Proclamation 4266—National Inventors' Day, 1974

Curiosity and creativity are hallmarks of the American character and nowhere are those traits more evident than in the American inventor. From the days of Benjamin Franklin to the present, whether they have worked in garages or multimillion dollar laboratories, inventors have given us an increasingly broad array of labor-saving devices as well as new methods of improving our personal comfort, new methods of transportation, and new means of enjoying our culture. Indeed, they have given us the means of converting our Nation's great natural abundance into a better life for all Americans.

Our history is filled with the stories of men who have worked in loneliness—and sometimes in spite of the laughter of men of lesser vision—in order to perfect ideas that have transformed our civilization. At the heart of all our great technological advances, and of all our industrial and commercial enterprises in communications, technology, medicine, and many other fields, lies the dream and the ingenuity of the inventor.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America, in honor of the important role played by inventors in promoting progress in the useful arts and in recognition of the invaluable contribution of inventors to the welfare of our people, designate February 11, 1974, as National Inventors' Day. I call upon the people of the United States to join in observing National Inventors' Day with appropriate ceremonies and activities honoring the important role played by inventors in promoting progress in useful arts and in recognition of their invaluable contribution to our welfare.

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

RICHARD NIXON