    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [June 11, 1995]
    [Pages 861-865]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Fundraising Dinner for Senator John Kerry in Boston,
    Massachusetts
    June 11, 1995

        Thank you very much, Senator Kerry. Thank you for your remarks and
    for your example. Teresa, congratulations. I could listen to you talk
    all night long. Senator Kennedy got so wound up, you'd have thought he
    was on the ballot next week again. [Laughter] That's why he won. He
    believed in what he was doing, and that's why he won. Thank you for your
    spirit and your courage and your unflagging energy. Vicki, it's nice to
    see you. Senator Leahy, Congressman Kennedy, Congressman Markey,
    Congressman Meehan, my note says that Congressman Frank's here--he may
    not be or he may--are you here? Thank you. I want to tell you something:
    When nobody else will stand up, Barney will. He's got--where I come
    from--thank you--thank you very much. I was going to say, where I come
    from, that counts for something, and I've never forgotten it. Your State
    chair, Joan Menard, and your wonderful, wonderful mayor, Tom Menino, I
    thank him so much. President Bulger, it's always good to be here with
    you. I have kissed the Blarney Stone, paid homage, done everything I'm
    supposed to do here tonight. The mayor of Galway was--is he here still?
    Where is he at? Anyway, I think--you know, I have to go back to Ireland,
    and I was wondering if you would consent to be my tour guide if I go
    back, give me a little direction. Speaker Flaherty, the Secretary of
    State Galvin, Auditor DeNucci, and Elaine Schuster, thank you so much.
    You are indefatigable. I am so impressed by how you keep coming back and
    helping us in our need. And sometimes I think we take our friends for
    granted, folks, and we should never do that, and I thank you.

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        Somebody told me my friend Governor Dukakis is here. Is he here?
    Hello, Mike. Stand up. God bless you. Thank you.
        I've had a rather interesting day, you know? [Laughter] I got up at
    5:30 this morning, and it's been a hard week at the White House. We're
    dealing with--you know, I had to veto the rescission bill last week, and
    we were dealing with a lot of other things, but overarching everything,
    of course, was the fate of Captain O'Grady. And it was a few days before
    we even knew for sure he was alive. And the whole remarkable story is
    beginning to come out, and of course, we're going to receive him at the
    White House tomorrow, and I'm looking forward to that. I know all
    America will be rallied and full of joy and energy.
        But anyway, I was pretty tired anyway, and I rolled out of bed at
    5:30 this morning, and I hauled up to New Hampshire, and I spoke at the
    Dartmouth commencement and shook hands with about 1,600 students. And
    then I went to a reception and shook hands with a couple hundred more
    people. I went to Claremont, and Speaker Gingrich and I did our little
    town hall meeting. And I thought it was a good thing, good thing for
    America, and I hope you did, too. We didn't get into all of the issues,
    but we got into some of them. And we had a civilized way, I think, of
    explaining what the differences are.
        What I'd like to talk about a little bit tonight is why I'm still
    here and why I'm glad you're here. I was looking at Ted Kennedy give his
    speech so brilliantly tonight and wanting to cheer every word, and then
    I watched Teresa speak and I watched John speak and I watched John's
    movie, and I'm feeling sort of mellow. I got to thinking, you know, it's
    a miracle any of us are still around, you know, the whole complex of
    circumstances that brings any person to any point in time, where you're
    in a position to do whatever it is we're trying to do now. It's a great
    privilege. It's an honor.
        And so I was thinking to myself, in this time when our tide is
    supposed to be out and theirs is supposed to be in, why would I not
    leave my party? Why am I proud to be here with John Kerry? Why was I
    proud when Ted Kennedy fought back and won? And I'd like to tell you why
    I am, based on what I know and what I see as your President.
        We are getting back to first principles today, really getting back
    to first principles. Sometimes I get in trouble in Washington when I'm
    in these arguments with--because I forget that things I assume everybody
    else agrees with, a bunch of folks in the Congress now don't agree with
    at all. But that's not all bad. We're going to have this huge debate.
        For example, one of the issues that now is really open for debate is
    whether most of these social problems that Senator Kerry talked about
    are caused by economic and political and social factors or whether
    they're largely personal and cultural, that is, they can only be fixed
    by people just stopping doing what they're doing wrong and beginning to
    behave.
        Now, there's some truth to that, isn't there? I mean, at one level
    that's just self-evident that people should behave, and if they don't do
    what they're supposed to do, nothing the rest of us can do will make
    anybody get an education or make anybody put a gun down or make anybody
    stay out of a gang. That is self-evident at one level.
        But if you have the opportunity to do what I have done, which is to
    sit with Mayor Menino and his youth council, you know that it makes a
    whole lot of difference if somebody is trying to help these kids make
    the right decision. So I'm a Democrat because I believe the problems are
    personal and cultural, but not exclusively personal and cultural, and I
    think we're put on this Earth to try to help other people make the most
    of their lives, and we're better off when we do that, and I have learned
    that.
        I hear these--there's a big debate in Washington about if the
    Government is not very good, what should we do, what is the most
    important thing? And some people think balancing the budget as quickly
    as possible is the most important thing, no matter what the
    consequences. I think it's an important thing; that's why we worked hard
    on our deficit reduction package. We got interest rates down. We got the
    economy coming back. We have over 6 million jobs to show for it. It is
    not an insignificant thing.
        But it is not the only thing, because it's not as if this country's
    not worth anything, you know. When we invest in the education of our
    people, when we invest in medical research, when we invest in the things
    that make us richer and smarter and stronger, we have assets, and they
    bring us things.
        And I would tell you we have a budget deficit, but we also have an
    education deficit in this

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    country. It is not solely a money problem, but money is related to it.
    One of my rules of politics is, when somebody tells you it's not a money
    problem, you can bet your life they're talking about somebody else's
    problem. [Laughter] You think about that.
        Yes, there is a budget deficit, but there is an investment deficit
    in people. And so, let us find a way to balance the budget and still
    invest in the education and training and empowerment of all of these
    people we expect to lead us into the 21st century. That's why I am a
    Democrat, and I'm glad to be one, because I believe that.
        If you believe, as some say now, that the Government can't do
    anything right and always burdens the private sector, then obviously it
    makes logical sense to rewrite the environmental laws of the country by
    letting the people who are covered by those laws, who in the course of
    their economic activities damage our environment, rewrite the laws.
    Because if you have no faith in Government at all, then you're not doing
    anything wrong by letting the polluters rewrite the laws. Because
    Government is by definition bad, what is public is bad, what is private
    is good, if that's what you believe.
        Senator Kerry sponsored, I think, two of the only environmental
    pieces, except the California desert bill, that passed the Congress last
    year, the Marine Mammal Protection Act and another piece of legislation.
    We thank you for that.
        See, I just don't believe that. And Republicans used not to believe
    that. Richard Nixon signed the law creating the Environmental Protection
    Act. Richard Nixon signed the first Clean Water Act. Teddy Roosevelt was
    the first and perhaps still the greatest of all environmental
    Presidents. There were only 20 head of buffalo left in the entire United
    States when Teddy Roosevelt set aside the buffalo preserve out West. If
    you ever go out there, you ought to go see it. It's a big deal. And it's
    stood for all kinds of other values.
        And when I was a boy growing up in the woods and in my little
    national park in my hometown, I was really grateful to Teddy Roosevelt.
    And I always thought that using the power of the Government to protect
    our natural heritage was not really a partisan deal, it was something we
    had all agreed upon that we had to do, because all of our short-term
    impulses sometimes have to be subordinated to the long-term good of the
    United States. All of them, all of them do. So that's why I'm still
    here.
        If you believe that the market always solves all problems and
    therefore the Government messes it up, it's understandable why you'd be
    against raising the minimum wage. But to me, this country's done pretty
    well in the 20th century, raising the minimum wage on a pretty regular
    basis. And now if we don't raise it this year, it's going to be at the
    lowest level in 40 years next year. And I'm telling you--we always talk
    about how we want to reform welfare and people ought to go to work--let
    me tell you something, folks, there are thousands, tens of thousands of
    people that get up in this country every day--in fact, a few million--
    and go to work for the minimum wage. And a lot of them are the sole
    support of their children.
        What kind of courage does that take? Who can live on that? And they
    get up, and they show up for work every day, and they work for their
    minimum wage. And they trudge home, and very often they live in a place
    that's hard to live in, and their kids are exposed to problems that most
    of our children aren't. And they always pay their taxes, and they never
    break the law, and they just do the best they can. They are real
    American heroes. I think we ought to raise the minimum wage. I think
    that's the right thing to do.
        So that's why I'm proud to be a Democrat. We could lose every
    election in the country, and I'd still be right there, because I
    couldn't get over that. I could never get over that. And I say that not
    to be critical of other folks who really have different views but just
    to tell you that I feel very fortunate just to be able to stand here
    tonight. And I'm the first person in my family that ever got a college
    education. I had student loans, and I paid them back, but I needed them
    badly. And I always thought it was our job to go up or down together.
        And one of the things that has struck me so much in the last 2
    months--they've been pretty difficult, emotional months for America. And
    they're sort of bracketed, if I will just take the last 6 or 7 weeks, by
    our national heartbreak in Oklahoma City and our national exultation at
    this remarkable young Air Force captain who kept himself alive for 6
    days, when people were all around him, and I mean literally all around
    him, with guns in their hand, wanting at least to imprison him and
    probably to kill him. And we get together at times like this and we
    feel,

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    even in the midst of tragedy, better about ourselves because we are part
    of something bigger than ourselves. We really feel like we're Americans
    again. And I guess the reason I still belong to this party is, I think
    we ought to feel like we're Americans again every day. I think we ought
    to be working together every day.
        And I want you to think about this one issue to illustrate it. It
    relates to Senator Kerry. There are a lot of things I like about John
    Kerry. I like the use--and I mean this is a positive way--I like the use
    that he has made of his experience in the war in Vietnam, which was the
    seminal experience of our generation. I like what it has done to his
    sense of conscience, his sense of responsibility, his sense of reaching
    out even to Vietnam. I like the fact that it has made him feel a much
    greater sense of accountability for power. Once you see power exercised
    in a way that you think is unaccountable, that is erroneous, and you
    can't change it quick enough to save people that you're trying to save,
    it makes you interested in things like what we did with Mr. Noriega or
    what the BCCI issue was all about or what the S&L bailout turned out to
    be. It makes you interested in accountability, and I like that.
        I like the fact that he's kind of like me, he's interested in all of
    these technology, future-oriented issues and basically has a rosy view
    of tomorrow. But the thing I really like is that he cares, still, as a
    United States Senator, about the issue that still has the capacity to
    tear the heart out of this country, which is the rising tide of violence
    among young people.
        Let me tell you that the crime rate is going down in almost every
    major city in America. It's a cause for celebration. It's a tribute to
    enlightened leadership. It's a tribute to the police forces of this
    country. It means that our crime bill strategy, which Senator Kennedy
    and Senator Kerry worked hard for, was the right one to put more police
    officers on the street and to emphasize prevention as well as
    punishment. It means all that.
        But in spite of all of that, underneath all of those numbers, there
    is an almost astonishing rising tide of random violence among children.
    And I'll tell you this one story, from my hometown, Little Rock,
    Arkansas. Just a few days ago--I get the local hometown paper, and I try
    to read it; it kind of keeps me rooted. And there is this remarkable
    story, and I only saw the top--I saw this beautiful picture of this
    schoolchild and these little questions this child had answered in the
    picture--big color picture--``If I could do anything, I would have
    people be nice to each other.'' ``I wish people''--blank, you know, it
    was one of those fill-in-the-blanks things. ``I wish people wouldn't
    ever join gangs.'' ``I want to live a long time.'' ``When I grow up, I
    want to be a police officer.''
        I got to laughing, and then I looked at the headline and the whole
    thing. And this child whose picture was here in the corner with this--
    ``This is what I want to do, and I want people to be nice and no gangs,
    no violence''--this child and a brother and a sister, the three of them,
    young children, 10, 12, and 14, as I remember, were lined up and
    assassinated, assassinated by apparently three young men, only one of
    them using a weapon, because they had an older sister or half-sister who
    allegedly was involved in the death of one of these other people's
    siblings. So their idea of retribution was to go wipe these kids out.
        And I'm not trying to get you down about this, but what I'm trying
    to do is to say to you that a lot of this political rhetoric that we
    engage in is very divorced from reality. And this country is in a
    strange position now, because I'm telling you, I still think we're in
    the best position for the future of any major country in the world: We
    have the strongest economy, the most vital business sector; we are well-
    connected with the rest of the world; we're the most ethnically diverse.
    Everything is great. But underneath this, we've got these kids that
    literally are so disconnected, so numb, so unreached that they are
    killing each other almost without remorse and really believing that
    nobody loves them and what difference does it make and if they live to
    be over 21, it will be more than they expect.
        This Nation cannot tolerate that. And the only way we will ever turn
    it around is to reexamine every single thing we are doing, yes, and be
    willing to change it if necessary. But we also have to make a commitment
    that somehow we're going to do, on a national basis, what the mayor here
    is trying to do with this youth council. Because all these kids start
    out as good kids. You know, when they're 6 months old, they haven't
    decided that they're going to grow up and wipe somebody out. And things
    happen that make them unable to imagine the life that we take for
    granted.

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        You know that wonderful line from Yeats, ``Too long a sacrifice can
    make a stone of the heart.'' We have a lot of kids whose hearts turned
    to stone. Now, I don't pretend for a moment that if John Kerry and I win
    reelection in 1996 that by 1998, on July 16th, every teenager in this
    country will all of a sudden turn into an Eagle Scout and no one will
    ever pick up a gun or a knife. But I do think it makes a difference. I
    do believe it makes a difference whether the people who hold public
    office imagine that they must make connections with people that are
    different from themselves and feel that we have a collective
    responsibility not only to seize our opportunities but also to beat back
    our problems.
        I say this again not to depress you, because I believe that our
    Nation is in the best position of any country to seize the opportunities
    of the 21st century but only, only if we understand that every single
    opportunity in this chaotic and fast-changing world has within it the
    seeds of destruction.
        And this is one example: Oh, it's wonderful if you can take
    advantage of the global economy, but if you can't you're going to be one
    of the 60 percent of American workers that are working harder today for
    less money than you were making 10 years ago. It's wonderful if you can
    hook into the Internet and you're a rural kid somewhere out in the
    Mountain West and find the whole world at your fingertips. But if you're
    a paranoid crazy, you can also learn how to make a bomb. It's wonderful
    that we can move around all over the world, but it also makes us more
    vulnerable to terrorism.
        Every one of these leads us to the same conclusion. It is folly for
    us to believe that we can live and function and make the most of our own
    lives all by ourselves. Whether we like it or not, beyond our families,
    we have work, we have communities, we have States, and we are part of a
    country.
        Near the end of the Civil War, Abraham Lincoln said, ``We cannot be
    enemies, we must be friends.'' We conduct our national politics as if we
    are trying to segment each other into different groups of enemies and
    demonize our Government as the instrument of our common coming together.
        You are here, every one of you, because you know better. So I will
    say to you in the end, the reason I hope you will work hard to reelect
    John Kerry is that his life is an example of understanding, down to the
    fiber of his being, that we must go forward together and that every time
    we lose a child, we lose a part of ourselves. And no, we're not making
    excuses for other people's irresponsible behavior. No, we're not taking
    onto ourselves things that we cannot achieve. But we do understand that
    in this imperfect world, the thing that makes America great is when
    America is together. We have been divided long enough. We have been
    distracted long enough. We have demonized each other long enough. There
    are children out there to be saved and a world to be made, and that is
    what we intend to do.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 9 p.m. at the Park Plaza Hotel. In his
    remarks, he referred to Senator Kerry's wife, Teresa Heinz; Senator
    Edward M. Kennedy's wife, Victoria; William Bulger, Massachusetts Senate
    president; Charles Flaherty, Massachusetts House speaker; William
    Galvin, Massachusetts secretary of the Commonwealth; Joe DeNucci,
    Massachusetts auditor; and Elaine Shuster, Democratic Party activist.