Statement by the President: National Newspaper Week.

To the Newspapers of the Nation:

National Newspaper Week prompts us all to renew our awareness of the remarkable national service rendered daily by the newspapers of America.

Our free press does more than tell our people the history of our times. It explains that history, interprets it, and, so doing, often actually helps to create that history.

A free press and a free society are essentially one. As the press can know freedom only in a democratic state, so democracy itself is fortified by a free press.

This strengthening of our society is, of course, the antithesis of the ignoble service performed by the press of totalitarian countries. The effectiveness of a free press is virtually to be measured by the integrity, candor and responsibility of its criticism.

On this occasion I am happy to send warm greetings to the reporters, editors and publishers of our Nation's newspapers. I know--as they must themselves--that they are custodians of a majestic trust, a solemn responsibility: to help arm our people with the knowledge and understanding without which free choice, free government, free men could not be.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER