Proclamation 4283—Small Business Week, 1974

The history of America is in large measure the history of independent enterprise. From the earliest days of our history, the trader and the merchant, pushing westward, laid the foundations for what has become the world's greatest economic achievement. "What most astonishes me," wrote de Tocqueville of our young Nation in the 1830's "is not so much the marvelous grandeur of some undertaking as the innumerable multitude of small ones."

It is upon the foundation established by those small undertakings that the most dynamic society known to man has been built. And today America's small businesses continue to thrive.

Nineteen out of every twenty firms are considered small business. They provide approximately 35 million jobs and contribute more than $476 billion annually to the gross national product.

The pioneering spirit that underlies our success as a Nation will continue to flourish for as long as the small businessman remains the mainstay of our economy and our society.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning May 19, 1974, as Small Business Week. I ask all Americans to share with me during this week a deep pride in the many accomplishments of our Nation's small businessmen and women, and in the invaluable contribution they have made to our free way of life.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of April, 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