Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Letter to the Governors of the States Calling for a Conference on Highway Safety.

December 14, 1953

[ Released December 14, 1953. Dated December 11, 1953 ]

Dear. :

The mounting toll of death and injury on our highways long ago reached a point of deep concern to all of us. It stands before America as a great challenge--humanitarian and economic--and must be met by urgent action.

I have examined the "Action Program for Highway Safety" which you and the other Governors have developed in cooperation with interested organizations and public officials having jurisdiction over highway safety. It is a sound and workable program, but effective citizen leadership is needed to help you put this great crusade into organized action on a scale far bigger than ever before.

Accordingly, I have called a Conference on Highway Safety for Washington next February seventeenth, eighteenth and nineteenth. The Conference will serve to focus more public attention on the problem and stimulate active leadership in every community.

I should appreciate your designating an appropriate group of your outstanding citizens as a delegation to represent your state. Since the Conference program will be built around seven basic groups--labor, agriculture, business, women, public officials, media of public information and other organizations (service, fraternal, religious, veterans, etc. ), I would hope that your delegation will include representatives from each of these categories.

Will you please forward the names of your state's delegates to the Conference on Highway Safety, Room 1107, General Services Building, Washington 25, D.C. Secretary of Commerce Weeks, General Chairman, will send you detailed background information on the Conference shortly.

Naturally, we would be happy to have present all Governors whose schedules and responsibilities would permit attendance. At any rate, I am depending on your active cooperation and support to make this Conference most effective.

Sincerely,

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

Note: This is the text of identical letters addressed to the Governors of the 48 States and to the President of the Board of Commissioners of the District of Columbia.

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Letter to the Governors of the States Calling for a Conference on Highway Safety. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/232536

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