[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.