Proclamation 4154—National Employ the Handicapped Week, 1972

Twenty-five years ago our Nation made a commitment to eliminating the prejudice which plagued our handicapped citizens.

Following the end of World War II, a national effort was initiated to bring job equality to handicapped men and women. We decided to substitute voluntary responsibility for the compulsion of law, and to mount a citizens' campaign nationwide to persuade employers to hire the handicapped.

In 1947 volunteers from industry and business, from labor organizations and government, from civic, fraternal, veterans, and professional groups, and from other areas of the public were organized as the President's Committee on Employment of the Handicapped. The record of their achievements is compelling testimony to the power of voluntarism. Since the formation of that Committee, an estimated eight million handicapped men and women have entered the world of work, the result of neighbor talking to neighbor.

Our appeal to employers, through national, State and local channels, emphasized the business advantages of hiring handicapped workers—their exceptional performance and their outstanding characteristics as employees.

Over the years, handicapped workers have merited that description and justified that claim. Their talents and energies have contributed to all areas of production. As scientists, teachers, aerospace technicians, government officials, professional persons, clerks, tradesmen—in fact, in nearly every occupation—they have contributed to America's progress and to their communities' progress.

It is appropriate during this anniversary year to acknowledge the great strides we have made towards our goal, to express our gratitude to the volunteers in this program, and reemphasize our admiration for good work done by the handicapped themselves. Although much has been done there is more that must be done.

We have not yet erased all the prejudice against the handicapped. We have not yet convinced every employer of their worth. We have not yet eliminated all the barriers that hamper their mobility. We have a continuing responsibility to help them towards these ends.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, in accordance with the joint resolution of the Congress approved August 11, 1945, as amended (36 U.S.C. 155), designating the first full week of October of each year as National Employ the Handicapped Week, do hereby call upon the people of the United States to observe the week beginning October 1, 1972, for such purpose.

I urge the Nation's Governors, mayors, and all other public officials, as well as leaders in every area of American life, to join with the handicapped themselves and to take an active part in this observance.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day of September, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-two, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-seventh.

RICHARD NIXON