The Border Vidette

The Border Vidette.
NOVEMBER 29, 1924.

PRIDE OF COUNTRY.

Another Thanksgiving day has passed. The usual perfunctory proclamations were issued by public officials and read by the people.

Thanksgiving should not be limited to one day in this land of opportunity and progress. Are we as proud of our country and as grateful for the advantages it gives us we should be? It is often stated that Californians are greater boosters for their state and its resources than are citizens of any other state in this Union.

Why localize our enthusiasm for our country? No state could exist without our United States. Why should not every citizen of this country be an active booster for a nation which has gone farther than any other in the world in giving liberty, property rights, business opportunities, home conveniences, educational advantages and amusements to its people? Why should not our schools and colleges emphasize to a greater extent the advantages of a citizen of this nation under our constitutional form of government?

Until something is proposed which would in a small measure give us protection and advantages equal to those which we now receive, we should express greater thanks for what we have and be less ready to listen to the thoughtless agitator or professional politician who, failing to appreciate the advantages which surround him, seeks to foist impractical theories or visionary experiments upon a people already blessed with a government better than any other so far devised?

When you feel like kicking, look around you. Practically every American citizen can own his own home if he so desires. He can travel to his work either in an electric car or over a system of highways such as the Romans never dreamed of.

In his home, gas and electricity do work equal to that done by a score of servants to former kings and queens. The American telephone system furnishes a communication service in the humblest home beyond the wildest dreams of world famous rulers of the past.

Our property is safeguarded, our workmen are cared for and our lives are protected by our insurance system unheard of a hundred years ago and which is rapidly eliminating the pauper and the poor house.

Aladdin and his lamp have been made a reality by the radio which, in conjunction with wire communication, has annihilated distance and, as the people of the world become better acquainted through our modern methods of communication, will eliminate war. The homesteader in the mountains can tune in his radio set and listen to the music, lectures and amusement programs of the world.

Our farmers are learning the advantages of applying business methods to agricultural pursuits. Our industries are profiting by making their employees and customers stockholders in their properties. Gasoline has made individual transportation possible so that vast sections of the country heretofore impossible of settlement on account of distance have been opened up and are today pouring their produce and business in over improved highways to the greatest railroad transportation system in the world.

What a picture to paint! Forests, mines, transportation, oil, electricity, telephone, gas, radio, modern farm machinery, factory buildings finer than the castles of history, roads and road building methods such as the world has never before seen, and an educational system which offers the poor man's son advantages which the nobility did not have a few generations ago.

Think of these things when you hear the croakers and the knockers. Don't be thankful just on Thanksgiving Day. Learn a lesson from California, where the children are taught that the sun is brighter, the sky is bluer and the advantages greater than anywhere else in the world. Let us build up pride in our country, not in a boastful or arrogant manner, but with a sense of appreciation and thanksgiving that we are so fortunate as to live in a land where opportunities and advantages for the poor and the lowly are greater than the luxuries offered favored and wealthy persons a short century ago.