What Crime Does the Thanksgiving Turkey Answer For?
A Philosopher Reflects on How Pardoning the Birds Only Compounds the Holiday’s Hypocrisy and Brutality
“Merciful President Pardons Turkey” declared headlines when John F. Kennedy saved the turkey gifted to the White House from being on the dinner table in 1963. But the tradition of sparing a turkey goes all the way back to when Thanksgiving was first declared an official holiday a century prior, in 1863. That year, Tad Lincoln, youngest son of Abraham and Mary, grew attached to the live turkey that had been sent to the White House and persuaded his dad to grant clemency to the bird to stop it from …
