a choice land, but there must be other reasons, too, because even a country with rich resources could quickly become unproductive under some circumstances. And so there must be other factors that have brought us blessing—and there are, for which we are thankful—thankful that there came to these shores those who loved freedom more than they loved life—thankful that we have had freedom of worship, free enterprise, and, in varying degrees, a government dependent upon the consent of the governed. But even now, while we pause in thanksgiving for the richness of our lives, there are those who have grown comfortable under this freedom, who have lived as beneficiaries of it, who would like to tear down the house that has given them shelter—those who bore at the foundations of the structure that has given them privilege, plenty, and protection— those who would bring to our shores principles and philosophies against which we are fighting on other shores—those who would guarantee us anything and everything in exchange for our liberty.
And to all such we would give reminder that beyond all material blessings, beyond the richness of harvest, beyond those products of war and of peace that a system of free enterprise has made possible, beyond all that we can see with our eyes and touch with our hands, that for which we are most thankful as the years recur, is freedom. And notwithstanding all the charges that are or can be levied against a system of freedom, the world has yet to produce a nation of free men who do not live lives more to be desired than those who have all else but freedom. We are thankful, too, for those who have sacrificed their lives for freedom—and to anyone who would remake our free institutions or our country for us, whoever they are and wherever they are—in this land or any other—we say again: There is nothing you could offer us for which we would exchange our freedom. There is no promise, even if fulfilled, that would have any value to us without our liberty. For this freedom we are thankful.
By Richard L. Evans, spoken from the Tabernacle, Temple Square, Salt Lake City, Sunday, Nov. 21, 1943, over Radio Station KSL and the nationwide Columbia Broadcasting System. Copyright – 1943.
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November 21, 1943
Broadcast Number 0,744