    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
    [September 12, 1994]
    [Pages 1536-1538]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in a Swearing-In Ceremony for AmeriCorps Volunteers
    September 12, 1994

        The President. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Vice
    President. Thank you, Eli Segal, for your wonderful work. This is a
    very, very happy day for Hillary and for me, especially, to see all of
    you here with all of your enthusiasm, your energy, your dreams.
        There are so many things I would like to say, but before we go on, I
    feel that I ought to give you some explanation about what occurred here
    this morning and why we had to delay this event and move it to the front
    of the White House.
        As you know, a plane came down here on the South Lawn, and a pilot
    lost his life. The investigation is now in place that will determine how
    and why this happened. We take this incident seriously because this
    house is the people's house. It's the job of every President to keep it
    safe and secure.
        On his second night here, our second President and the first person
    to live in the White House, John Adams, wrote: ``I pray heaven to bestow
    the best blessings on this house and on all that shall hereafter inhabit
    it.'' That prayer has been answered. In times of war and peace, in hard
    times, in good times, the White House has remained an enduring symbol of
    our democracy. It tells our people and all those around the world that
    the mission of America continues. And that is the message that you send
    out here today as well. So I pledge to you that we will continue that,
    and I'm sorry we had to move to the front, but maybe we ought to be in
    the front of the White House today for something this important.
        This year 20,000 Americans, most of whom are young, some of whom are
    young in spirit and determined to serve and also go on to further their
    education, mark the beginning of a journey that will change their lives
    forever. It will also change the life of this Nation for many seasons to
    come.
        This day is part of a long journey for me, personally, and for many
    others who have long harbored the dream that national service embodies.
    I want to say a special word of thanks to someone who worked with me
    through this whole process and who dreamed of national service even
    before I did, and that is Senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania. I
    thank you especially, sir, today. Like the Vice President's fine sister,
    Senator Wofford started out with the Peace Corps 30 years ago.
        One of the main reasons I ran for President is that I felt that we
    as Americans needed to make our life's journeys together rather than
    apart. I felt that we not only needed to change our direction and make
    more progress but that we had to do it by coming together instead of
    drifting apart. Today we begin to fulfill that mission.
        For many of us, this journey of service reaches back to life growing
    up in places we called home, back to our classrooms, our church
    basements, our backyards, with the American traditions of community and
    service. So for many of us, today is just one step on what has been a
    lifetime journey.
        But what we do today and what we will do in the days and years ahead
    will give new life to the values that bind us as Americans. For service
    is about sacrifice for others and about accomplishment and fulfillment
    for ourselves, about reaching out, one person to another, about all of
    our choices gathered together as a country, to reach across all those
    things that divide us, about you and me individually and about all of us
    together, who we are as individuals and who we are as a nation.
        Service is a spark to rekindle the spirit of democracy in an age of
    uncertainty. We hear a great deal today about values, and so we must. I
    encourage America in that conversation. But when it is all said and
    done, it comes down to three simple questions: What is right? What

    [[Page 1537]]

    is wrong? And what are we going to do about it?
        Today you are doing what is right, turning your words into deeds. In
    my Inaugural Address, I called upon America to a new season of renewal,
    a new season of service. And I said then what I firmly believe: There is
    nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with
    America.
        Well, all of you that are about to embark on this journey, as far as
    I'm concerned, you're what's right with America. Let's just look at a
    couple of our AmeriCorps volunteers. Laura Sullivan, who's here at the
    White House today, is helping people put their lives back on track and
    start their own businesses in Baltimore. Leo Negron out in Chicago is
    teaching construction skills to teenagers and offering them a role model
    for taking pride in their work. Sara Wittenberg in Seattle is showing us
    how to be stewards of our Nation's natural beauty.
        Twenty thousand more this year and 100,000 over the next 3 years,
    all of you will do things like this in hundreds of places all around our
    country: saving babies in south Texas, walking police beats in Brooklyn,
    working on boats to reclaim the Chesapeake Bay and working on new
    housing projects in Roxbury, taking seniors safely to the doctor in St.
    Louis, and helping children to learn to read in Sacramento.
        Every generation in our history has learned to take responsibility
    for this country, and yours is no exception. We look to you and know
    that you are no generation of slackers but instead a generation of doers
    who want--[applause]--we are grateful for those of you who wish to give
    back something to the country that has done so much for you and to the
    parents and loved ones who are with you today and who taught you that
    these values are important.
        Our greatness, after all, has never come from those who went in
    search of distant riches or personal glory. The people who really made
    this country great for over 200 years are ordinary people who make
    extraordinary sacrifices for the common good: the farm boys on the
    beaches of Normandy, the police officers walking the dark beats, the
    schoolteachers staying up late to help students from troubled homes to
    lead better lives.
        And you, the people of AmeriCorps, will be America's next generation
    of heroes. We need you now more than ever. So many of our people are
    alone and cut off from one another. So many others are deeply divided
    from each other, resentful, skeptical, even cynical about the
    possibilities of their own lives and the life of their country. You will
    devote your own potential to helping other people live up to their God-
    given potential.
        You remind us how America has always worked best: by offering
    opportunity and demanding responsibility. We've seen over the last 20
    years that you can't have one without the other and expect the American
    community to grow and flourish.
        AmeriCorps says: Come together, citizens and businesses, schools and
    churches, come together as partners in progress to solve our problems
    and reach our promise. We know we will succeed not by Government edict,
    not by large bureaucracies but by the spirit of service and devotion
    that burns within the heart of every American.
        With AmeriCorps you are building your country's future and helping
    to build your own. For your hard work, those of you who serve will earn
    money for your education and the chance to do even more with your God-
    given abilities, earning something that money can never buy as well. For
    you know now that you are helping to breathe new life into the spirit of
    the American Republic.
        Benjamin Franklin once said that if we don't hang together, we will
    surely hang separately. At the time he said it, he was worried about a
    foreign invader. But as the old comic strip character says, ``Today we
    have met the enemy, and it is us.'' We better hang together, folks, or
    we're going to hang separately. You are the glue that will enable us to
    hang together.
        We cannot go on as a nation of strangers, mistrusting one another
    because we've never had the chance to work side by side or had the
    chance to walk in one another's shoes. If we just stand only on our own
    ground, we will never find common ground. When I mentioned three of you,
    Leo, Laura, and Sara, before, I didn't tell you about their backgrounds.
    Laura is from a suburb of Boston. Leo is from the inner city of Chicago.
    Sara is from the farmlands of Wisconsin. Each will bring something
    special and different and unique from those places to their service of
    America.
        But each will surely learn, along with all the rest of you, that
    with all of our differences, we can belong to something larger than
    ourselves. I hope the nation that you serve will

    [[Page 1538]]

    learn this as well from your shining example. We are all part of the
    American family joined by a common purpose, bound by a common sense of
    responsibility, challenged by common possibilities that know no limits.
        The only limit to the future of this country and to the future that
    all of you hope to have is what we are willing to demand of ourselves
    today and in the future. Generations before us have done the groundwork,
    and now we must build on those foundations.
        In just a moment, I will lead the 20,000 volunteers who are here,
    and some who have already done this a couple of hours ago across
    America, in a pledge. But I want to ask you and all Americans who will
    learn of this event to reflect on the words of that pledge, words like
    ``action'' and ``commitment,'' ``community'' and ``common ground.'' It's
    more than a pledge of personal service; it's a creed for America, a
    creed we desperately need as we move forward to renew our great country
    in the 21st century.
        To all of you who have taken the pledge to join, who have entered
    this season of service, who have redeemed the most important commitment
    your President ever tried to make to the American people, to give us a
    chance to come together, to move forward together, I say thank you, and
    God bless you.
        Now let me ask all the AmeriCorps volunteers here to raise your hand
    and repeat after me:
        I will get things done for America to make our people safer,
    smarter, and healthier. I will bring America together to strengthen our
    communities. Faced with conflict, I will seek common ground. Faced with
    adversity, I will persevere. I will carry this commitment with me this
    year and beyond. I am an AmeriCorps member, and I am going to get things
    done.

    [The AmeriCorps volunteers repeated the pledge line by line after the
    President.]

    Note: The President spoke at approximately 4 p.m. on the North Grounds
    at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to Eli Segal, Assistant
    to the President for National Service, and Nancy Gore, late sister of
    the Vice President.