Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 85.djvu/936

 906

PROCLAMATION 4055-MAY 24, 1971

[85 STAT.

NOW, THEREFORE, I, RICHARD NIXON, President of the United States of America, do hereby request that Sunday, June 20, 1971, be observed as Father's Day. I direct Government officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings on that day, and I urge all citizens to display the flag at their homes and other suitable places. I invite the governments of the States and communities to observe Father's Day with appropriate ceremonies and I urge our people to offer public and private expressions on that day of the abiding love and gratitude which they bear for the fathers of our land. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this nineteenth day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventyone, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-fifth.

(^^ZJU^TC:/^ PROCLAMATION 4055

Flag Day and National Flag Week, 1971 May 24, 1971

Bj the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation On June 14, 1777—only months after the Declaration of IndependtitVe^*! ^^^"^

ence, and with four bitter years of the Revolutionary W a r still a h e a d — the Continental Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the flag of the United States of America. Like the Declaration itself, our flag began as an audacious assertion, crying out for proof. W i t h the passing decades the proof has come. O n e n e w freedom after another has enriched the flag's symbolism. But our vision of ideals to be realized has expanded as well, so that even n o w the flag speaks more of promise than of pride and looks more to tomorrow than to yesterday. And as long as America is a young Nation, this is the w a y it must be. E a c h generation must d o its o w n proving. The American flag today means w h a t today's Americans m a k e it m e a n. W e have in our power to make it abroad the b a n n e r of peace, honor, generosity—at h o m e the ensign of liberty, justice, opportunity. I n these goals, all Americans c a n unite. To this work, each of us can dedicate himself—resolving that, on whatever else we may differ, the flag and its challenge are ours in common.

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