    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book I)]
    [June 22, 1997]
    [Pages 793-794]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to Summit of the Eight Volunteers in Denver
    June 22, 1997

        The President. Thank you.
        Audience member. Teachers love you, Mr. President!
        The President. Well, I love the teachers, too, so I thank you very,
    very much.
        Let me say, first of all, my heart is full of gratitude to all of
    you this afternoon, to my longtime friends Governor and Mrs. Romer; to
    Mayor and Mrs. Webb for the astonishing work that they have done on
    this. I thank Lieutenant Governor Gail Schoettler and the other members
    of the host committee. I want to say a special word of thanks to Donna
    Goode and Mike Dino for the work they did. Thank you very much. And a
    special word of thanks to the leaders of our team here, Harold Ickes and
    Debbie Willhite, for the work they did.
        I had this idea, when the time came for America to host the summit--
    you know, the easy thing to do when you host a summit like this is to go
    to a really big city and put everybody up in a really fancy hotel and go
    hear the orchestra on Saturday night or something. And I think that's a
    good thing to do, by the way. But what I was trying to do with this
    summit--I tried to figure out, where could we have this summit where
    people could get a flavor of the natural beauty of our country that is
    unique, the sort of frontier spirit of our country that is unique, but
    our common commitment, first of all, to shaping the future and embracing
    it, and secondly, to doing it together, across the lines that too often
    divide people in this old world? And Denver seemed to me to be the
    logical place to do that. And I think I made a good decision, and you
    helped to make it so.
        The other leaders commented to me on many things. The people who got
    to take the train loved the train. They all loved the fort last night.
    They loved the buffalo meat, the horse show, and the double rainbow,
    which I said--and they all said they didn't know the Federal Government
    had control over rainbows. They were quite impressed. [Laughter] They
    loved the sort of panorama of American musical history that was put on.
    And I thank everybody who worked on that. That was an enormous effort
    and a very impressive one, and I thank you for that.
        But the thing they all kept coming back to was how wonderfully
    friendly the people were, how genuinely glad they were to see them, and
    how respectful they were of the nations they represented and the work
    they were here to do, and what an upbeat atmosphere prevailed. I mean,
    the human climate and the human warmth they felt is the thing I think
    they'll take away from here, more than anything. And I think you can be
    very, very proud of that because I know that the volunteers were
    principally responsible for making sure that they all felt that way.
        Let me just finally say, you know, these summits are interesting
    affairs; they rarely produce some searing headline on some great issue,
    but they--I have done quite a number of them now, in Japan and in Italy
    and in Canada and in France and now this one here, and I can tell you an
    enormous amount of what countries do together to make this world a
    better place and to beat back the problems of the world germinates from
    the work we do at these summits and the way we get to know each other,
    the way we get to understand one another's countries and cultures and
    political environments and the sense of common purpose we have. Again, I
    think it wells up more from the people than anything else.
        So when you go home tonight, after you have your party and your
    celebration and all the things Hillary talked about and you put your
    head on the pillow before you go to sleep, I hope you'll take a great
    deal of pride in the fact that you have made a personal contribution to
    creating a world of tomorrow in which there is more peace, more
    prosperity, more freedom, and more harmony. That is what we are working
    for. And we made a real step forward in the last couple of days, thanks
    in no small measure to you.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at 3:53 p.m. in Currigan Hall at the
    Convention Center. In his remarks, he referred to Gov. Roy Romer of
    Colorado and his wife, Bea; Mayor Wellington E. Webb of Denver and his
    wife, Wilma; Lt. Gov.

    [[Page 794]]

    Gail Schoettler of Colorado; Donna Goode, director of the host
    committee; and Mike Dino, executive director, City of Denver Task Force
    for the Summit.