    [Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 15 (Monday, April 17, 2000)]
    [Page 835]
    [Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

    <R04>
    Proclamation 7293--National Park Week, 2000

    April 14, 2000

    By the President of the United States

    of America

    A Proclamation

        We are fortunate to live in an era when the explosive growth of
    technology has put at our fingertips an extraordinary array of
    information. But even during this technological revolution, one of
    America's richest and most fascinating educational resources is also
    among its oldest: our national park system. Our national parks are
    living libraries and laboratories, where all Americans can experience
    the beauty and variety of nature and learn about our Nation's history
    and culture.
        Preserving the rare and unusual as well as the spectacular and
    beautiful, our national parks provide botanists, wildlife biologists,
    chemists, and other scientists the opportunity to conduct research into
    the fragile ecosystems that affect the health of people, plants, and
    animals around the world. Geologists and paleontologists find in our
    national parks the story of our continent, from the Grand Canyon's
    geologic formations to the ancient bones resting at Dinosaur National
    Monument.
        The national park system also captures America's more recent
    history. In the National Historic Sites and along the National Historic
    Trails maintained by the men and women of the National Park Service, we
    learn about the lives and achievements of American heroes like Lewis and
    Clark, Sojourner Truth, Abraham Lincoln, Frederick Douglass, Elizabeth
    Cady Stanton, the Wright Brothers, and Thomas Edison. From Fort
    Necessity in Pennsylvania, where a young George Washington saw action in
    the French and Indian War, to the quiet acres of Gettysburg, where one
    of the Civil War's bloodiest battles was fought, to the Edmund Pettus
    Bridge in Selma, Alabama, where the modern civil rights movement reached
    its emotional peak 35 years ago, Americans can see and touch their
    history.
        Today, we have 379 national parks, and each site offers a unique
    opportunity to experience the wonder of nature, to stand in the
    footprints of history, to learn about our culture and our society, to
    study the natural world, and to look toward the future. As we observe
    National Park Week, I join all Americans in thanking the men and women
    of the National Park Service for their dedication in caring for these
    special places. We are indebted to them for preserving and protecting
    our natural and cultural heritage, not only for our enjoyment and
    education today, but also for the benefit of generations to come.
        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 April 17
    through April 23, 2000, as National Park Week.
        In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day
    of April, in the year of our Lord two thousand, and of the Independence
    of the United States of America the two hundred and twenty-fourth.
                                                William J. Clinton

    [Filed with the Office of the Federal Register, 8:45 a.m., April 19,
    2000]

     Note: This proclamation will be published in the Federal Register on
    April 20.