[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 30, Number 37 (Monday, September 19, 1994)]
[Pages 1755-1757]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in a Swearing-In Ceremony for AmeriCorps Volunteers

September 12, 1994

    The President. Thank you. Thank you so much. Thank you, Mr. Vice 
President. Thank you, Eli Segal, for your wonderful work. This is a 
very, very happy day for Hillary and for me, especially to see all of 
you here with all of your enthusiasm, your energy, your dreams.
    There are so many things I would like to say, but before we go on, I 
feel that I ought to give you some explanation about what occurred here 
this morning and why we had to delay this event and move it to the front 
of the White House.
    As you know, a plane came down here on the South Lawn, and a pilot 
lost his life. The investigation is now in place that will determine how 
and why this happened. We take this incident seriously because this 
house is the people's house. It's the job of every President to keep it 
safe and secure.
    On his second night here, our second President and the first person 
to live in the White House, John Adams, wrote: ``I pray heaven to bestow 
the best blessings on this house and on all that shall hereafter inhabit 
it.'' That prayer has been answered. In times of war and peace, in hard 
times, in good times, the White House has remained an enduring symbol of 
our democracy. It tells our people and all those around the world that 
the mission of America continues. And that is the message that you send 
out here today as well. So I pledge to you that we will continue that, 
and I'm sorry we had to move to the front, but maybe we ought to be in 
the front of the White House today for something this important.
    This year 20,000 Americans, most of whom are young, some of whom are 
young in spirit and determined to serve and also go on to further their 
education, mark the beginning of a journey that will change their lives 
forever. It will also change the life of this Nation for many seasons to 
come.
    This day is part of a long journey for me, personally, and for many 
others who have long harbored the dream that national service embodies. 
I want to say a special word of thanks to someone who worked with me 
through this whole process and who dreamed of national service even 
before I did, and that is Senator Harris Wofford of Pennsylvania. I 
thank you especially, sir, today. Like the Vice President's fine sister, 
Senator Wofford started out with the Peace Corps 30 years ago.
    One of the main reasons I ran for President is that I felt that we 
as Americans needed to make our life's journeys together rather than 
apart. I felt that we not only needed to change our direction and make 
more progress but that we had to do it by coming

[[Page 1756]]

together instead of drifting apart. Today we begin to fulfill that 
mission.
    For many of us, this journey of service reaches back to life growing 
up in places we called home, back to our classrooms, our church 
basements, our backyards, with the American traditions of community and 
service. So for many of us, today is just one step on what has been a 
lifetime journey.
    But what we do today and what we will do in the days and years ahead 
will give new life to the values that bind us as Americans. For service 
is about sacrifice for others and about accomplishment and fulfillment 
for ourselves, about reaching out, one person to another, about all of 
our choices gathered together as a country, to reach across all those 
things that divide us, about you and me individually and about all of us 
together, who we are as individuals and who we are as a nation.
    Service is a spark to rekindle the spirit of democracy in an age of 
uncertainty. We hear a great deal today about values, and so we must. I 
encourage America in that conversation. But when it is all said and 
done, it comes down to three simple questions: What is right? What is 
wrong? And what are we going to do about it?
    Today you are doing what is right, turning your words into deeds. In 
my Inaugural Address, I called upon America to a new season of renewal, 
a new season of service. And I said then what I firmly believe: There is 
nothing wrong with America that cannot be fixed by what is right with 
America.
    Well, all of you that are about to embark on this journey, as far as 
I'm concerned, you're what's right with America. Let's just look at a 
couple of our AmeriCorps volunteers. Laura Sullivan, who's here at the 
White House today, is helping people put their lives back on track and 
start their own businesses in Baltimore. Leo Negron out in Chicago is 
teaching construction skills to teenagers and offering them a role model 
for taking pride in their work. Sara Wittenberg in Seattle is showing us 
how to be stewards of our Nation's natural beauty.
    Twenty thousand more this year and 100,000 over the next 3 years, 
all of you will do things like this in hundreds of places all around our 
country: saving babies in south Texas, walking police beats in Brooklyn, 
working on boats to reclaim the Chesapeake Bay and working on new 
housing projects in Roxbury, taking seniors safely to the doctor in St. 
Louis, and helping children to learn to read in Sacramento.
    Every generation in our history has learned to take responsibility 
for this country, and yours is no exception. We look to you and know 
that you are no generation of slackers but instead a generation of doers 
who want--[applause]--we are grateful for those of you who wish to give 
back something to the country that has done so much for you and to the 
parents and loved ones who are with you today and who taught you that 
these values are important.
    Our greatness, after all, has never come from those who went in 
search of distant riches or personal glory. The people who really made 
this country great for over 200 years are ordinary people who make 
extraordinary sacrifices for the common good: the farm boys on the 
beaches of Normandy, the police officers walking the dark beats, the 
schoolteachers staying up late to help students from troubled homes to 
lead better lives.
    And you, the people of AmeriCorps, will be America's next generation 
of heroes. We need you now more than ever. So many of our people are 
alone and cut off from one another. So many others are deeply divided 
from each other, resentful, skeptical, even cynical about the 
possibilities of their own lives and the life of their country. You will 
devote your own potential to helping other people live up to their God-
given potential.
    You remind us how America has always worked best: by offering 
opportunity and demanding responsibility. We've seen over the last 20 
years that you can't have one without the other and expect the American 
community to grow and flourish.
    AmeriCorps says: Come together, citizens and businesses, schools and 
churches, come together as partners in progress to solve our problems 
and reach our promise. We know we will succeed not by Government edict, 
not by large bureaucracies but by the spirit of service and devotion 
that burns within the heart of every American.

[[Page 1757]]

    With AmeriCorps you are building your country's future and helping 
to build your own. For your hard work, those of you who serve will earn 
money for your education and the chance to do even more with your God-
given abilities, earning something that money can never buy as well. For 
you know now that you are helping to breathe new life into the spirit of 
the American Republic.
    Benjamin Franklin once said that if we don't hang together, we will 
surely hang separately. At the time he said it, he was worried about a 
foreign invader. But as the old comic strip character says, ``Today we 
have met the enemy, and it is us.'' We better hang together, folks, or 
we're going to hang separately. You are the glue that will enable us to 
hang together.
    We cannot go on as a nation of strangers, mistrusting one another 
because we've never had the chance to work side by side or had the 
chance to walk in one another's shoes. If we just stand only on our own 
ground, we will never find common ground. When I mentioned three of you, 
Leo, Laura, and Sara, before, I didn't tell you about their backgrounds. 
Laura is from a suburb of Boston. Leo is from the inner city of Chicago. 
Sara is from the farmlands of Wisconsin. Each will bring something 
special and different and unique from those places to their service of 
America.
    But each will surely learn, along with all the rest of you, that 
with all of our differences, we can belong to something larger than 
ourselves. I hope the nation that you serve will learn this as well from 
your shining example. We are all part of the American family joined by a 
common purpose, bound by a common sense of responsibility, challenged by 
common possibilities that know no limits.
    The only limit to the future of this country and to the future that 
all of you hope to have is what we are willing to demand of ourselves 
today and in the future. Generations before us have done the groundwork, 
and now we must build on those foundations.
    In just a moment, I will lead the 20,000 volunteers who are here, 
and some who have already done this a couple of hours ago across 
America, in a pledge. But I want to ask you and all Americans who will 
learn of this event to reflect on the words of that pledge, words like 
``action'' and ``commitment,'' ``community'' and ``common ground.'' It's 
more than a pledge of personal service; it's a creed for America, a 
creed we desperately need as we move forward to renew our great country 
in the 21st century.
    To all of you who have taken the pledge to join, who have entered 
this season of service, who have redeemed the most important commitment 
your President ever tried to make to the American people, to give us a 
chance to come together, to move forward together, I say thank you, and 
God bless you.
    Now let me ask all the AmeriCorps volunteers here to raise your hand 
and repeat after me: I will get things done for America to make our 
people safer, smarter, and healthier.
    I will bring America together to strengthen our communities. Faced 
with conflict, I will seek common ground. Faced with adversity, I will 
persevere. I will carry this commitment with me this year and beyond. I 
am an AmeriCorps member, and I am going to get things done.

[The AmeriCorps volunteers repeated the pledge line by line after the 
President.]

Note: The President spoke at approximately 4 p.m. on the North Grounds 
at the White House. In his remarks, he referred to Assistant to the 
President for National Service Eli Segal and the Vice President's 
sister, Nancy Gore.