[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.