[Federal Register Volume 62, Number 86 (Monday, May 5, 1997)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 24557-24558]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 97-11820]
Presidential Documents
Federal Register / Vol. 62, No. 86 / Monday, May 5, 1997 /
Presidential Documents
[[Page 24557]]
Proclamation 6997 of May 1, 1997
Loyalty Day, 1997
By the President of the United States of America
A Proclamation
Each year, Americans dedicate the first day of May to
formally acknowledge our love for this great land and
our loyalty to the principles of freedom and equality
on which our Nation was founded. This love and loyalty
cannot be mandated or legislated; rather, these traits
spring freely from our hearts and minds.
Looking back across the centuries, we recognize that
each generation of Americans has been called upon to
express its love and loyalty in a unique way. Our
founders, defying the forces of tyranny, solemnly
pledged their lives and futures to defend the new
Nation they had created, a Nation born of reverence for
human rights and the principle of self- determination.
Less than a century later, another generation of
Americans spilled its blood to preserve the unity of
our Nation and to ensure that America lived up to its
ideals of freedom, justice, and equality.
The challenges of our own century have called for an
extraordinary measure of devotion from millions of our
citizens. Through two devastating world wars and the
decades of the Cold War, Americans laid down their
lives for love of country and to defend democracy,
advance human rights, and oppose the specter of
oppression.
Today we are blessed to be living in a time of
unprecedented peace and possibility, when the ideals of
democracy and human dignity so eloquently articulated
by our founders have been widely embraced by nations in
our own hemisphere and around the world. But we have
fresh opportunities to prove our love and loyalty to
America. The challenge for our generation is to realize
the promise of our Nation: to be a strong and steady
influence for peace and freedom across the globe; to be
a powerful voice for human rights wherever they are
silenced; to live up to America's promise of justice,
equality, and opportunity by ensuring that all of our
people have the tools and encouragement they need to
meet their God-given potential.
The Congress, by Public Law 85-529, has designated May
1 of each year as ``Loyalty Day.'' Let us, on this day,
remember the contributions of the many courageous
Americans who have gone before us, and let us keep
faith with them by reaffirming our love for and loyalty
to this Nation they sustained with their service and
sacrifice.
NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the
United States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1,
1997, as Loyalty Day. I urge all Americans to recall,
on this day, the valor and selflessness of all those
who made this Nation so worthy of our love and loyalty.
I call upon Government officials to display the flag of
the United States and to participate in patriotic
activities in support of this national observance.
[[Page 24558]]
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this
first day of May, in the year of our Lord nineteen
hundred and ninety-seven, and of the Independence of
the United States of America the two hundred and
twenty-first.
(Presidential Sig.)
[FR Doc. 97-11820
Filed 5-2-97; 10:55 am]
Billing code 3195-01-P
