Proclamation 2742—Fire Prevention Week, 1947

Whereas each year preventable fires claim the lives of thousands of our citizens, both young and old, and cause permanent disability or painful injury to countless others; and

Whereas the destruction by fire of our natural and created resources has almost doubled during the past decade, and cost this nation more than five hundred and sixty million dollars in the year 1946; and

Whereas this ravage, if unabated, threatens an even more calamitous loss of life and waste of material wealth; and

Whereas the program promulgated at the President's Conference on Fire Prevention held at Washington in May 1947 is designed to assist in stemming the tide of death and destruction from fires:

Now, Therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning October 5, 1947, as Fire Prevention Week.

I earnestly request every citizen to eliminate all possible causes of destructive fire in his home and in his place of business, and I urge that vigilance against fire be extended beyond Fire Prevention Week and zealously continued throughout the year. I invite State and local governments, the Chamber of Commerce of the United States, the National Fire Waste Council, the American National Red Cross, business and labor organizations, churches and schools, civic groups, and agencies of the press, the radio, and the motion-picture industry to cooperate fully in the observance of Fire Prevention Week with the objective of initiating a fire prevention campaign continuing throughout the year. I also direct the appropriate agencies of the Federal Government to assist in every feasible way in arousing the public to the seriousness of the fire problem.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this fourteenth day of August in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-seven, and of the independence of the United States of America the one hundred and seventy-second.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

By the President:

ROBERT A. LOVETT,

Acting Secretary of State.