Page:United States Statutes at Large Volume 89.djvu/1345

 PROCLAMATION 4383—AUG. 26, 1975

89 STAT. 1285

of the real and practical need to ensure that equal legal rights are enjoyed by women and men. This year, 1975, has been designated as International Women's Year, dedicated to equality between men and women. It is also the twohundredth year of our Nation—a Nation born, nurtured and dedicated to the proposition that all people are entitled to be equal before the law. Several more States need to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment before it becomes part of our Constitution. It would be most fitting for this to be ,

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accomplished during our Nation's two-hundredth year. In this Land of the Free, it is right, and by nature it ought to be, that all men and all women are equal before the law. NOW, THEREFORE, I, GERALD R. FORD, President of the United States of America, to remind all Americans that it is fitting and just to ratify the Equal Rights Amendment adopted by the Congress of the United States of America, in order to secure legal equality for all women and men, do hereby designate and proclaim August 26, 1975, as Women's Equality Day. I call upon all the citizens of the United States to mark this day with appropriate activities, and I call upon those States who have not ratified the Equal Rights Amendment to give serious consideration to its ratification and the upholding of our Nation's heritage. IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of August, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and seventy-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the twohundredth. GERALD R. FORD

EDITORIAL N O T E: For the text of the President's message of Aug. 26, 1975, on Women's Equality Day, see the Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents (vol. ll,p.907).

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