Dwight D. Eisenhower photo

Proclamation 3208—Theodore Roosevelt Centennial Year October 27, 1957—October 27, 1958

October 22, 1957


By the President of the United States of America

A Proclamation

Theodore Roosevelt loved America with impassioned devotion and served her greatly in public office and as a private citizen. As President of the United States, his name is associated with epochal readjustments in the relations of government and industry, with the policy of conservation which he established, with the building of the Panama Canal, and with the peace that ended the Russo-Japanese War. His appeals to conscience sank deep into the American heart and mind and wrought enduring changes.

A man of rich gifts in many fields, at home alike in the world of books, the world of politics, and in the wild waste spaces where adventure called, he was historian and ranchman, huntsman and naturalist, Rough Rider, preacher, family man, and explorer. His contemporaries cherished him as a two-fisted fighter who loved life, loved people, feared nobody, and was as much at ease with kings as with cowboys, a wielder alike of the winged phrase and of the sledge hammer, a dangerous antagonist, and an unforgetting, unforgettable friend.

Upon us who stand outside the circle of time in which men felt his personal spell, Theodore Roosevelt exercises a different and, perhaps, a deeper power. We see, and claim for our own, the word, the spirit, and the example that survive for us in this teacher of the principles underlying democratic institutions—this summoner to participation in the procedures of free government, adjuring us, as he entreated the men and women of his own time, to accept the responsibilities of free citizenship. He was a man on fire for his country, who kindles fires in our hearts. He was a prophet, calling upon us to fulfill our responsibilities not only for the sake of our own Nation and people but for the sake of those, throughout the world, who look to us for hope, inspiration, and leadership.

Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, in consonance with a request made by the Congress in its joint resolution approved by me on September 4, 1957 (Public Law 85-297), do hereby call upon the American people to observe the one hundredth anniversary of Theodore Roosevelt's birth throughout the centennial year beginning October 27, 1957, by appropriate activities and ceremonies, by the study of his life and teachings, and above all, by individual, personal rededication to those responsibilities of American citizenship which he so zestfully fulfilled.

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 22d day of October in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and fifty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-second.

Signature of Dwight D. Eisenhower

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

By the President:

JOHN FOSTER DULLES,

Secretary of State

Dwight D. Eisenhower, Proclamation 3208—Theodore Roosevelt Centennial Year October 27, 1957—October 27, 1958 Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/308038

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