[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1994, Book II)]
[September 8, 1994]
[Pages 1520-1522]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Presentation Ceremony for the All-American Cities Awards
September 8, 1994

    The President. Thank you very much, and welcome to the Rose Garden 
on this beautiful day. I want to acknowledge the presence of Secretary 
Cisneros, who was once director of the National Civic League and whose 
city, San Antonio, a few years ago was an All-American City under his 
leadership. Congresswoman Johnson, Congressman Borski, Congressman 
Blackwell, Congressman Thomas, and Congressman Sharp are here.
    I also want to say a word of special appreciation for the National 
Civic League because this is its centennial year. When the league was 
founded, Theodore Roosevelt said, ``There are

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many ways in which a man or a woman can work for the higher life of 
American cities.'' Well, judging by what the mayors here and their 
citizens have shown us, that is just as true if not more true today than 
it was 100 years ago. We know, given the complex challenges that our 
cities face, we need that kind of commitment now even more than we 
needed it 100 years ago.
    We are here to celebrate success on many fronts. Some of the cities 
are being honored for designing programs to get our children off the 
streets and into better lives. Others have expanded downtown business 
areas, opened free health clinics for the poor, smoothed the economic 
impact of a base closure. These 10 cities represent regions all over 
America, and they're of different sizes, with different problems and 
different challenges and different opportunities. They do teach us, 
however, one thing in common: when our citizens work in partnership, 
when they work business and labor and government, when they find ways to 
come together instead of being divided, they can do miraculous things.
    The partnerships we celebrate here are a reminder that government 
can and must help, that businesses and volunteer organizations working 
with citizens themselves must do the hard work of restoring America's 
communities. Each and every one of us must be personally responsible for 
working in our communities and making a difference. No one else will 
ever care about a community half as much as those who live there and 
raise their children there, who look forward to growing old there and 
being remembered there. And who knows how to solve the problems of a 
place better than those who call it home?
    That's not to say that you should do all the work on your own. Our 
Federal Government must and will continue to help. Everything we do, 
even here, should ultimately be about empowering people at the 
grassroots to assume responsibility for their own lives, their own 
communities, their own families; to be able to compete and win, to 
succeed in the complicated but exhilarating world toward which we are 
moving in the next century.
    We've worked hard over the last 19 months to create that kind of 
framework, in strengthening our economy, in reforming our education 
system, in following some of the initiatives Secretary Cisneros has set 
out for cities and for communities within cities all across America.
    We have another great opportunity for partnership now that the crime 
bill has at last passed. If ever there was an example of the Federal 
Government reaching out to empower people at the grassroots level, the 
crime bill is it. It's paid for by reducing the size of the National 
Government by 270,000 over the next 6 years, giving all the money back 
to local communities to hire police, to build prisons, to build 
prevention programs, to reach out to young people, to give people 
something to say yes to, to put people to work and put people in 
responsible play as well.
    These things can work in miraculous ways, but we're going to depend 
upon you to make them work. Getting the crime bill through Congress was 
difficult, all right. It took 6 years. But you don't have 6 years to 
make it work at the grassroots. The money is flowing in this fiscal 
year, and we have to depend upon all of you to reduce crime and violence 
and to increase the number of young people who have a better future.
    The partnerships that we celebrate today and the ones our 
administration is committed to creating tomorrow, all of them are the 
backbone of our future. The cities are leading the way, and those of you 
who are being honored today are truly outstanding. I can't wait to 
present the awards. I have already read the reasons why all of you are 
being acknowledged. It reminded me of a lot of the things that I did as 
a Governor. It reminds me, too, here in Washington that very often the 
most important things we do receive the least publicity, especially if 
we do them hand in hand instead of fist against fist. But you keep on 
doing it, because in the end the results will be the ultimate reward.
    Now I'd like to introduce a person that it's my great honor to 
present, one of our country's most distinguished citizens, the chairman 
of the National Civic League, John Gardner.

[At this point, Mr. Gardner and Wayne Hedien, chief executive officer, 
Allstate Insurance Co., sponsor of the awards, each made brief remarks. 
The awards were then presented.]

    The President. Thank you very much. Let me just say a word of thanks 
to Allstate and to its chairman for their leadership. And thanks again 
to John Gardner. Thanks to all the Mem-


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bers of Congress for coming here. And thanks to all of you.
    The most important thing I think we can take away from here is what 
John Gardner said: This is a can-do country. This is fundamentally an 
optimistic country. Just 2 days ago the international economic experts 
who every year rank the countries of the world in terms of how 
productive they are, ranked the United States number one again for the 
first time in nearly 10 years.
    That happened because of what people are doing in the heartland and 
because we're getting our act together up here. And you should feel very 
hopeful about the future because of what you have done and because of 
what you have done.
    Thank you, and God bless you all. We're adjourned. Thank you.

Note: The President spoke at 2:10 p.m. in the Rose Garden at the White 
House.