Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 81.djvu/1126

 1092

PROCLAMATION 3774-MAR. 31, 1967

[81 STAT.

or are now being, constructed. New and modernized water supply systems have been built to benefit some 20 million people. So as we assemble under the banner of the Alliance for Progress, we are cheered by success and encouraged in the task that lies ahead. With the confidence born of achievement, we know that we can prepare a better world for the new generation of Americans who will come after us. We look to the 60% of Latin America's 245 million people who are now under the age of 25, and we know that the task of meeting their aspirations is great. But we also know that we have forged the tools to do the task. And there is promise in what we see. The sustaining arm of education is reaching out to more and more of this strategic 60% of Latin Americans. —Since the Alliance was formed, school enrollments have increased at an average annual rate of over 6%. This rate represents more than twice the rate of increase in the total population. —For each 1,000 inhabitants, there were 124 students enrolled in schools in 1960, 170 in 1965, and 174 in 1966. —28,000 new classrooms have been built. —160,000 teachers have been trained or given additional training. —More than 14 million textbooks have been distributed. —13 million school children and 3 million pre-schoolers participate in school lunch programs. And more than this, what statistics cannot adequately relay is the emergence of a generation of vigorous, confident and responsible leaders throughout Latin America—leaders who are ready to help their countries help themselves. These leaders are beginning to include more and more women doers in their ranks. And since women comprise over half the population of Latin America, there is new potential in this leadership. The successes scored by the Alliance have been aided by the United States—but they have been realized by the cooperative spirit that resides in the commitment and dedication of the Latin American nations themselves. Their unrelenting perseverance has been a keystone in the firm foundation of our house of hemispheric progress. So as together we seek to strengthen—we seek a realistic goal. As together we build to better—we build on solid ground. Bound by geography, born of a common revolutionary heritage, nurtured by common ideals, committed to the dignity of man, and sustained by the youth and vigor that have been our common strength, we will project our traditions into a promising future—and we will prevail. NOW, THEREFORE, I, LYNDON B. JOHNSON, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Friday, April 14, 1967, as Pan American Day, and the week beginning April 9 and ending April 15 as P a n American Week; and I call upon the Governors of the fifty States of the Union, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the officials of all other areas under the flag of the United States to issue similar proclamations.

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