Proclamation 4285—Mother's Day, 1974

Over three million children were born in the United States last year, and the job of guiding them to maturity will be carried out primarily by their mothers. There is no undertaking more challenging, no responsibility more awesome.

In addition to carrying out their family responsibilities, mothers are today, as never before, moving into other highly skilled jobs and careers. Barriers against equal opportunity for women have been disappearing rapidly, but we must remain diligent in our effort to remove them.

I am particularly pleased that this year we can celebrate Mother's Day in a world in which America is at peace, a world in which no American mother need fear for the well-being of a husband or son in a far-off land.

The Congress, by a joint resolution of May 8, 1914 (38 Stat. 770), designated the second Sunday of May each year as the day on which we honor all mothers for their countless contributions to their families, to their communities and to their Nation.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby request that Sunday, May 12, 1974, he observed as Mother's Day. I direct Government officials to display the flag of the United States on all Government buildings, and I urge all citizens to display the flag at their homes and other suitable places on that day.

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

RICHARD NIXON