April 14, 1975
Small business has been a vital part of American life from the very beginning. The colonial traders, craftsmen and merchants of two centuries ago have been replaced by an enormous range of dealers in goods and services of all kinds, but the original opportunity, and the determination to excel, remain. Small business in America is still the free enterprise system's gateway to opportunity-the means by which millions of Americans continue to build a better life for themselves and their families.
Out of the estimated 9.7 million businesses in America today, more than 9 million are small. They account for nearly half of the gross business product and more than half of the business labor force. Our American success story could never have been achieved, and would not continue, without this impressive contribution by small business.
Now, Therefore, I, Gerald R. Ford, President of the United States of America, do hereby designate the week beginning May 25, 1975, as Small Business Week. I ask all Americans to share with me during this week a solemn pride in the great achievements of our Nation's small business men and women, and in the contributions they have made to our free way of life.
In Witness Whereof, I have hereunto set my hand this fourteenth day of April, in the year of our Lord nineteen hundred seventy-five, and of the Independence of the United States of America the one hundred ninety-ninth.