    [Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
    [April 17, 2000]
    [Pages 735-738]
    [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]

    [[Page 735]]

    Remarks to the People of the Navajo Nation in Shiprock, New Mexico
    April 17, 2000

        Let me say ya' at' eeh--[applause]--William Jefferson Clinton
    yinishye--[applause]--Irish nishle. I am profoundly honored to be here
    within the four sacred mountains, especially on Navajo Nation
    Sovereignty Day. I want to thank young Myra Jodie. Didn't she do a wonderful job up here? [Applause]
        Thank you, President Kelsey Begaye, for
    your strong leadership. Thank you, Congressman Tom Udall; the vice president, Taylor McKenzie; Chief Justice Robert Yazzie;
    Speaker Edward Begay; members of the Navajo
    Tribal Council; Shiprock Council Mayor William Lee; and we have with us today the president of the
    National Congress of American Indians, Sue
    Masten--thank you for being here; to all the honored Governors of
    pueblos and tribal leaders.
        And I thank the people who have come with me today: the Secretary of
    Housing and Urban Development, Andrew Cuomo;
    the Interior Deputy Secretary, David Hayes;
    the Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, Carl Whillock; and the person most responsible for working with you,
    Assistant Secretary of the Interior Kevin
    Gover--I thank him for all he has done; Federal Communications
    Commission Chairman Bill Kennard and
    Commissioner Gloria Tristani.
        And I'd like to thank the people from the White House who are here,
    especially Gene Sperling, who put together
    this digital divide tour, and Lynn Cutler, who
    is my liaison to Indian country all over the United States. I thank
    them.
        I want to thank four Members of Congress who made a long trip here
    today to express support for our goal: Senator Robert Bennett, who came from Utah; Representative Bill
    Jefferson, who came from New Orleans,
    Louisiana; Silvestre Reyes from El Paso,
    Texas; and Stephanie Tubbs Jones, who
    came from Cleveland, Ohio.
        I want to thank my friend of more than 20 years now, your former
    Governor, Bruce King, and his wife, Alice, thank them for being here. Thank you. I want to thank
    the renowned basketball star Rebecca Lobo, who
    came with me today. And I thank Reverend Jesse Jackson for coming. I thank all the high-tech leaders who are
    here.
        And there was one young man who meant to come with me today who
    could not come, a man I admire very much not only for his success but
    for the way he has handled adversity, Notah Begay. And I think we ought to give him a big hand. [Applause]
        I also want to recognize two young women who are here, because they
    were in the First Lady's gallery at my State of the Union Address,
    members of the Navajo Nation and former volunteers for AmeriCorps,
    Christina and Justina Jones. Thank you for being here. I am very proud of them and
    all the other young Dine people who have served not only the Navajo
    Nation but our Nation as a whole as AmeriCorps volunteers.
        Let me also express my deep gratitude to the Navajo Code Talkers who
    provided our--[applause]. Thank you, gentlemen. And I want to thank
    Senator Jeff Bingaman for working to ensure
    that you receive the national honors you so richly deserve.
        All Americans should know of the exploits of the young Navajo men,
    some as young as 15, who enlisted in the Marine Corps in World War II,
    helped to develop an ingenious code based on your language, and became
    the communications link to and from the frontlines of the Allies in the
    Pacific war. One of our most enduring images of freedom is that of the
    marines hoisting the American flag over Iwo Jima. Well, there are many
    American military commanders from that conflict who will tell you that
    the United States might never have taken Iwo Jima or won countless other
    battles in the Pacific if it weren't for the bravery, the sacrifice, and
    the unbreakability of the code of the Navajo Code Talkers.
        It is fitting that we begin this day by recalling their
    achievements. After all, there are few people in America who better
    embody the power of communication. In fact, if you think about it, the
    system the Code Talkers used has real similarities to the beginning of
    the worldwide network we call the Internet. Both systems were developed
    for sending information quickly, securely, and reliably during times of
    war. Both had the power to change the course of history. But there is a
    cruel irony here.

    [[Page 736]]

        For more than 50 years after the Code Talkers were able to
    communicate with one another, over great distances in the Pacific, it is
    still hard to communicate between many parts of the Navajo Nation
    itself. In much of America, it takes just a modest amount of money and
    time to get someone on the Internet. But here, an astonishing 37 percent
    of the households are without electricity, about 70 percent without
    phone service, more than half without work.
        I am here because I believe the new technologies like the Internet
    and wireless communications can have an enormous positive impact in the
    Navajo Nation. They can help you to leapfrog over some of the biggest
    hurdles to develop your economic and human potential. They can make
    great distances virtually disappear. They can be a vehicle for job
    growth, for education, for health care, for employment opportunities.
    They can be the greatest equalizers our society has ever known.
        I know the Navajo Nation has already begun to see this potential, as
    President Begaye said. Here in Shiprock, the closest public library is
    more than 30 miles away. Yet, thanks to your new PowerUP partnership,
    children and parents now are able to browse some of the great libraries
    of the world simply by going to the Boys and Girls Club.
        On the western side of the Navajo Nation, rural health clinics are
    now linked through computers to the finest medical specialists at the
    University of Arizona. Your new Navajo Able initiative, funded in part
    by the Department of Education, is providing technologies to help
    children with disabilities write and communicate on computers. At Dine
    College, even rural campuses have state-of-the-art computer labs, where
    students soon will conduct real-time teleconferences with professors all
    around the globe. But this is just the beginning.
        Almost 30 years ago, when I was a young man, still a student with no
    money and no prospect reasonably of becoming President, for sure--
    [laughter]--I first drove across New Mexico. I fell in love with the
    land and the people. I had my first opportunity to buy for my mother and
    the girlfriend who became my wife some beautiful Navajo jewelry. Now,
    just imagine if all the remarkable silversmiths and weavers of the
    Navajo Nation could sell their work not only in local markets but in
    national and global markets as well. Just imagine if all remote health
    clinics were connected electronically to major medical centers. Imagine
    if Dine could commute to high-tech, high-paying jobs in large cities
    just by getting on a computer here in Shiprock. Imagine if all your
    children had access to the same world of knowledge at the same instance
    as children in the wealthiest communities in America. The potential is
    staggering, and we have to seize it.
        I am here today to pledge that the National Government will do its
    part in ways that honor your tribal sovereignty. Ever since I have been
    President, we have worked to try to empower the tribes of our Nation. I
    will never forget the day in 1994, when I had the chance to welcome
    leaders of more than 300 American Indian tribes to the White House, the
    first time this had been done since President James Monroe's
    administration, in 1822.
        You know, when I was just a very young boy, I used to go to the
    county public library in my hometown in Arkansas. I can remember
    spending day after day reading histories of Native American tribes and
    biographies of famous chiefs. I remember once I read in the biography of
    Chief Joseph of the Nez Perce that incredible statement he made, ``From
    this day, I will fight no more, forever.'' It was a noble, powerful,
    brave thing to do.
        But as we all know, though many of your ancestors gave up fighting
    and gave up land and water and mineral rights in exchange for peace,
    security, health care, and education, the Federal Government did not
    live up to its end of the deal. That was wrong. And I have worked hard
    to change it. There is nothing more important to me than getting this
    government-to-government relationship right, but getting it right in a
    way that will empower you to lift yourselves and your children to
    fulfill your potential and your dreams, not a patronizing relationship
    but an empowering one, not a handout but a hand up, a genuine
    partnership so that your children can live their dreams.
        As Congressman Udall said, I did ask in the State of the Union
    Address for the largest budget increases in history for new and existing
    programs to assist tribal nations. That is why I traveled last year to
    the Pine Ridge Reservation in South Dakota, the home of the Lakota
    Sioux. That is why I made Indian country an important focus of our new
    markets initiative.
        Let me tell you what that is. I believe the only way to keep this
    economy growing is to bring economic opportunity to the people and

    [[Page 737]]

    the places who have been left behind. More businesses, more jobs, more
    incomes means growth without inflation for the rest of America. People
    in New York City and Los Angeles and Seattle and Dallas and Atlanta and
    Miami, they all have a stake in your economic success. And I am here to
    bring that message to you, and through our friends in the media, to
    them.
        I want to give Americans who have money the same incentives to
    invest in underdeveloped areas in America we now give them to invest in
    underdeveloped areas of Latin America or Asia or Africa. I want
    Americans to look first to people here at home who need work and
    education, who need technology and opportunity.
        And there is no better place to begin than by bridging the digital
    divide. Our E-rate initiative, to provide discount rates to schools and
    hospitals and libraries that could not otherwise afford them, an
    initiative pioneered by our Vice President, Al Gore, and championed by this administration for years, has
    helped to equip every classroom in the consolidated school district with
    computers and the wiring to connect to the Internet.
        My new budget provides a major new initiative to prepare Native
    Americans for careers in technical fields. It provides $2 billion in tax
    incentives to encourage the private sector to donate computers, sponsor
    community technology centers available to adults as well as children,
    and provide technology training for workers; $150 million to train every
    single new teacher on how to use this technology effectively in the
    classroom; and $100 million to create 1,000 community technology centers
    all across the country, to serve all the people of the community--the
    old, the young, those in between, those with disabilities, and those
    without education, everyone who can benefit from tapping into this new
    technology.
        And I want you to know that I am joined here today by private sector
    leaders who are part of our national call to action. Hundreds of
    organizations, including all 32 tribal colleges, have answered this
    pledge. And I want to highlight just some of the public and private
    commitments being made to benefit the Navajo Nation and Native Americans
    all across our country.
        First, and very important, our Federal Communications Chairman, Bill
    Kennard, is proposing to expand the
    Lifeline program to ensure that every Native American who needs it will
    be able to get basic phone service for as little as $1 a month. In this
    day and age, when we want every American to have access to the Internet,
    we must first make sure that every American has access to a phone, so
    there will be a line to hook into.
        Second, Native American Systems, headed by Robert
    Rutherford, a Choctaw, is committing
    $100,000 state-of-the-art satellite communications to the Red Rock Day
    School, to provide equipment to 30 other BIA schools in other parts of
    Indian country. Tachyon is providing satellite Internet access to Dine
    College and the Lake Valley School. Give them a hand. [Applause]
        Compaq will provide $500,000 to spur the TechCorps schools
    partnership, which uses the Internet and TechCorps volunteers to help
    teachers make the best use of technology in the classroom. Four Navajo
    Nation schools participated in the pilot of TechCorps schools. Today I'm
    proud to say that this new commitment will make it available to all
    Navajo Nation schools and all K-through-12 schools nationwide for Native
    Americans. Microsoft will provide $2.75 million in software and
    technical support for the American Indian Tribal College program, which
    will directly benefit Dine College. Andersen Consulting has committed
    $100,000 to support small business in Indian country, something we need
    more of. We need access to capital, training, technological support. The
    capacity to grow small businesses in Indian country is far greater than
    anything we have realized to date. Healtheon/WebMD will provide valuable
    Internet sources to the medical professionals at the Indian Health
    Service facility right here in Shiprock. Let's give all these groups a
    big hand. [Applause]
        I began my remarks today by doing my best to introduce myself to you
    in the proper way, telling you my name and my family's clan, in your
    language, as best I could. Well, it's true we are from different clans.
    Your ancestors were here on this continent, here within the four sacred
    mountains, long before my ancestors even knew of the existence of this
    continent and this land we call America. But my friends, we are now all
    part of the same American family. We are all related, and it is time we
    acted like we were all related.
        We have never had a better chance to build the right kind of
    relationship. We have never

    [[Page 738]]

    had a better chance to build new connections between people, between
    cultures, between nations. The Navajo Code Talkers gave us one of
    history's most stirring lessons on the power of communications. They
    showed us in the most concrete way that our cultural diversity in
    America can be our greatest strength. And that is why we must do
    everything in our power to allow all Dine to lend their talents and
    their skills to the great enterprise of building our future together.
        Ahe' hee doo hagoane. Thank you, and goodbye.

     Note:  The President spoke at 5:50 p.m. at the Boys and Girls Club of
    Shiprock. In his remarks, he referred to Myra Jodie, student, Steamboat
    Navajo Nation, AZ, who introduced the President; President Kelsey A.
    Begaye and Vice President Taylor McKenzie of the Navajo Nation; Chief
    Justice Robert Yazzie, Navajo Nation Supreme Court; Speaker Edward T.
    Begay, Navajo Nation Council; William Lee, chapter president, Shiprock
    local government; Special Assistant to the President for Agriculture and
    Trade Carl S. Whillock, board member, Rural Telephone Bank Agency of the
    United States; and professional golfer Notah Begay III.