[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[April 26, 2000]
[Pages 779-782]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]


[[Page 779]]


Remarks to the Community in Whiteville, North Carolina
April 26, 2000

    Thank you very much. Well, I leaned over to Mayor Jones, and I said, ``Is it really true that no previous President 
has ever been to Whiteville or Columbus County?'' And she said, ``It's 
true.'' And I said, ``They don't know what they were missing.'' I'm glad 
to be here today.
    I want to thank Craig Turner for the 
presentation he made. I want to thank the mayor 
for welcoming me here; your fine Congressman, Mike McIntyre. And I want to thank the other Members of Congress who 
are here: Bob Etheridge, Robin Hayes, and especially Representative Eva Clayton, who is the cochair of the congressional rural caucus. I 
welcome all them.
    I want to say an appreciation for all the business leaders who came 
here and Secretary Rodney Slater and our 
FCC Commissioner, Bill Kennard, and our 
Under Secretary of Agriculture, Jill Long-Thompson, and many others who are here. I'd also like to 
acknowledge that I have a business liaison, Jay Dunn, who's from Wilkes County, North Carolina; I'm glad 
he's here.
    But I want to say a special word on behalf of three people. First, I 
don't think anybody has ever put this together, but I'm not sure that I 
would be President if it weren't for North Carolina, even though I never 
won your electoral votes, for two reasons. One is, 21 years ago, my 
then-colleague as a Governor, Jim Hunt, 
gave me the first position of national leadership I ever had in the 
Democratic Governors' Association. And if it hadn't been for that, I 
might never have gotten started. And secondly, if it hadn't been for 
Erskine Bowles, I probably would not have 
succeeded as President. So I am very grateful to Jim Hunt, who is, I 
agree, the finest Governor in the United States of America today; and to 
my friend Erskine Bowles, who could be 
doing a lot of other things today, who has a touch of gold--everything 
he touches turns to gold. He could be out making money, but instead he'd 
rather be here with you in Whiteville making a better future for the 
children of this county and a better economy for you.
    I want to say in plain language why I am here and why I hope all 
across America people will see you on television tonight and read about 
you tomorrow and think about this. I have been honored to be your 
President for over 7 years. I still marvel at the fact that I was born 
in a little town of 6,000 in Arkansas, and my mother's people came from 
a little community of 150, 8 miles from there. Our kinfolks are still 
there. I keep on my desk in the White House a series of pictures that 
have my family's history, starting with a picture of my grandfather in 
Bodcaw, Arkansas, population 150 in 1906. And there are still about 150 
people there.
    So I think I understand your life. I was amazed, though, I must say, 
to hear one of your businessman tell me today that he was selling 
fertilizer to farmers in Arkansas. Now, when I was Governor, one thing 
we had plenty of was fertilizer, and some people thought I supplied a 
lot of it. [Laughter]
    But I've loved being President, and I've loved working on the 
economy. And I'm proud of the fact that we've got the longest economic 
expansion in history and 21 million new jobs and the lowest unemployment 
in 30 years and the lowest minority unemployment rate ever recorded. I'm 
proud of that.
    But it bothers me that in the face of the longest, strongest 
creative economic growth in our history, there are people and places who 
have been left behind. And mostly they are places that are physically 
isolated. Whether they are small rural towns like Whiteville, remote 
Indian reservations like the ones I have visited in New Mexico and South 
Dakota, or remote inner-city neighborhoods, where people with money and 
investment don't go very much, there are people who are physically 
isolated.
    And I have started in the last 2 years of my Presidency this whole 
effort to convince the rest of America that you're a very good deal, and 
we ought to invest in you and your future.
    If you follow this on the news at night, you know that there's a big 
debate about how much longer this economic expansion can go on. And 
about every week or so, somebody says, ``Oh, it can't go on any longer, 
because there's got to be inflation, and then we'll have high interest 
rates, and the thing will shut down.''

[[Page 780]]

    And so I spent a lot of time thinking about how to keep it going, 
because I kind of like that. I like seeing you do well. And I'd like to 
see my Vice President get his fair share of 
credit this year in November. So I think about it.
    But what I want you to understand is this. The rest of America has a 
big stake in your success. Why? Because if the unemployment rate here 
were 3 percent and everybody that wanted a job had one, and you all had 
better jobs with growing businesses, what is that? That's growth for the 
rest of America without inflation--more workers, more business owners, 
and more consumers--everybody in America. And all those places with 2 
percent unemployment, they ought to be pulling for you because you're 
their meal ticket to the future, to keep this economic growth going.
    So what I tried to do is to say to people with money, ``Look, I want 
you to have the same incentives to invest in rural North Carolina, rural 
Arkansas, the inner cities, the Native American reservations--I want you 
to have the same incentives to invest in poor areas in America we give 
you today to invest in poor areas of Latin America or Asia or Africa. 
Look to America and the new markets here.'' That's the first part of 
this.
    The second part is this--and that's what we're here about today. You 
hear all about this digital divide; some of you have a computer, and 
some don't--and even if you do, maybe you use the Internet with your 
telephone line, and maybe you don't. But what I want you to understand 
is that the Internet is the fastest growing means of communication in 
all human history.
    When I became President--listen to this--when I became President 7 
years and 3 months ago, there were 50--5-0--50 sites on the World Wide 
Web. Today, there are 50 million--in 7 years. And one of these places is 
this fertilizer business in rural North Carolina where two Arkansas 
farmers, at least, found their way on the Internet and they said, ``This 
guy will sell me fertilizer cheaper than the guy down the street will. I 
think I'll order it.'' This is unheard of.
    Let me tell you, I have seen things you would not believe. I've been 
in little villages in Africa where people have no maps and no 
schoolbooks, where they can get all the most modern information. I've 
been in little villages in India, where the income every year is $450 a 
year, where women with newborn babies can get the most modern 
information about how to care for their children because of the 
Internet.
    And what we're here to tell you is, number one, we believe, in rural 
North Carolina and in rural America, Internet access ought to be just as 
likely as telephone access. And number two, you ought to be able to use 
it in the fastest possible way. And number three, if you can, it'll mean 
more jobs, more businesses, higher incomes, and more opportunity.
    Why is that? We're standing here in front of the railroad station. 
You know what the railroad brought to the rural South? You know what the 
highways brought to the rural South? You know what electricity brought 
to the rural South? What did they do? They helped to make it possible 
for people to live out here in the country and move back and forth and 
make a living.
    But we never quite caught up in rural America, did we? Why? Because 
no matter how you cut it, no matter how many roads we had or how many 
powerlines we had or how many trains ran through our town, we were still 
a long way away from everybody else, and it took time to get from here 
to there, wherever ``there'' was. Isn't that right?
    So most people who kept on living in rural America did it because 
it's a great place to live. It's a nice way to live. President Johnson 
left Washington, DC, and went home to this little town in Texas where he 
was from, and they said, ``How can you bear to live in this little one-
horse town after living in Washington, DC, for 25 years?'' And he looked 
at Walter Cronkite, and he said--I'll never forget this for as long as I 
live--he said, ``I can bear to live here because, here, people know when 
you're sick, and they care when you die.'' Now, so we live here. But 
with all these improvements, you never quite caught up.
    Now, here's what I believe, and why I'm spending the last year of my 
term in the White House trying to build support among Republicans and 
Democrats for giving these extra incentives to invest in these areas and 
making sure we close the digital divide and every one of your classrooms 
and every one of your businesses has access to really high-speed service 
on the Internet. Because what does the Internet do that the railroads 
didn't do, that the highways didn't do, that a rural airport didn't do, 
that electricity didn't do? What does the Internet do? It collapses time 
and distance.

[[Page 781]]

    We have never been able to do that. That's what I want you to think 
about. You've never been on a computer in your life--I want you to think 
about that when you leave here. It collapses time and distance. 
Therefore, for the first time in my lifetime, we have a chance to move 
more people out of poverty and unemployment and lack of access to 
businesses more quickly in rural America, isolated inner cities, and 
Native American reservations than at any time in the history of this 
country.
    And when people see you on television tonight, I want them to think 
about this town abolishing time and distance because of what Jim 
Hunt, the telephone companies, and others 
have done to provide broad-based Internet service to you through this 
broadband. That's what I want them to think about. I want to thank Bell 
South and Sprint and GTE and the telephone co-ops for working with 
Governor Hunt to do this. I want to thank 
Qualcomm and the other companies that came here today, that show us 
other ways to get you really good Internet service. But if you never 
thought about this in your life, I want you to think about it.
    I don't care if you don't have a college degree. I don't care if you 
never finished high school. You need to figure out how these computers 
work. You need to figure out how to get on the Internet. You need to 
figure out how it will help you, and if you don't have people here who 
can help you, you need to figure out how to get somebody to come into 
this community and run the education programs to teach you how to do 
this, because this is the future of America.
    Now, it's true, it's more expensive in rural areas than in the 
cities now, and it's not hard to figure out why. They've got more 
customers and less space, so it's cheaper. So, Governor Hunt's got a plan to overcome that, and we are trying 
to help. We are making available, through our Rural Utilities Service, 
loans that will allow rural areas to offer high-speed Internet to help 
cut the cost.
    We've got businesses involved that are helping us do all kinds of 
things. Qualcomm, one of the companies that is represented by its 
chairman here today, is going to spend a 
million dollars to provide wireless high-speed services to 8 underserved 
rural communities, including those here in North Carolina--including 
this county--and that's going to make it easier to get; MCI WorldCom, $2 
million to increase wireless Internet access in 3 rural communities in 
the South; AT&T, over a million dollars to develop information and 
technology management training at North Carolina State, North Carolina 
A&T, and other universities; Red Hat Software, in Durham, North 
Carolina, providing free training and certification to use the software 
to employees of 100 hundred different rural small businesses. Every 
small business in this town ought to take advantage of that and get on 
the Internet and find your customers, wherever they are. This is a good 
beginning.
    But you just remember this. You've got to be for this, folks. You've 
got to believe in this. Now, I'm not running for anything; I'm not 
giving you a campaign speech. [Laughter] I'm telling you, I have now 
spent more than 20 years trying to bring jobs and opportunity and hope 
to places like this community. I believe I've learned something about 
it. I have pleaded and begged with people to invest in places like this 
community. I have given tax breaks to people to do it. I have built 
roads, and I have made roads bigger. I have built airports, and I've 
made them bigger. I've done everything known to man to try to get more 
jobs into the rural parts of my State and in America, since I've been 
here.
    I can only think of two more things we can do: give people the same 
incentives to invest in you we give them to invest in poor areas 
overseas; and make sure the Internet is universally available at 
affordable prices.
    But you remember what I'm telling you. In the whole 20th century, we 
never caught up. You can't stop change. We're always going to be losing 
jobs and getting jobs. We all try to save every one we can. But the 
economy changes, and it's going to change faster. But we can catch up 
if, for the first time in our history, we can collapse time and distance 
so that your children have access to every bit of information any 
children in the richest places in the world have; so that your 
businesses have access to every potential customer and supplier anyplace 
in the world; so that you have access to anything you'd ever need to 
know and learn as soon and as well as anyone else does.
    That's what this Internet is. That's why it has gone from 50 to 50 
million webpages in just 7 years. And it can be this community's ticket 
to tomorrow. Every child here is just as smart, just as worthy, just as 
able as every child in

[[Page 782]]

the richest community in the United States or anyplace else in the 
world. They deserve that.
    So a long time from today, I want you to remember more than that the 
President finally came to your hometown. [Laughter] I want you to 
remember why we came here: Because of your Governor and Erskine Bowles and 
these other leaders, we have a chance to collapse time and distance and 
to give you your chance to live your dreams.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

 Note:  The President spoke at 3:15 p.m. at the Whiteville train depot. 
In his remarks, he referred to Mayor Ann W. Jones of Whiteville; W. 
Craig Turner, corporate secretary, board of directors, Remote Data 
Systems; Gov. James B. Hunt, Jr., of North Carolina; former White House 
Chief of Staff Erskine B. Bowles; Irwin Jacobs, chairman and chief 
executive officer, Qualcomm, Inc.; and White House Associate Director 
for Business Outreach Jackson Dunn.