Proclamation 3867—National Farm-City Week, 1968

The last third of the 20th century will add another 100 million Americans to today's population. The quality and quantity of our resources in the 21st century will depend on how well we plan uses for our nation's countryside, and how successfully we develop town and country economies.

Individual lives will be shaped, too, by whether our core cities are restored—and whether suburban growth is translated into durable and desirable forms of community development.

Our major tools for achieving these goals are:

—an agricultural capacity for abundance never before attained by any nation.

—a vigorous economy with a gross national product this year of around 850 billion dollars, the largest in the world.

There is a third requirement, however, without which our economic strength cannot effectively transform our environment for the benefit of our people. It is our people's will to do so—to use our prosperity as an instrument of progressive change. Because of the need to generate increased interest in improving our environment and increasing opportunities for all Americans, I, LYNDON B. JOTINSON, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week of November 22 through November 28, 1968, as National Farm-City Week, and I call upon citizens throughout the nation to participate in observance of that week.

I request that leaders of farmers' organizations, business groups and labor unions, youth and women's clubs, civic associations, and all consumers join in this observance to increase public appreciation of the strong interests shared by rural and urban Americans.

I urge the Department of Agriculture, land-grant colleges and universities, the cooperative extension service, and all appropriate Government officials to cooperate with national, state, and local organizations in carrying out programs to observe National Farm-City Week, including public meetings and exhibits, and press, radio, and television features.

I urge that such programs emphasize:

—the necessity for an all-out attack on the problems responsible for pockets of economic blight in both country and city;

—the continuing need to improve our land planning and land-use practices to preserve unspoiled countryside and make the fullest use of our developed land;

—the urgent need to curb pollution of land, water, and air on a national scale to safeguard our capacities to produce abundantly while maintaining an environment in which the products of society can be enjoyed by all Americans;

—the importance of, further strengthening the economy of the family farm; and

—the fact that assuring tomorrow's food and fiber is a concern of every American today.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-third.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON