Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 76.djvu/1492

 1444

PROCLAMATION 3445-JAN. 16, 1962

[76 STAT.

WHEREAS the Congress, by a joint resolution approved September 22, 1961 (75 Stat. 571), has requested the President to issue a proclamation designating the calendar year 1962 as the centennial of the enactment of the Homestead Act: NOW, THEREFORE, I, JOHN F. KENNEDY, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the year 1962 as Homestead Centennial Year. I call upon the Governors of the States, mayors of cities, and other public officials, as well as other persons, organizations, and groups, particularly in the States most directly affected by the Homestead Act, to observe such centennial by appropriate celebrations and ceremonies. I request the Department of the Interior to plan and participate in appropriate commemorative activities recognizing the centennial of the enactment of the Homestead Act and the sesquicentennial of the establishment of the General Land Office; and I also request the Department of the Interior and other Federal agencies to cooperate fully with State and local governments during 1962 in commemorating these events. I N W I T N E S S 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 fifth day of January in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-two, and of the [SEAL] Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-sixth. JOHN F. KENNEDY

By the President: DEAN R U S K,

Secretary

of State.

Proclamation 3445 LAW DAY, U.S.A., 1962 January 16, 1962

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

WHEREAS one of the great challenges of our age is man's struggle to sustain individual freedom, human dignity, and justice for all; and WHEREAS one of the vital bulwarks in that struggle is the rule of law which underlies our whole social, economic and governmental structure, and through which we strive constantly to broaden and secure for all our citizens the rights and opportunities guaranteed by the Constitution and the Bill of Rights; and WHEREAS the strengthening of the rule of law in our own country directly concerns every citizen because it is of fundamental importance both to the nation's welfare at home and to our hopes for building an enduring structure of world peace through wider application of the rule of law in relations between nations; and WHEREAS, just as freedom itself demands constant vigilance, it is essential that we nurture through education and example an appreciation of the values of our system of justice and that we foster through improved understanding of the function of law and of independent courts an increased respect for law and for the rights of others as basic elements of our free society; and

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