[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 41 (Monday, October 14, 1996)]
[Pages 1969-1970]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6928--Roosevelt History Month, 1996

October 4, 1996

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    The Roosevelt family has uniquely influenced the direction and 
quality of life in America for the last century. With two enormously 
successful Presidents, Teddy and FDR, and a precedent-setting First 
Lady, Eleanor, the Roosevelt family has left a lasting legacy of 
exemplary leadership and public service to our Nation.
    In 1903, President Theodore Roosevelt established our country's 
first National Wildlife Refuge. Thanks to his vision and determination, 
America today enjoys the natural treasures preserved in the largest and 
most varied conservation system in the world. From 1933 to 1945, 
President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, with the support of his wife, Anna 
Eleanor Roosevelt, guided the United States through two of the gravest 
crises of the 20th century: the Great Depression and World War II. 
Universally recognized as one of the greatest American Presidents, FDR 
stands as a symbol of the greatness of our Nation itself. Eleanor 
Roosevelt, his lifelong companion and dearest friend, transformed the 
role of the First Lady, traveling the country as an advocate for the 
poor, the disenfranchised, and the disadvantaged.
    Together, their partnership redefined the modern First Family, 
combining a broad concern for all Americans with a strong sense of the 
dignity and history of the Presidency. In a time of acute national 
anxiety, FDR promised Americans ``a leadership of frankness and vigor.'' 
He recognized that government had to be responsive to the needs of its 
people and that the Presidency is not merely an executive office but 
also a position of moral leadership. President Roosevelt moved Americans 
toward hope, through perseverance and faith in themselves. He spoke 
directly to average Americans, not only through his fireside chats on 
radio, but also through his insistence on honesty and justice.
    He fought for fairness in government, working to establish Federal 
programs that met the needs of his time: a welcome job for an idle but 
eager worker; a government loan to help a family avoid foreclosure; and 
a retirement income system that still serves working Americans nearly 60 
years later. These achievements were steps on the road to FDR's dream of 
establishing a government that would serve as a model for the world.
    In Franklin Roosevelt's view, government should be the perfect 
public system for fostering and protecting the ``Four Freedoms'' he 
enumerated when he addressed the Congress in January 1941. Intended as a 
rallying cry against the economic and military specters that had swept 
the globe during the previous decade, this speech recognized four 
essential freedoms: freedom of speech and expression; freedom of every 
person to worship God in his own way; freedom from want; and freedom 
from fear. Roosevelt made it clear that he enumerated these freedoms not 
as abstract ideals but as goals toward which Americans--and caring 
people everywhere--could direct their most strenuous public efforts.
    Millions of people around the world remember with gratitude his 
determined leadership as the successful Commander in Chief of America's 
Armed Forces during this century's most terrible war. It is difficult to 
imagine any individual other than Franklin Roosevelt who would have been 
able to oversee the war effort--not only beating back the spreading 
stain of totalitarianism by achieving decisive military victories, but 
also adroitly maintaining unity among our allies. As the world moved 
under a deepening shadow of violence and terror, FDR displayed an un- 

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wavering personal character and resolve that inspired faith among the 
American people.
    And even though FDR did not survive to witness the end of the war he 
helped so much to win, he nonetheless knew he had set our country's 
sights in the right direction by dedicating his public career to a 
safer, stronger America--citizens living and working together in a 
community of fairness, harmony, and peace. As the final words of his 
Four Freedoms speech expressed: ``To that high concept there can be no 
end save victory.''
    After her husband's death, Eleanor Roosevelt continued the vigorous 
advocacy work she and FDR had begun in the White House, serving on the 
United States Delegation to the United Nations, acting as Chairperson of 
the Human Rights Commission during the drafting of the Universal 
Declaration of Human Rights adopted by the U.N. in 1948, working as a 
member of the National Advisory Committee of the Peace Corps for 
President Kennedy, and finally serving as Chair of President Kennedy's 
Commission on the Status of Women. By the time of her death in 1962, she 
had earned the unofficial title of First Lady of the World, reaffirming 
the virtues to which she and her husband had dedicated their lives.
    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 
1996 as Roosevelt History Month. I call upon government officials, 
educators, labor leaders, employers, and the people of the United States 
to observe this month with appropriate programs and activities.
    In Witness Whereof,  I have hereunto set my hand this fourth day of 
October, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-six, and of 
the Independence of the United States of America the two hundred and 
twenty-first.
                                            William J. Clinton

[Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., October 9, 
1996]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on October 
10. This item was not received in time for publication in the 
appropriate issue.