    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [December 7, 1999]
    [Pages 2222-2226]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a ``Keep Hope Alive'' Reception
    December 7, 1999

        The President. Thank you so much. Mark, thank
    you for this evening. Reverend Meeks,
    Dennis, all the distinguished business and
    labor leaders in the audience, and my many friends: Berry, Willie, so many others.
        Thank you, Smokey, for being here and
    for singing for Stevie at the Kennedy Center
    Honors the other night. You were magnificent. Thank you so much.
        Reverend, thanks for bringing your whole
    family here, except for those who had to have babies and read books
    tonight. [Laughter] Santita thanks for the
    music; it was magnificent, as always. And Jackie, thank you for being my friend and my inspiration.
        And I want to thank your mother for all the things that Jesse said.
    But I want you to know, I've been in public life now--well, I started
    running for--I ran for my first office almost 26 years ago. I have
    talked to tens of thousands of people. I've shaken hundreds of
    thousands, maybe over a million hands now. And Grandma, you're the only
    person, ever, who came up and complimented me on quoting Machiavelli in
    a speech, in my whole life, ever. [Laughter] She said, ``Every smart
    politician reads that fellow.'' [Laughter]

    [[Page 2223]]

        And that brings me to Jesse, because the
    quote from Machiavelli that she likes so well--now a quote that's well
    over 500 years old--said, ``There is nothing so difficult in all of
    human affairs than to change the established order of things. For those
    who will benefit are uncertain of their gain, but those who will lose
    are absolutely certain of their loss.'' [Laughter]
        Now, I'm honored to be here with Minyon Moore, my political director. Gene Sperling, my National Economic Adviser, just walked in; he works
    with Reverend Jackson because Jesse Jackson
    has been my friend for many years, long before either one of us could
    have known we'd be standing on this stage together and because he has
    done that most difficult thing in all of human affairs: He has changed
    the established order of things. And America is a better place.
        I think about what he did to help save the
    Community Reinvestment Act and what he's done to help me enforce it. We
    now have over 95 percent of all the money ever loaned under that law has
    been loaned since I've been President, thanks in no small measure to him
    and to you. I think about all the wonderful things he's done as my
    Special Envoy to Africa, most recently in Sierra Leone, but in so many
    other places. I think about all those years with the civil rights
    movement, with Rainbow/PUSH, all the voter education drives, all the
    long campaigns, always sticking up for issues bigger than himself and
    for people in difficult situations.
        I was thinking tonight when Jesse was
    talking about a night many, many years ago when he gave a speech in
    Little Rock, and I brought him back home to the Governor's Mansion, and
    we got Hillary to come down to the
    kitchen, and we sat in the kitchen, and we cleaned out the refrigerator.
    [Laughter] We just kept on talking and kept on eating, and we kept on
    talking and kept on eating, until finally Hillary reminded me that I had
    to go to work in the morning and kicked him out of the house. [Laughter]
        I was thinking something else, too. In the gripping story of
    Jesse's past--you've got to make allowances
    for us, you know; I think people from the South generally tend to be
    more obsessed with the past than other people, in ways that are
    beautiful and burdensome and maybe boring to other people. But we are.
    But tonight I want to ask you to just take onboard everything Jesse
    said. And I want to ask you this question: So, what now?
        If you think about it, almost every major, big thing we have ever
    done in this country, we have done in the throes of difficulty or
    threat. This great country of ours was born out of the pangs of war, by
    people who were smart enough to say all of us are created equal, and
    then to say, but, oh, these slaves count as 60 percent of a person, for
    purposes of the census. And then to say we're all created equal, but you
    can't vote unless you're A, white, B, male, and C, you have to own
    property, which means that if I'd been around back then, I probably
    couldn't have voted either--[laughter]--because I'd have been one of the
    hired hands.
        So, then, we were born in the pangs of a great war. And Mr. Lincoln
    comes along, and we finally got rid of slavery after the bloodiest war
    in all of our history. When we were a much, much smaller country we lost
    more people in the Civil War than any other one, just over the
    proposition that we were going to hang together and free people. It
    happened out of war.
        And then in the industrial revolution we had some real social
    progress in the absence of war, but people were really suffering. I
    mean, little children, 10 years old, were working in factories 70 hours
    a week. Women with little children were working on Saturdays and way up
    into the night. And there was abject human suffering. And then the
    Depression came, and we had our first real comprehensive wave of social
    legislation. And we overcame the war, as Jesse said, and got out of the
    Depression.
        And then we had the great civil rights movement of the sixties
    because of Martin Luther King and all the others, because the Supreme
    Court was visionary and brave, and--let's be honest--because the
    Congress and the country were conscience-stricken after President
    Kennedy was murdered.
        Now, in my lifetime and maybe in the lifetime of this country, we
    have never had so much economic prosperity so broadly shared with the
    lowest unemployment rate in 30 years and the lowest poverty rate in 20
    years and the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates
    ever recorded and the highest rate of business and homeownership among
    minorities, as well as the majority population, ever recorded; the
    lowest female unemployment in 40 years, so broadly shared, with the
    absence of either an internal threat or an external threat to our

    [[Page 2224]]

    security. Crime rate is the lowest in 30 years; teen pregnancy rate is
    the lowest in 30 years; welfare rolls are the lowest in 30 years.
        So what I want to ask you is, what now? And I want to ask you, even
    if you're not from the South, not to lose your memory. [Laughter]
        Because--I came here tonight not only because I owe Jesse and because I love him and because Mark told me I had to--[laughter]--and because I want
    Dennis and Bill to help
    Hillary. [Laughter] I also came here
    because--I'm not running for anything--[laughter]--I want to spend the
    rest of my life as a good citizen.
        But I'm telling you, in my lifetime--in my lifetime--this country
    has never had--not one time--the same level of economic prosperity,
    social progress, and national self-confidence, in the absence of
    domestic crisis or international threat, never, not once. And my
    lifetime, unfortunately, is getting longer. I was talking to a 6-year-
    old girl over Thanksgiving. She looked up at me, and she said, ``How old
    are you?'' And I said, ``I'm 53.'' She said, ``Oh, that's a lot.''
    [Laughter]
        So, what are we going to do about it? So, what? That's what I want
    you to think about, because we've done real well when we were under the
    gun in this country, you know? We had Abraham Lincoln, and people fought
    and bled and died; finally we got rid of slavery. We had Franklin
    Roosevelt, unemployment was 25 percent, got ourselves in a war; we
    whipped the Depression and won the war. We had Martin Luther King and
    people in the streets, and it took a few riots. And like I said,
    President Kennedy got killed; but we had President Johnson's great
    record in civil rights, which many of you contributed to.
        What are we going to do with this? Because what I want to say to you
    is--the great English writer Samuel Johnson said that the prospect of a
    person's own destruction wonderfully concentrates the mind. The flip
    side is true: When you think things are peachy-keen and can't get bad,
    it distracts the mind. It makes people shortsighted. It makes people
    selfish. It makes people distracted.
        And what I want to say is, we've still got some huge challenges out
    there. And we have the opportunity that no generation of Americans has
    ever had: to take our kids out of poverty; to give them all health care;
    to bring genuine economic opportunity to the people and places that have
    been left behind; to bring genuine educational opportunities to all of
    our kids; and to build one America, without regard to race or region or
    income or sexual orientation. We've got this chance, and we'd better not
    blow it.
        If we don't shoulder our responsibility to deal with this, our
    children and our grandchildren will never forgive us, because the
    country has never had this chance before, and believe me, nothing lasts
    forever. That kind of keeps you going in the tough times, but it's well
    to remember in the good times.
        So I say to you, that's the main reason I'm here. Yes,
    Jesse started this Wall Street Project because
    he wanted to create more empowerment for individuals who were talented
    and just left behind. But we also know that there are whole peoples and
    places--the Indian reservations, Appalachia, the Mississippi Delta, big
    neighborhoods in our cities--who haven't felt this economic prosperity.
    If we can't get it to them now, we will never get around to it. If we
    can't bring the benefits of free enterprise to the people and places
    that don't have it now, with the lowest unemployment in 30 years and the
    highest growth rate, we will never get around to it. If we can't save
    Social Security and take it way out beyond the baby boom generation and
    do something about elderly women who are too poor compared to the other
    retirees, elderly women living alone, if we don't do that now, when are
    we going to get around to it? If we don't extend the life of Medicare
    and provide some prescription drug coverage to the three-quarters of our
    seniors that can't afford what they need, when will we ever get around
    to it? If we're not going to give all of our kids--since we now know how
    to turn around failing schools; we don't have any excuse anymore; it's
    not a matter of some sort of scientific project--if we're not going to
    bridge the digital divide and make sure all of our kids have access to
    the Internet world of tomorrow, if we're not going to do it now, when
    will we get around to it? If we're not going to shoulder our
    responsibilities to our friends and neighbors, from the Caribbean to
    Africa to the world's most indebted countries, so that they, too, can be
    our partners and be a part of tomorrow, when are we ever going to get
    around to it?
        Now, you can have your own list. But I'm telling you, one of the
    things I think we've proved is that you can take good social policy and
    good economic policy and prove they go

    [[Page 2225]]

    hand-in-hand. The progressives--we lost a lot of elections because
    people said, ``Well, those people have a good heart but a soft head. And
    if you put them in they'll spend us in the ditch, and tax us until we
    bleed. And they won't be able to run the economy.''
        They can't say that anymore. We have the first back-to-back budget
    surpluses in 42 years. And we cut taxes on millions of working people
    with the earned-income tax credit. We raised the minimum wage, and we
    ought to raise it again. And we passed the Family and Medical Leave Act,
    and we ought to make it broader. We ought to do things to prove that
    good social policy and good economic policy go hand-in-hand, good
    environmental policy and good social policy and good economic policy go
    hand-in-hand.
        You know, if you go into city after city after city, you will see,
    as my good friend Congressman John Lewis says, that environmental
    justice can be a civil rights issue. How many people do you know in
    urban areas living by toxic waste dumps that we could turn into economic
    goldmines if we cleaned them up? That's what we're trying to do.
        But you make your own list when you go home tonight. Just write down
    the five things that you think are the biggest challenges facing
    America. And then you ask yourself, if we can't do it now, when will we
    ever get around to doing it?
        When I think of Rainbow/PUSH, I think of two things: Rainbow means
    we're all in it together, and we all have a place at the table; PUSH is
    what Jesse does to me when he thinks I'm not
    doing right. [Laughter] And both those things are good. And you know, 14
    or 15 months from now, when I become a citizen again, then I can be a
    PUSHer. We'll all do that.
        But this is a great country. You remember the history of it.
    Remember the stories Jesse told. Think about
    his mother-in-law--I got my pin--[laughter]--think about his mother-in-law. You think about this whole deal, and
    I'm telling you--I defy you to cite a time in your lifetime which has
    been like this. And I say it not to be self-serving. Look, I'm grateful
    I got to serve. I'm grateful that I got to serve at a time when the
    challenges of the country fit my experience, and what I knew, and what I
    felt in my heart.
        But it's like turning a big old oceanliner around in the middle of
    the Pacific. You can't do it overnight. So we've turned this country
    around. We're going full steam ahead in the right direction.
        But I am telling you, it's no different from a person, a family, or
    a business. A nation, when things are going well, has to make a
    decision. And we have a responsibility to reach out for all those who
    have been left behind, to create one America, and to build the future of
    our dreams for our children. If not now, we will never get around to it.
        So you go home tonight, and make your list, and keep supporting
    Rainbow/PUSH, and demand that your leaders take this historic
    opportunity to be worthy of the sacrifices that Jesse talked about
    tonight.
        Thank you, and God bless you.
        Wait, wait now. Before you all leave, we're going to do one more
    thing. Jesse and I, we've got a little
    friend here that I want to sing for us. We're
    going to have one more song.
        Come on, Joshua. Come up here. Come on,
    Josh.

    [At this point, child singer Joshua Watts sang
    a song, and musician Smokey Robinson urged
    the audience to support keeping arts programs in schools.]

        The President. I know we've all got to go. I just want to say amen
    to this. [Laughter] We had a VH1 concert at the White House the other
    night because John Sykes, the head of VH1, is
    collecting instruments--he's collected, I think, almost one million now,
    around America--to give to schools so they could have music programs.
    But all over the country, these music programs, these art programs, have
    been canceled out.
        And we know that there are poor children out there who will learn
    better and find ways to express themselves better, stay out of trouble,
    and stay in love with education if they have access to these things.
    This is a huge deal, and I want to thank you for saying that. It's a big
    deal.
        Thank you.

    Note: The President spoke at 9:30 p.m. in the Washington Room at the
    Hotel Washington. In his remarks, he referred to Rev. Jesse Jackson,
    president and founder, Mark Allen, deputy field director and assistant
    to Reverend Jackson, Dennis Rivera, cochair, and Rev. James Meeks, board
    member, Rainbow/PUSH Coalition; Berry Gordy, Jr., founder, Motown
    Records; musician Stevie

    [[Page 2226]]

    Wonder; Willie Gray, attorney, Gary, Williams, Parenti, Finney, Lewis,
    McManus, Watson, and Sperando law firm; former Deputy Mayor Bill Lynch
    of New York; and Reverend Jackson's wife Jacqueline, daughter Santita,
    and mother-in-law Gertrude Brown.