Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 102 Part 5.djvu/1016

 102 STAT. 5022

PROCLAMATION 5824—MAY 16, 1988

future—our "safe kids." That is a goal to which we can all look forward. The Congress, by Senate Joint Resolution 240, has designated the period of May 16 through May 22, 1988, as "National Safe Kids Week" and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this event. NOW, THEREFORE, I, RONALD REAGAN, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the period of May 16 through May 22, 1988, as National Safe Kids Week. I call upon the people of the United States to observe this week with appropriate ceremonies and activities. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this thirteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and twelfth. RONALD REAGAN Editorial note. For the President's remarks of May 13, 1988, on signing Proclamation 5823, see the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents [vol. 24, p. 608).

Proclamation 5824 of May 16, 1988

Flag Day and National Flag Week, 1988 By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation Two hundred and eleven years have now gone by since that June day in 1777 when the Continental Congress adopted a flag for the United States of America, then a brand-new Nation fighting for its independence and for the novel notion that individual liberty was everyone's God-given birthright. The banner adopted then, the beautiful Stars and Stripes, was soon raised by a rebel hand for all the world to see. Our task and our glory as Americans is to keep the flag flying high, because freedom waves in its broad stripes and bright stars. The preservation of freedom is ours to fulfill for our children and for the hope of mankind, just as our forebears fulfilled it for us in years of peace or peril. We will succeed as our countrymen did before us, but only if we make their spirit our own; we must always revere, just as deeply as did they, the Red, White, and Blue—our battle-scarred flag. The heroism, service, and sacrifice of those who have followed Old Glory on many a hard-fought field and at many a guardpost of peace make this our solemn trust. We will keep faith with them and with generations yet unborn just as long as we can sing of flag and freedom as wholeheartedly as did Francis Scott Key in the last stanza of our National Anthem, "The Star-Spangled Banner": Oh! thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand Between their loved home and the war's desolation! Blest with victory and peace, may the heav'n rescued land Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation. Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just.

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