Proclamation 4039—Cancer Control Month, 1971

This Nation may stand on the threshold of one of the greatest triumphs in human history—the conquest of cancer. If we can now achieve that great goal, we will have lifted from the human family forever the pain, the suffering and the unbearable fear of that most dreaded of all diseases.

Decades of research have brought us at last to the moment when scientists can look with renewed hope toward victories in the prevention and treatment of cancer. This moment presents an opportunity that we dare not pass up. The lives of millions now living and countless more yet unborn can be touched—and saved—by what we do.

I have proposed a bold new effort to bring us closer to the goal we seek. I have asked for an additional $100 million this year to press toward the conquest of cancer. I know that money alone cannot guarantee victory in a struggle as complex and difficult as this. But I also know that this search can be quickened by great strides. When they occur, we must he ready to seize upon them and grasp, if we can, the prize that has been sought for so long.

Just as the whole world could benefit from this effort, the whole Nation must be behind it. The Congress, by joint resolution of March 28, 1938 (52 Stat. 148) requested that the President issue annually a proclamation setting aside the month of April as Cancer Control Month.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim the month of April 1971 as Cancer Control Month, and I invite the Governors of the States and the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and the appropriate officials of all other areas under the United States flag to issue similar proclamations.

To give new emphasis to this serious problem, and to encourage the determination of the American people to resolve it, I also ask the medical and allied health professions, the communications industries, and all other interested persons and groups to unite during the appointed month in public reaffirmation of this Nation's efforts to control cancer.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this twenty-ninth day of March, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-one, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-fifth.

RICHARD NIXON