    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book I)]
    [March 3, 1995]
    [Pages 301-302]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the National Public Radio Reception
    March 3, 1995

        Thank you very much, Carl. I have all these notes, and then I have
    all these things I really want to say. [Laughter] What can I tell you--
    I'm just sort of an NPR-kind of President. [Laughter]
        President Kennedy, many of you will remember, in 1962 hosted a
    dinner here of the Nobel Prize winners and said it was the most stunning
    array of talent ever to dine in the White House since Thomas Jefferson
    ate here alone. Well, tonight you did Thomas Jefferson one better. You
    joined him with Abraham Lincoln and Teddy Roosevelt and Harry Truman and
    Mark Twain and George Bernard Shaw and Click and Clack. [Laughter] And
    you all did very well.
        I want to tell you that Hillary and I are particularly grateful that
    you spared us from all the things you said that were not true and from
    the things you said that were. [Laughter]
        I thank you for giving America this wonderful history lesson of the
    White House. Those of you who may or may not have known, the things they
    told you were really true, all those wonderful little history lessons,
    everything except what Jane Curtain said. This is ``Friday Night Live.''
    [Laughter]
        I am honored to have all of you here at the White House as we
    celebrate NPR's 25th anniversary. You should know that NPR is alive and
    well in the real White House. We are members of both the NPR stations in
    Washington, DC, Hillary and I are. And when we lived at home in
    Arkansas, Hillary helped to bring the full range of NPR programming to
    our State. In fact, we woke up every morning to NPR at 6 a.m. We had one
    of these little radios that ticks on, and instead of an alarm clock, we
    had NPR. Some days it was so soothing, we didn't wake up. [Laughter] But
    still it was a lot better than talk radio. [Laughter] At least on those
    days we did wake up, we were able to eat breakfast. [Laughter]
        Let me say that there were a lot of interesting things said tonight.
    And I have to shorten my speech because of all those things you heard
    about, nature's call and how there was only one restroom in the White
    House for the longest--[laughter] Well, guess what? There's still no
    restroom on this floor. So just take a deep breath, I'm nearly done.
    [Laughter]
        Public radio stations are partners in America, partners in things
    that are worth doing. They offer reading services to the blind, town
    meetings on violence, information on health care and voting. They team
    up with schools and libraries. They help our children learn. They bring
    more than issues and news, from live classical and jazz performances to
    radio drama and, of course, that car advice. And you get it all for 29
    cents a citizen a year, about the price of a day's newspaper.
        I know it's fashionable today to condemn everything public, but it
    seems to me that public radio has been a good deal for America. You
    know, I've done a lot of work here as President trying to build up the
    private sector, and we've got a lot more people working in it than we
    had 2 years ago, and I'm proud of that. But we're having this great
    debate in Washington about what the role of the Government should be as
    we come to the end of this century, and I'm glad we are. But I think
    it's important that we not forget that we have some great challenges
    here. How are we going to get into the next century with a country where
    everybody still has a chance to make it? And how are

    [[Page 302]]

    we going to deal with all this diversity in ways that bring us together
    instead of tear us apart? And how are we going to learn enough as
    citizens to make good decisions about those issues that don't fit very
    well into the screaming and the clamoring, cutting us up in little
    pieces and making our blood boil instead of our hearts open and our
    heads clear? NPR can play a role in all that, for 29 cents a person a
    year. It's a good deal.
        I'm glad that one of the many fights we're going to be waging this
    year for ordinary Americans is the fight to preserve National Public
    Radio.
        Hillary and I are deeply honored to have every single one of you
    here tonight, honored by the generosity, especially, of our performers
    who came here, who have been so gifted and who have shared their gifts
    with us tonight. We thank you for doing it, and mostly we thank you for
    the purpose for which you have done it. We thank you for caring about
    your fellow Americans, who really need this great institution to be here
    25 years from now celebrating the 50th anniversary of National Public
    Radio. Let that be our dedication on this wonderful night.
        God bless you, and thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:05 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House. In his remarks, he referred to Carl Kasell, newscaster, NPR News.