[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (1999, Book II)]
[December 10, 1999]
[Pages 2268-2272]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks at the Earle High School Dedication Ceremony in Earle, Arkansas
December 10, 1999

    Thank you very much. Wow! Well, this is a wonderful end to one of 
the best days I've had in a long, long time. We started out this morning 
in Little Rock, and I spoke at the annual Chamber of Commerce banquet. I 
talked to them about the library and the public policy center I wanted 
to build not just for Little Rock but for our entire State. And then I 
went to West Memphis, to the community college, which I helped to 
establish, where the enrollment, by the way, has increased by tenfold 
since I've been President. I'm very proud of them, and I know all of you 
are.
    And I told them that I was going to support the legislation 
sponsored by Senator Lincoln and 
Congressman Berry, with $110 million for a 
Delta commission to invest in the economic future of the Mississippi 
Delta next year.
    Then I got a little barbecue. [Laughter] And sidled up here to 
Earle. Thank you, Secretary Riley, for 
making this journey with me and the journey of the last 22 years now. 
Thank you, Secretary Slater, for coming out 
of the Arkansas Delta and going all the way to become Secretary of 
Transportation.
    I'm not sure you heard the superintendent 
when he said this, but Secretary Slater's chief of staff and a longtime 
supporter of mine is a wonderful attorney named Jerry Malone, who graduated from Earle High School. Jerry, stand up. 
Where are you? There you go.
    I want to thank my friend of 30 years, the Lieutenant Governor, 
Rockefeller, for making this trip 
with us today. I thank my longtime friends County Judge Brian 
Williams and Mayor Sherman Smith. We also have the head of the National Endowment for 
the Humanities, Bill Ferris, who is from 
the other side of the Mississippi River in Mississippi, here with us 
today. I thank him for coming.
    And I want to introduce the vice president and foundation executive 
of MCI, Caleb Schutz, who has decided to help 
this school. I'll explain more about why later, but thank you very much. 
I'd like to thank all the people from the Arkansas Department of 
Education who are here, Simon and others. 
Thank you, Principal Nicks and members of the 
school board. And thank you, Jimmi Lampley; 
you were terrific.
    I have to tell you, when I met President Kennedy in 1963, I didn't 
give him a library. [Laughter] I didn't even give him one of my Trojan 
band jackets. [Laughter] Now I've got this football jacket, making me an 
honorary Bulldog.
    You won't believe this, but when we were down in West Memphis, we 
had this meeting about how we could train people in the Delta that don't 
have jobs to get some of these real good jobs in transportation. There 
are 80,000 jobs driving trucks and working in terminals, for example, 
vacant today.
    So Secretary Slater was working on 
that, and he invited the man who runs the 
USA truckline from Fort Smith, but they train all their truck drivers 
here in West Memphis. So the guy's been my friend forever--I mean, he's 
been my friend for 27 years and, coincidentally, runs this truckline, 
and he trains all his truckers here in West Memphis.
    So right before I come up here to get this jacket and become an 
honorary Bulldog, he whips--I said, ``Have 
you got any pictures of your wife and daughter?'' And he said, ``Yes.'' 
He takes out this beautiful picture of his wife and his 12-year-old 
daughter, and they've got a bulldog there. I said, ``What's that 
bulldog's name?'' And he smiled, and he said, ``Clinton.'' [Laughter]
    So I'm going to have a picture taken in this jacket and send it to 
him, and he'll have two bulldogs in the 
house. [Laughter] And we both respond in the same way. It will be great.

[[Page 2269]]

    Finally, let me say a word about your superintendent. He has been a friend of mine a long time. I have known 
him probably since before most of the students here were alive. I have 
eaten his good food in his former life. [Laughter] I have met with his 
students. I have listened to year after year after year after year of 
fresh, vigorous ideas and passionate commitment, believing that the 
children of the Delta were as smart as any kids on Earth and had a right 
to the best education on Earth and become anything else they wanted to 
be on Earth.
    I've had him sidle up to me with that sort 
of soft voice--[laughter]--you know, the way he kind of does his head 
like this, you know--[laughter]--I know him, man. I know him. I've been 
there. ``Now, Governor, we just need a little money for this little 
thing here.'' [Laughter] ``Now, you know how you love these kids. You 
don't want to let them get behind here.''
    What are you laughing about, Leon? You do 
the same thing. [Laughter]
    So anyway, I was thrilled when he came 
here. You know, our tenures pretty well coincide. He came here not long 
after I became President. And I wasn't surprised when you approved that 
big bond issue, because this guy believes in your kids. He spent a 
lifetime, a lifetime that happened to coincide with this dramatic change 
in the economic and social organization of the Mississippi Delta. He 
spent a lifetime trying to lift up our kids, and I say thank you, my 
friend. I appreciate that.
    Now, I rode over here with my good friend Ness Sechrest from West Memphis today, and we were thinking 
about all the trips we've taken to Earle. This sort of was an automatic 
stop for me. Whenever I'd get in a deep funk, I'd come to Earle and get 
to feel better--[laughter]--when I was Governor. And I miss so much--I 
want to say this before I leave Crittenden County--my man who was always 
my county coordinator here, Ron Owens, passed away in the last year, and 
I miss him terribly, and I wish he were making this trip with me today 
because I loved him like a brother.
    But one time we came up here in 1982, and I was trying to get 
reelected Governor. And we went to the Church of God in Christ, 
Representative Jones' church. And at the time, 
Bishop Walker came with me, and at the time, 
Ron and Carrie Paige were 
pastoring the church there, back over there. And I see Finus; thank you for coming. Bless you. Thank you, Finus 
Jones. So first, the choir got to singing, and Carrie got to singing. And then the bishop called my opponent ``Old Hoghead'' on statewide 
television. [Laughter] And I said to myself, ``I'm either in or out 
after this. I don't know whether I am in or out, but something is going 
to happen now.'' There you are. Thank you, Bishop Walker.
    In the bishop's defense, he only said that 
after the man I was running against said that African-Americans in 
Arkansas would vote for a duck if it was on our ticket. So it was a 
reaction, not an action. And God forgave him for his harshness. And so 
did the voters, I might add.
    Anyway, I've been back to that church many times, and I've been back 
to this town many times, and I never come here without feeling renewed, 
because there's so much courage and hope and spirit. And today what I 
would like to say to you is this: First, thank you. Thank you for all 
the years we worked together, all the roads we've walked together, all 
the times you gave me a chance to serve.
    I think that because of the times we went through, I was better 
prepared to deal with America as I found it in January of 1993: high 
unemployment, social decline, political division, discredited 
government. And now, thanks in no small measure to what I learned 
working with you, we've got the lowest unemployment and welfare rolls in 
30 years and the lowest poverty rates in 20 years. We've got 20 million 
jobs and the first back-to-back budget surpluses in 42 years. We are on 
our way to taking this country out of debt in 15 years for the first 
time since 1835. And along the way, we have immunized 90 percent of our 
children against serious diseases for the first time, and over 7 million 
young people have already taken advantage of the HOPE scholarship tax 
cut to go on to college. I think it's been a good 7 years for our 
country.
    And underneath that, we see the beginnings of equality starting to 
emerge. Nationwide, we have the lowest African-American and Hispanic 
unemployment rates ever recorded. We have the lowest female unemployment 
rate in 40 years. We have the lowest crime rate in 25 years.
    This is all good news. But I came here today to ask the people of 
Arkansas, the people of the Delta, and the people of America one more 
time, what are we going to do with this prosperity? And one thing that I 
say over and over again is, countries are like--no different from

[[Page 2270]]

people and families and schools and football teams and businesses. It's 
easy to concentrate when you're in trouble and your back's against the 
wall.
    The great British essayist Samuel Johnson said, ``Nothing so 
concentrates a man's mind as the prospect of his own destruction.'' But 
when things are rocking along pretty good, people lose their 
concentration. And I've been saying to America, look, we've never had a 
time in our history when the economy was this strong and the society was 
coming together, and we don't have an internal crisis or an external 
threat. This is responsibility time. This is a time to look at those big 
questions that will affect the future of these children here, to take 
care of the retirement of the baby boomers now, to give all these kids a 
good education now, to bring economic opportunity to places like the 
Delta that haven't been part of this prosperity.
    Now, if we can't do this now, we will never get around to doing 
this. Now is the time to be responsible and think about the long-term 
welfare of our country. And as I said, earlier today I talked about the 
economic issues, the thing I was going to try to do for east Arkansas, 
the entire Delta. And I want to give credit again where credit is due. I 
have been relentlessly pursued to do more and more and more by your 
Senator and your Congressman. Now, I get lobbied by 435 Members of the 
House and 100 Senators. Believe it or not, even the Republicans ask me 
for things from time to time. [Laughter] There is nobody any better or 
any more passionate than Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln and Representative Marion Berry, and you ought to know that. They have taken care of 
you.
    Today I want to talk just a little more about education and what 
we're trying to do and what we need to try to do to help you reach your 
full potential. In the last session of Congress, we got funds to double 
the amount of after-school programs that we have in our schools. That's 
really important for children everywhere.
    I don't believe that we should promote people who don't learn, but I 
don't think we should punish people that the system--if the system fails 
them. We need to give the kids extra help, extra help. And the schools 
that can't afford it ought to have the resources they need to give that 
kind of extra help, so everybody can learn.
    I think it is important that we hook up all of our classrooms to the 
Internet. First, all our schools, then all our classrooms. When Vice 
President Gore and I said in 1994 we want to wire all of our schools, 
including the poorest schools in America, and we're going to get the 
private sector to help us, and then we're going to make sure we train 
the teachers because, otherwise, the kids will know more about the 
computers than the teachers. And then, we're going to make sure that the 
poor schools can afford it.
    And we passed something called the Telecommunications Act. For the 
first time in 60 years, we revised our communications laws, and the part 
of that we said we'll have this E-rate, which will give a discount to 
schools. Now, here, you connected the computers that you got from our 
technology literacy challenge grant to the Internet with the help of 
$100,000 in discounts for the E-rate. That's what it meant to Earle: 
$100,000 in discounts so you could afford to be on the Internet just 
like the wealthiest school districts in the United States of America.
    In the budget I signed last month there will be another $60 million 
in educational investments coming to the Delta, including $7 million to 
hire 200 more teachers for smaller classes in the early grades, which I 
think is very important.
    Now, to give you an idea--I'm kind of proud of this, but when we 
said--when Al Gore and I started working on this, only 3 percent of the 
total classrooms in America and 14 percent of the total schools had any 
Internet hookup. Now, over 50 percent of the classrooms and over 80 
percent of the schools in America in just 5 years are hooked up to the 
Internet and can afford to be, thanks to this E-rate. So you're a part 
of the future. And I want to thank you for that.
    Now, what I'd like to do now is to announce a generous new 
initiative coming not from the Government but from MCI WorldCom 
Foundation, to give the teachers at Earle High School and across the 
Delta region unprecedented access to the kind of world-class educational 
materials that in the past only the wealthiest school districts could 
afford. In cooperation with National Geographic and Mr. Ferris' National Endowment for the Humanities, the 
Foundation--the MCI WorldCom Foundation has developed a wonderful 
website called MarcoPolo.

[[Page 2271]]

    It contains lesson plans and resource materials on everything from 
history to math to art. These lesson plans for teachers have been 
developed by some of our finest teachers and academics. And now they're 
available absolutely free over the Internet, thanks to MCI.
    Now, to take advantage--who is here from MCI? Stand up. Everybody 
from MCI, stand up. Thank you. Give them a hand. [Applause]
    Now, so that the teachers can utilize the website, the MarcoPolo 
foundation will train, free of charge, as many as 4,500 district 
curriculum specialists throughout the seven-State, Mississippi Delta 
region. They will then train 100,000-plus teachers on how to use the 
website.
    A teacher in Earle, for example, will learn to go to the website, 
click on humanities, and be guided to a series of lesson plans on, say, 
the life of Socrates, developed by the experts at the National Endowment 
for the Humanities. The lesson plan then links to sites containing 
Plato's writing on Socrates, commentary by leading scholars. Then, it 
would provide questions teachers can ask students, such as imagining 
whether Socrates would have chosen to die for his ideas if Martin Luther 
King had been in a jail cell with him. It's a very interesting question. 
I think the answer to that is, probably. The site then links Dr. King's 
letter from the Birmingham jail, where King praises Socrates for being, 
and I quote, ``A tension in the mind, so that an individual could rise 
from the bondage of myths and half-truths.'' Now, just imagine helping 
high school students explore the idea of civil disobedience from 
Socrates to Martin Luther King over a period of 2,500 years, and being 
able to do it in every single school, no matter how rural, no matter how 
poor, no matter how distant, anywhere in the United States of America 
because of the generosity of MCI and this program. We thank them again.
    The idea is that you've got to train the teachers, because it is 
going to be more and more possible every day for every school in America 
to offer lessons like these, things that would have been undreamed just 
a couple years ago, simply because of technology, if all the teachers 
can access it and make the most of it and get the students involved in 
it. The second thing I want to say is we're going to hold two 
conferences to help rural communities gain access to all the Federal 
programs that exist today but that are too hard for many small rural 
towns with part-time mayors and small staffs to keep up with.
    On March 9 next year, in Jonesboro, the Department of Education--
thank you, Secretary Riley--will host a 
conference to help law enforcement officers and rural educators learn 
how to apply for school safety and drug prevention grants to develop 
safer schools. Then the Department will host a conference in Helena to 
help rural colleges obtain grants and assistance from Federal agencies 
so that nobody will ever be denied access to college or a good college 
education because of where they live or what their income is. These 
things are very, very important.
    Now, let me just say this in closing. We can do all this, but the 
students have to do the most. You've got to believe that just because 
you live in a part of the country that had a tough time in the last 15 
years when the whole economy changed and the world dumped upside down, 
you've still got to believe that you're just as smart as anybody 
anywhere. I believe that, and you've got to believe that.
    But you also have to believe what that great genius Sigmund Freud 
said. He said, ``Genius is 90 percent effort.'' Or, you know, I can't 
remember which great athlete said, ``You know, a lot of athletics is 
luck, and it's amazing; the harder I practice, the luckier I get.''
    So the students here have to be committed to this. We can give you 
the tools of the 21st century; we can give you a chance to dramatically 
leapfrog the economic as well as the educational prospects that might 
have otherwise been here for you; but you've still got to show up for 
work every day. You've got to suit up as students the way you suit up in 
athletics or in band or anything else. You've got to suit up.
    Now, it's more fun with the computers; it's more exciting with these 
modern programs. But I'm telling you, the future of this country, not 
just the future of this community and this county and this part of our 
State, the future of this country is riding on whether all of our 
children, without regard to their race or their background, can make the 
most of their God-given abilities. And to do it, you've got to be 
willing to work; and to be willing to work, you've got to believe. 
Nobody will pay a price for a goal that he or she believes cannot be 
obtained anyway.
    And the thing that I liked the best about this whole day was Jimmi 
saying when she got

[[Page 2272]]

to introduce me and shake hands with me and she thought about me meeting 
President Kennedy, she realized she could do anything. That's true for 
the rest of you, so go out and do it.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:40 p.m. in the gymnasium. In his remarks, 
he referred to student Jimmi Lampley, who introduced the President, and 
Ricky Nicks, principal, Earle Senior High School; J.B. Crumbley, 
superintendent, Earle School District; Leon Phillips, superintendent, 
Lake View School District; State Representative Steve Jones; Lt. Gov. 
Winthrop P. Rockefeller of Arkansas; Raymond J. Simon, director, 
Arkansas Department of Education; Mayor Sherman Smith of Earle; 
Crittenden County Judge Brian Williams; Robert M. Powell, president and 
chief executive officer, USA Truck, Inc.; N.S. (Ness) Sechrest, long-
time friend of the President; Bishop L.T. Walker, Church of God in 
Christ; and Ron Paige, former minister, Little Rock Church of God in 
Christ, and his wife, Carrie.