Proclamation 3568—United States Customs Year

Whereas August 1, 1964, marks the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the signing by President George Washington of legislation establishing the United States Customs Service; and

Whereas the United States Customs Service provided the principal revenues of the early Republic and assured its financial stability in its days of struggle; and

Whereas the controls on imports and exports and on shipping and trade, deemed essential by the founders of the Republic, would have been impossible without implementation by a Customs Service, honest, resourceful, and efficient; and

Whereas the Collector of Customs, the Custom House, and the Customs officer have stood for one hundred and seventy-five years as the symbols of Federal authority in the ports and on the waterfronts; and

Whereas after one hundred and seventy-five years the ever more complex demands of our economy and our civilization require the Customs Service of the Treasury Department to remain alert and ready to perform on short notice a widening variety of tasks; and

Whereas the Congress, by a joint resolution approved December 30, 1963, has requested the President to issue a proclamation designating 1964 as the one hundred and seventy-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the United States Customs Service:

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the year 1964 as United States Customs Year; and I request the Bureau of Customs to plan and to participate in appropriate activities recognizing the anniversary to the end that it may serve as an occasion to commemorate the contributions of customs to the health and welfare of every citizen, to the national well-being, and to the development of a sound economy capable of leading the free world and assisting emerging nations.

I also call upon appropriate civic and industrial organizations to cooperate with the Customs Service in recognition of a century and three-quarters of mutually beneficial relationships.

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 30th day of December 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-eighth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

Dean Rusk,

Secretary of State.