Proclamation 2703—National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week, 1946

Whereas the people of this Nation are determined to do their utmost to restore to normal living those of their countrymen who have become physically handicapped and to assist them in developing their potential power for service to themselves and to their fellows; and

Whereas the people of this Nation are profoundly conscious of the immeasurable debt they owe to the heroes who went bravely forth to battle and returned with physical handicaps; and

Whereas our late President, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, through moral courage, physical stamina, and spiritual strength, exemplified the power of the physically handicapped to bring hope and confidence to mankind; and

Whereas the Congress, by a joint resolution approved August 11, 1945 (59 Stat. 530), has designated the first week in October of each year as National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week, during which appropriate ceremonies are to be held throughout the Nation, and has requested that the President issue a suitable proclamation each year:

Now, Therefore, I, Harry S. Truman, President of the United States of America, do hereby call upon the people of the United States to observe the week of October 6-12, 1946, as National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week. I also call upon the Governors of States, the mayors of cities, and the heads of other instrumentalities of government, as well as leaders of civic groups, to hold during that week exercises designed to foster the widest possible public support for and interest in the employment of otherwise qualified but physically handicapped workers.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

Done at the City of Washington this 12th day of September in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and forty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and seventy-first.

HARRY S. TRUMAN

By the President:

W. L. CLAYTON,

Acting Secretary of State.