[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: William J. Clinton (1998, Book II)]
[December 10, 1998]
[Pages 2153-2155]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks on the Unveiling of a Portrait of Former Secretary of 
Agriculture Mike Espy
December 10, 1998

    Oh, happy day. [Laughter] I'd like to begin by thanking Deputy 
Secretary Rominger, who has served so well both Secretary Espy and 
Secretary Glickman. I thank Dan Glickman and Rhoda for being a part of 
our administration's family.
    Dan Glickman pointed out when I discussed this appointment with him 
that he would be in the proud tradition of my commitment to a Cabinet 
that looks like America and to diversity because there were even fewer 
Jewish farmers than black farmers. [Laughter]
    I want to thank my friends Reverend Wintley Phipps, Reverend Walter 
Fauntroy, Reverend Beecher Hicks, and the Howard Gospel Choir here. They 
are wonderful. I thank the members of the Cabinet and former members of 
the Cabinet who are here, Secretary Herman, Secretary Richardson, 
Secretary O'Leary, EPA Administrator Browner, Ambassador Barshefsky. 
John Podesta and Bob Nash and a whole slew of people from the White 
House are here; Senator Leahy, Senator Carol Moseley-Braun, Congressmen 
Clyburn, Jefferson, Eddie Bernice Johnson, Stenholm, Congressman 
Thompson. We're glad to see former Congressmen Montgomery and Coelho and 
many other former Members of Congress here. And Reverend Jackson, thank 
you for coming; and to the Espy family and all the members of Mike 
Espy's extended family here.
    Six years ago, on Christmas Eve, I announced that I would nominate, 
and I quote, ``my neighbor, my friend, and my supporter, Mike Espy'' to 
be Secretary of Agriculture. He was a young Congressman from Mississippi 
when I served as Governor of Arkansas. We shared a passion for many 
issues, including rural development.
    As a Congressman, Mike worked with my Senator, Dale Bumpers, to set 
up the Lower Mississippi Delta Development Commission, a commission I 
had the honor to chair. It brought jobs and growth to one of America's 
poorest, least developed regions. I came to know and respect Mike Espy 
in that endeavor.
    I knew we also shared a vision for America, a new approach to 
government rooted in our most enduring values, changed and shaped to 
meet the challenges of the 21st century. The need for change was nowhere 
more evident than at the Department of Agriculture, which has, as Dan 
Glickman said, since the time of President Lincoln, nurtured the seeds 
of renewal for America.
    On Christmas Eve I said, ``The Department of Agriculture can't 
simply be a stolid representative of the interests of the past. It has 
to be a real force for family farmers in our country, for the 
agricultural issues of today and tomorrow.'' Mike understood that. As 
the first African-American to become the Secretary of Agriculture, he 
was the very embodiment of change not only here but in many other areas 
of administration policy--one of eight African-Americans who have now 
served in the President's Cabinet in the last 6 years. And I am very 
grateful for that.
    And I'm grateful to Senator Leahy and Senator Carol Moseley-Braun 
for confirming them all.
    In his 2 years at the helm Mike changed the Department of 
Agriculture as profoundly

[[Page 2154]]

and beneficially as any Secretary in its history. It is fitting today we 
raise his portrait. He made history, and today we honor him for it.
    I'd like to talk a little bit about his record as Secretary of 
Agriculture. His first great challenge came only a few days after he 
started on the job, when an outbreak of E. coli from tainted meat took 
the lives of three children in Washington State. Mike went to 
Washington, promised the victims' families strong action, and he 
delivered.
    The new science-based inspection procedures developed during his 
tenure and put into place under Secretary Glickman have cut incidents of 
salmonella contamination in pork by a third, in poultry by nearly 50 
percent, according to the preliminary data we have. The Department of 
Agriculture has no higher responsibility than ensuring the safety of 
America's food supply. Today it is fulfilling that responsibility, 
thanks in no small measure to Mike Espy's leadership.
    Mike's second great challenge came in 1993 also. It was a 
challenging year, when floods of Biblical proportion struck the Midwest. 
In the past, the Federal Government had earned a reputation for slow and 
inadequate responses to natural disasters. But Mike Espy, along with 
James Lee Witt at FEMA, helped set a new, higher standard of Government 
service, providing thousands of communities and millions of Americans 
with the aid they needed swiftly and efficiently.
    His third great challenge at USDA was to help our economy and our 
farm sector by expanding markets for America's agricultural bounty. When 
we negotiated the GATT accords in later 1993, some of the greatest 
obstacles were agricultural issues. Nobody worked harder, with greater 
success, to work through those issues and pave the way for the passage 
of GATT than Secretary Espy.
    His fourth great challenge was to make USDA smaller, stronger, more 
responsive to farmers and consumers. In just 2 short years, Mike put in 
motion a process, which Secretary Glickman has carried through, that has 
reduced the work force by 18,000, closed and consolidated over 1,000 
field offices, saved the taxpayers of our country $4.8 billion, all the 
while, thanks to the employees here, improving services to farmers, many 
of whom can now visit one location instead of driving from one USDA 
field office to another. I thank him, and I thank all of you who work 
here, for doing that.
    The list of the good things he did for America goes on and on. He 
set higher nutritional standards for school lunches. He helped end the 
gridlock over logging on Federal lands in the Northwest. He spearheaded 
the Water 2000 effort to make sure that, by the end of the century, no 
American is without fresh, clean drinking water. Starting in Congress, 
continuing as Agriculture Secretary, Mike worked to win more resources 
for minority farmers and to fight discrimination in USDA programs, a 
fight that Secretary Glickman has energetically continued. I thank both 
of them for that. This year, finally, we fought for and won legislation 
to allow minority farmers' discrimination claims from almost the last 
two decades finally to be heard.
    Mike left the USDA in 1994 to face a different kind of challenge, 
one no person could have chosen, but one he faced with characteristic 
resolve, integrity, and strength. I'd like to say--I don't know if this 
is appropriate or not, but I think we ought to give Mr. Weingarten and 
Mr. Wells a hand and ask them to stand. They did a heck of a job. 
[Applause] Thank you.
    Mike drew inspiration from his family, his friends, the Holy 
Scripture. With his head held high, he persevered, and he triumphed. 
Often, Mike talks fondly of his late father Henry, who was a USDA 
Agricultural Extension Agent in Arkansas in the early 1940's, back in 
the days when black extension agents only served black farmers. The 
pride Henry Espy would feel if he could see this portrait of his son 
hanging in this room is something we can only imagine. But the pride 
that we can feel, for Mike, for the USDA, and for the progress of our 
Nation, is every bit as real.
    I think all of us have been deeply moved to see this good man grow 
in mind, body, and spirit through this difficult ordeal. He often said 
he read the 27th Psalm. When I saw him outside the courtroom, I thought 
of the wonderful passage from Isaiah: ``Be not afraid. I have redeemed 
you. I have called you by my name. You are mine.'' Well, Mike, the jury 
redeemed you, and you belong to the American people, and we are very 
proud of you.
    Now I would like to ask Mike's children, Jamilla and Mike, to join 
me in unveiling this fine portrait by the Mississippi artist Jason 
Bouldin, who is also here. I would like to ask Mr. Bouldin to come up 
and stand on the stage with us, so we can appreciate his handiwork.

[[Page 2155]]

[At this point, the portrait was unveiled.]

    Now, ladies and gentlemen, I think it's high time we heard from the 
man we came to honor, Secretary Mike Espy.

Note: The President spoke at 12:52 p.m. at the Department of 
Agriculture. In his remarks, he referred to Rhoda Glickman, wife of 
Agriculture Secretary Dan Glickman; civil rights activist Rev. Jesse 
Jackson; and attorneys Reid H. Weingarten and Ted Wells, Jr.