Proclamation 3961—Small Business Week, 1970

Theodore Roosevelt once said: "The foundation stone of national life is and ever must be the high individual character of the individual citizen." Nowhere has the force of that character been better demonstrated than in the small businesses of our nation. The imagination, courage and hard work of small businessmen have, since our country's founding, been a great source of national vitality and inventiveness.

Small business is not and never has been a small matter in our national life. Operating or working in small business has not only been a good way to make a living—it has been a good way to help make a country strong and free and prosperous.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning May 17, 1970 as Small Business Week. I encourage chambers of commerce, boards of trade, and other public and private organizations to observe this week by recognizing the contributions which small business enterprises have made to our national development. I urge them to find appropriate means for paying tribute to the accomplishments of small business, and I trust they will encourage small businessmen to achieve new successes in the future.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twelfth day of February, 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