    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book I)]
    [March 20, 1996]
    [Pages 480-482]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the National Center for Tobacco-Free Kids
    March 20, 1996

        Thank you very much. Thank you, Alan. And I want to thank the Lung
    Association, the Heart Association, the Cancer Society, all the
    physicians who are here today with the various medical groups. Dr.
    Bristow, it's good to see you. And I thank all of you for being here.
        I thank Secretary Shalala and Commissioner Kessler and CDC Director
    David Satcher for their leadership. I want to thank someone who is not
    here but who had a lot to do with this effort--I thank the Vice
    President, who lost his own beloved sister to lung cancer, for his
    strength and leadership in this endeavor.
        Normally, I don't think the people of America should give the
    President an award for anything, because the President's job is award
    enough. It is an uncommon gift with a great responsibility. But to tell
    you the truth, I'm kind of tickled about this today, because I admired,
    indeed I loved, Mike Synar very much. He was a good man and a brave man
    who gave the rest of us a great deal of energy and hope and direction.
    And our country could do with a few more like him, people that just rear
    back and stand up and do the right thing. And if it doesn't work out,
    they just laugh and go on and don't expect any kind of a blue ribbon or
    award at the end of the day.
        When I gave the State of the Union Address and spoke about the
    challenges facing our country as we move into the next century, I said,
    and I repeat, that our first challenge--not the Government, the people's
    first challenge--is to strengthen our families and cherish all our
    children and give every single one of our young people the childhood
    that he or she deserves. One of the most important things we can do in
    meeting that challenge is to protect our children from what is rapidly
    becoming the single greatest threat to their health: cigarette smoking
    and tobacco addition.
        This is, like other challenges, as Secretary Shalala so eloquently
    said, a challenge we have to meet together. To be sure, Government has a
    role to play. I want to acknowledge the presence of two other Members of
    Congress here today who stood shoulder to shoulder with Mike Synar, our
    good friend Congressman Dick Dur-

    [[Page 481]]

    bin from Illinois, who won his primary for the United States Senate last
    night. Congratulations, Dick. It is a measure of his commitment to the
    issue that I talked to him after midnight his time last night, but he
    suited up and showed up here today anyway. We thank you. And Congressman
    Marty Meehan from Massachusetts, thank you, sir, for being here and for
    your good work here as well.
        I thank the parents of America who have become increasingly
    sensitive to this issue and are working hard to teach their children. I
    thank the young people here who are working hard to reach out to their
    peers and who often can have more influence on their peers than their
    parents or the President. I thank the athletes and the entertainers who
    are committed to being role models, the businesses who control access to
    tobacco products, the teachers, the coaching, the advertising
    executives. I thank the health care professionals and the volunteers.
        Because of this great sea of people in America, what was once the
    work of a few lonely activists has grown into a national movement to
    protect the health and the future of our children. Three thousand young
    people start to smoke every day, and a thousand of them will have their
    lives shortened as a result. It seems to me that as President, if I say
    that what I really want is for every American child who is willing to
    work for it to have his or her shot at the American dream, that cannot
    be done unless we first of all try to guarantee them the existence and
    the health necessary to pursue their dreams. And that is also what the
    rest of us must do.
        We have, as all of you know, proposed ways to crack down on
    advertising that tells young people smoking is cool. We've proposed ways
    to make it harder for children and teenagers to buy cigarettes by
    reducing their access to vending machines and free samples. We issued
    the Synar regulation in January to demand that States, in return for the
    Federal money they received, do more to enforce their own laws against
    the sale of tobacco to minors. It's worth noting here that it is illegal
    in every single State of the Union to sell any form of tobacco to
    minors. We're working closely with State governments to ensure that the
    Synar regulations are implemented quickly and decisively. And I have to
    say that so far the results on that front have been quite encouraging to
    me.
        All of you I want to thank for supporting these efforts. All of you
    who have been fighting for a long time are now working to bring your
    experience in new ways to bear on this effort through the National
    Center for Tobacco-Free Kids. And I want to welcome especially some of
    the people in this room who are new to the struggle in this effort but
    who can make all the difference.
        First, let me say I am very glad to announce that two groups of
    America's athletes, heroes to so many young people, have come forward to
    help. Young women in particular are bombarded with billboards which
    suggest that smoking is cool and glamorous and a good way to stay thin.
    The women of the U.S. National Soccer Team know better. This spring and
    this summer, they are going to make America proud when they compete in
    the Olympics. And just when thousands of young girls around the country
    are looking up to them, they are going to make it clear that smoking is
    not cool. Working with the Federal Government, they have launched a
    major promotional advertisement effort called Smoke-Free Kids and
    Soccer. The effort, including television advertising, will be centered
    around the team's matches all across our country leading up to the
    Olympics in Atlanta this summer. It will make a real difference in
    people's lives, and two members of that team are here today. I would
    like for them to stand and be recognized. Thank you very much.
    [Applause]
        Former major league baseball players Joe Garagiola and Bill Tuttle,
    along with Mrs. Tuttle, have stepped up to the plate to help get spit
    tobacco out of baseball. As leaders of the National Spit Tobacco
    Education Campaign, they are working to educate players about the
    dangers and to help protect the health of young fans who look up to
    them. In fact, they've just come back from a trip down to spring
    training in Florida where they met with team owners and the players'
    union, and they are making some very impressive progress as well. I want
    to ask Joe and Bill and Mrs. Tuttle to stand and I want to thank them.
    Thank you so much, and God bless you. [Applause]
        I also want to thank some businesses who are doing their part.
    Businesses, of course, have a right to sell cigarettes to adults, but
    they also have a responsibility, a legal one and a moral one, to prevent
    cigarette sales to minors. I'm very proud and happy to announce that
    major

    [[Page 482]]

    United States supermarket chains are taking decisive steps to curtail
    the sale of cigarettes and tobacco to young people. A&P company, Giant
    Food, and Pratts Supermarkets are instituting mandatory training of all
    their cashiers to ensure that they know the law and understand their
    obligations to enforce it. That means requiring identification from all
    young people who seek to buy cigarettes. In July, A&P Chairman James
    Wood will recommend to the board of directors that A&P discontinue the
    use of all vending machines by the end of the year. Giant is going to
    eliminate vending machines in all stores except for their 24-hour
    stores. Pratts doesn't allow any cigarette vending machines at all. And
    in the meantime, A&P and Giant are converting their vending machines so
    they only operate with tokens that must be purchased from a cashier.
        I urge every supermarket chain and every individual grocery store in
    America to follow the lead of these three companies and shut down
    tobacco sales to minors. I'd like to ask the people here from those
    companies to stand to be recognized today. Thank you very much.
    [Applause]
        Let me just say one other thing about them. You know, I spend a
    great deal of my time as your President trying to find ways to both
    generate more jobs for America and to help American businesses make more
    money, because both those things are very good for our country. And I'm
    proud of the fact that our country has produced in the last 3 years 8.4
    million new jobs. And unlike the past 15 years, almost all of these jobs
    have been created in the private sector as we have downsized the
    Government. Therefore, any President and any citizen must think
    seriously before we ask a business to do something that will cost it
    money. This decision costs these people money. And they did it because
    it was the right thing to do for America. And I thank you for that very
    much.
        I want to thank all the activists who are here in the room who have
    been recognized and those of you who have not. And especially I'd like
    to say a word of thanks to the former employees of tobacco companies who
    have stood up to tell the world the truth. And I want to recognize one
    in particular, the late Victor Crawford, whose wife, Linda, is here
    today. He was a great champion for our children. We miss him today. We
    wish he were here, and we know he's smiling down on us. Thank you,
    Linda, for being here, and God bless you.
        My friends, we have come a long way in this endeavor, indeed, a long
    way since our administration made the first announcement about our
    efforts to reduce tobacco advertising and tobacco sales to young people.
    Now we have supermarket chains, athletes, workers, private citizens who
    have recognized the threat tobacco poses. And this movement is producing
    results. Just last week there was a major breakthrough when Liggett
    agreed to settle its lawsuits. It became the very first tobacco company
    to acknowledge that tobacco can be deadly. This is the first crack in
    the stone wall of denial. My message to other tobacco companies is,
    therefore, simple and direct: Take responsibility. Sell to adults, but
    draw the line on children.
        I'm happy that Liggett has also agreed to begin changing their own
    advertising practices so that they have less influence over young
    people. That's a good start. And now I want them and the other tobacco
    companies to go the distance. If selling cigarettes to minors is
    illegal, no good corporate citizen should be aiming advertising at those
    minors.
        My fellow Americans, we can win this fight. We can save countless
    lives of our young people. We can give them the future that we imagine
    when we look into the bright faces of these children who are here. But
    we have to do it together. It is folly to pretend that any one of us,
    including the President, can do it alone.
        When he graduated from high school in 1968, Mike Synar called on his
    classmates to, quote, ``Stand and be counted when the occasion arises.''
    Well, he always did. This occasion requires us to do it for him, and I
    am honored that we can do it in his name.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:50 p.m. in the East Room at the White
    House upon receiving the Mike Synar National Public Service Award from
    the Coalition on Smoking OR Health. In his remarks, he referred to Alan
    Synar, brother of the late Representative Mike Synar; Lonnie Bristow,
    president, American Medical Association; Julie Foudy and Carla Overbeck,
    cocaptains, U.S. Women's National Soccer Team; and Bill Tuttle's wife,
    Gloria.