Proclamation 4068—Fisheries Centennial Year

Just one hundred years ago, on February 9, 1871, the Congress of the United States authorized the President to appoint the first Commissioner of Fish and Fisheries. Shortly thereafter, President Grant named Professor Spencer Fullerton Baird to this post and in June, 1871, Professor Baird initiated a program of research concerning the conservation of fish at Woods Hole, Massachusetts. From that original effort has evolved both the National Marine Fisheries Service of the Commerce Department's National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and the Department of the Interior's Bureau of Sport Fisheries and Wildlife.

The efforts to conserve and improve America's fisheries are vitally important to all of our people. These efforts will require the continuing vigilance of the fishing industry, of government at all levels, of private conservationists and of the American public.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the year 1971 as Fisheries Centennial Year. I urge all citizens to support and encourage the work of Federal and State administrators and scientists and the work of private conservation organizations in protecting and enhancing the fisheries of our Nation.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this 26th day of July, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-sixth.

RICHARD NIXON