Proclamation 4271—National Safe Boating Week, 1974

For many Americans, boating has become a major source of leisure-time pleasure. To avoid turning pleasure into tragedy, however, we must always be mindful of our shared responsibility to use our waterways in a safe manner. Furthermore, with the pressures of the energy crisis forcing a reduction in our available fuel supplies, Americans who utilize our waterways should be mindful of the need to conserve fuel to aid in meeting our energy needs.

Aware of the need for boating safety, the Congress enacted the joint resolution of June 4, 1958 (72 Stat. 179), which requests that the President proclaim annually the week which includes July 4 as National Safe Boating Week.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning June 30, 1974, as National Safe Boating Week.

All Americans who utilize our waterways for recreation should possess at least a minimum knowledge of safety afloat for their own protection and for the protection of their passengers and craft. I urge all Americans who engage in recreational boating to take advantage of the numerous safe boating courses sponsored by governmental and private organizations and I particularly urge inexperienced operators of small boats to enroll in educational programs designed to teach the fundamentals of safe boating since they seem more prone to boating accidents or tragedies.

I also invite the Governors of the States, the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, the Virgin Islands, Guam, and American Samoa, and the Commissioner of the District of Columbia to provide for the observance of this week.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-sixth day of February, 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