The White House’s Passion for Turkey Pardoning
At least Rebecca the raccoon survived
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The White House’s Passion for Turkey Pardoning
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Did you know that Calvin Coolidge had a pet raccoon in the White House? This came about when a Mississippi farmer sent the animal to President Coolidge in an attempt to make raccoon meat the main event in the American Thanksgiving dinner. The Coolidges said no thank you, but did keep her around during their administration. (They named her Rebecca!)
If you’re wondering if it was common practice in the early 1900s to send live animals to the White House in November, the answer is yes. This is because one man, a turkey farmer in Rhode Island named Horace Vose, had sent (dead) turkeys to every sitting president since 1873, a tradition that stopped only upon his death in December 1913. When he died, turkey farmers from around the country scrambled to become the supplier, stepping it up by sending the birds still alive. Woodrow Wilson had no problem having the birds dispatched upon arrival; when Coolidge took office he made it known that his household would go ahead and buy their own pre-killed birds. The agriculture lobby did not take kindly to that, so after two years he relented, bringing on a deluge of less conventional meats like quail and deer. Hence, Rebecca the Raccoon.
The first “National Thanksgiving Turkey Presentation” didn’t happen until 1947, and it was explicitly an act of aggression by the National Poultry and Egg Board, pissed at Truman and his campaign for “Meatless Tuesdays” and the now lesser-known “Poultryless Thursdays.” Truman did the presentation, ate the offering, and downgraded his request to “Eggless Thursdays.”
The first president to look a turkey in the eye and say, “nah, let him live” (more or less) was Kennedy. Over the next 20 years, some presidents ate the birds, some didn’t; the Nixons and Carters sometimes gave theirs to petting zoos.
The first president to actually say the word “pardon” when talking about his turkey (now facilitated by the National Turkey Federation) was Ronald Reagan. I had read that he said it as an attempt at a joke to deflect from questions about Iran-Contra, but that seemed too stupid - but then I saw the transcript. For context, Charlie is the turkey being pardoned.
I don’t understand the joke, but I think it’s clear that Reagan was deflecting.
It was his successor, the elder George Bush, that made turkey pardoning official. It’s now done every year and is, I really think, one of the darker White House traditions: Started by lobbyists, named to distract from arms dealings, covering our barbaric justice system with sweetness and light and cute names like Peas and Carrots. Just a little holiday joke about the death penalty.
What they should really do is give out free mashed potatoes, so everyone can have the best part of the Thanksgiving meal.
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I actually wrote about the history of turkey lobbying and the presidential pardon as bizarre PR event a few thanksgivings back (linking for anyone that might want to read more on this), but I somehow missed the fact that Reagan coined the term to deflect press questions! That transcript is truly an unbelievable read - squishing a question in about the Cuban prisoner riots casually between two questions about the age of the presidential turkeys?!
https://open.substack.com/pub/meghanboilard/p/pomp-and-turkumstance-whats-the-deal?r=iyyre&utm_medium=ios&utm_campaign=post