In lieu of our traditional Thanksgiving editorial, the Editorial Board has decided to reprint an editorial from Nov. 24, 1621, one of the first editorials drafted by The Chronicle’s independent Editorial Board.
This year’s feast with the natives, organized by Vice President for Plymouth Affairs Laurencius Monetius, is a step in a goodly and just direction. By grace, it promises to engage the native community and distribute table places fairly. But—by heaven we chart thee, Laurencius!—this new feast model was the product neither of colony input nor transparency from the Elect.
The colony’s current feasting model—the quadrilateral model, which uses only square tables—is hardly broken. Why distribute table places differently now, in the wake of so much ill fortune?
We have only just emerged from a great winter recession—the work of Satan and the cause of so many school teachers’ pay freezes, tradesmen associations’ cutbacks and also deaths. Nevertheless, the colony has maintained its most fundamental commitments. For example, PuritanEngage continues to distribute thick, woolly blankets to our native comrades, despite the ill fortunes of the program’s endowment, bequeathed by the Queen Anne and King George foundation. But something is yet rotten in Plymouth.
Just last year, the foul and unnatural apothecarium of Anil von Potti falsely peddled herbal ointments and smelling salts of dubious efficacy. Many natives demand recompense for the fur pelts they traded with von Potti, and we expect much of the current harvest will go to their satisfaction.
And why Gov. Bradfordhead insists on colonizing the native settlements with such rapacity escapes us. Already the natives have demanded many wampum of us, purportedly for longhouse construction fees. But, verily, we have seen them dancing round the maypole with libations and rifles in hand! We suspect even more insidious uses for our wampum, and hope Bradfordhead shows restraint in further colonization. At least, as we are told, the bounty of the land lay just beyond that settlement. Verily, with the fruit of that spice-laden country, we will surpass Jamestown as the new world’s finest colony!
These tribulations not withstanding, we doubt that the new feast model will promote temperance and good cheer. No doubt, the quadrilateral model had its brushes with the devil. Verily, the bachelor tradesmen associations used the choicest seats to take many liberties with wine, women and—damndest of all—song and dance.
Vis, the new feast model has pushed many godly folk to Plymouth’s central swamp, where the diphtheria will surely take them.
And we are deeply worried by the entrance of many groups who wish to be seated by... profession. If farriers sup only with farriers and coopers only with coopers, segregation will ensue. How can we rich intellectual exchange—completely within the confines of orthodox Puritanism—if we’re sitting across the table from one another?
Nevertheless, casting die for housing lots is the only fair way to determine who sits next to whom. It is the belief of this Editorial Board that Laurencius’ model deserves to be treated with much more respect than that which we grant to our treaties with the natives.
In case you couldn’t tell, this editorial is a joke. The Editorial Board wishes everyone a happy Thanksgiving!
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