    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [June 14, 1997]
    [Pages 741-742]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Commencement Luncheon at the University of California San
    Diego in La Jolla
    June 14, 1997

        Thank you very much for the gift. Chelsea will treasure the Dr.
    Seuss T-shirt, and it is an especially appropriate gift since last week
    I spoke at her high school graduation--believe it or not, I was much
    more nervous then than I was today--[laughter]--and I asked Chelsea and
    her classmates to forgive us, their parents, if we were acting a little
    weird that day. And I explained that we were reliving their whole lives
    and that, among other things, we wished just one more time we could read
    children's books to them. So that will always remind her of that, and I
    thank you.
        Let me say to your student body president-to-be, and to the young
    woman who spoke before me at the graduation, if Coleen and Souley are
    emblematic of the undergraduates at the University of California San
    Diego, this country is in good hands, and you should be able to capture
    virtually every elected position in the entire State--[laughter]--in
    just a few years. It beats anything I ever saw. It was great.
        Let me also thank you for making Dr. John Hope Franklin and the
    members of the President's Advisory Board on Race and the members of my
    Cabinet and the White House and the Members of Congress who are here,
    making us feel so welcome. We brought quite a lot of interlopers here to
    this event today in the hope that it would impress upon the country and
    the press, which will have to tell the country about it, the importance
    of this issue and this moment and our intentions. You have given me a
    great opportunity to be here today, and you've given the Nation a great
    gift if we can do what we set out to do here. And I will never forget
    that.
        I'm especially glad to be here in San Diego to do this. You know, I
    spent a lot of time in this community over the last several years. I
    have come to love it and also to respect it, because I see the capacity
    here to make things work. One of the things I didn't get to talk about
    in my speech--you can't talk about everything--but in the end, we have
    to be judged by whether what we do makes sense or not and produces
    results. This community has one of the lowest crime rates of any major
    city in America. It deals with a whole wide range of complex problems, I
    think, in a very sensible way. And I see people here continually coming
    together across lines that divide them, and I hope that will be a model
    for the entire country. So for all those reasons, I'm very thankful.
        And the last thing I have to say is that early this morning, when
    I'd had precious little sleep

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    and my body clock was off anyway, my wife called with her last-minute
    criticisms of my speech--[laughter]--which is a routine I have come to
    look forward to in life. [Laughter] And as usual, she was right, what
    she had to say, and I made three changes she suggested I make in it. But
    the last thing she said was, she said, ``Now, you remind those people
    that you've only been there once, and I've been there twice, and I loved
    it both times.'' [Laughter]
        Again, Chancellor and all of you as part of the UCSD family, I thank
    you. I thank you on behalf of all of us who have come to visit with you
    today. I thank you for the ideas you have given me. Dr. Franklin,
    members of the board, you might be interested to know, around the table
    here they asked what they could do to help. And I said, well, we needed
    more credible research, and we needed more sources of information for
    the American people about basic things, delivered in understandable
    ways. We'll never have the kind of national conversation we want until
    we first agree on at least most of the facts. You know, if you have a
    different view of the same set of facts than someone else, it is
    wonderful because you never have to give up your bias, because you can
    say, ``The poor soul just doesn't know the facts,'' so you can go right
    on with whatever you think and whatever you believe.
        We are going to need the help of the university community and groups
    like the National Academy of Sciences and others, and we will be back to
    you on that. But the most important thing is, what I saw in the eyes of
    the students of this great university today convinced me without any
    question that we are doing the right thing, first, and secondly, that we
    will succeed.
        Thank you all. God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 1:24 p.m. in the Birch Aquarium at the
    Scripps Institute of Oceanography. In his remarks, he referred to Souley
    Diallo, incoming associated student body president, University of
    California San Diego; and historian John Hope Franklin, Chair,
    President's Advisory Board on Race.