    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
    [December 31, 1999]
    [Pages 2357-2358]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    Remarks at a Dinner for the Millennium Celebration Creators
    December 31, 1999

        Thank you so much. Good evening. It's a real honor for Hillary and
    Chelsea and me to welcome all of you to the White House. Tonight I rise
    to offer three toasts. The first is to all of you. It is an honor to
    turn this page in history with you because so many of you, each in your
    own way, have contributed so indelibly to the narrative of this American
    century.
        The second toast I offer is to my wife, for it was she who inspired us all to welcome the new
    millennium by honoring our past and imagining our future. Over the past
    2 years leading up to this wonderful night, no one has done more to
    infuse this milestone with national purpose. And I am very grateful to
    her and to all those who have helped.
        The third toast is, in a way, the most daunting, because I'm
    supposed to say something profound to a thousand years of history in 2
    or 3 minutes. In the State of the Union I get a whole hour--[laughter]--
    to talk about a single year, and usually I run over. [Laughter] Tonight
    we rise to the mountaintop of a new millennium. Behind us we see a great
    expanse of American experience and before us vast frontiers of
    possibility still to be explored.
        I think we would all agree that we are most fortunate to be alive at
    this moment in history. We end this century and the millennium with
    soaring optimism. Never before has our Nation enjoyed, at once, so much
    prosperity, social progress, and national self-confidence, with so
    little internal crisis or external threat. Never before have we had such
    a blessed opportunity and, therefore, such a profound responsibility to
    build the more perfect Union of our Founders' dreams.
        When our children's children look back on this century, they will
    see that this hopeful and promising time was earned by the bravery and
    hard work of men and women who, in the words of our great poet laureate
    Robert Pinsky, did not merely celebrate our
    oldest ideals like trophies under glass but kept them bright with use.
    They will see this moment was earned through the hard-won fight for
    freedom, from the beachheads of Normandy to the buses of Montgomery to
    the villages of Kosovo. At home and abroad, it has been our great
    privilege to advance the light of human liberty.
        They will see this moment was earned through the drive for
    discovery. At the outset of the century, not even the most farsighted of
    our forebears could have predicted all the miracles of science that have
    emerged from our labs: antibiotics and vaccines, silicon chips and

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    the Internet, microscopes that envision the infinitesimal, and
    telescopes that elucidate the infinite, soon-to-be complete blueprint
    for human life itself.
        And they will see that this moment was earned through a passion for
    creativity. National power may spring from economic and military might,
    but the greatness of a nation emanates from the life of the mind and the
    stirrings of the soul. So many of you have contributed to that
    greatness, and we are all grateful.
        In this century, American artists of the page and the canvas, the
    stage and screen, have drawn from our diverse palate of cultural
    traditions and given the world a great gift of uniquely American
    creations with universal and timeless appeal.
        The new century and the new millennium will bring a cascade of new
    triumphs. We see new hope for peace in lands bedeviled by ancient
    hatreds, new technologies both opening the storehouse of human knowledge
    for people across the globe and offering the promise of alleviating the
    poverty that still haunts so many millions of our children. We see
    scientists rapidly approaching the day when newborns can expect to live
    well past 100 years, and children will know ``cancer'' only as a
    constellation of stars. But by far, my most solemn prayer for this new
    millennium is that we will find, somehow, the strength and wisdom in our
    hearts to keep growing together, first, as one America and then, as one
    people on this ever smaller planet we all call home.
        If you look at the glowing diversity of race and background that
    illuminates America's house on this evening, a vivid illustration, we
    see that human capacity is distributed equally across the human
    landscape. I cannot help but think how different America is, how
    different history is, and how much better, because those of you in this
    room and those you represent were able to imagine, to invent, to
    inspire. And by the same token, I cannot help but dream of how much
    different and how much better our future can be if we can give every
    child the same chance to live up to his or her God-given potential and
    to live together as brothers and sisters, celebrating our common
    humanity and our shared destiny.
        This is the future I hope every American will take a moment to
    imagine on this millennial evening. This is the future I pray we can all
    join together to build. So I ask you to join me in a toast to
    yourselves, to the First Lady, and to
    our shared future.
        Thank you very much.

    Note: The President spoke at 8:02 p.m. on the State Floor at the White
    House.