    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1997, Book II)]
    [November 1, 1997]
    [Pages 1477-1479]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks in the Arts and Culture Session of the Democratic National
    Committee's Autumn Retreat on Amelia Island
    November 1, 1997

    [The discussion is joined in progress.]

        Q. With regard to the national, also looking to the international, I
    have a couple of questions I'd like to ask the President. What impact do
    you think, on our culture and our arts, Cuba will have after Castro?
        The President. Well, if you think baseball is an art form, and I
    do--[laughter]--it will be huge. [Laughter]
        No, to be more serious, there are a lot of Cuban artists, Cuban
    musicians. All you have to do is look at the impact of South American,
    Central American music and arts in the United States now, Caribbean art.
    I think it's obvious that it will be significant. It will be one--when
    we get back together with more normal relations with Cuba, it will be
    one of the principal benefits of it.
        Let me say, if I might, on the general point, Glenn made the points
    that I wanted to make about this. The assault on the NEA and the NEH
    needs to be seen against the background of the apparently less
    ideologically driven reduction in the availability of music and art
    generally in the schools, in the public schools, which we saw because of
    financial problems and other decisions being made.
        If you look at what's happened--and let me explain that. The cutting
    of the budget of the NEH and the NEA and the attempt to do away with
    them basically had two legs of support, not one. There was obviously the
    sort of rightwing ideological attack based on the symbolism

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    of some controversially funded projects, photography exhibits, or
    whatever. Beyond that, there were Members of Congress, with the deficit
    being what it was, making the same sort of judgments that school board
    members made all across America: ``I can't dismantle the football team
    and the basketball team; I'll get rid of the arts and the music program
    for all the kids, because, by definition, most of them aren't all that
    good in art and music. And nobody is going to come down on me if I do
    it. And I don't have to take on any institutional interests to do it.
    And after all, it's just a piddly amount of money.''
        Now, I think because the Balanced Budget Act has been passed and
    we've cut the deficit by more than 20 percent and because we have taken
    on the ideological argument, I think, and, first of all, tried to
    respond to some of the more legitimate concerns about how the projects
    were funded and, secondly, tried to reaffirm the positive notions that--
    what the NEA and NEH has done--I think at the national level we've sort
    of stemmed the hemorrhage. I would submit that that's not nearly enough,
    first of all, because it's only a small portion of the money, and
    secondly, because I think what you said is terribly important. We have
    all this data that kids that come from different cultures with different
    languages have their language facilitation, their ability to learn
    English, to read in English, to think and relate to people in a new
    culture dramatically accelerated if they're more proficient and more
    exposed to music and arts and other ways of hooking their mind in. We
    have a lot of evidence that kids from very difficult situations do much
    better in math if they have a sustained exposure to music, for reasons
    that are fairly obvious, if you think about it.
        So what I would like to ask all of you to do--I'd like to invite you
    to do something. I don't have an answer; this is not a set-up deal. I
    never thought about it until I realized I was going to come do this
    panel. I have given a lot of thought to what our gift to the next
    century ought to be in terms of our approach to the arts. And yes, I'm
    glad I stood up for the NEA and the NEH, and I won a political battle--
    fine. It's one percent of the money.
        What should we do with this one percent of the money? If we want
    more than this, what case should we make for getting more? What would we
    do with it? And in a larger sense, what should our mission be in terms
    of the public role of the arts, particularly for our children? What
    arguments could we make to make the schools have it a priority again?
        I see something like the Harlem Boys Choir or all these incredible
    arts programs in New York or whatever, and I feel two things: I am
    exhilarated, like we all are; but then I wonder, how many other little
    kids are going out there to some other school every day where they still
    don't even have a music teacher? And what about them?
        That's not an argument not to do what's being done, but I would
    invite you--a lot of you know so much more about this than I do, but I'm
    telling you, I've been in school after school after school after school
    where the buildings are old, and they can't be maintained, and they shut
    down the music and arts programs, and they shut down, by the way, all
    the recreational programs except for the varsity sports, which I also
    think is a mistake. People are whole people. Even poor kids--you talked
    about this--it's hard to say, ``Why spend money on the arts when you
    have problems with welfare and poverty and all that?'' Because poor
    people need their spirits nourished. Most children are not all that
    conscious of being poor unless they're genuinely deprived or brutalized.
    But when they grow up, they remember experiences that lift their spirits
    when they're young.
        So I guess what I'm saying is, we need an affirmative strategy. We
    played good defense, and we won--big deal. How would you go to a
    conservative Republican group in town X and argue that this investment
    ought to be made, either in the National Endowment of the Arts or in the
    community, or that the arts and music programs ought to be restored, and
    here's why? That's what we need now, and that's what we ought to be
    doing now. We shouldn't be playing defense with this issue.
        I mean, so what? You won a fight in Congress over one percent of the
    money. It was very important symbolically because it gave dignity and
    strength and integrity to your efforts, and I'm very glad we fought it.
    It also makes a lot of difference to some programs in the country. But
    we need an affirmative strategy for the next century.
        And I hope one of the things that will come out of this seminar is
    that some of you will come out of this being willing to work with our
    Millennium Project and with the White House generally to get off the
    defense and get

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    on offense. And I don't mean to hurt anybody else. I don't see this as
    necessarily a big political winner for us. I'm not interested in the
    politics of this. I'm just talking about what's right for the children
    and the future of this country.

    Note: The President spoke at 11:50 a.m. in Plaza One at the Ritz-Carlton
    Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Glenn D. Lowry, director, The
    Museum of Modern Art.