Proclamation 3218—Pan American Day and Pan America Week, 1958

Whereas on April 14, 1958, the twenty-one American Republics will celebrate the sixty-eighth anniversary of the founding of a bureau for inter-American cooperation which, as the Pan American Union, now serves as the permanent Organ and General Secretariat of the Organization of American States; and

Whereas the evolution of the Organization of American States into its present form has been accompanied by an ever-increasing solidarity of the peoples of the Republics of the Western Hemisphere; and

Whereas the Organization, as one of the important associations of free nations, contributes to hemispheric defense and to the advancement of international peace and the ideals of freedom:

Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Monday, April 14, 1958, as Pan American Day, and the period from April 14 to April 20, 1958, as Pan American Week; and I invite the Governors of the States, Territories, and possessions of the United States of America and the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico to issue similar proclamations.

I also urge our citizens and all interested organizations to join in the appropriate observance of Pan American Day and Pan American Week, in testimony of the steadfast friendship which unites the people of the United States with the people of the other American Republics.

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 22d day of January in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-second.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

By the President:

CHRISTIAN A. HERTER,

Acting Secretary of State