Proclamation 5926—National Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service Centennial Day, 1989

On January 4, 1989, the members of the Commissioned Corps of the United States Public Health Service celebrate a century of service to Americans and to all mankind. The rest of us can join in this celebration as well, to express our thanks and pride at their successes over the past 100 years.

Those successes have been notable. They include playing a key role in many breakthroughs in health care; battling diseases such as smallpox, tuberculosis, and pellagra; developing vaccines; performing with efficiency and courage during emergencies, epidemics, and similar situations; and working in fields such as disease control and prevention, research, environmental intervention, and health care delivery and program management.

Commissioned Corps members' broad training and experience make them an effective team of medical and health experts. The Corps offers health care for American Indians, Native Alaskans, the Coast Guard, the Merchant Marine, and the Bureau of Prisons and helps provide consumer protection.

Every member of the Commissioned Corps, past and present, deserves the heartfelt congratulations of the American people for outstanding accomplishment in public health. That is a debt we should be only too happy to pay, on the centennial of the Corps and always.

The Congress, by Public Law 100-652, has designated January 4, 1989, as "National Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service Centennial Day" and authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation in observance of this event.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim January 4, 1989, as National Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service Centennial Day, and I call upon all Americans to observe this day with appropriate ceremonies and activities.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-third day of December, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-eight, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and thirteenth.

RONALD REAGAN