Proclamation 4245—National Employ the Handicapped Week, 1973

This country was founded upon a promise made to all of its people: That our government would work to assure every citizen a fair and equal start in the race of life. Implicit in this promise is the concept that a person has a right to compete for any job he is able to perform.

This promise has been kept for a great many of our people, but not for all. Too many handicapped persons—particularly young disabled veterans—are unable to find work.

Perhaps the greatest difficulty a handicapped person faces is not his own disability, but rather the attitudes of society concerning that disability. Yet handicapped people are able to perform a wide range of jobs with great skill and efficiency. The employer who hires the handicapped is not only helping them; he is also helping himself and his country.

Let us all work therefore to make good on the promise America has always held out to its people—allowing each person who is willing to work and who is qualified to work a fair chance to work.

Now, Therefore, I, Richard Nixon, President of the United States of America, in accordance with a joint resolution of the Congress approved August 11, 1945, as amended (36 U.S.C. 155), do hereby proclaim the week of October 7, 1973, as National Employ the Handicapped Week.

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 in making this observance a time of new awakening in our country to the value and the importance of employing handicapped men and women.

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

RICHARD NIXON