Pardoned turkeys everywhere owe their lives to a boy named Thomas
Submitted by Carson Now Reader on Fri, 11/26/2021 - 11:05am
Since 1989 lucky turkeys have had their necks ceremoniously saved each Thanksgiving by presidential pardon.
Modern-day presidents generally take the credit for this feel-good symbolism; but the real hero for these fortunate gobblers is a little boy named Thomas, whose influence over his father resulted in what would later become a national tradition.
The year was 1863. America was in the throes of a bitter and bloody civil war, and the Union was hanging by a thread of hope.
Seeking to build upon recent military successes and restore confidence in the Republic, President Abraham Lincoln responded to a letter from noted "Mary Had A Little Lamb" author Sarah Josepha Hale by proclaiming the fourth Thursday of November as a National Day of Thanksgiving.
Then, late in the year, Lincoln was gifted a live turkey; destined to be the centerpiece of the 1863 White House Christmas feast. Had it not been for the intervention of a certain animal-loving child, the annual White House Thanksgiving turkey pardon might never have happened.
According to a story published by the Smithsonian Magazine in November 2012, Thomas "Tad" Lincoln was just 10 years old when he fell immediately in love with the would-be Christmas turkey, whom he named Jack.
The pair had quickly become inseparable. Tad taught Jack to follow along behind him as he hiked the White House grounds.
Tad's attachment to the bird did not go unnoticed by his father, who broke the news to the child on Christmas Eve.
“Jack was sent here to be killed and eaten for this very Christmas,” Abraham Lincoln reportedly told his son.
But Tad's love for animals and his zeal over Jack proved stronger.
“I can’t help it," Tad is said to have responded. "He’s a good turkey and I don’t want him killed.”
Abraham Lincoln was a doting father to Tad, his youngest child. He had reason to be.
Tad was one of only two living children between Abraham and Mary Todd Lincoln, and the only one still at home.
Eldest son Robert was grown and away attending college at Harvard. The couple had lost their son, Willie, the previous year to what was believed to have been typhoid fever. In 1850, they had also lost a son, Eddie, to illness.
Tad was born with a cleft palate, which resulted in dental impairments, so Abraham was especially sensitive to his youngest son's well-being.
When Tad argued on behalf of Jack the turkey, it wasn't a hard sell at all. President Abraham Lincoln relented and spared Jack's life on December 24, 1863.
Even going so far as recording the deed for Tad, the former frontier lawyer reportedly wrote the turkey's reprieve on a card that he gave to his son.
Turkey pardons did not become an annual White House tradition until much later.
President Harry S. Truman is credited with holding the first official live turkey reception at the White House; although there is no evidence that Mr. Truman actually spared the life of the bird gifted to him by the National Turkey Federation.
President John F. Kennedy is reported to have granted clemency to the annual NTF turkey just days before his own assassination on November 22, 1963, when he declined to eat the gobbler presented to him. The press ran with a story that the president had thus "pardoned" the holiday turkey.
A couple decades later, President Ronald W. Reagan had actually used the term "pardon" as the punchline of a joke he delivered around Thanksgiving time.
Responding to questions from the press about whether or not he would issue any pardons to those involved in the Iran-Contra affair, President Reagan quipped that had the White House holiday turkey not already been put out to pasture, "I would have pardoned him."
The ceremonial White House turkey pardon began in 1989 with President George H.W. Bush, who formally pardoned the holiday gobbler presented to him at Thanksgiving.
“Not this guy,” President Bush announced publicly. “He’s been granted a presidential pardon as of right now.”
Bush would go on to pardon three more holiday turkeys during his time in office, establishing an annual tradition that has spanned more than three decades.
Every pardoned Whited House turkey, though, has owed its life not to the president sparing it, but to little Tad Lincoln.
Had it not been for that Christmas Eve gift of a father to his son, a modestly powerful expression of affection and compassion, there's no telling what the fates of White House holiday turkeys might be today.
What we do know is that many Americans appreciate the symbolic gesture of the turkey pardon, lighthearted as it's meant to be, because Thanksgiving is as much a time to be humble and grateful, to love and be loved, as it is to be thankful.
