Proclamation 5318—Pan American Day and Pan American Week, 1985

The countries of the Western Hemisphere are bound together by their humanitarian ideals, their respect for individual liberty, and their yearning for peace and prosperity-goals eloquently expressed in the Charter of the Organization of American States. Just as our Revolution of 1776 was an inspiration for Simon Bolivar and Jose de San Martin, so we in the United States took inspiration from the struggle of our neighbors to be free from foreign domination. We continue to take courage from those great struggles for liberty today, when new forms of tyranny and modern totalitarian systems threaten the peace and security of the Hemisphere, especially in Central America.

The Organization of American States, embodying the Inter-American System, links together this diverse group of nations, with their Spanish, Portuguese, French, English, African, and Indian heritages. But whatever their creeds, languages, or cultures, the peoples of our Hemisphere are united in the common cause of ending poverty, disease, and illiteracy. The O.A.S. has played a notable role in this cause.

More and more countries of the Hemisphere are turning to democratic institutions to solve political, social, educational, and economic problems. They realize that peace, prosperity, and freedom are best served when the people, faced with a real choice of political parties, freely elect their own governments.

On this Pan American Day of 1985, the people of the United States extend warm greetings to all their neighbors in the Americas and reaffirm their active support for the Organization of American States and the principles for which it stands.

Now, Therefore, I, Ronald Reagan, President of the United States of America, do hereby proclaim Sunday, April 14, 1985, as Pan American Day, and the week beginning April 14, 1985, through April 20, 1985, as Pan American Week. I urge the Governors of every State of the Union, and the Governor of the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico, and officials of the other areas under the flag of the United States of America to honor these observances with appropriate activities and ceremonies.

In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fifteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and eighty-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and ninth.

RONALD REAGAN