[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[October 21, 1999]
[Pages 1847-1849]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Dinner
October 21, 1999

    Thank you. I will be brief, because I want to spend most of our time 
in a conversation. But I would like to say a few things.
    First, I want to thank Senator Kerry for 
once again opening his home. I was here not very long ago with at least 
some of you who are here. I want to thank him for his genuine commitment 
to modernizing our party and to making it an instrument of progress and 
an instrument for bringing our country together. And I'm very grateful 
for the truly exceptional effort he's made.
    On the way in, Joe Andrew, our DNC chair, said that John 
Kerry had done more personally than any other 
Member of the Congress to try to help modernize and strengthen our 
party, in the last few months, particularly. So I thank you for that. 
And I thank Teresa in her absence, and I think 
she did the right thing to fulfill her responsibility. [Laughter] We 
always say we're for opportunity and responsibility, and--[laughter]--
she's had a fair share of one and discharged the lion's share of 
another. And we appreciate that.
    I want to thank Governor Romer and Beth 
Dozoretz and all of the other people who are 
here from the Democratic Party and all of you.
    Let me just say--I want to tell you a story. A lot of you know that 
Hillary and I--because of her, not 
me; it was her idea--have had a series of evenings at the White House 
called Millennium Evenings, this year, which we have primarily 
disseminated to the public at large through the Internet. It's been 
covered by C-SPAN and occasionally by CNN and obviously by print 
reporters who come in. But the primary means of connecting to these 
Millennium Evenings has been through the Internet. And at the end of 
whatever we do, we allow people to--not only in the audience; there are 
always 200, 300 people in the audience--we allow people to send us 
questions from all over the world.
    And it's been a fascinating thing. We started off with a history of 
the United States and where we are now compared to the roots of our 
Founders, in a lecture by Bernard Bailyn, the 
distinguished professor at Harvard. We've had a poetry night with the 
last three poet laureates of our country and a lot of inner-city kids in 
Washington and all kinds of people in-between, reading their poems and 
talking about poetry.
    The great Wynton Marsalis came and 
played and lectured on the history of jazz as a unique American art form 
in the 20th century. Stephen Hawking came 
all the way from Cambridge and talked about black holes and undiscovered 
galaxies of the 21st century and what it will mean for the nature and 
our understanding of time. And we've had eight of these evenings. It's 
been amazing. Elie Wiesel talked about the price 
of indifference in the 20th century and how we couldn't have it in the 
21st.
    Last week we had a man named Lander from 
Harvard who's an expert in genomics, and a man named Cerf from MCI that had something to do with the establishment 
of the Internet, the architect, that all of you know. And what they were 
talking about was the intersection of genomics and the revolution in 
computer technology.
    And the scientist, the genomics guy, said that it would really not 
have been possible, first to decode the human gene and then to figure 
out anything useful to do with the decoding, were it not for the 
computer and for digital technology, generally. And he said--he was 
talking about how one of the things we've been trying

[[Page 1848]]

to do in medical research, for example, is to deal with spinal cord 
injuries. And last year, for the very first time, we spent a lot of 
money, and Christopher Reeve, since he was 
injured, has been very instrumental in getting higher levels of research 
put into this issue. And last year, for the first time, we succeeded in 
getting nerves transferred from the body of a laboratory animal, a rat, 
to the animal's spine which had been severed, and the animal actually 
took the transplant and had movement in its lower limbs, the first time 
it had ever been done in any living organism that we know of with a 
spinal cord that had been severed.
    So what this guy said, he said he believes that this whole effort 
will be overtaken by the capacity of us to use a digital device that can 
be inserted into spines, that will replicate all nerve movements, and 
take the right signals and give them. And he said--he offered as exhibit 
A, as sort of prelude to that, his wife, Mr. Cerf's wife, who had been profoundly deaf for 50 years, 
totally beyond the reach of hearing aids, and a small digital device was 
inserted deep in her ears, and she heard for the first time in 50 years. 
And she got up and talked about that.
    Then the genomics guy--we started talking about what all this meant 
for the breakdown of the gene. Then we got into, what does genetics tell 
us about society? And he made the following point: that in spite of the 
fact that you're talking about 100,000 genes and, ultimately, billions 
of permutations, that all human beings are 99.9 percent the same 
genetically.
    And then, against the background of all the racial and ethnic 
conflicts in the world today, he made what I thought was a rather 
stunning statement, that I didn't know, at least; maybe a lot of you do 
know this. He said, if you take any substantial group of people, like if 
you take--say we had a group of people from India, 100 Indians, and then 
let's say we had 100 Chinese, and let's say we had 100 people from 
Nigeria, and let's say we had 100 people from France--he said that the 
genetic differences of individuals within the group would be greater 
than the genetic differences as a whole of the French and the Indians 
and the Chinese and the Nigerians. And therefore, there was no rational 
basis, which we all knew anyway, but it was nice to have it confirmed 
scientifically, that there was no rational basis for this human emotion 
of fear of the other.
    Well, what's all this got to do with technology? What I'm interested 
in--everything I can do while my time of service is here, before it's 
over, in maximizing the ability of our country to use technology for 
economic empowerment, for educational empowerment, for political 
empowerment, and to do it in a way that promotes unity, not division. 
And that's what I would like to talk about.
    And I think the Democratic Party is the principal engine in our time 
of economic empowerment, political empowerment, educational empowerment 
and certainly, compared with all the alternatives, the major force for 
the cohesion and unity of our society as we move forward. So that's why 
I'm glad all of you are here. I think this is a huge issue.
    Eric and I had some talks about how we could 
close the digital divide, and of course, we've worked very hard on it, 
with the Vice President's leadership, to 
make sure by the time we get through with our millennium celebration, 
we'll have all of our classrooms hooked up to the Internet.
    But if you think about what it might mean economically for poor 
people in America, if Internet access were as dense as telephone access 
in America, I think it would have a very positive economic impact. I 
believe cell phones and computers, if properly distributed, can save 30 
years of educational and economic development in a lot of the poorest 
countries in this world and can permit an economic development that is 
far less damaging to the environment.
    And I believe that technology, properly used, can not only give 
people a more interactive and personal engagement in the political 
process but can, in the process, dramatically reduce the sense of 
cynicism and alienation, a sense that one person doesn't matter and that 
none of this really amounts to much.
    So my mind is always thinking about this, but everyone knows that 
I'm quite technologically challenged. So I need people like you to help 
me and tell me what to do and how to do it. So that's why I'm here; 
that's why I'm glad you're here; and I'm very grateful for your presence 
and your commitment.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 9:03 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to Senator John Kerry, dinner host, and his wife, 
Teresa;

[[Page 1849]]

former Gov. Roy Romer of Colorado, former general chair, and Beth 
Dozoretz, national finance chair, Democratic National Committee; Eric 
Lander, director, Whitehead Institute/MIT Center for Genome Research; 
and Vinton G. Cerf, senior vice president for Internet architecture and 
technology, MCI WorldCom, and his wife, Sigrid.