    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1996, Book II)]
    [August 19, 1996]
    [Pages 1310-1312]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at the Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Fruitland, Tennessee
    August 19, 1996

        The President. Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very, very
    much. Reverend Donaldson, before the Sun went underneath that cloud for
    a minute, I was beginning to wonder how a place so close to heaven could
    be so hot. [Laughter]
        But I am very glad to be here. Hillary and I are delighted to be
    here with Reverend and Mrs. Donaldson, and Reverend and Mrs. Vaughan,
    and our good friend John Tanner, Governor McWherter, and the other folks
    from Tennessee public life. I also wanted to say Reverend Donaldson gave
    you a big plug, Mr. Barnett. He said if it hadn't been for you and the
    leaders of the church, you all wouldn't be here today. And I thank you,
    too, for what you've done. [Applause] Thank you.
        I want to begin my remarks by presenting to Reverend Donaldson and
    Reverend Vaughan a plaque with a statement I made about this whole issue
    not very long ago that says, ``We must come together as one America to
    rebuild our churches, restore hope, and show the forces of hatred they
    cannot win.'' And I wanted you both to have these plaques when you
    reopen your church so that people all over this part of the country
    could see that what you have done is a symbol of the best in our faith
    and the best in our country. So if you would come up, Reverend Donaldson
    and Reverend Vaughan, I'd like to give you these plaques.

    [At this point, the President presented the plaques to Rev. Daniel
    Donaldson, pastor, Salem Missionary Baptist Church, and Rev. Bill
    Vaughan, pastor, New Shiloh United Methodist Church.]

        The President. You know, I think I'll start my brief remarks here
    just by picking up on something that Reverend Donaldson said about
    politics and differences and how he was sure that every President had
    done something that somebody disagreed with. After 4 years, I'm sure
    that every President has done something that everybody disagreed with.
    [Laughter] But part of what we're dealing with today, folks, is not only
    how we live our faith but how we manage our differences.
        And as your President--I want you to think about this--as your
    President, an enormous percentage of my time in dealing with America's
    relationship to the rest of the world is required of people who refuse
    to get along with each other because of their religious, their racial,
    their ethnic, or their tribal differences. That is what has convulsed
    the Holy Land for decades now. That is what brought the people in
    Bosnia, after decades and decades of peace, to slaughtering each other
    as if they were animals for 4 years. In Northern Ireland, the part of
    Ireland which ought to be the most prosperous and successful, it's what
    keeps Protestants and Catholics apart. They're still refighting 600-
    year-old battles when the kids want them to join hands and march into
    the future together. In Rwanda and Burundi, tribal differences have kept
    two small countries convulsed with mass slaughter when they ought to be
    trying to figure out how to feed their children.
        I see this everywhere. And I thank God for the wisdom of our
    Founding Fathers who said, first, that people are created equal, and
    second, that the right to the freedom of religion is the first
    amendment, the first and most important right we have. And so I ask you
    to think about that.
        I said the other day that I hoped that we could get out of the point
    in our politics where we trade in insults and go back to fighting over
    ideas, when we realize that not every election is a race between a saint
    and a scoundrel but instead a contest to find out what the best truth is
    for our country to move forward together.
        I might say in that context, I noticed one of your neighbors here
    who is running for the

    [[Page 1311]]

    United States Senate, Houston and his wife, Debbie, Gordon. I thank them
    for coming, and I wish you well, sir. [Applause] Thank you.
        I want to encourage everybody to participate in our process just as
    we encourage everyone to practice their faith. The genius of America is
    we have found a way to manage our differences and to keep coming closer
    to the ideals of our Constitution.
        We've had our troubles, too. We've had our troubles in trying to
    come to grips with the fact that our Constitution was inconsistent with
    our practice when it said all people are created equal. We had a Civil
    War in this country. We had a long civil rights struggle. We had a lot
    of challenges. But we're still here after 220 years, stronger than ever,
    because we found a way to work together--not just blacks and whites
    anymore.
        You know, when we had the Olympics and the Vice President and Tipper
    and Hillary and I went to Atlanta, there were representatives from 197
    different nations there. Our largest county, Los Angeles County, has
    folks from 150 of those places in it. Now, that's an amazing thing and a
    great tribute to the United States.
        We say, if you come here, we'll give you the freedom to speak; we'll
    give you the freedom to assemble; we'll give you the freedom to move
    around; we'll give you the freedom of religion, but you can't look down
    on somebody else because they're of a different religion, a different
    race, a different ethnic group, a different tribe. You got to treat
    people as if they're equal in the eyes of God and the law.
        And so I tell you that I have spent a lot of time on this church
    burning issue because I think it is a test of our character as a people
    and because we must never even begin to go down that road that has ended
    in the dark alleys of slaughter in Bosnia, the continuing agony in the
    Middle East, and all the other places in the world where people cannot
    get along because they insist on living their lives by being able to
    look down on people because they're different from them instead of
    trying to lift everybody up because they're all children of God. And we
    must not start down that road. We have to stamp out these feelings
    whenever we see them manifest.
        Let's face it, every one of us at some time in our lives--not a
    single soul here can say that you're not guilty at some time in your
    life of defining yourself because you could look down on somebody else,
    say, ``Well, I may not be perfect, but at least I'm not that person.''
    [Laughter] ``At least I'm not this, that, or the other thing.'' Every
    one of us is guilty of that. And we know there's something in human
    nature that makes people do that. But when it's uncontrolled, you have
    all this slaughter and heartache.
        So Hillary and Tipper and Al and I, we've worked hard to try to
    rally the American people to deal with this problem of church burning
    because we don't even want to see it start in America. We're still
    around here after all these years because we believe people should be
    free to practice their faith. And, you know, now it's a Baptist and a
    Methodist church--we've had a lot of synagogues defaced; we've had three
    Islamic centers burned in this country, and that's not right either.
        So what I want to say to you is that you're not just rebuilding your
    church here, you're showing America what's special about America. And by
    doing that, you're leading us into a brighter and better future instead
    of back into the kind of dark path that has divided and torn asunder so
    many other nations and that in times past has made America less than it
    ought to be.
        You have given us a great gift by allowing us to come here and share
    this day with you, and I want to mention that too. This is a problem
    that's a people problem. This is an opportunity that's an opportunity of
    the heart and conviction. There's things that the Government has to do.
    We're doing everything we can to help local law enforcement officials to
    find out who's burned all these churches. We got guilty pleas from two
    former Ku Klux Klan members in South Carolina just last week. We're
    working to charge some others that we now know have burned some of these
    churches. We will spare no effort to catch and prosecute people we can
    find. We will follow up every lead we are given. But fundamentally, we
    know that this issue has to be addressed by people who live in and
    around and who attend these churches and other religious institutions.
    This is an affair of the heart, and we celebrate today a triumph of the
    American spirit.
        Let me say, too, that we are standing on the brink of a new century.
    The kids in this audience today, some of these kids will be doing jobs
    20 years from now that have not been invented yet. Some of these
    children will be

    [[Page 1312]]

    doing jobs that have not been imagined yet. People that live in little
    rural places, within a matter of a few years, thanks in no small measure
    to the work that Al Gore has done to bring the benefits of the Internet
    and computer technology to every classroom, every hospital, and every
    library in America by the year 2000, they will have access to things
    that no child in rural America has ever known before. And that is a
    wonderful thing. And our children will be able to live their dreams more
    than any generation of Americans before them if, but only if, we don't
    forget what ``brung'' us, as we used to say at home. [Laughter]
        You know, my people come from a little place in Arkansas that looks
    a lot like this. And I was looking at the soybeans and the cotton and
    the corn--needs a little water; we'll pray for that today--[laughter]--
    going down these fields thinking about how wonderful it's going to be if
    the benefits of technology allow people to enjoy the virtues and the
    strength and the joys of rural life and still access the modern world.
    That's what I think is going to happen, as long as we don't forget what
    ``brung'' us.
        And so you've given us a gift today. The Scripture says, ``Much is
    required from those whom much is given.'' Well, there may not be any
    millionaires in this crowd today or many millionaires that are members
    of these two small churches, but you have shown us again the meaning of
    those words. You have shown us that we have more than we think and that
    we can give more than we think. And therefore, you've given us a chance
    to live the Scripture today.
        That's why Tipper and I wanted to spend our birthdays here. That's
    why Al and Hillary wanted to be with us. And let me say, that's why our
    children came too.
        And I want to thank Reverend Donaldson's daughter for taking such
    good care of our children. We have Karenna and Sarah and Albert Gore,
    and our daughter Chelsea, are here, and we're all honored to be here
    with you today.
        Every time you drive past one of these two churches from now on you
    think about that. When the two congregations got together, when people
    began to reach across the lines that divide us, when people began to
    reassert their belief in the freedom of religion, every time you do that
    you're sticking up for what's made America great for over 200 years and
    you're standing up against what is tearing the heart out of the rest of
    the world. This can be--this day, this church, that church down the
    road--a symbol of everything to you every time you see it that makes
    America the greatest country in human history.
        Thank you, and God bless you all.

    Note: The President spoke at 2:10 p.m. In his remarks, he referred to
    Rev. Donaldson's wife, Athalia; Rev. Vaughan's wife, Marge;
    Representative John Tanner; Ned Ray McWherter, former Governor of
    Tennessee; Lincoln Barnett, chairman, deacon board, Salem Missionary
    Baptist Church; and Houston Gordon, Tennessee senatorial candidate, and
    his wife, Debbie.