Proclamation 3702—Save Your Vision Week, 1966

"He that is stricken blind cannot forget the precious treasure of his eyesight lost."

Those words of Shakespeare are relevant to us today as we proclaim Save Your Vision Week, 1966. They remind us that the gift of sight is one of the glories of life. To the child it is a red balloon ... a mother's smile ... a form in a passing cloud. To the adult, it is wisdom from a book ... a great painting ... a tree with autumn leaves.

Those words of Shakespeare remind us, too, that the eyesight which most of us so take for granted in our daily lives can be snatched from any of us, almost without warning.

Each year some 30,000 Americans go blind. Half of these cases of blindness could be prevented—by early detection and proper treatment. Modern medical science can cure many diseases of the eye that were formerly considered hopeless. Our task now is to apply such cures where they are needed.

The Federal Government is proud of the contribution it is making in this effort. Last summer, through Project Headstart, we discovered more than 22,000 underprivileged children who were suffering from abnormal visual defects. These children are now being helped.

But much still remains to be done if we are to educate the public to the importance of proper care and treatment of their eyes. It was for this reason that the Congress, by a joint resolution approved December 30, 1963 (77 Stat. 629), requested the President to issue annually a proclamation designating the first week in March of each year as Save Your Vision Week.

I am happy to do so again this year. I hereby proclaim the week beginning March 6, 1966, as Save Your Vision Week, and I hereby invite the Governors of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and officials of other areas subject to the jurisdiction of the United States to issue similar proclamations.

I also call upon the communications media, the medical, ophthalmological, optometric, and other health care professions, and all agencies concerned with programs for the improvement and preservation of vision, to unite in public activities to impress upon the people of the United States the importance of good vision to their happiness and welfare, and to urge their participation in programs to improve and protect the vision of our people.

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 twenty-eighth day of January in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninetieth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

Secretary of State