[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: George H. W. Bush (1992-1993, Book II)]
[August 3, 1992]
[Pages 1294-1296]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



[[Page 1294]]


Remarks to Shaw Industries Employees in Dalton
August 3, 1992

    Thank you very, very much for that welcome back to Georgia, and Bob, 
thank you, sir. I don't know if I detected a note of relief on Anna 
Sue's face that this event, that I'm sure has taken everybody's time, is 
here at hand and about to end. But thank you for making us feel so 
welcome in this wonderful corner of Georgia.
    I want to greet our other hosts, Bill Lusk and Norris Little, Carl 
Rollins of Shaw, and my Georgia political team here: Fred Cooper, my 
dear friend, and also another dear friend, Alec Poitevint, who are doing 
a great job for us.
    I would like to single out one department in this magnificent, 
enormous facility, and I'm talking about the area rug department, who 
made a nice little souvenir for me to take home with my own name on it. 
I'll tell you, I can't think of a nicer, more personalized remembrance 
than that. So wherever you may be, thank you very, very much, and thank 
the computers that spelled my name right. [Laughter]
    Now, it is great to be in Dalton. I came here--I want to be first in 
line for the Catamount tickets when they go on sale, and I've come for 
another reason, too. America, our great country, is moving into a new 
age, and Dalton gives us a glimpse of the future. Dalton takes 
challenges and reinvents them as opportunities. With the flexibility of 
companies like this one, like Shaw, with the brainpower and grit of your 
chemists and your maintenance mechanics and your designers, Dalton shows 
America the face of the 21st century. Dalton shows the way.
    In the history of your industry you find a parable of American 
progress. It starts simply, families selling hand-tufted bedspreads that 
they made themselves out on Highway 41, Peacock Alley. It continues with 
the sprawling factories that sprung up after the war, rolling their 
carpets into homes and offices in every corner of America. And it 
continues today with an industry retooled by high tech, a work force 
more highly skilled than ever before, and a marketplace as big as the 
entire world.
    The story has important lessons, lessons about how America grows and 
prospers. This election year, these lessons could not be more timely. 
The question today is not, can America compete in the global economy. I 
know and you know that we can. The question is how: How do we stay 
number one? How do we create jobs for every American and create 
opportunities for our kids, our children, and our families?
    Some people say, ``Well, let the Government do it. Let the 
Government get in there.'' But Government does not create jobs; people 
do. Government does not provide opportunity; hard work does. Look 
around. This company, this industry was not built by some industrial 
planning congressional subcommittee in Washington, DC. It was born and 
built right here in Dalton, where the men and women take the risks and 
reap the rewards.
    That's a lesson we shouldn't forget even given the hue and cry of 
this election year. When you get down to it, leadership is about trust. 
Trust runs both ways. You need a leader who you can trust, but you also 
need a leader who trusts in the American people, trusts you and not the 
Government to make the important decisions about your lives.
    When you forget about this kind of trust, trusting people, you get 
some crazy ideas. I'll give you an example. These days the other side is 
pushing an idea that the way to fix this economy is to raise taxes by 
$150 billion. And at least half of that will fall on family farmers and 
small businesses. They call that change. I guess it makes sense because 
if the other side get in power, change is all you'll have left in your 
pocket. [Laughter]
    Here's another crazy idea that's being pushed. They think they can 
fix health care by slapping you with at least a 7-percent payroll tax to 
finance a Government takeover scheme. Well, we'll have a health care 
system with the efficiency of the motor vehicles if we do that, the 
motor vehicles divi-

[[Page 1295]]

sion, and also the KGB, the same compassion. As long as I am President, 
I am not going to let our medical system be socialized or nationalized. 
We have a plan that will provide insurance to all, those who need it, 
those who cannot afford it, and will protect the basic quality of 
American health care.
    So trusting the people, it's an idea that applies to almost every 
issue in this election, especially when it comes to how we can compete 
in this whole new world global economy, how we can take on the new 
global competition head-on-head and win it.
    Let me tell you how I learned about competing in the world. I'm a 
Texan, moved there in 1948, built a business there, raised my family 
there. Incidentally, I think it's a pretty good credential, for being 
President of the United States even, if you held a job in the private 
sector. I think that's good. In Texas I saw businesses and cities and 
towns rise up from those dusty plains, a place where you'd never expect 
it. The reason was that the whole world thirsted for what Texans had to 
offer, crude and cattle and cotton. We knew the more goods we sold 
outside our borders, the more jobs we created within them. I never 
forgot that lesson.
    I saw it again when I went into public life. And yes, I was 
Ambassador up there at the United Nations and lived overseas in China--
just talking to Bob Shaw about that--ran the CIA, and as Vice President, 
traveled around the world some. And every day I was outside of this 
country I learned again how important America was to the entire world 
and how important the world was to America. I'm talking about creating 
American jobs, about making this economy grow and prosper, and making 
sure our kids have an even better life than we've had.
    I've seen this every day for 3\1/2\ years as President. I heard a 
certain southern Governor say the other day that this country was being 
ridiculed around the world. Well, I suspect--and I'm not going to name 
names quite yet--I suspect that he hasn't been around much. I'd like to 
have him walk the streets of Warsaw, as I did a few days ago, or Moscow 
or maybe sit down with Boris Yeltsin or Helmut Kohl or Miyazawa or a 
myriad of leaders south of our border. And they'd tell him what you and 
I already know: The United States is the undisputed leader of the world. 
That did not happen by accident. It happened by leadership and by the 
sons and daughters of America doing what they had to do, from Iraq all 
the way across a major spectrum of other places. It's the spirit of the 
United States. To tear down this country, to stand there and try to make 
the American people think we're a second-rate power, they simply don't 
understand the greatness of the United States of America.
    Here's one way we're going to demonstrate it: trade, exports, open 
up markets so you can sell the goods you make right here. I heard Bob 
Shaw talk about it, and he is 100 percent correct. The day is long gone 
when you could sell carpets and rugs in 50 States and leave it just 
there. These days, standing still means falling behind. It's a new 
world. Markets are opening up in Guadalajara and Jakarta and Santiago 
and Moscow. And I'm going to see to it that Americans get there first.
    It's not going to be easy. This export business is not easy. If you 
want America to lead the world, you need somebody who understands; you 
need a leader who understands the territory, someone you can trust to 
hammer out a good deal around the negotiating table. But you need even 
more. You need a leader who trusts you and someone who knows that 
Americans are the most productive, the most competitive workers the 
world has ever seen. All you need is a chance to show your stuff. As 
long as I am President, I'm going to fight to see that you get the 
chance to sell these products anywhere around the world.
    Let me give you one example. Some people look at the former Soviet 
Union and see 300 million former Communists over there. Well, we look at 
it, and we see 300 million future customers. Now, math was never my 
favorite subject, but I've done some computing on this one. Let's say 
there's 50 million homes--I don't know, give or take--50 million homes 
in the former Soviet Union; maybe 4.5 billion square yards of floor 
space, bare floor space. That's 4.5 billion square yards just waiting to 
be covered by your finest patterned berber. Of course, I'm factoring in 
kitchens

[[Page 1296]]

and bathtubs, too. But I have faith in your sales force. They can sell 
anything, anyplace, anytime.
    Another example: Since 1989--now, listen to this one--since 1989, 
exports, carpet exports to Mexico are up by 60 percent. That's pretty 
darn good. But here in Dalton, pretty good isn't good enough. We're 
going to build on that success. Right now we're hammering out a new free 
trade deal with Canada and Mexico. We call it the NAFTA. I'm sure you've 
read about it. Here's what it will do. It will create 300,000 American 
jobs by 1995 and one of the largest free trade areas in the world. Free 
trade opens up the road, and on the open road, American workers leave 
the competition in the dust. Or as my friend Arnold Schwarzenegger would 
say, ``Hasta la vista, baby!'' We are on the move, and we're going to 
keep it on the move.
    Now, it may be hard to believe, but the other side looks at these 
barriers falling and they say, ``Hold everything.'' They see these 
unbelievable opportunities, these vast markets to sell your goods, and 
they say, ``Well, we'd better not try. The challenge is too great; the 
odds are too long.'' They just by implication say the Americans can't 
compete. They say these other countries are going to walk all over us. 
Well, let me tell you something. In a way they are going to walk all 
over us. They're going to walk all over carpet made right here in 
Dalton, Georgia.
    This is the year--for 6 months we've been subjected to the darnedest 
pessimism about our great country that I have ever heard. Every time you 
turn on that television at night, somebody telling you what's wrong. 
Well, let me tell you what's right.
    They say that America can't compete. I say we can compete and that 
we'll win. They say, ``Pull the blinds and lock the door; the American 
worker can't hack it anymore.'' I say the American worker can outthink, 
outwork, outcompete anyone, anytime, anywhere.
    Here's a fact these pessimists better understand: Foreign trade 
supports the jobs of 153,000 Georgians, more than 7 million Americans. 
Here's my pledge to you: I will not let anyone endanger a single one of 
those jobs by going protectionist and closing up trade.
    Let the other side criticize and say our country is ridiculed, 
laughed at around the world. They ought to open their eyes. Let them 
worry and whine. I am going to fight for these open markets because that 
means more jobs in this country, right here in Dalton, Georgia, among 
others, every city and State of our country. Let them run this country 
down; let them carp on what's wrong with America. I'm going to do what's 
right. That's what leadership is, and that's what trust is.
    I'd like to bring these pessimists down here to this part of 
Georgia. I'd like to bring them right here to see this town, this 
industry. They might discover they've got nothing to fear from American 
workers and that American workers have nothing to fear from competition. 
This is one work force that can beat the pants off any competition.
    That is the lesson of Dalton. That's why I'm here. I want that 
lesson to reverberate all across our entire country. You didn't fear the 
future; you shaped it. Your industry didn't retreat from foreign 
markets; you went out and conquered them. And with leadership that 
trusts in you, you'll keep beating the pants off the competition.
    You and I do not feel that we are the laughingstock of the world. We 
are the undisputed leader. So let's keep it just exactly that way in the 
future. Let's keep America number one.
    Thank you. And may God bless our great country. Thank you very, very 
much.

                    Note: The President spoke at 8:58 a.m. in the Shaw 
                        Industries Distribution Center South. In his 
                        remarks, he referred to company officials Robert 
                        Shaw, president and chief executive officer, 
                        William Lusk, senior vice president and 
                        treasurer, Norris Little, senior vice president 
                        for operations, and Carl Rollins, vice 
                        president; Mr. Shaw's wife, Anna Sue; Fred 
                        Cooper, State chairman, Bush-Quayle '92; and 
                        Alec Poitevint, Georgia Republican Party 
                        chairman.