Proclamation 3348—Prayer for Peace, Memorial Day, 1960

Whereas on Memorial Day of each year it is our custom to honor our fore-fathers and our compatriots who have laid down their lives that we might live in freedom; and

Whereas we are forever grateful to them for their heroic sacrifice; and

Whereas in today's world we face a challenge which demands of us the same qualities of strength, high courage, and love of country that characterized our heroes of the past; and

Whereas the Congress, by a joint resolution approved May 11, 1950 (64 Stat. 158), authorized and requested the President to issue a proclamation "calling upon the people of the United States to observe each May 30, Memorial Day, by praying, each in accordance with his religious faith, for permanent peace":

Now, Therefore, I, Dwight D. Eisenhower, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Memorial Day, Monday, May 30, 1960, as a day of prayer for permanent peace, and I designate the hour beginning in each locality at eleven o'clock in the morning of that day as the time to unite in such prayer.

I urge the newspapers, the broadcasting facilities of radio and television, and all other media of public information to participate in this observance.

And I call upon the people of the United States to join with one another, at the appointed time, in churches and other appropriate places in asking the blessing of God on those who have given their lives for the Nation, in offering thanks for God's manifold mercies, and in beseeching His aid in the building of a world based on freedom and justice, where all men may live in friendship and war shall be no more.

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 thirteenth day of May in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and eighty-fourth.

DWIGHT D. EISENHOWER

By the President:

DOUGLAS DILLON,

Acting Secretary of State.