[Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: WILLIAM J. CLINTON (2000, Book I)]
[May 21, 2000]
[Pages 993-1000]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office www.gpo.gov]



Remarks to the Democratic Leadership Council in Hyde Park, New York
May 21, 2000

    Thank you. Bill, thank you for 
welcoming me back to Hyde Park and the Roosevelt Library. I love coming 
here. I'm sorry I've only come three times. And Al, 
thank you for your wonderful introduction, and to you and Ginger, thank you for your years of friendship. He's very good 
at giving the credit to everybody else, but the truth is it would be 
hard to think of a single American citizen who, as a private citizen, 
has had a more positive impact on the progress of American life in the 
last 25 years than Al From.
    I am delighted to see so many Members of Congress here, Members of 
the Senate and the House; the Governor; 
present and former members of the administration. Mack McLarty was Chief of Staff when we did four big DLC 
things. We did the economic plan, the Brady bill, family leave law, and 
NAFTA. Somebody said, Mack, the other day--I saw a commentator; Hillary 
and I were watching the commentators--``You know, if it hadn't been for 
his first 2 years, Bill Clinton's approval ratings would be the highest 
ever recorded.'' And Hillary looked at me, and she said, ``If it hadn't 
been for the first 2 years when you made all the unpopular decisions, 
the next 6 years would not have happened.'' [Laughter]
    Mayor Brown, we're glad to see you here. 
And my Mayor, Mayor Williams, thank you. 
And thank all of you for being here and for what you're about to do.
    Franklin Roosevelt said he often came back to Hyde Park because it 
gave him, quote, ``a chance to think quietly about the country as a 
whole, and to see it in a long-range perspective.'' That's what you're 
being asked to do.
    I've often, in quiet moments at the White House, thought about my 
predecessors, the ones that succeeded, the ones who didn't, why they 
did. Roosevelt had what Justice Holmes called a first-class temperament, 
a lot of personal courage, a good mind, and a great attitude. He had a 
good time being President, even in difficult times. And he learned to 
have a good time in the midst of almost constant personal pain.
    It's worth remembering that life's successes are a curious blend of 
what you make happen and what happens to you, the gifts God gives

[[Page 994]]

you and what you do with them. But today I want to focus on the fact 
that he was always interested in ideas.
    I read the other day Frances Perkins' wonderful book about her 
lifetime friendship with Roosevelt. You know she was the first woman in 
the Cabinet; she served as Secretary of Labor the entire time President 
Roosevelt was in office. She kept trying to quit, and he wouldn't let 
her. And if you read this book, at the end you get some sense just in 
the curious, wonderful relationship between these two remarkable people 
that he had some sense of his own mortality. She kept trying to leave, 
and he kept trying to get her to hold on to the end. And then, of 
course, he died shortly after being reelected to his fourth term.
    But through this whole thing, you get this sense that from the time 
she was a young social worker and he was a young State Senator, when he 
still had full use of his physical facilities--and played a pretty good 
game of golf, I might add--that they had this magical chemistry born of 
the fact that even though they were different people from different 
worlds in the beginning, with very different positions on certain 
issues, they both understood that public service was something that you 
weren't supposed to covet for the power but something you wanted to do 
so you could help other people, and that ideas mattered.
    So you come here today to think about where we are and where we 
ought to go and what the long-range challenges are. And Al's already 
said a lot of what I want to say, but I want to say some of the things 
he said and tie it back to what we did in New Orleans in 1990, because I 
believe that thinking is a big and often underutilized part of success 
in public life. [Laughter] And I think ideas matter.
    Let me say that some time into my first term, maybe 1995 or 
something, a distinguished scholar whom I at that time had never met, 
and who at that time was at Syracuse--I believe he's at Harvard now--
named Thomas North Patterson--no, Thomas Patterson--I can't remember 
what his middle name was. Anyway, he wrote this article, and he said, 
``Contrary to the popular belief that most politicians are congenitally 
dishonest, most people do what they say they're going to do when they 
get elected.'' And if you look at the history of Presidents, most of 
them do what they say they're going to do. And when they don't, it's 
usually because something has really changed, and we're glad they 
didn't.
    We're glad Franklin Roosevelt didn't balance the budget, because if 
he had, under those circumstances, it would have been worse. Abraham 
Lincoln promised not to free the slaves. We're glad he broke that 
commitment. But, by and large, if you look at the whole history of 
American public life, when a President runs for office and says, ``Vote 
for me; this is what I want to do,'' they pretty well do that. Or they 
at least get caught trying to do it.
    And one of the things that really has meant the most to me, of all 
the things I've read--and I've read a lot a stuff I just as soon not 
have in the last 8 years--[laughter]--was Patterson said that by 1995 
our administration had already kept a higher percentage of its 
commitments to the American people than the previous five Presidents. 
And we had made more commitments.
    And the point I want to make today to emphasize the importance of 
what it is you're about to do is that the reason that was possible is, I 
had thought a lot about that--what I would do. And I had thought with 
many of you--with Bruce and Will and Rob and the whole DLC crowd and a 
lot of you that were going to these meetings back in the eighties and 
the nineties--so that when I announced for President, I did it not 
because I wanted to get out of what I was doing--I was actually happier 
than I had ever been with my work as Governor and with my situation at 
home in Arkansas--but because I thought something needed to be done, and 
I had thought a lot about it. And this New Orleans Declaration had a lot 
to do with it.
    So the first thing I want to say to you is, you cannot possibly 
overestimate the importance of what you're here to do if you do it in 
all seriousness.
    Let's just look at New Orleans. We met in New Orleans in 1990. As Al 
said, the times were different. The economy was bad; the deficit was 
high; the debt had exploded; all the social conditions were worsening. 
And Washington seemed to be stuck in a kind of ideological trench 
warfare, where the Republicans said that Government was the problem, and 
we said that it was the solution. And we always had to have a false 
choice: You had to choose the economy or the environment; you had to 
choose

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impoverishment or entitlement; you had to choose business or labor.
    And most of us, many of the DLC people--this is one of the reasons 
the DLC succeeded, by the way, is that we had people who were in 
politics in Washington and out in the country, and a lot of our people 
in Washington spent a lot of time in the country. And we realized that 
no one else in the world thought about things or experienced things in 
the way the Washington media and political establishment talked about 
issues, and that we didn't agree with all these false choices.
    And so in New Orleans 10 years ago we set out to say and to outline 
what we believed ought to be done. Our approach came to be known as the 
Third Way. But basically, it was rooted in common sense, a common 
devotion to our party's oldest values, and a common vision of the new 
era in which we were living.
    In 1992 the American people gave us a chance to put our ideas into 
action. And we have done our best to do that, working across party lines 
where possible, and where bitter partisanship forced it, going alone.
    In New Orleans--let's just look at some of the things we said in New 
Orleans, as against some of the things that Al has already mentioned. 
This is what the New Orleans Declaration said: We believe the Democratic 
Party's fundamental mission is to expand opportunity, not Government; 
that economic growth is a prerequisite for expanding opportunity for 
everyone; and that the way to build America's economic security is to 
invest in the skills and ingenuity of our people and to expand trade, 
not restrict it.
    Now, these ideas were all turned into action in the '93 economic 
plan, in the '97 Balanced Budget Act, in the Telecommunications Act, in 
our commitment to science and technological research, in our education 
budget. We doubled investment for education and training even as we were 
reducing the deficit, and we emphasized results and proven strategies. 
We very nearly opened the doors of college to all Americans. We had 300 
trade agreements. Those ideas put into action have given us those 
21,615,000 jobs and the lowest unemployment rate in 30 years and the 
highest homeownership ever and the longest economic expansion in 
history. And the Government--Al is 
continuing to shrink it--is now the smallest it has been since 1958.
    We said we believe the purpose of social welfare is to bring the 
poor into the Nation's economic mainstream, not to maintain them in 
dependence. That idea, turned into action through the expansion of the 
earned-income tax credit, the Vice President's empowerment zone program and welfare reform, has given us 
the smallest welfare rolls in absolute numbers in 32 years, a 20-year 
low in the poverty rate, the lowest single-parent household poverty rate 
in 46 years, while we fought and succeeded in maintaining health and 
nutrition benefits for poor children and increasing our investment in 
child care and transportation for lower income workers.
    We said we believed in, quote, ``preventing crime and punishing 
criminals, not explaining away their behavior.'' That idea was turned 
into action through the crime bill, which gave us 100,000 police, an 
assault weapons ban, and through the passage of the Brady law, which has 
kept a half a million felons, fugitives, and stalkers from getting 
handguns. That's given us the lowest crime rate in 25 years, the lowest 
homicide rate in 30 years, and a 35 percent reduction in gun crime since 
1993.
    We said we believe in the politics of inclusion, in the protection 
of civil rights, and the broad movement of minorities into the American 
economic and cultural mainstream. That idea, turned into action, has 
given us the lowest African-American and Hispanic unemployment rates 
ever recorded, record numbers of minority-owned businesses, vigorous 
enforcement of civil rights, and the widest participation of minorities 
in the Federal Government at high levels and in the Federal judiciary in 
American history.
    We said we believe in the imperative of work and the importance of 
family. I could give you lots of examples of that, but if you just take 
the family and medical leave law, the first bill I signed, vetoed by the 
previous administration, 21 million-plus Americans have taken some time 
off when a baby is born or a parent is sick. And they said it would 
wreck the economy. Well, 21 million families are stronger, and so is the 
American economy. The idea was right in the New Orleans Declaration.
    We said we believe American citizenship entails responsibility as 
well as rights, and we mean to ask citizens to give something back to 
their community. That idea, turned into action, has led to a whole 
series of remarkable partnerships.
    The Welfare to Work Partnership, for example, has led to 12,000 
companies to voluntarily

[[Page 996]]

commit to hire now something like 400,000 people off the welfare rolls. 
The Vice President's partnership with the 
auto companies and the auto workers has led to this whole effort to 
develop the next generation vehicle, which already has prototypes that 
will be on the market within 2 years--60, 70, 80 miles a gallon. The 
partnership we had with the entertainment industry led to the passage of 
the V-chip requirement and rating systems for movies, television 
programs, and video games.
    And most of all, of course, it led to AmeriCorps, which now has 
permitted over 150,000 young Americans to serve in their communities. We 
had more people in AmeriCorps in 5 years than the Peace Corps did in its 
first 20 years of existence because of the idea that the DLC 
relentlessly advanced.
    We said we believed, quote, ``the U.S. must remain energetically 
engaged in the worldwide struggle for individual liberty, human rights, 
and prosperity, not retreat from the world.'' That idea, turned into 
action, has given us a stronger and expanded NATO, new initiatives 
against terrorism and weapons of mass destruction, progress on peace in 
Northern Ireland and the Middle East, forceful stands against ethnic 
cleansing in Bosnia and Kosovo, and new initiatives to expand trade and 
advance democracy in Africa, the Caribbean Basin, Latin America, and the 
Asian-Pacific region.
    In short, because of the work done in New Orleans and the fact that 
the American people gave us a chance 2 years later to test it, we have 
proven that ideas matter and that for the decade of the nineties our 
ideas were the right ones. They have put the Democratic Party at the 
vital center of American life and inspired the rise of new progressive 
governments throughout Europe and the industrialized world. Indeed, I'm 
going to be meeting with many of these leaders next month in Berlin--
people all over the world now who have seen what happened here, taken 
ideas seriously, and want to see what they can do to lift their people 
and make them a part of the new information age of globalization.
    And most important of all, these ideas, put into action, have 
brought our country into a moment of unparalleled prosperity and 
promise. Now, I think we have a rare opportunity to identify and move on 
the big, long-term challenges the country faces in the new century. And 
I think the DLC--to borrow a little of your own medicine--has both the 
opportunity and the responsibility to put forth a declaration here which 
will guide our party and should guide our Nation for the next 10 years.
    That's your task: What is the New Democratic agenda for the 21st 
century? Here's what I think it ought to say.
    First, we will keep the economy strong by paying down the debt, 
maintaining our lead in science and technology, and extending our 
economic benefits to people and places left behind, opening new markets 
and closing the investment and digital divide.
    Second, we will lift up all working families out of poverty, ending 
child poverty by increasing the EITC, the minimum wage, our support for 
child care, housing, and transportation, and for responsible fatherhood.
    Third, we will make sure every child starts school ready to learn, 
graduates ready to succeed, has the chance to go to college by investing 
more in education and demanding more of all the participants in our 
education process, and by opening college access to everyone by making 
tuition deductible.
    Fourth, we will enable Americans to succeed at work and at home, 
with more support for child care, expanding opportunity for health care 
coverage, passing a Patients' Bill of Rights, and providing middle class 
families tax relief to educate their kids, take care of them through 
child care, take care of their parents if they need long-term care.
    Fifth, we will make America the safest big Nation on Earth, with 
more police, more prevention, more prosecutors, and more effective 
measures to keep guns away from children and criminals.
    Sixth, we will meet the challenge of the aging of America by 
extending the life of Social Security, strengthening and modernizing 
Medicare with a prescription drug benefit, and providing a tax cut for 
long-term care, and helping working families to establish their own 
retirement accounts so that more Americans have a chance to create 
wealth.
    Next, we will reverse the course of climate change while enhancing 
rather than eroding economic growth with new technologies and new 
sources of alternative energy.
    Let me just say, when I went back and read the New Orleans 
Declaration, the one thing I wish we'd made more of is the environment, 
because we have now proved you can grow the

[[Page 997]]

economy and improve the environment. And this is a much more important 
issue now than it was 10 years ago because of the global impacts of 
climate change. We must address this.
    Every Member of Congress here will tell you that a huge portion of 
decisionmakers in our country and throughout the world--and most 
troubling, in some of the biggest developing nations--still believe you 
cannot have economic growth unless you pour more greenhouse gases into 
the atmosphere. Just like these big ideas helped us back in 1990, there 
is nothing so dangerous as for a people to be in the grip of a big idea 
that is no longer true. It was once true that you had to put more 
greenhouse gases into the atmosphere to grow the economy, to build a 
middle class, to make a country rich. It is not true anymore.
    And there are all kinds of manifestations of this: the assault that 
the other party is making on my decision to set aside the roadless acres 
in the national forests--the Audubon Society says it's the most 
important conservation measure in the last 50 years. It's just a--
[applause].
    I say that not--the applause is nice, but that's not the point I'm 
trying to make here. The point I'm trying to make is that good people 
will continue to make bad decisions if they're in the grip of a wrong 
idea. This is not simply a case of interest groups fighting each other. 
This is really a question of whether we have honestly come to terms with 
what the facts are, what the evidence shows about the way economies can 
and, indeed, should work.
    And there's no way in the world we'll be able to convince our 
friends in India or China, which over the next 30 years will become 
bigger emitters of greenhouse gases than we are, that they can take a 
different path to development and that we're not trying to keep them 
poor, unless we can demonstrate that we have let this idea go and that 
we have evidence that a different way will work.
    You can't expect any of these Members of Congress who come from 
rural districts that have a lot of poor people or that rely on 
agriculture to take different approaches unless there is a specific, 
clear, meaningful alternative that they can embrace.
    So I'm sort of off the script here, but this is a big deal. We need 
more of our people--every one of our people--we need to know what the 
facts are here. We need to know what can we really get out of automobile 
and truck mileage; how realistic is it to have alternative sources of 
fuel; what can you get if you build all new houses and office buildings 
with glass that lets in more heat and light--lets in more light and 
keeps out more heat and cold. We need to know these things.
    This is something that most of you normally wouldn't think of as 
something that an elected official needs to know. We need to know this. 
This is a huge, huge issue. And we will not be able to convince either 
our own people or, even more importantly, developing countries who are 
our partners around the world, unless we have the evidence in hand and 
we understand the argument.
    Next, we will keep working to build one America at home, to make a 
strength of our diversity so that other nations can be inspired to 
overcome their own ethnic and religious tensions. For me, that means 
passing the ``Employment Non-Discrimination Act,'' the hate crimes bill, 
and expanding national service. I meet with these AmeriCorps kids 
everywhere I go, and the thing they say over and over and over again is 
that ``this gave me a chance to see how different people live, to see 
how much we have in common as human beings, and understand just what it 
means to be an American citizen at the dawn of a new century.''
    And last, we will continue to lead the world away from terror, 
weapons of mass destruction, and destructive ethnic, racial, and 
religious conflicts, toward greater cooperation and shared peace and 
prosperity.
    That's what this vote about China is all about. Yes, it's a good 
economic deal. China has agreed to open its markets. I just stopped, 
when I got out of the airplane here, before I drove up here, there were 
a few hundred people at the airport. So I went over and shook hands and 
said hello to all the children. And this guy says, ``You really think 
this China thing is a good deal?'' I said, ``Yes, it is; I do.'' 
[Laughter] And he said, ``Why?'' And I said, ``Well, in the first place, 
we've been calling it a trade agreement, and it isn't.'' I said, ``You 
know, when I made the agreement with Mexico and Canada, it was a trade 
agreement. So I got a few things, and I had to give up a few things.'' I 
said, ``This is a membership agreement. All we give them is membership, 
and they do all the market opening. And that's their dues for membership 
in this world organization.''

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    That's why, in narrow self-interested terms, it's a 100-to-nothing 
deal not only for the United States but for anybody else who lets the 
Chinese--votes to let the Chinese into the WTO. But even though, for me, 
the economic choice is clear, I have to tell you, far, far more 
important to me are the moral and national security arguments. I looked 
at all those kids in that crowd today I was shaking hands with, and I 
was reminded again that we fought three wars in Asia in the last half of 
the 20th century and that we have a chance to build a different future--
not a guarantee but a chance.
    Yes, China is still a one-party state, restricting rights of free 
speech and religious expression, doing things from time to time that 
frustrate us and even anger us. But by forcing China to slash subsidies 
and tariffs that protect inefficient industries, which the Communist 
Party has long used to exercise day-to-day control, by letting our high-
tech companies in to bring the Internet and the information revolution 
to China, we will be unleashing forces that no totalitarian operation 
rooted in the last century's industrial society can control.
    Two years ago there were 2 million Internet users in China; last 
year there were 9 million; this year there are something over 20 
million. At some point there will be over 100 million, and at some 
point, some threshold that no one can identify with precision will be 
crossed, and it will be a very different world.
    And I think it is worth also pointing out that the more China 
operates within rule-based systems, with us and with other countries, 
the more likely they are to see the benefit of the rule of law and the 
more likely that benefit is to flow down to ordinary people in those 
900,000 villages where they're already electing their mayors and in 
other places. So this is very important.
    I think it is quite interesting that the people who hope we will 
beat this next week in China are the ultraconservatives in the military 
and the state-owned industries--and quite interesting that people who 
have been persecuted in China and other places, by and large, want us to 
adopt this, want us to vote yes on PNTR.
    Martin Lee, the head of the democracy 
movement in Hong Kong, came all the way over here to ask the Congress to 
vote for this. This is a man who cannot, himself, go to China; a man who 
has never met Zhu Rongji; a man who is still 
considered persona non grata. But he said to me, he said, ``You know, 
we've got to back the reformers in China. We've got to get them into a 
system where there is rule of law. We have got to move this way. This is 
the next big step. All the human rights activists in America are, I 
think,'' he said, ``blinded by their opposition to things that have 
happened in the past, that may be happening now, instead of thinking 
about what is most likely to change China in the future.''
    The new President of Taiwan supports us 
letting China into the WTO and America extending PNTR. And yesterday the 
Dalai Lama, a man who has undergone literally decades of frustration in 
his dealings with China, strongly endorsed PNTR with China.
    So this is a big deal to me, beyond the obvious economic benefits 
which make it easier for some Members and others to vote for because of 
the economic makeup of their districts. You have to understand that by 
far the bigger issue is, what can we do to promote human rights; what 
can we do to promote the rule of law; what can we do to minimize the 
chances that there will be another war in Asia in our lifetime or in our 
children's lifetime? To me, that is what is at issue.
    So that's my pitch here. What you're about to do is really 
important. I've told you the kinds of things that I hope you'll do. But 
those of you out here listening to me will have a bigger role than me in 
the next 10 years of America if you just remember what I did with that 
New Orleans Declaration today and every specific thing that I could cite 
to you that grew right out of that. It really matters whether you think 
and whether you put your feelings into organized fashion and whether 
that then organizes the process for developing specific policies.
    The New Orleans Declaration is largely responsible for the success 
we have enjoyed in the last 8 years, because it gave us a platform on 
which to stand and a framework from which to work.
    You've got a lot of really creative people here. I could cite a 
thousand examples, but I want to just mention two or three to give you 
an illustration of how we got started, partly on what we did. You 
remember Franklin Roosevelt; one of the greatest successes of his New 
Deal was that he essentially took social welfare progress that had been 
made in various States and went national with it, especially in New 
York, which

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is one way Frances Perkins got to be Secretary of Labor.
    But Marc Pacheco back there from 
Massachusetts, the State senator, sponsored a program to give medical 
students and other health professionals academic credit for providing 
primary and preventive health services to underserved people. Should we 
do more in our public health clinics like that? Mayor Webb negotiated a contract with the teachers unions 
in his city to give an incentive to teachers to improve academic 
performance. Michael Thurmond, his 
Georgia labor commission has taken absent fathers who weren't supporting 
their children and given them training and jobs and values of 
responsible fatherhood. And now 84 percent of those fathers are working 
and supporting their children. That's a huge deal. Shouldn't we go 
national with that? These are the kinds of things that I hope you will 
think about.
    There's just one other thing I want to say. I didn't do this by 
myself. If it hadn't been for the Members of Congress here who have 
helped me, I couldn't have done it. If it hadn't been for the members of 
the administration, past and present, I couldn't have done it. If it 
hadn't been for the DLC, with its constant idea machine and Al 
From constantly harping on me not to abandon the 
reformist path--[laughter]--I couldn't have done it. If it hadn't been 
for Al Gore, I couldn't have done it.
    And I just want to--I have said this in other places, but I have--I 
believe I have a good grasp on the institution of the Vice Presidency, 
and I can tell you it is my judgment that he has had far more positive 
impact in practical ways on the way the American people live as Vice 
President than any other person as Vice President in the history of the 
Nation, by a good long ways.
    He managed the empowerment zones 
program. He managed our administration's position on the 
Telecommunications Act, which had two important features. One, it was 
pro-competition; we didn't give in to the monopoly forces, and there are 
now hundreds of thousands of jobs that have been created, mostly in 
companies that didn't even exist in 1996, because we stood firm for 
competition. And we got the E-rate, which is now providing $2.2 billion 
a year so that poor schools and libraries and hospitals can hook up to 
the Internet.
    Second, he managed our positions, many 
of them, on the environment, including the partnership for new 
generation vehicles, which I mentioned, and the climate change.
    Third, he ran the RIGO program, which 
many of you were involved in, which in addition to reducing the size of 
Government, has dramatically improved the performance of many agencies, 
expanding health care for children and parents of working families, and 
the mental health parity issue, and the fatherhood initiative.
    He cast the deciding vote on the 
economic plan and on the gun safety legislation in the Senate. And on 
every tough decision I had to make, from Haiti to Bosnia to Kosovo to 
loaning money to Mexico--now, there was a winner; the day I made that 
decision, there was a poll that said, by 81-15, the people didn't want 
me to do it--to taking on the gun issue and tobacco issue, to lobbying 
for NASA at the beginning and now all the calls he's made on China PNTR 
at the end, he's been there.
    So I wanted to say that because we did this together. And that's the 
last thought I'll leave you with. Roosevelt loved ideas, had good ideas, 
but he had a first-class temperament, and he had a good time, and he 
enjoyed working with people. So you guys have got to keep working 
together. We've got to get behind all of our crowd; we've got to work to 
win elections. But afterward, remember, this document is a big deal.
    Some day somebody will write a whole book on how this New Orleans 
Declaration was the foundation of the success of the last 8 years. 
That's what what you do at Hyde Park ought to be. And if you do it, you 
will change America forever for the better. And what happens in 2000 
fundamentally is just as important as what happened in '92 and '96, 
because what a country does with its prosperity is just as stern a test 
of its character and vision and wisdom as what it does when its back is 
against the wall.
    I've done everything I could to turn the ship of state around. Now 
you've got to make sure that it keeps sailing in the right direction.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 3 p.m. at the Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
Presidential Library. In his remarks, he referred to former Ambassador 
William J. vanden Heuvel, president, Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt 
Institute; Al From, president, Democratic Leadership Council, and his 
wife, Ginger; Gov. George E. Pataki of New York;

[[Page 1000]]

Mayor Lee P. Brown of Houston, TX; Mayor Anthony A. Williams of 
Washington, DC; Hong Kong Democratic Party Chair Martin Lee; Prime 
Minister Zhu Rongji of China; President Chen Shui-bian of Taiwan; Mayor 
Wellington E. Webb of Denver, CO; and Georgia Department of Labor 
Commissioner Michael L. Thurmond.