Which Knew Best?

Pacific Seventh-day Adventist Publishing Association · Oakland, California · Jul 17, 1879

Of thanksgiving proclamations, the Advance tells this good story: "Soon after Chief Justice Chase became Governor in Ohio, he issued his proclamation appointing a thanksgiving day. To make sure of being orthodox, he composed his proclamation almost exclusively of passages from the Bible, which he did not designate as quotations, presuming that every one would recognize them and admire the fitness of the words as well as his taste in their selection. The proclamation meeting the eyes of a democratic editor, he pounced at once upon it—declared that he had read it before—couldn't exactly say where—but would take his oath that it was a downright plagiarism from beginning to end? That would have been a pretty fair joke; but the next day the republican editor came out valiantly in defense of the governor, and pronounced the charge false and libelous, and challenged any man living to produce one single line of the proclamation that had ever appeared in print before."