Proclamation 3529—National Maritime Day, 1963

Whereas the need for expanding trade with the free world is vital both to world stability and to the well-being and the economy of our own Nation and of other peaceable peoples; and

Whereas the major portion of such trade-both exports and imports-transits the oceans of the world by ship; and

Whereas the ships of the American Merchant Marine provide access to world markets and to the sources of sorely needed raw materials upon which our factories and farms alike depend; and

Whereas our ships and the men who man them stand ready to serve the Nation in any circumstance and in all conditions of peaceful commerce of national emergency; and

Whereas the Congress, by a joint resolution approved May 20, 1933 (48 Stat. 73), designated May 22 as National Maritime Day, in commemoration of the departure from Savannah, Georgia, on May 22, 1819, of the S.S. Savannah on the first transoceanic voyage by any steamship, and requested the President to issue a proclamation annually calling for the observance of that day:

Now, Therefore, I, John F. Kennedy, President of the United States of America, do hereby urge the citizens of the United States to honor our American Merchant Marine on Wednesday, May 22 1963, by displaying the flag of the United States at their homes and other suitable places; and I direct the appropriate officials of the Government to arrange for the display of the flag on all Government buildings on that day.

I also request that all ships sailing under the American flag dress ship on Wednesday, May 22, in tribute to the American Merchant Marine.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand and caused the Seal of the United States of America to be affixed.

DONE at the City of Washington this nineteenth day of April in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-three, and of the Independence of the United States of    America, the one hundred and eighty-seventh.

JOHN F. KENNEDY

By the President:

DEAN RUSK,

Secretary of State