Proclamation 3706—National Farm Safety Week, 1966

American farmers have achieved more progress during the past three decades than in all our previous history.

Thanks to that progress, a single farmer today can do all the work that once was performed by four. One American farmer today feeds and clothes himself and 32 others—and this is the true foundation of our national abundance.

There is one area of farm life, however, which still needs much improvement. Accidents continue to cost the lives of thousands of men, women, and children on our farms, and disable nearly 750,000 more each year.

This grievous and unnecessary waste of human and economic resources, plus the profound physical and psychological damage suffered by members of farm families, causes me to view the rural accident problem as a matter of national concern.

For this reason, I urge all farm families to help achieve our goal of safer rural communities by eliminating those hazards and unsafe practices that cause or contribute to accidents. Progress toward this goal is the objective of National Farm Safety Week, 1966.

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby call on the people of the Nation to observe the week beginning July 24, 1966, as National Farm Safety Week. I urge all families who live on farms, and all persons and groups serving or allied with agriculture, to unite for safety, and apply full energy and determination to the vital task of reducing accidents at work, in homes, at recreation, and on the roadways.

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 twenty-fourth day of February in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-six, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninetieth.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

Secretary of State