Proclamation 4294—Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, May 27, 1974

The defense of freedom and the search for peace cannot be separated. Together, they are an essential part of the American ideal. During the past two hundred years, our Nation has endured sacrifice in battle for the sake of this ideal. Americans died valiantly at Saratoga, King's Mountain, and Yorktown because they would not buy peace at the price of liberty. Americans died at Shiloh, Antietam, Gettysburg, and Vicksburg because a peace that cost the division of the Nation and the enslavement of a people could not be accepted.

We have occasion to show special gratitude this Memorial Day to those who fell in the cause of freedom in the longest and perhaps the most difficult war in our history. Because of their efforts, and the efforts of all our fighting forces, we can celebrate a year in which no American serviceman has fallen in the defense of his country.

During the past year, we have made progress toward the creation of a stable world order based on respect for the dignity and the larger interests of all nations. We have made this progress in part because America has pursued its tasks from a base of strength—not only military and economic strength, but strength of conviction and strength of purpose. We have been steadied in our resolve by the example of patience, self-sacrifice, and courage of our servicemen and women during the difficult years now past.

To our valiant dead we can pay no greater tribute than to emulate their dedication to a world free from the threat of force and the rule of fear. To them we dedicate our prayers for a new generation of peace and a new spirit of community among all the peoples of the world.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Memorial Day, Monday, May 27, 1974, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at eleven o'clock in the morning of that day as a time to unite in prayer.

I urge the press, radio, television, and all other information media to cooperate in this observance.

I direct that the flag of the United States be flown at half-staff all day on Memorial Day on all buildings, grounds, and naval vessels of the Federal Government throughout the United States and all areas under its jurisdiction and control.

I also call upon the Governors of the fifty States, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and appropriate officials of all local units of government to direct that the flag be flown at half-staff on all public buildings during that entire day, and I request the people of the United States to display the flag at half-staff from their homes for the same period.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-fifth day of May, 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