Proclamation 4130—Small Business Week, 1972

It is no curious accident that from earliest times, the expansion of America's frontiers was closely paralleled by the robust growth of our Nation's free enterprise system. In the footprints of Boone and Carson came a different but no less courageous breed of pioneer: the tradesman and peddler, miller and merchant. As their cabins and trading posts have become towns and cities, their wilderness commerce has become the foundation for the most extraordinary economic force in the history of mankind.

It is a force that leaves no idea unexplored, no promise unpursued, no citizen of this land unenriched. Today, we call it small business.

There are now more than 8 million small businesses in this country. An unprecedented 287,000 new companies were incorporated just last year. Nineteen out of every twenty firms are considered small business, and they provide more than 35 million jobs, and contribute more than $370 billion to the gross national product.

Small business is the corridor of progress and change for Americans of every nationality and color. It is an arena where the sheer power of individual initiative and self-determination can exact the rewards of participation, achievement, and success. Small, free, independent enterprise is the heritage of our past and the lifeblood of our future, providing each of our citizens with life's most prized gift: opportunity.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning May 14, 1972, as Small Business Week. I ask all Americans to share with me during this week a great feeling of pride in the accomplishments of these small businessmen and women, and in their continued commitment to success.

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

RICHARD NIXON