[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 32, Number 34 (Monday, August 26, 1996)]
[Pages 1468-1471]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Salem Missionary Baptist Church in Fruitland, Tennessee

August 19, 1996

    Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you very, very much. Reverend 
Donaldson, before the sun went underneath that cloud for a minute, I was 
beginning to wonder how a place so close to heaven could be so hot. 
[Laughter]
    But I am very glad to be here. Hillary and I are delighted to be 
here with Reverend and Mrs. Donaldson, and Reverend and Mrs. Vaughan, 
and our good friend John Tanner, Governor McWherter, and the other folks 
from Tennessee public life. I also wanted to say Reverend Donaldson gave 
you a big plug, Mr. Barnett. He said if it hadn't been for you and the 
leaders of the church, you all wouldn't be here today. And I thank you, 
too, for what you've done. Thank you.
    I want to begin my remarks by presenting to Reverend Donaldson and 
Reverend Vaughan a plaque with a statement I made about this whole issue 
not very long ago that says, ``We must come together as one America to 
rebuild our churches, restore hope, and show the forces of hatred they 
cannot win.'' And I wanted you both to have these plaques when you 
reopen your church so that people all over this part of the country 
could see that what you have done is a symbol of the best in our faith 
and the best in our country.

[[Page 1469]]

    So if you would come up. Reverend Donaldson and Reverend Vaughan, 
I'd like to give you these plaques.

[At this point, the President presented the plaques.]

    You know, I think I'll start my brief remarks here just by picking 
up on something that Reverend Donaldson said about politics and 
differences and how he was sure that every President had done something 
that somebody disagreed with. After 4 years, I'm sure that every 
President has done something that everybody disagreed with. [Laughter] 
But part of what we're dealing with today, folks, is not only how we 
live our faith but how we manage our differences.
    And as your President--I want you to think about this--as your 
President, an enormous percentage of my time in dealing with America's 
relationship to the rest of the world is required of people who refuse 
to get along with each other because of their religious, their racial, 
their ethnic, or their tribal differences. That is what has convulsed 
the Holy Land for decades now. That is what brought the people in 
Bosnia, after decades and decades of peace, to slaughtering each other 
as if they were animals for 4 years.
    In Northern Ireland, the part of Ireland which ought to be the most 
prosperous and successful, it's what keeps Protestants and Catholics 
apart. They're still refighting 600-year-old battles when the kids want 
them to join hands and march into the future together. In Rwanda and 
Burundi, tribal differences have kept two small countries convulsed with 
mass slaughter when they ought to be trying to figure out how to feed 
their children.
    I see this everywhere. And I thank God for the wisdom of our 
Founding Fathers who said, first, that people are created equal, and 
second, that the right to the freedom of religion is the first 
amendment, the first and most important right we have. And so I ask you 
to think about that.
    I said the other day that I hoped that we could get out of the point 
in our politics where we trade in insults and go back to fighting over 
ideas, when we realize that not every election is a race between a saint 
and a scoundrel but instead a contest to find out what the best truth is 
for our country to move forward together.
    I might say in that context, I noticed one of your neighbors here 
who is running for the United States Senate, Houston and his wife, 
Debbie Gordon. I thank them for coming, and I wish you well, sir. Thank 
you.
    I want to encourage everybody to participate in our process just as 
we encourage everyone to practice their faith. The genius of America is 
we have found a way to manage our differences and to keep coming closer 
to the ideals of our Constitution.
    We've had our troubles, too. We've had our troubles in trying to 
come to grips with the fact that our Constitution was inconsistent with 
our practice when it said all people are created equal. We had a Civil 
War in this country. We had a long civil rights struggle. We had a lot 
of challenges. But we're still here after 220 years, stronger than ever, 
because we found a way to work together--not just blacks and whites 
anymore.
    You know, when we had the Olympics and the Vice President and Tipper 
and Hillary and I went to Atlanta, there were representatives from 197 
different nations there. Our largest county, Los Angeles County, has 
folks from 150 of those places in it. Now, that's an amazing thing and a 
great tribute to the United States.
    We say, ``If you come here, we'll give you the freedom to speak; 
we'll give you the freedom to assemble; we'll give you the freedom to 
move around; we'll give you the freedom of religion, but you can't look 
down on somebody else because they're of a different religion, a 
different race, a different ethnic group, a different tribe. You got to 
treat people as if they're equal in the eyes of God and the law.''
    And so, I tell you that I have spent a lot of time on this church 
burning issue because I think it is a test of our character as a people 
and because we must never even begin to go down that road that has ended 
in the dark alleys of slaughter in Bosnia, the continuing agony in the 
Middle East, and all the other places in the world where people cannot 
get along because they insist on living their lives by being able to 
look down on people because they're different from them instead of 
trying to lift everybody up because they're

[[Page 1470]]

all children of God. And we must not start down that road. We have to 
stamp out their feelings whenever we see them manifest.
    Let's face it, every one of us at some time in our lives--not a 
single soul here can say that you're not guilty at some time in your 
life of defining yourself because you could look down on somebody else--
say, ``Well, I may not be perfect, but at least I'm not that person.'' 
[Laughter] ``At least I'm not this, that, or the other thing.'' Every 
one of us is guilty of that. And we know there's something in human 
nature that makes people do that. But when it's uncontrolled, you have 
all this slaughter and heartache.
    So Hillary and Tipper and Al and I, we've worked hard to try to 
rally the American people to deal with this problem of church burning 
because we don't even want to see it start in America. We're still 
around here after all these years because we believe people should be 
free to practice their faith. And, you know, now it's a Baptist and a 
Methodist church--we've had a lot of synagogues defaced; we've had three 
Islamic centers burned in this country, and that's not right either.
    So what I want to say to you is that you're not just rebuilding your 
church here, you're showing America what's special about America. And by 
doing that, you're leading us into a brighter and better future instead 
of back into the kind of dark path that has divided and torn asunder so 
many other nations and that in times past has made America less than it 
ought to be.
    You have given us a great gift by allowing us to come here and share 
this day with you, and I want to mention that too. This is a problem 
that's a people problem. This is an opportunity that's an opportunity of 
the heart and conviction. There's things that the Government has to do. 
We're doing everything we can to help local law enforcement officials to 
find out who's burned all these churches. We got guilty pleas from two 
former Ku Klux Klan members in South Carolina just last week. We're 
working to charge some others that we now know have burned some of these 
churches. We will spare no effort to catch and prosecute people we can 
find. We will follow up every lead we are given. But fundamentally, we 
know that this issue has to be addressed by people who live in and 
around and who attend these churches and other religious institutions. 
This is an affair of the heart, and we celebrate today a triumph of the 
American spirit.
    Let me say, too, that we are standing on the brink of a new century. 
The kids in this audience today, some of these kids will be doing jobs 
20 years from now that have not been invented yet. Some of these 
children will be doing jobs that have not been imagined yet. People that 
live in little rural places, within a matter of a few years, thanks in 
no small measure to the work that Al Gore has done to bring the benefits 
of the Internet and computer technology to every classroom, every 
hospital, and every library in America by the year 2000, they will have 
access to things that no child in rural America has ever known before. 
And that is a wonderful thing. And our children will be able to live 
their dreams more than any generation of Americans before them if, but 
only if, we don't forget what ``brung'' us, as we used to say at home. 
[Laughter]
    You know, my people come from a little place in Arkansas that looks 
a lot like this. And I was looking at the soybeans and the cotton and 
the corn--needs a little water; we'll pray for that today--[laughter]--
going down these fields thinking about how wonderful it's going to be if 
the benefits of technology allow people to enjoy the virtues and the 
strength and the joys of rural life and still access the modern world. 
That's what I think is going to happen, as long as we don't forget what 
``brung'' us.
    And so you've given us a gift today. The Scripture says, ``Much is 
required from those whom much is given.'' Well, there may not be any 
millionaires in this crowd today or many millionaires that are members 
of these two small churches, but you have shown us again the meaning of 
those words. You have shown us that we have more than we think and that 
we can give more than we think. And therefore, you've given us a chance 
to live the Scripture today.
    That's why Tipper and I wanted to spend our birthdays here. That's 
why Al and Hillary wanted to be with us. And let me say, that's why our 
children came too.
    And I want to thank Reverend Donaldson's daughter for taking such 
good

[[Page 1471]]

care of our children. We have Karenna and Sarah and Albert Gore, and our 
daughter Chelsea, are here, and we're all honored to be here with you 
today.
    Every time you drive past one of these two churches from now on you 
think about that. When the two congregations got together, when people 
began to reach across the lines that divide us, when people began to 
reassert their belief in the freedom of religion--every time you do that 
you're sticking up for what's made America great for over 200 years, and 
you're standing up against what is tearing the heart of the rest of the 
world. This can be--this day, this church, that church down the road--a 
symbol of everything to you every time you see it that makes America the 
greatest country in human history.
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 2:10 p.m. In his remarks, he referred to 
Rev. Daniel Donaldson, pastor, Salem Baptist Church, and his wife, 
Athalia; Rev. Bill Vaughan, pastor, New Shiloh United Methodist Church, 
and his wife, Marge; Representative John Tanner; former Gov. Ned Ray 
McWherter of Tennessee; Lincoln Barnett, chairman, deacon board, Salem 
Baptist Church; Houston Gordon, Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate 
from Tennessee, and his wife, Debbie.