[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 18 (Monday, May 5, 1997)]
[Pages 625-626]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Proclamation 6997--Loyalty Day, 1997

May 1, 1997

By the President of the United States

of America

A Proclamation

    Each year, Americans dedicate the first day of May to formally 
acknowledge our love for this great land and our loyalty to the 
principles of freedom and equality on which our Nation was founded. This 
love and loyalty cannot be mandated or legislated; rather, these traits 
spring freely from our hearts and minds.
    Looking back across the centuries, we recognize that each generation 
of Americans has been called upon to express its love and loyalty in a 
unique way. Our founders, defying

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the forces of tyranny, solemnly pledged their lives and futures to 
defend the new Nation they had created, a Nation born of reverence for 
human rights and the principle of self-determination. Less than a 
century later, another generation of Americans spilled its blood to 
preserve the unity of our Nation and to ensure that America lived up to 
its ideals of freedom, justice, and equality.
    The challenges of our own century have called for an extraordinary 
measure of devotion from millions of our citizens. Through two 
devastating world wars and the decades of the cold war, Americans laid 
down their lives for love of country and to defend democracy, advance 
human rights, and oppose the specter of oppression.
    Today we are blessed to be living in a time of unprecedented peace 
and possibility, when the ideals of democracy and human dignity so 
eloquently articulated by our founders have been widely embraced by 
nations in our own hemisphere and around the world. But we have fresh 
opportunities to prove our love and loyalty to America. The challenge 
for our generation is to realize the promise of our Nation: to be a 
strong and steady influence for peace and freedom across the globe; to 
be a powerful voice for human rights wherever they are silenced; to live 
up to America's promise of justice, equality, and opportunity by 
ensuring that all of our people have the tools and encouragement they 
need to meet their God-given potential.
    The Congress, by Public Law 85-529, has designated May 1 of each 
year as ``Loyalty Day.'' Let us, on this day, remember the contributions 
of the many courageous Americans who have gone before us, and let us 
keep faith with them by reaffirming our love for and loyalty to this 
Nation they sustained with their service and sacrifice.
    Now, Therefore, I, William J. Clinton, President of the United 
States of America, do hereby proclaim May 1, 1997, as Loyalty Day. I 
urge all Americans to recall, on this day, the valor and selflessness of 
all those who made this Nation so worthy of our love and loyalty. I call 
upon Government officials to display the flag of the United States and 
to participate in patriotic activities in support of this national 
observance.
    In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this first day of 
May, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred and ninety-seven, 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, 10:55 a.m., May 2, 1997]

Note: This proclamation was published in the Federal Register on May 5.