Proclamation 3974—National Defense Transportation Day and National Transportation Week, 1970

The story of America's growth is in large part the story of her growing transportation systems: the Post roads and canals which linked our first States, the Yankee Clippers which built New England's commerce, the steel rails which bound together a transcontinental community and the great air fleets which bring Hawaii and Alaska closer today than New York and Chicago were in 1940.

Today the field of transportation accounts for approximately 20 per cent of this nation's gross national product and employs more than ten million persons. Yet we know, as we enter a new decade, that the growth of our transportation systems is just beginning. This growth must be carefully planned and intelligently directed—both our economic prosperity and our military security will depend on it. And so will the quality of life in our country. It is important, for example, that considerations of safety and environmental protection be kept in mind as we expand our transportation systems.

It was to focus attention on both the achievements and the challenges of the transportation industry and its employees that the Congress, by a joint resolution approved May 16, 1957, requested the President to proclaim annually the third Friday of May each year as National Defense Transportation Day, and by a joint resolution approved May 14, 1962, requested the President to proclaim annually the week of May in which that Friday falls as National Transportation Week.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate Friday, May 15, 1970, as National Defense Transportation Day, and the week beginning May 10, 1970, as National Transportation Week.

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

RICHARD NIXON