Proclamation 4596

By the President of the United States of America A Proclamation

Since the days of its early settlement, the United States has been dependent on water transportation for its trade. Populations tended to locate around harbors, which rapidly became the economic centers of the New World. Now there are some 170 commercial seaports in this country, as well as numerous inland ports on our navigable inland waterways. The result has been the creation of a network of ocean and inland ports that includes many of the country's most important centers of industry, distribution, finance, and education.

Ports provide the vital link between land and water carriers. The port industry contributes enormously to the Nation's economy. It facilitates international trade, employs significant numbers of people, provides substantial personal and business incomes, and generates revenues for State and local governments.

Now, THEREFORE, I, JIMMY CARTER, President of the United States of America, in order to remind Americans of the importance of the port industry of the United States to our national life, do hereby designate the seven calendar days beginning September 17, 1978, as "National Port Week." I invite the Governors of the several States, the chief officials of local governments, and the people of the United States to observe such week with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of September, 1978, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-eight, and of the Independence of the United States the two hundred and third.

JIMMY CARTER

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 3:25 p.m., September 15, 1978]