Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 55 Part 2.djvu/826

 PROCLAMATIONS-NOV. 14, 27, 1941 IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed. DONE at the city of Washington this 14 t h day of November, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-one, and [SEAL] of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and sixty-sixth. FRANKLIN D ROOSEVELT By the President: CORDELL HULL Secretary of State BILL OF RIGHTS DAY BY THE PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA A PROCLAMATION WHEREAS a Joint Resolution of the Congress, approved August 21, 1941, authorizes and requests the President of the United States "to issue a proclamation designating December 15, 1941 as Bill of Rights Day, calling upon officials of the Government to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on that day, and inviting the people of the United States to observe the day with appropriate ceremonies and prayer": NOW, THEREFORE, I, FRANKLIN D. ROOSEVELT, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate December 15, 1941 as Bill of Rights Day. And I call upon the officials of the Govern- ment, and upon the people of the United States, to observe the day by displaying the flag of the United States on public buildings and by meeting together for such prayers and such ceremonies as may seem to them appropriate. The first ten amendments, the great American charter of personal liberty and human dignity, became a part of the Constitution of the United States on the 15th day of December 1791. It is fitting that the anniversary of its adoption should be re- membered by the nation which, for one hundred and fifty years, has enjoyed the immeasurable privileges which that charter guar- anteed: the privileges of freedom of religion, freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and the free right to petition the government for redress of grievances. It is especially fitting that this anniversary should be remembered and observed by those institutions of a democratic people which owe their very existence to the guarantees of the Bill of Rights: the free schools, the free churches, the labor unions, the religious and educa- tional and civic organizations of all kinds which, without the guarantee of the Bill of Rights, could never have existed; which sicken and dis- appear whenever, in any country, these rights are curtailed or with- drawn. The 15th day of December, 1941, is therefore set apart as a day of mobilization for freedom and for human rights, a day of remem- brance of the democratic and peaceful action by which these rights were gained, a day of reassessment of their present meaning and their living worth. Those who have long enjoyed such privileges as we enjoy forget in time that men have died to win them. They come in time to take these rights for granted and to assume their protection is assured. We, however, who have seen these privileges lost in other continents and other countries can now appreciate their meaning to those people November 27, 1941 [No. 2524] Ante, p. 665. Designation of Dec. 15, 1941 as Bill of Rights Day. 55 STAT.]

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