Proclamation 3585—Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, 1964

Whereas on Memorial Day of each year it has long been the custom of this Nation to honor its forefathers and compatriots who have laid down their lives that we might live in freedom; and

Whereas we are eternally grateful to them for their supreme and selfless sacrifice on the field of battle; and

Whereas the same revolutionary beliefs and ideals for which our forebears fought and died are still at issue in the world and the challenge against them can be met only through the same qualities of bravery, fortitude, and unyielding determination shown by our noble dead; and

Whereas Memorial Day each year provides a fitting occasion upon which our citizens may commemorate departed loved ones and offer prayers for the preservation of liberty and peace free from the threat of war; and

Whereas for this purpose the Congress, in a joint resolution approved May 11, 1950 (64 Stat. 158), requested the President to issue a proclamation calling upon the people of the United States to observe each Memorial Day as a day of prayer for permanent peace:

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Memorial Day, Saturday, May 30, 1964, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I call upon all the people of the Nation to invoke God's blessing on those who have died in defense of our country and to pray for a world of law and order. I designate the hour beginning in each locality at eleven o'clock in the morning of that day as the time to unite in such prayer.

I also urge the press, radio, television, and all other information media to cooperate in this observance.

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 23rd day of April in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-four, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-eighth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

Dean Rusk,

Secretary of State.