Proclamation 4155—Child Health Day, 1972

This Nation's children represent our greatest responsibility and our greatest hope. We all share a continuous obligation to do all we can to safeguard and promote their health and well-being. Since 1928, we have given special recognition to this obligation by setting aside one day a year as Child Health Day.

It is a day to consider the miracle of life, and to realize that all of America's children are in a way the responsibility of every American because they represent this Nation's future.

It is a day for each of us to consider what he or she can do to further the healthy development of those young lives which will shape the future.

It is, above all, a day to renew our quest for a world of peace in which all children can grow and live as brothers and sisters.

The Congress, showing its concern by a joint resolution of May 18, 1928, as amended (36 U.S.C. 143), requested the President to issue annually a proclamation declaring the first Monday in October as Child Health Day.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Monday, October 2, 1972, as Child Health Day.

I invite all agencies and organizations interested in child welfare to unite upon that day in the observance of such activities as will awaken the people of the Nation to the fundamental necessity of a year-round program for the protection and development of the health of the Nation's children.

In addition, Child Health Day is an appropriate time to salute the work which the United Nations, through its specialized agencies, and the United Nations Children's Fund are doing to improve the health of children around the world.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-seventh.

RICHARD NIXON