    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1995, Book II)]
    [September 13, 1995]
    [Pages 1355-1358]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 1355]]

    Remarks to the National Family Partnership in Elkridge, Maryland
    September 13, 1995

        The President. Thank you very much. Terrell did a great job, didn't
    he? Let's give him another hand. Didn't he do a great job? [Applause]
    When Terrell was going up to speak, the Governor said, ``He seems so
    calm.'' And I said, ``Well, after all, it's his crowd.'' [Laughter]
        I am honored to be here with your Governor; with the Attorney
    General, Janet Reno; and with our Nation's drug czar, Dr. Lee Brown;
    with the National Family Partnership chair, Carol Reeves; with the
    members of the family who did a lot to inspire what we're doing here
    today, Myrna Camarena, who is Enrique Camarena's sister and a DEA agent;
    Dora Camarena, Enrique's mother; and Rick Evans, the executive director
    of the National Family Partnership; and of course, along with the
    Governor and all the other State officials who are here, Congressman
    Cardin. And to your principal, your superintendent, the school board
    members, and all the others who are here, I'm delighted to be in this
    wonderful school. And I thank all of you who work here and who send your
    children here for making this such a successful place. I'd also like to
    thank all the law enforcement officers who've come here from all around
    the country.
        Let me tell you why we're here; we're here to do two things: First
    of all, as the Attorney General has said, to observe the first
    anniversary of the enactment of the crime bill into law and to celebrate
    its accomplishments and, secondly, to reaffirm the elemental proposition
    that if we don't do something to keep our young people drug-free, we
    will never solve the crime problem, and that that begins first and
    foremost with an act of personal responsibility on the part of every
    American, personal responsibility on the part of the students, on the
    part of parents and educators and others, for self, for family, for
    community, and for country.
        Lee Brown has done an outstanding job in working with our high
    schools to reduce drugs and violence. Yesterday, he kicked off our
    national back-to-school ``stay drug-free'' public service announcement
    campaign, enlisting the involvement of prominent sports figures and
    other entertainers to tape radio and TV spots urging young people to
    stay drug-free and urging parents to stay involved. He's also passing
    out this wonderful little bumper sticker that I think could go very well
    with your red ribbon campaign. It says, ``Stay drug-free; you have the
    power''--you have the power.
        A year ago, when the crime bill was enacted, those of us who
    supported it, I believe, exercised our personal responsibility to the
    young people of America to do everything we could to ensure their safety
    and to provide alternatives to crime and violence. It was one of the
    proudest accomplishments of my tenure as your President.
        We broke 6 long years of partisan, rhetorical, political gridlock to
    put in place a crime bill that was both tough and smart, that actually
    holds out the promise of saving lives and increasing the quality of life
    and the safety of the American people. We put 100,000 more police on the
    street; made ``three strikes and your out'' the law of the land; banned
    assault weapons from our neighborhoods, our streets, and our schools;
    finally elected to do something about the terrible problem of violence
    against women, much of it, unfortunately, domestic violence, and we gave
    our young people some things to say yes to as well as to say no to,
    because these police officers said we had to have more prevention in
    education programs in our schools if we wanted a safe America for the
    next generation.
        Today, there are those who in the name of a balanced budget would go
    back on all this progress. They are the same people who said we would
    never put 100,000 police officers on the street. They said we couldn't
    even put 20,000 on in 6 years, over 25,000 in one year. We're going to.
    We're on time. We're ahead of schedule. We're below cost. We are keeping
    our commitments to the American people. So those who want to turn away
    from measures that have lowered the crime rate in almost every major
    urban and rural area in this country, I say, not if I can stop it--not
    if I can stop it.
        Let me be clear--the Governor mentioned it--this is not about
    balancing the budget. I am for balancing the budget. When I became the
    President, we had quadrupled the debt in 12 years and a bipartisan
    agreement to make out like it didn't matter. We had a $290 billion

    [[Page 1356]]

    a year deficit. That deficit today is $160 billion. We've cut it nearly
    in half in only 3 years. I am for balancing the budget.
        But the purpose of balancing the budget is to lift the burden of
    debt from these young people in this audience, to free up money in
    America to be borrowed by private business people to invest, to create
    jobs, to strengthen our economy, to improve the quality of life in the
    future. We cannot do that if we decide to balance the budget in ways
    that will undermine our economy or our quality of life. And that is why
    I have said repeatedly, we do not have to cut education, and we must not
    cut our efforts to reduce the crime rate, to reduce violence, and to
    give our children a safer, more secure future. It is not necessary to
    balance the budget, and it undermines the very purpose of doing it. We
    must not take that course.
        I just want to say one other thing. What we have done on the crime
    bill has worked because of the exercise of personal responsibility by
    other people in the criminal justice system. In Washington, we can give
    these fine police chiefs here and the people with whom they work the
    tools, but they have to use the tools, and citizens have to help them.
    Therefore, everyone in America who is a good citizen can justifiably
    claim some responsibility for the fact that the crime rate for all
    serious offenses, including murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated
    assault, is down in almost every area in the United States. That is an
    American achievement, and we need to keep working until we bring it down
    to an acceptable level, where it ought to be.
        But just as we have made progress in certain areas, there are clouds
    still hanging over our future. And I want to talk about two of them
    today because they affect these young people in this audience.
        Last week, the Justice Department issued a report which showed that
    while overall crime is down, violent crime committed by juveniles,
    people under the age of 18, is still at an all-time high. Juvenile
    violence has now become the number one crime problem in the United
    States of America. We cannot rest, we cannot rest in our official
    positions, we cannot rest as citizens, we cannot rest as parents until
    we do something to change that.
        I am so sick and tired of picking up the newspaper and reading
    stories about honor students standing at bus stops being shot down by
    careless drive-by shooters. I am so tired of reading stories about a 16-
    year-old boy shooting a 12-year-old boy and killing him because he
    thought he was treated with disrespect. Whatever happened to,`` Sticks
    and stones can break my bones''? What ever happened to,``Count to 10
    before you talk, much less act''?
        I couldn't believe it, the other day there was a survey of teenage
    gang members in which two-thirds of them said they felt justified in
    shooting someone who treated them with disrespect. If the President took
    that position, we'd be out of bullets in the country. [Laughter]
        Who ever heard of this kind of behavior? It's funny, but it's not.
    It's not funny. We have to take responsibility for the way the young
    people of this country look at the world, how they define right and
    wrong, how they define their dignity. The greatest human beings who have
    ever lived in the whole history of humanity were consistently abused by
    others, and they were great because they did not lash out. What is this
    madness that our children are being taught, that it is all right to take
    violent action against other people if they say something you don't
    like? We must do something about it.
        The second thing that bothers me, besides juvenile violence, was
    revealed in a report yesterday released by our Government through the
    Department of Health and Human Services, which showed that while drug
    use is down among people between the ages of 18 and 34 and cocaine use
    is down, marijuana use is going up again among young people between the
    ages of 12 and 17, nearly doubling in just 3\1/2\ years from 4 percent
    to 7 percent who say they've used marijuana in the last month.
        That's because apparently more and more young people don't think
    it's bad for you. Well, it's wrong; it's illegal; it's dangerous. It's a
    horrible first step, and we have got to turn that number around. And
    that's one big reason I am here today with young people who know it and
    who are prepared to say it.
        I have believed in and participated in the National Family
    Partnership's red ribbon campaign for a long time. When I was the
    Governor of my State, Hillary and I were always actively involved every
    year about this time. We were always proud to do it. And I believe every
    year I was Governor, we ranked in the top three States in America in the
    number of our young people participating. And since we only had 2.4
    million people, I was pretty proud of that.

    [[Page 1357]]

        What you are doing is important because the red ribbon chairs, the
    red ribbon parents, and most important, the red ribbon students are
    doing what no law, no government can do. They are assuming
    responsibility for their behavior, the behavior of their children, and
    in so doing, for their own futures. The red ribbon is the symbol now in
    America of our children's pledge to lead drug-free lives. The young
    people here are doing the right thing. Saying no to drugs is saying yes
    to life.
        In addition to the pledge by the students and the display of red
    ribbon, the red ribbon campaign also focuses on educating our young
    people about the dangers of drug use and mobilizing every community to
    develop its own solution. And I want to emphasize that. Every community
    in America needs its own plan, based on its own resources and its own
    problems, to deal with this issue. There is no cookie-cutter plan coming
    out of Washington that will solve all these problems. Every community
    needs people like you to chart the future and to hold up these young
    people as models.
        That's why I want to thank those of you in the National Family
    Partnership for choosing this day to kick off your Red Ribbon Campaign.
    It's a wonderful day. We're celebrating the first anniversary of the
    crime bill, its results, and a declining crime rate, the exercise of
    responsibility by adults in positions of authority. But more
    importantly, we're celebrating the future by the exercise of
    responsibility by these young people.
        We have to do something to make their future less violent. As the
    Attorney General said, the Justice Department in its youth violence
    initiative is going to help 10 communities establish partnerships
    between police departments and courts and schools, hospitals and civic
    leaders to reduce violence.
        In Maryland, in Baltimore, 24 community police officers will form
    curfew enforcements and juvenile violence crime teams to work with the
    schools to lower violence against young people, not to punish children
    but to demand responsibility from them and their parents.
        In Inglewood, California, the police department has made street
    terrorism a crime and intensified their community efforts to increase
    penalties for gang members who practice it. We cannot tolerate terrorism
    of any kind in our country. Why should we go to all the trouble to keep
    these terrorists from coming into the country if we're going to let
    homegrown kinds terrorize our children on their own streets?
        In Birmingham, police officers are working with schools to make sure
    that they get rid of guns in schools. No one should ever fear being shot
    in or around their schools. Similar efforts will be supported in
    Bridgeport, Connecticut; Cleveland; Milwaukee; Richmond; San Antonio;
    Seattle; and Salinas, California.
        But nothing we will do will work unless all of us who are adults
    take the time to teach our children what it means to be a good person
    and a good citizen. Our Secretary of Education has called this character
    education, trying to encourage our schools to teach basic values that
    make for a good life, like honesty and trustworthiness and respect for
    self, others, property, and our environment. These values make a
    difference. And that is what this red ribbon campaign is all about.
        I'd like now to ask the young people who are up here on the stage
    with me and all the young people in the audience who want to do it, to
    stand up and repeat the red ribbon pledge for the United States of
    America, so everybody in the country can hear it today. Stand up and I
    will say it, and you repeat after me:
        I pledge to lead a healthy, drug-free lifestyle. I will say no to
    alcohol. I will say no to other drugs. I will help my friends say no. I
    pledge to stand up for what I know is right and remain drug-free and
    proud.

    [The participants repeated the pledge line by line after the President.]

        The President. Thank you very much.
        Now, I want to invite the students, starting here, as I finish, to
    come up here and sign this pledge with me. But as I do, I want every
    adult in this audience to think about this. We're proud of these
    children who made this pledge. Most of us who know something about this
    problem are sitting here thinking, gosh, I wish every child in America
    would make this pledge.
        We expect these children to keep their word. Well, if we do, why
    don't we set an example by keeping our word to them, to make this the
    safest possible country with the healthiest possible future for them by
    doing what we know works to reduce crime and to give them a chance to
    keep the pledge they just made.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    [[Page 1358]]

    Note: The President spoke at 11:35 a.m. at the Mayfield Woods Middle
    School. In his remarks, he referred to student Terrell Brice; Gov.
    Parris Glendening of Maryland; and Myrna and Dora Camarena, sister and
    mother of Drug Enforcement Administration Special Agent Enrique Camarena
    Salazar, who was killed while conducting an undercover investigation of
    drug traffickers in Mexico.