Proclamation 3774—Pan American Day and Pan American Week, 1967

There is special meaning this year in the hemispheric tradition of Pan American Day.

On April twelfth, for the first time in a decade and the second time in history, the Presidents and Heads of Government of the American nations will meet to fortify, the foundation of the house of the Americas.

Seventy-seven years ago we first joined our hearts and hands as brothers in a hopeful hemisphere. We pledged a common pledge--we dreamed a common dream. We have since translated that pledge into progress. And we have founded the Organization of American States as a firm framework for the fulfillment of that dream.

We have recently strengthened that Organization by amending its Charter to meet the challenge that our changing times demand.

We have extended our unique experiment in international living by welcoming into our membership the new nation of Trinidad and Tobago.

We have enhanced the meaning of that experiment by forging within it an Alliance for Progress in which our goals for the good life are matched only by our desire to achieve them. And the impressive accomplishments of these last six years trace that desire's growing satisfaction.

When the Alliance was formed in 1961, it was estimated that our Latin American neighbors could supply about 80% of the capital required. In fact, they have done better than this. By the end of this year, the gross investment in Latin America will have totaled over $100 billion--and 95% of it will have been from domestic sources. This ability of our neighbors to save and invest in their own future is a most striking indication that Latin America can, with relatively modest external help, mobilize the resources needed for its own development--and thus strengthen the foundations of the house we share in this hemisphere.

The cooperative spirit of the Alliance is bringing new-found confidence and hope into this house.

--Per capita growth rates show that more and more countries are breaking the economic stagnation of earlier years.

--Men, women and children are alive today who would otherwise have died. In ten countries, deaths caused by malaria dropped from 10,810 to 2,280 in three years' time. Smallpox cases declined almost as sharply. And new health centers and hospitals are growing everywhere.

--Men whose fathers for generations toiled on land owned by others are now working it as their own. With U.S. assistance, 1.1 million acres have been irrigated and 106,000 acres reclaimed. 15,000 miles of road have been built or improved, many of them farm-to-market access roads.

--For tens of thousands of families, the most fundamental conditions of life are improving. 350,000 housing units have been, or are now being, constructed. New and modernized water supply systems have been built to benefit some 20 million people.

So as we assemble under the banner of the Alliance for Progress, we are cheered by success and encouraged in the task that lies ahead.

With the confidence born of achievement, we know that we can prepare a better world for the new generation of Americans who will come after us.

We look to the 60% of Latin America's 245 million people who are now under the age of 25, and we know that the task of meeting their aspirations is great. But we also know that we have forged the tools to do the task. And there is promise in what we see.

The sustaining arm of education is reaching out to more and more of this strategic 60% of Latin Americans.

--Since the Alliance was formed, school enrollments have increased at an average annual rate of over 6%. This rate represents more than twice the rate of increase in the total population.

--For each 1,000 inhabitants, there were 124 students enrolled in schools in 1960, 170 in 1965, and 174 in 1966.

--28,000 new classrooms have been built.

--160,000 teachers have been trained or given additional training.

--More than 14 million textbooks have been distributed.

--13 million school children and 3 million pre-schoolers participate in school lunch programs.

And more than this, what statistics cannot adequately relay is the emergence of a generation of vigorous, confident and responsible leaders throughout Latin America-leaders who are ready to help their countries help themselves. These leaders are beginning to include more and more women doers in their ranks. And since women comprise over half the population of Latin America, there is new potential in this leadership.

The successes scored by the Alliance have been aided by the United States--but they have been realized by the cooperative spirit that resides in the commitment and dedication of the Latin American nations themselves. Their unrelenting perseverance has been a keystone in the firm foundation of our house of hemispheric progress.

So as together we seek to strengthen--we seek a realistic goal.

As together we build to better--we build on solid ground.

Bound by geography, born of a common revolutionary heritage, nurtured by common ideals, committed to the dignity of man, and sustained by the youth and vigor that have been our common strength, we will project our traditions into a promising future--and we will prevail.

Now, Therefore, I, Lyndon B. Johnson, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Friday, April 14, 1967, as Pan American Day, and the week beginning April 9 and ending April 15 as Pan American Week; and I call upon the Governors of the fifty States of the Union, the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the officials of all other areas under the flag of the United States to issue similar proclamations.

Further, I call upon this Nation to rededicate itself to the fundamental goal of the inter-American system, embodied in the Charter of the Organization of American States and in the Charter of Punta del Este: social justice and economic progress within the framework of individual freedom and political liberty.

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 thirty-first day of March in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and sixty-seven, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred and ninety-first.

LYNDON B. JOHNSON

By the President:

DEAN RUSK

Secretary of State