    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [July 7, 1999]
    [Pages 1149-1153]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks to the Community at Pine Ridge Indian Reservation
    July 7, 1999

        Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you, Mr. President, and thank you to all of you here from Pine Ridge
    and all the other tribal leaders who are here for HUD's Shared Vision
    Conference. I am profoundly honored to be in Pine Ridge and in the
    Lakota Nation. In fact, to try to demonstrate my appreciation and
    respect, I would like to try to say something in Lakota. Mitakuye
    oyasin. [We are all related.] My neighbors, my friends, we are all
    related.
        Consider those who have come here today to join hands with you,
    along with Secretary Cuomo, Secretary
    Glickman, your great congressional delegation,
    our Democratic leader Tom Daschle in the
    United States Senate, and Senator Johnson,
    Congressman Thune. You don't know this, but we
    have Members of Congress from all over America who have some here to
    express their support and their commitment to join you in building a
    better tomorrow: Congressman Ed Pastor from
    Arizona; Congressman Dale Kildee from the
    State of Michigan; Congressman Jim Clyburn
    from South Carolina; and Congressman Paul Kanjorski from Pennsylvania,

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    he has come all the way from Pennsylvania to be here.
        I want to thank the other people from the administration, especially
    Assistant Secretary of the Interior Kevin Gover
    and Lynn Cutler in the White House, who work
    with all of our Native American leaders around America, for what they
    do. I want to thank the CEO of Fannie Mae, Frank Raines; the CEO of Norwest, Mark Oman; the PMI president, Roger Haughton; Mortgage Bankers Association President Don
    Lange; Champion Homes CEO Walter Young for all the work that they are prepared
    to do in building a better future, and they're here today.
        I want to thank my good friend Jesse Jackson, for never letting us forget our common obligations. I
    thank the other members of our delegation today: Bart Harvey from Enterprise; Al From from the
    Democratic Leadership Council. I'd like to thank the young AmeriCorps
    volunteers who are here today for all the work they do.
        I would like to finally say a word of appreciation to all the people
    who live here on this reservation, who welcomed me into their homes, who
    talked to me today as I walked down their streets. I thank especially
    Geraldine Blue Bird, who Secretary Cuomo
    mentioned. She let me sit on her porch, and she told me how she tries to
    make ends meet for the 28 people that share her small home and the
    housetrailer adjoining.
        I thank the children who stopped their playing and shook hands with
    me and listened to me while I encouraged them to stay in school and to
    go on to college and to live out their dreams. I want to bring you
    greetings from two people who are not here: first, from Vice President
    Gore, who has headed our empowerment zone
    effort that Pine Ridge became a part of today; and second, just a little
    over an hour ago, I talked to the First Lady, and Hillary has spent more time in Indian country than
    any First Lady in history. She is intensely committed to this effort,
    and she asked me to say hello to you.
        President Salway said today I was the only President ever to come to
    an Indian reservation for a nation-to-nation business meeting. I
    remember back in 1994, I invited all the tribal leaders in America to
    the White House, and it was the first such gathering since the
    presidency of James Monroe in the 1820's. Now, I know that Calvin
    Coolidge came to Pine Ridge in the 1920's, and that President Roosevelt
    visited another Native American reservation, but no American President
    has been anywhere in Indian country since Franklin Roosevelt was
    President. That is wrong, and we're trying to fix it today.
        I was profoundly moved by the pipe ceremony, just as I was when your
    congressional delegation took me last night not only to Mount Rushmore
    but to the Crazy Horse Memorial and to the museum that is there with it.
        But I ask you today, even as we remember the past, to think more
    about the future. We know well what the failings of the present and the
    past are. We know well the imperfect relationship that the United States
    and its Government has enjoyed with the tribal nations.
        But I have seen today not only poverty but promise, and I have seen
    enormous courage. I came here today for three reasons. First of all, to
    celebrate the empowerment zone and the housing projects that are going
    on here now. Second, to talk about my new markets initiative and what
    else we can do. But third, with the business leaders who are here--and
    I've already introduced them, but I'd like to ask the business leaders I
    just mentioned to stand up--we want to send a message to America that
    this is a good place to invest. Good people live here. Good people live
    in Indian country. They deserve a chance to go to work.
        You've already heard President Salway and Secretary Cuomo recite the
    statistics. It's a hot day out here, and I know you're suffering in the
    Sun. But I want to send a message to America. So I just want to say a
    few things, and I want you to think about this. Think about the irony of
    this. We are in the longest period of economic growth in peacetime in
    our history. We have in America almost 19 million new jobs. We have the
    lowest unemployment rate ever recorded for African-Americans and
    Hispanics. For over 2 years our country has had an unemployment rate
    below 5 percent. But here on this reservation, the unemployment rate is
    nearly 75 percent. That is wrong, and we have to do something to change
    it and do it now.
        When we are on the verge of a new century and a new millennium,
    where people are celebrating the miracles of technology and the world
    growing closer and closer together and our ability to learn from and
    with each other and make business partnerships with each other all
    across

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    our globe, and there are still reservations with few phones and no
    banks, when still three or four families are forced to share two simple
    rooms, where communities where Native Americans live have deadly disease
    and infant mortality rates at many times the national rate, when these
    things still persist, we cannot rest until we do better, and trying is
    not enough. We have to have results. We can do better.
        Our Nation will never have a better chance. When will we ever have
    this kind of opportunity where unemployment is low, inflation is low,
    there's a lot of money in our country, the value of the stock market has
    tripled and then some? Business people are looking for new places to
    invest, and people who have done well feel a moral obligation to try to
    help those who are less fortunate, who have not fully participated.
        And we see it from Appalachia to the Mississippi Delta to the inner
    cities of our country to the Native American communities. If we can't do
    this now, we will never get around to doing it. So let us give ourselves
    a gift for the 21st century, an America where no one is left behind and
    everyone has a chance.
        We will do our part. You have suffered from neglect, and you know
    that doesn't work. You have also suffered from the tyranny of
    patronizing, inadequately funded Government programs, and you know that
    doesn't work. We have tried to have a more respectful, more proper
    relationship with the tribal governments of this country to promote more
    genuine independence but also to give more genuine support, and the
    empowerment zone program, as the Vice President and I designed it 6
    years ago, is designed to treat all communities that way. We're not
    coming from Washington to tell you exactly what to do and how to do it;
    we're coming from Washington to ask you what you want to do and tell you
    we will give you the tools and the support to get done what you want to
    do for your children and their future.
        President Salway and a number of tribal
    leaders came to me at the White House a couple of months ago. You may
    have heard in the national press that I repeatedly referred to this
    profoundly emotional meeting. I have given a great deal of thought to
    what was said then and what I heard now. We can do better. I would like
    to mention just a few specific things, for you have all heard years of
    pretty words.
        There is no more crucial building block for a strong community and a
    promising future than a solid home. Today I want to talk about a number
    of things the Government and the private sector are going to do to
    increase homeownership. Our whole team visited those new homes that are
    being built not far from here. We talked to the families that are moving
    into those homes. I had a little boy take me through every room in the
    home, tell me exactly where every closet was, tell me what his sister's
    room had that he didn't have, and why it was all right, because she was
    older and she needed such things. This is important.
        So what are we going to do? Private lenders, like Bank of America,
    Norwest, Bank One, Washington Mutual, are going to work with the
    Mortgage Bankers Association and HUD to more than double the number of
    government-insured or guaranteed home mortgages in Indian country in
    each of the next 3 years.
        Right here in Pine Ridge, Fannie Mae, under Frank Raines' leadership, has set aside millions of dollars to
    help you buy those homes at below market rates, and they are spending
    hundreds of millions of dollars all across this country to help people
    just like you become homeowners for the first time. And Secretary
    Cuomo's Partnership for Housing is giving
    financial incentives and counseling to help families figure out how to
    actually get this done, how to buy their own homes and pay for them.
        But, as I heard over and over today, even if we went in and tried to
    repair or rebuild or build new homes for every family here and in every
    Indian community throughout the United States, we must have jobs if we
    want these communities to work. Adults need to have something to look
    forward to every morning when they get up, and if they want their kids
    to stay in school and stay out of trouble and look to tomorrow, their
    lives have to be evidence that looking to tomorrow pays off. It is
    appalling that we have the highest growth rate in peacetime in our
    history, that we have an unemployment rate below 5 percent for 2 years,
    and the unemployment rate on this hallowed reservation is almost 75
    percent. That is appalling, and we can do better.
        No community in America can grow, however, without basic blocks. No
    community in America should be without safe running water and sewer
    systems. So the Department of Agriculture will put nearly $16 million in
    water projects throughout Indian country, including two right here in

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    Pine Ridge, that will also help you get jobs as well as improve the
    quality of life.
        As you can see, in this Big Sky Country, it is rather warm, and it
    gets windy from time to time, as the natives will attest. The Department
    of Energy will help you harness the power and profits of wind and solar
    energy to save money and make money; Owens Corning and North American
    Steel Framing Alliance will provide skills training and the promise of
    quality jobs; and Citibank and Gateway Computer Company will work with
    Oglala Lakota College and other schools to help Native American students
    get the computer skills that will allow them to get 21st century jobs;
    and our Federal Communications Commission will work with you to improve
    telephone service throughout Indian country, an absolute prerequisite
    for getting any new business in here.
        And let me just say that one of the things that we have learned is
    that the computer and the Internet make it possible for many people to
    do many kinds of work in any community, anywhere in the United States,
    indeed increasingly, anywhere in the world. The fact that this
    reservation is a long way from an urban center would have been an
    absolute prohibitive barrier to a lot of economic development just 10 or
    15 years ago.
        The explosion of computer technology and the Internet, if you know
    how to use it and you know how to deliver for others with it, has
    literally made the distance barrier almost insignificant for many kinds
    of economic activity. So I want to implore you to use your tribal
    college and work with these companies and make the most of the skills
    they are offering, and we can get the jobs to come here once you can do
    them.
        Finally, we must seize the vast potential of tourism right here in
    Pine Ridge by building a Lakota Sioux heritage cultural center. Every
    year, millions of families travel long, long distances to see Mount
    Rushmore, 2.7 million last year. The Crazy Horse Memorial, about a
    million and a half, even though only the head has been finished. The
    Crazy Horse Memorial last year had a million and a half visitors--only
    the head has been finished. I went there late last night; and the
    Badlands National Park.
        Now, if you look at that, you have to ask yourself: How can you
    have--how many people, if you did everything right down here, if we
    built this cultural center, of all the people that go to see Crazy
    Horse, of all the people that go to see Mount Rushmore, of all the
    people that go to Badlands National Park, how many would come here? I'll
    tell you: a whole lot. An enormous percentage, if you give them
    something to come and see. That is nothing more than the simple,
    profound, powerful story of your eloquent past and your present, of your
    skills and your heritage, and your culture and your faith.
        These commitments that we are making today are just the beginning.
    Thirty-one years ago this spring, Senator Robert Kennedy came to Pine
    Ridge. Many of you probably still remember that visit--Senator Kennedy,
    seeking medical care for his child, lying sick in the back of an
    abandoned car, refusing to sit and begin an important meeting until all
    of the tribal leaders had their proper seats.
        You may remember his message of hope. Let me say that all across
    America, people were watching that. I have to say, on a purely personal
    note, one of the most touching things about this day for me is that the
    wife of our HUD Secretary is Robert Kennedy's daughter, and she is here
    today, and this is a proud day. I'd like to ask her to stand.
    Kerry, please stand. Thank you. Give her
    a hand. [Applause]
        We lost all those years. There were a lot of reasons, and a lot of
    things are better than they were 30 years ago. But this is the first
    time since the early 1960's when we had this kind of strong American
    economy, and we have no excuse for walking away from our
    responsibilities to the new markets of America.
        I have asked the Members of Congress to go back and pass legislation
    that will give major tax breaks and government-guaranteed loans to
    people who will put their money in Indian country, to lower the risk of
    taking this chance. We are going to do everything we can to make your
    empowerment zone work. But remember, there is nothing that we can do
    except to help you to realize your own dreams.
        So I say to every tribal leader here: The name of the conference you
    are attending is Shared Visions. We must share the vision, and it must
    be, fundamentally, yours, for your children and their future. If you
    will give us that vision and work with us, we will achieve it.
        Thank you, and God bless you.

    Note: The President spoke at noon on the field at the Oglala Community
    School. In his remarks,

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    he referred to President Harold D. Salway, Oglala Sioux Tribe; civil
    rights leader Jesse Jackson; Bart Harvey, chairman and chief executive
    officer, The Enterprise Foundation; Al From, president, Democratic
    Leadership Council; and Geraldine Blue Bird, resident, Pine Ridge Indian
    Reservation.