    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [January 16, 1995]
    [Pages 49-52]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks Honoring Martin Luther King, Jr., in Denver, Colorado
    January 16, 1995

        The President. Thank you. It is wonderful to be back in Colorado, to
    be back in Denver, and to be in this great spot which holds such a warm
    memory for me. The last time I came here we had a vast crowd. I was
    asking for the opportunity to serve as your President. And I must say,
    when I came before, I had Sinbad with me as the warmup act, and I
    thought that was responsible for the crowd. Today I am honored to be
    here with all these fine people on the platform and with all of you.
        I thank my friend Governor Romer for what he said and for his
    leadership and for his long friendship. I thank Senator Campbell and
    Congresswoman Schroeder for coming all the way back from Washington to
    be here with me and, most important, to be here with you today. I thank
    Secretary Pena for his outstanding service as our Transportation
    Secretary, working to make this country a safer place. And of course, I
    am grateful to the mayor and to Mrs. Webb for their leadership in this
    stunning event and for allowing me to be a small part of this.
        We come here today to celebrate the life of Martin Luther King. We
    know that he would have been 66 years old today. To me, it seems only
    yesterday when he was 39 and laying down his life for what he believed.
    Mayor Webb said that the life of Martin Luther King had special
    relevance for African-Americans because of what he meant. Let me tell
    you that his life should have special impact for every American, for he
    freed the rest of us, too, of our hatred, our bigotry, of the illusion
    which still crops up from time to time that we can somehow lift
    ourselves up by putting others down, that somehow, if we can just find
    someone to look down on, we can feel like we're being looked up to.
        Martin Luther King knew better than that. I ask you today, my fellow
    Americans, to think about why he lived and what he laid his life down
    for, to think about what ought to be driving our lives, our individual
    lives and our lives as citizens.
        You heard earlier Dr. King's famous ``I have a dream'' speech. I saw
    a sign held up earlier, when I came in, saying that they had a dream for
    America; did I have a dream for America--the people holding the sign up
    there. Remember what Martin Luther King said? He said, ``My dream is
    deeply rooted in the American dream.'' What did he mean by that? The
    Founders said: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all are
    created equal and endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable
    rights, and among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
        Today, my fellow Americans, I want to talk to you about our common
    right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. I ask you to think
    today of Government but to think beyond Government to people. I ask you
    to think today of the programs and the work of Government but to think
    beyond that to the lives of people. I ask you to remember today that,
    more than anything else, Martin Luther King's life was a life of
    service. Even as he marched all across this land and took that vast
    throng to Washington, DC, and asked the Government to act, he knew that
    in the end, what was in the heart and the spirit and the mind of the
    average American citizen was even more important.

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        And that is why he always said that all of us had a responsibility
    to do our part and to serve. Martin Luther King said, ``Everybody can be
    great because everybody can serve.'' He said, ``If all you do is sweep
    the streets, then sweep them just as well as Michelangelo painted the
    Sistine Chapel.'' Be the best streetsweeper that ever lived; serve and
    serve.
        I was asked the other day, of all the things that had happened in
    the last 2 years, was there one achievement I could say I was most proud
    of? And I said, I think it was the creation of the national service
    program. And some of them are here today. Why? Because these young
    people are committed to service. And if we all are committed to the idea
    that we are bound up with one another, then we can all be great and our
    country will be great.
        When I came here in 1992, I was worried about the direction of this
    country. I was concerned about the economic problems of America. More
    importantly, I was concerned that we seemed to be drifting and divided
    and that we had no clear role for how we might work together to build a
    better future, to reclaim that dream for which Martin Luther King gave
    his life. And I told you that I would seek, for my part, to do three
    things: one, to give this country a new economic policy that would bring
    down the deficit and bring up employment and bring us forward toward the
    next century; two, a different way of governing, that I would reduce the
    size of the Federal Government and increase its creativity, its
    effectiveness, its relevance to your life. And we have done both those
    things. We have restored a sense of economic direction and opportunity
    to this country, and the Government is smaller and yet still more
    effective. No one exemplifies that any better than Denver's
    Transportation Secretary, Federico Pena.
        But I knew then and I say again now that that would be fine but not
    enough, that we literally had to change our relationship in America as
    citizens to our Government and, most importantly, to each other. It was
    what I called then and what I say now is a New Covenant, the idea that
    you have a right to certain opportunities, but in return you must
    exercise personal responsibility in return for those opportunities to
    make the most of your own life, the life of your family, the life of
    your community, and the life of your country. That is what this is all
    about.
        That's why when people talk about something like welfare reform, I
    don't think about punishing poor people, I think about ending welfare so
    poor people can work and be good parents and have a better life and look
    to a better future. That's why, when we passed the crime bill, I thought
    it was a good thing just to give money to local communities to hire more
    police officers and also to have opportunities to give our children
    something to say yes to as well as something to say no to, so that we
    could show responsibility even as we seized opportunities.
        If you think about it, that is the great debate we should be having
    today: What is our responsibility to ourselves, and what is our
    responsibility to each other? If you have rights without responsibility,
    pretty soon people lose their rights because they don't behave
    responsibly. If you go around telling people to be responsible all the
    time and there never is an opportunity coming forward, pretty soon they
    get tired of being responsible.
        What we have to do today, if we want hope, if we want the dream to
    live again, is to say to each other: We will have a new commitment to
    creating opportunity and to being responsible. We will say no to
    violence and yes to hope. We will say no, no to the idea that we can get
    anywhere by being divided against one another and yes to the idea that
    our diversity is a strength.
        I am telling you, we can have all the economic growth in the world,
    but until we face the fact that we are going up or down together and
    we'd better get after the business of working together to make the most
    of all our potential, we will never be what we ought to be as a country.
        Now, I know we have more to do in Washington. I know that a lot of
    people are working harder and still not having a raise. I know, as the
    pastor prayed, that another million Americans in working families lost
    their health insurance last year. I know there are problems there.
    That's why I have said that in this coming session of Congress I will
    devote myself to what I call the middle class bill of rights, which
    could be called the bill of rights and responsibilities, because it
    offers you the right to pursue happiness, not the guarantee of
    happiness. I believe with all my heart that if we're going to worry
    about lowering taxes, we ought to lower taxes to help people educate
    themselves and their

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    children and strengthen their families, so we can move forward together
    and grow together.
        And so I have said, let's do four things that the Government can do
    to help people exercise more responsibility and take control of their
    own lives: tax deductions for all the cost of education after high
    school; lower the tax burden for parents with young children so they
    have more money to spend on raising the kids; let people save money in
    an individual retirement account, but let them withdraw it without a
    penalty for education or health care or taking care of their parents
    when they're sick; when people are unemployed or working hard for low
    wages and they're willing to get new skills, give them the funds they
    need to get education and training so they can grow into what God meant
    them to be.
        But I say to you again: We can pass that program. We can have the
    crime bill work perfectly. But unless in Denver, Colorado, you do what
    the Governor challenged you to do, we will not be what we ought to be.
        This country cannot go on with children shooting children. This
    country cannot go on with so many kids just giving up on their lives.
    This country cannot go on with more and more little babies being born
    into unstable situations where the mothers are children, too, and the
    future looks bleak. We can turn this around. But we have got to turn it
    around, and we have got to do it together by lifting each other up.
        You know, the reason I said what I did about the service corps--and
    all the young people in the Denver national service corps raised their
    hands--I want to tell you why I did that. I did that because to me that
    represents everything I wanted to do. These young people are building
    the new economy because when they work on solving problems in Denver,
    they earn some money to go to college. And they're changing the way the
    Government works because there is no bureaucracy at all; they just have
    a project here and apply for the opportunity for young people to work in
    it. This is not a Government bureaucracy. But most important of all,
    most important of all, this is creating that new relationship of
    opportunity and responsibility, building up a community by people giving
    and getting and giving and getting and giving and getting, until pretty
    soon lives are changed and futures are changed.
        Today, to celebrate Martin Luther King's birthday, there are young
    people like this all over America. They're rebuilding schools in Atlanta
    as we talk today. They're rebuilding homes in Memphis. They're helping
    people work their way out of the flood in California. And they're here
    today in Denver, building this country, doing what we ought to do.
        I was told a day or so ago that in this new Congress there may be a
    move to abolish the national service corps to save money to pay for tax
    cuts.
        Audience members. No-o-o!
        The President. Well, let me say, I know about cutting Government
    spending. We've taken $11,000 in debt off of every family in America by
    reducing the deficit. We have reduced the size of the Federal Government
    to its smallest size since Martin Luther King visited John Kennedy in
    the White House. I know about that. But the purpose of all this is not
    to wreck the Government, not to give us a mean-spirited Government. It
    is to give us a lean Government that will help us to work together to
    solve our own problems. That's what we should be committed to do in
    Washington and in Denver and in every community throughout this great
    land.
        So let me ask you to think about this. Look at all the young people
    in this audience. Look at the fine young people in their band uniforms.
    Look at the young people around the choir and the young kids here. Look
    at all the children here, all different colors and backgrounds. What is
    the American dream? It is the right to pursue happiness. It requires a
    certain equality and a certain respect. It requires us to listen as well
    as to talk.
        I know the American people are often angry and frustrated today. But
    let me tell you something, folks, this is a very great country, and
    there is nothing that cannot be fixed if we will rely on our hearts and
    our spirits and what we know to be true. I have traveled this whole
    world on your behalf. I have seen many different places. I have dealt
    with many different opportunities and problems. I am more convinced
    today than I was on the day I took the oath of office that the greatest
    days of America lie in front of us if we have the courage to live the
    dream of Martin Luther King.
        But remember, what he lived and died for was for every one of you to
    have the right to do good and to be good and to make the most of your
    own life. It was no living and dying

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    for the freedom to shoot people, no living and dying for the freedom to
    shoot up, no living and dying for the freedom to hate people, no living
    and dying for the freedom to ignore the responsibilities of parenthood
    and the obligations of our children. That is not what this was about.
    And there was no living and dying to advance the proposition that we are
    all just isolated individuals out here, we don't need anybody helping
    anybody else, and everything we do as a Government is intrinsically bad.
    That idea is wrong, too.
        So I say to you, as you look to the next century, let's make Denver
    and the West the frontier of the next century by proving that you can be
    a rugged individual, you can do everything you want in your individual
    aspirations, but only if you build a new community where everybody has a
    chance to rise up and everybody has a chance to be respected and every
    child has a chance to be loved and to be important. That is what this is
    all about.
        And let us look for ways every day, every day, to say the dream of
    Martin Luther King depends upon what I do inside and how I relate to my
    fellow men and women and to all the little boys and girls.
        Twenty-seven years ago, April 4th, Martin Luther King was killed.
    Only such a young man, but he gave his life willingly so that we might
    become all God meant for us to be. We can still do it. We will have more
    opportunities than ever before. But you look at this sea of people, and
    you think about what the Founding Fathers said over 200 years ago: life,
    liberty, the pursuit of happiness, together.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 12:34 p.m. in the Amphitheater. In his
    remarks, he referred to Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado and Mayor Wellington
    Webb of Denver and his wife, Wilma.