[Federal Register Volume 60, Number 197 (Thursday, October 12, 1995)]
[Presidential Documents]
[Pages 53101-53102]
From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
[FR Doc No: 95-25477]



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  Federal Register / Vol. 60, No. 197 / Thursday, October 12, 1995 / 
Presidential Documents  

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 Title 3--
 The President

[[Page 53101]]

                Proclamation 6834 of October 6, 1995

                
German-American Day, 1995

                By the President of the United States of America

                A Proclamation

                Since the earliest days of the settlement of North 
                America, immigrants from Germany have enriched our 
                Nation with their industry, culture, and participation 
                in public life. Over a quarter of all Americans can 
                trace their ancestry back to German roots, but more 
                important than numbers are the motives that led so many 
                Germans to make a new beginning across the Atlantic. 
                America's unparalleled freedoms and opportunities drew 
                the first German immigrants to our shores and have long 
                inspired the tremendous contributions that German 
                Americans have made to our heritage.

                In 1681, William Penn invited German Pietists from the 
                Rhine valley to settle in the Quaker colony he had 
                founded, and these Germans were among the first of many 
                who would immigrate to America in search of religious 
                freedom. This Nation also welcomed Germans in search of 
                civic liberty, and their idealism strengthened what was 
                best in their adopted country. As publisher of the New 
                York Weekly Journal in the 1700s, Johann Peter Zenger 
                became one of the founders of the free press. Carl 
                Schurz, a political dissident and close ally of Abraham 
                Lincoln, served as a Union General during the Civil 
                War, fighting to end the oppression of slavery. And 
                German names figured prominently in the social and 
                labor reform movements of the 19th and early 20th 
                centuries.

                In the course of 300 years of German emigration to this 
                great land, German Americans have attained prominence 
                in all areas of our national life. Like Baron von 
                Steuben in Revolutionary times and General Eisenhower 
                in World War II, many Americans of German descent have 
                served in our military with honor and distinction. In 
                the sciences, Albert Michelson and Hans Bethe 
                immeasurably increased our understanding of the 
                universe. The painters Albert Bierstadt and modernist 
                Josef Albers have enhanced our artistic traditions, and 
                composers such as Oscar Hammerstein have added their 
                important influences to American music.

                Yet even these many distinguished names cannot begin to 
                summarize all the gifts that German Americans have 
                brought to our Nation's history. While parts of the 
                Midwest, Pennsylvania, and Texas still proudly bear the 
                stamp of the large German populations of the last 
                century, it is their widespread assimilation and far-
                reaching activities that have earned German Americans a 
                distinguished reputation in all regions of the United 
                States and in all walks of life.

                NOW, THEREFORE, I, WILLIAM J. CLINTON, President of the 
                United States of America, by virtue of the authority 
                vested in me by the Constitution and laws of the United 
                States, do hereby proclaim October 6, 1995, as German-
                American Day. I encourage Americans everywhere to 
                recognize and celebrate the contributions that millions 
                of people of German ancestry have made to our Nation's 
                liberty, democracy, and prosperity. 

[[Page 53102]]


                IN WITNESS WHEREOF, I have hereunto set my hand this 
                sixth day of October, in the year of our Lord nineteen 
                hundred and ninety-five, and of the Independence of the 
                United States of America the two hundred and twentieth.

                    (Presidential Sig.)

[FR Doc. 95-25477
Filed 10-10-95; 2:55 pm]
Billing code 3195-01-P