On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving each year, the Wall Street Journal republishes twin editorials.

Replant the American Dream

By David Ignatius
Friday, November 25, 2005

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On the Wednesday before Thanksgiving each year, the Wall Street Journal republishes twin editorials that evoke America's special gifts: "The Desolate Wilderness" and "And the Fair Land." They describe the pilgrims' fears as they departed Europe in 1620, and the measureless bounty they and their descendants found in the new land. The spirit we celebrate on Thanksgiving Day is our most powerful national asset. We need to put America's riches back on the table and share them with the world, humbly and gratefully.

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And the Fair Land

Updated Nov. 26, 2014 7:09 p.m. ET

Any one whose labors take him into the far reaches of the country, as ours lately have done, is bound to mark how the years have made the land grow fruitful.

This is indeed a big country, a rich country, in a way no array of figures can measure and so in a way past belief of those who have not seen it. Even those who journey through its Northeastern complex, into the Southern lands, across the central plains and to its Western slopes...

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Vermont C. Royster

Vermont Connecticut Royster (April 30, 1914 – July 22, 1996) was the editor of the editorial page of The Wall Street Journal from 1958 to 1971. He was honored with the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He won two Pulitzer Prizes for his writing, and numerous other awards. Royster was famed for providing a conservative interpretation of the news every day, especially regarding economic issues.

Early life

Although his life began and ended in Raleigh, North Carolina, the parts in between took him to the rest of the world. He was named after his paternal grandfather. His distinctive first and middle names were the result of a family tradition of using the names of states for offspring, begun by his great-grandfather. In addition to his grandfather's unusual name, his great-uncles were named Arkansas Delaware, Wisconsin Illinois, Oregon Minnesota, and Iowa Michigan Royster. They were usually called by their first and middle initials. These names were so unusual that for many years they were printed in the Ripley's Believe It or Not! series of books. Royster's father, Wilbur High Royster, owned and operated the Royster Candy Company in Raleigh, which in the early 1900s sold chocolate, peanut brittle, and other candies across the Carolinas and Virginia. His family also had a strong connection to the nearby University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; Vermont's grandfather had taught Latin and Greek at the university, and his great-uncle Wisconsin Royster had helped create the medical school at UNC.

Career

Royster was a 1935 graduate of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill; during his time at UNC he was a member of the Philanthropic Society and served as the editor of the student newspaper, The Daily Tar Heel. Soon after graduating, he moved to New York City and secured a job as a reporter for the New York City News Bureau, and a year later began his 61-year career with The Wall Street Journal.