Proclamation 4215—National Historic Preservation Week

As the pace of change accelerates in the world around us, Americans more than ever before need a lively awareness of our roots and origins in the past on which to base our sense of identity in the present and our directions for the future. "People will not look forward to posterity," said Burke, "who never look backward to their ancestors."

America's history is told not only in books, museums, and monuments, but also across the face of the land itself and along the streets of our cities and towns. Our lives can be immeasurably enriched by preserving as an integral part of modem America some of the settings in which generations before us have lived and worked.

Pressures to sweep away in the name of "progress" such irreplaceable examples of our heritage seem to grow steadily stronger, but the movement to resist those pressures through a farsighted historic preservation effort is gaining strength even faster, with both public and private support. National Historic Preservation Week is an appropriate time to consider what is at stake in this cause, to chart what must be done, and to reaffirm our resolve to do it while there is still time.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, as requested by Senate Joint Resolution 51, do hereby proclaim the week beginning May 6, 1973, as National Historic Preservation Week. I call upon government agencies at all levels, interested private individuals, and concerned citizens to mark this observance with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

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

RICHARD NIXON