[Congressional Record Volume 142, Number 74 (Thursday, May 23, 1996)]
[Senate]
[Pages S5615-S5617]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                      JANET RENO'S WORDS OF WISDOM

 Mr. HOLLINGS. Mr. President, we have a lot to be proud of in 
our country and we have many great role models. One role model, who 
recently visited my home state and spoke to the graduates of the 
University of South Carolina, is Janet Reno.
  Janet Reno is our country's first female Attorney General and has 
excelled in the role. She is a dedicated, top-flight public servant. 
And indeed, that was also her reputation in Florida, where President 
Clinton plucked her in 1993 from her role as the State's attorney for 
Dade County. Janet Reno was known in Dade County as a tough, front-line 
crime fighter and she devoted herself to making communities safer, 
keeping children out of trouble, reducing domestic violence and helping 
families. She also targeted career criminals, dangerous offenders and 
drug traffickers, promising strict and certain sentences that put them 
away and kept them away.
  Janet Reno grew up in Florida and worked her way through Cornell 
University. She wanted to pursue a law degree but was told that ``woman 
didn't become lawyers.'' She ignored the advice and became one of only 
16 women in a class of 565 students to enroll in Harvard Law School in 
1960. When she graduated, people said, ``No one will hire a woman 
lawyer.'' She proved them wrong, of course. Janet Reno was and is a 
trail-blazer.
  In her speech to the USC graduates, Janet Reno talked about the 
frustrations that faced her and her predecessors as Attorney General. 
She said:

       There is no vaccination for crime, as there is for polio. 
     The only thing we have is hard work, seven days a week, 
     parents raising children right, police walking the beat every 
     single night, and prosecutors putting criminals behind bars, 
     one by one. Our problems are complex and the answers rarely 
     simple.

  Janet Reno encouraged the graduates avoid the deadly sins of our 
public life: extremism, cynicism and defeatism. Her advice is sound and 
I think we could all benefit from it. I ask that her address be printed 
in the Record.
  The address follows:

    Spring Commencement Address by U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno

       I am honored to share this day with you. It is so wonderful 
     to look out to see so many who have worked so hard to obtain 
     their diploma today. I especially want to say hello to my 
     fellow chemistry majors. In 1960, I earned my chemistry 
     degree from Cornell University. So, to you parents who worry 
     that your graduating sons and daughters still lack a clear 
     career goal, I suggest, give them a little more time; you 
     never know what might happen.

[[Page S5616]]

       Since my graduation in 1960, so many things in America have 
     changed for the better. In 1960, the Iron Curtain divided the 
     world between freedom and dictatorship. Just two weeks ago I 
     walked the streets of Budapest along side the free people of 
     Hungary, and I talked with Western Europeans and Eastern 
     Europeans alike about our common fight against crime. In 
     1960, even after the Supreme Court outlawed racial 
     segregation, much of America was still divided into two 
     nations, black and white. But in the civil rights efforts 
     that soon followed, our nation kept the promises the founding 
     fathers made and finally made equality the law of the land.
       In 1960 when I graduated from college, people told me a 
     woman couldn't go to law school, and when I graduated from 
     law school, people told me law firms won't hire you. Thirty 
     years later, no one ever told me I couldn't be Attorney 
     General. You are graduating into an amazing era. In 1960, 
     nobody had ever heard of the Internet, no one had been to the 
     moon. The CAT scan was not invented until 1973. But even 
     though our world is more safe and our country is more just 
     and new technologies are changing our lives, nobody would say 
     that we are a nation without serious, serious challenges. 
     Many of these challenges seem so stubborn and unyielding, 
     such as violent crime, homelessness, and poverty. Others seem 
     complex and inscrutable, like the international economy and 
     the spread of AIDS. And others just seem overwhelming, like 
     the fear of terrorism or environmental catastrophe. But 
     America is a nation of optimists and problem solvers. Each 
     generation looks to its children to keep our society moving 
     and to make life better. After the parties and the vacations 
     and the graduate degrees yet to come, America will look to 
     you for help. For no matter where you go and what you do, you 
     can make a difference.
       That's what I would like to talk about today. For in these 
     last 30 years, too many people of goodwill have looked at 
     these very hard problems and started throwing up their hands 
     and turning away. They are getting caught up in the three 
     deadly sins of our public life: extremism, cynicism, and 
     defeatism.
       The first great threat to our optimistic spirit is 
     extremism, for it blinds us to the tough, tough choices we 
     all confront when we wrestle with the difficult problems of 
     today. The historian Arthur Schlesinger once observed that 
     America's progress and freedom were fueled by what he called 
     ``the vital center in American politics.'' He meant a place 
     where men and women of reason and goodwill could meet 
     regardless of their political party affiliation, a place to 
     hash out their differences and debate the problems of the 
     day. A lively debate to be sure, sometimes even unruly, but 
     one carried out on common terms with respect for the other 
     person. The vital center has always been a place where 
     people might be divided in their approach to solving a 
     problem, but where they were united, as Americans, in 
     their determination to act reasonably and to see the 
     virtue in other points of view. In short, the politics of 
     the vital center means using democracy as a process of 
     working together to find solutions that attack problems 
     with progress. Slow sometimes, terribly slow and 
     exhausting to be sure, but always in the American 
     tradition of reforms that are not perfect, but take us one 
     step forward, one important step forward.
       Today I fear many Americans are forgetting about the vital 
     center. Too often in today's politics, on all sides, people 
     are confronting tough problems and retreating to extremes and 
     to simple solutions instead of embracing the complexity that 
     problem solving always demands and that democracy requires. 
     You may not like everything government does, I know I don't, 
     but the alternative is not to throw up your hands or turn to 
     violence. What we must do is to sit down together as 
     reasonable people and make our government do what is right 
     and stop doing what may be wrong-headed or wasteful. 
     Extremism wants to sprint when the race is really a marathon. 
     Extremism wants to escape the complexity of democracy and the 
     staggering diversity of human nature, but it never can. 
     Extremism argues that problems are easy to solve but if they 
     were, we would have licked them a long, long time ago.
       As Attorney General, I deal with problems that frustrated 
     previous Attorney Generals for years, such as crime, 
     terrorism and domestic violence. There is no vaccination for 
     crime, as there is for polio. The only thing we have is hard 
     work seven days a week, parents raising children right, 
     police walking the beat every single night, and prosecutors 
     putting criminals behind bars, one by one. We're not a bumper 
     sticker away from solving terrorism. We have to be eternally 
     vigilant, close our borders to those who threaten us and work 
     slowly and patiently for peace in the lands where foreign 
     terrorists come from, just as we must fight the hatred and 
     the paranoia that fuels domestic terrorism. There is no sound 
     byte that can make domestic violence go away. We have to stop 
     abusers one by one and let them know that there is never an 
     excuse for hitting someone you love. We have to build 
     shelters one at a time to give victims a safe place away from 
     the abuse, and we have to help victims rebuild their lives 
     slowly and steadily.
       The vital center knows that problems are complicated and 
     that answers are rarely simple. I hope that in your lives you 
     will choose the course of leadership, not partisanship. Think 
     twice when someone has a simple answer. Remember that so many 
     of our problems took decades to get where they are and that 
     no amount of sloganeering can fix them overnight. And don't 
     ever forget to listen. For I have learned so much when I have 
     listened to the people with whom I have disagreed. Sometimes 
     I have changed my mind. Sometimes I have changed theirs.
       The second great threat to our nation's optimistic spirit 
     is cynicism. Maybe you have faced it already. The cynic knows 
     so much about what is wrong and why it can't be fixed. He can 
     tell you which baseball players strike out the most and why 
     planes and stock markets crash. She can tell you which public 
     figures were caught doing something wrong, why the current 
     peace negotiations are doomed, and why so many marriages end 
     in divorce. It may be a beautiful South Carolina day, but the 
     cynic knows it is going to rain someday. Of course, 
     cynicism never happens by itself, it always builds on 
     genuine problems and disasters. Watergate and other 
     scandals convinced millions of Americans that government 
     was permanently broken and that everyone in public life 
     was some sort of alien from ordinary American life, that 
     they might as well have landed in a spaceship. In fact, 
     you can look at any of our institutions and you can find a 
     scandal, and cynics told you so. Sports heroes, police 
     officers, business leaders, doctors, ministers, teachers 
     and politicians--everyone can point to people in all walks 
     of life who have fallen below society's standards. We can 
     use a funny line to dismiss politicians or teachers or 
     Wall Street bankers, but that's the easy way out and after 
     we do, what's different? Nothing, except that fewer good 
     people are willing to work to make our government better, 
     care for the helpless amongst us, or build a business that 
     puts its customers needs first.
       At the very least, if you're finding yourself falling prey 
     to cynicism, consider its cousin, skepticism. At least the 
     skeptic has an open mind. The skeptic sees all the same 
     problems and asks all the same questions, but is willing to 
     let the answer be good or bad. And if you are a recovering 
     cynic, and you have made it back to skepticism, why not just 
     take the final step and become an idealist in the best 
     American tradition? And I don't mean for a minute that you 
     should be naive. The Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. talked 
     about the need for all of us to have a tough mind and a 
     tender heart. I can tell you that no one can come to 
     Washington and ever hope to do well if she does not start the 
     morning by asking tough questions and end the day getting 
     real answers. This nation was founded by idealists with tough 
     minds and with tender hearts, and they formed a government 
     designed to check the worst in human nature just as they 
     risked their lives to found a country that cherished freedom 
     and liberty over oppression. They took the hard way, and they 
     made a difference.
       A month ago, as the sun was setting before it rose again on 
     Eastern morning, I was in Dover Delaware listening to 
     President Clinton honor Commerce Secretary Ron Brown and 32 
     other Americans who died in the plane crash in Bosnia. They 
     were young and old, men and women, government workers and 
     business leaders, but they were all there because they 
     believed they could help a ravaged country heal from civil 
     war. These 33 lives, said the President, show us the best of 
     America. They are a stern rebuke to the cynicism that is all 
     too familiar these days. He talked about how family after 
     family told him how their loved ones were proud of their work 
     and believed in what they were doing and believed they could 
     make a difference.
       Finally, I want to talk to you about the brother of 
     extremism and cynicism, defeatism. Not everyone faces 
     hopelessness, but no one is far away from someone who does. 
     It may be across town where a family can't afford to pay the 
     rent, or take the child to the doctor because they don't have 
     a job. It may be in the next classroom where a student is 
     convinced that he will never succeed, that no one cares, and 
     that street crime will be the only way out of a hard life. It 
     might be next door where a wife or child faces terror every 
     night at the hands of an abusive spouse or parent. You may 
     never find yourself at the bottom of life's pit, and, if you 
     do, I prey that you have the energy and courage to get up and 
     out. But you may know someone who has fallen, someone who 
     doesn't even want to try because he is sure it won't make a 
     difference.
       I have been Attorney General now for three years, and my 
     faith in the American people and their ability to deal with 
     adversity has never been so strong. I have never been so sure 
     that we can prevail against the causes of wrong in this 
     world. I know we can defeat extremism and reclaim the vital 
     center. I know we can defeat cynicism and seek what is good 
     amidst all that is bad. I know we can defeat defeatism and 
     teach those who have fallen to get up and to hope again. It 
     won't be easy, and it will take a lot more than any speech 
     could ever do, but I come here today because you are the 
     future of this country.
       I know you have the energy. I know you have the commitment. 
     I know you can make the choice to stand for what is right and 
     good in this world. If you choose public service you will be 
     choosing one of the most rewarding and fulfilling careers our 
     society can offer. But whether you are running a business, or 
     teaching a class, prosecuting criminals, or raising a family, 
     you can make a difference. In another spring time, 33 years 
     ago, the Reverend Martin Luther King Jr.

[[Page S5617]]

     sat in a Birmingham jail, exhausted from years of seeking 
     justice for all. He was dispirited, and even some of his 
     fellow ministers were saying he should back off and wait for 
     progress to happen on its own. He must struggle to keep 
     cynicism out of his every thought, and sitting in that jail 
     cell day after day, with progress coming slowly or not at 
     all, he had to wonder why any man had a right to hope. But 
     Reverend King made his choice, he began writing until his 
     words filled the margins of a secondhand newspaper. The power 
     of his choice flowed out of a pen and into the conscious of 
     America. Today as you prepare to make your choices in life, I 
     would like to close with a few of those words from Dr. King's 
     letter from that Birmingham jail:
       ``We must come to see that human progress never tolls in on 
     wheels of inevitability. It comes through the tireless 
     efforts and the persistent work of men willing to be co-
     workers with God, and without this hard work time itself 
     becomes an ally of the forces of social stagnation. We must 
     use time creatively, and forever realize that the time is 
     always ripe to do right.''
       I hope and pray that you will make your choice the choice 
     of standing for what is right and good in this world. Thank 
     you, congratulations, good luck, and God bless you.

                          ____________________