[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 18 (Monday, May 5, 1997)]
[Pages 626-629]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Democratic National Committee Gala

May 1, 1997

    Thank you very much. Mr. Vice President, thank you for that overly 
generous introduction. I loved every word of it. [Laughter] That 5 
minutes was the best 5 minutes I ever lost in my Presidency. He hasn't 
been the same person since.
    I want to thank Tipper and Al and Hillary, all of them in their 
various ways for being unique parts of our rather unique team. I want to 
thank Tommy Lee Jones for coming here tonight and for giving that fine 
speech and being loyal to his old friend Al Gore.
    You know, I'm not as mobile as I normally am, and I've been in this 
big old awkward chair, and I heard Tommy Lee's voice sort of booming 
out, you know, and I couldn't decide whether I was the fugitive and I 
ought to be on the run, whether I was Batman and I should duck--I didn't 
know what I should do. [Laughter] You know, I really enjoyed watching 
Tommy Lee and Al's friendship; they have a lot in common. They sort of 
like to shoot the bull, and when they get around each other--they've 
been friends so long, their accents get thicker, you know. And the 
stories get more embellished. Just like any other two rednecks from 
Harvard you ever met. [Laughter]
    I want to thank our distinguished leaders, Governor Romer and Steve 
Grossman, and the dinner chairs, Abe Pollin, Tommy Boggs, Morty Barr, 
Janice Griffin, Bob Johnson. Thank you, Alan Solomont and Dan Dudko and 
Carol Pensky. Thanks to the entertainers. But I'd like to ask you all to 
give a special

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hand to our dinner chairs--they worked like crazy to bring this off for 
us tonight and I thank them for it very much.
    I won't take long tonight, but I want to just reinforce a couple of 
things the Vice President said. Tomorrow, we're going to dedicate this 
memorial to Franklin Roosevelt, a man who believed in bold, persistent 
experimentation; a man who became President at the country's lowest ebb 
in this century and whose faith and optimism and determination carried 
us a very long way. When Al Gore and I sought your support and the votes 
of the American people in 1992, we were, thankfully, in nowhere near 
that much trouble. But it was clear that we were in the midst of drift 
and division and deadlock. It was clear that we were going through a 
period of profound change, moving into a new century, a new millennium, 
and a new way of living together, and that we had, as a nation, no clear 
strategy to pursue.
    And I had a simple idea that I wanted my daughter and her children 
to grow up in an America in the 21st century where everyone willing to 
work for it had opportunity; where all citizens recognize that there 
were no rights without responsibility; where we cherish our diversity, 
instead of being torn asunder by it; and we grew together, closer as one 
America; and where we embrace the world, instead of running away from 
it; and we're glad to be still the leading force for peace and freedom 
and prosperity. That is what I want, that is what I wanted, and that is 
what we are going to have in the 21st century, thanks to you and 
millions of Americans like you all across this country.
    And I thought to do it, we would have to experiment. I had some 
ideas that people said were nutty, and they weren't appropriately pure. 
They were not perfectly liberal or perfectly conservative. I had this 
crazy idea that you could reduce the deficit and still increase 
investment in people, in education; that you could actually reduce the 
size of Government but put more money into the things people needed; 
that you could actually help business and labor; that you could actually 
grow the economy and preserve and even improve the environment.
    Now, we started this economic program, and all of our friends in the 
other party voted against it and said it was crazy and it would never 
work. Well, sooner or later, the posturing has to not count nearly as 
much as the results. We've had a record number of new jobs, a record 
number of new businesses. We have the strongest, healthiest economy in 
30 years, and wages are going up and inequality in this country is going 
down among working families for the first time in over 20 years. And you 
should be proud of that because you made it happen. I'm proud of it, and 
I want you to be proud of it.
    I had this idea that crime was not a political football that you 
should position yourself around in Washington with a bunch of rhetoric, 
that it really would make a difference if we put community policing back 
into America's streets, and we put more police on the street. Not just 
Dwayne and Eddie, the two that Al put when he was President, but--
[laughter]--99,998 more. And we're well on the way.
    And I thought it was silly to say that an American citizen couldn't 
favor the right of sports people and hunters to use their weapons and 
not be for sensible restraints on gun ownership and acquisition by 
criminals, and dangerous people and people who were incompetent should 
not have them. I thought that was wrong.
    When we passed the crime bill, they said, ``Well, it didn't fit into 
anybody's little box.'' All I know is crime is still going down every 
year, there are more police on the street, America is a safer place 
today because we were interested in what would work to fulfill our 
values. And if people are not secure in America, they are not fully 
free. We were right, and you should be proud of that. I want you to be 
proud of it.
    Well, I could go through a lot of other issues. I'm proud of what we 
did in Haiti and Bosnia and the Middle East and Northern Ireland. I'm 
proud of the way we reached out to Russia and to expand NATO. I'm proud 
of the fact that we said we are going forward as one country, and we 
started the AmeriCorps program, to give young people a chance to serve 
their country and earn some money to go to college.
    And as I look back on it, I would have to say that, thanks to all 
those things and the family and medical leave law, the initiative

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on tobacco, and a lot of other things, this country has more 
opportunity, more responsibility, a closer-knit community, and is 
stronger in the world in its leadership role than it would have been if 
we'd stayed the course that was dominant in 1992. You were right, and 
you should be proud of it--and a whole lot better off than we'd have 
been if the ``Contract With America'' had not been stopped in 1995.
    Now, in the first hundred days of this administration, Democrats and 
Republicans are working in good faith in the hope that we can reach a 
budget agreement. But what we want is simple and clear: We want to 
balance the budget and invest more in education, extend health care to 
children. Yes, we didn't win the health care fight, but Franklin 
Roosevelt was for experimentation. I'm glad I tried to give the hard-
working families in this country health insurance. I'm not sorry I tried 
to do that. I think we were right to try, and we ought to at least give 
it to the children of America in this term. We can do that.
    We ought to continue to clean up the environment. Now that we're 
requiring people on welfare who are able-bodied to go to work, we ought 
to make darn sure the jobs are there for them. And we ought to stop the 
punishment, unjust, of legal immigrants in this country who work hard 
and do their part to make our country strong.
    We've got that kind of budget, and I hope we've got that kind of 
budget negotiations going. We've got 20 percent of the country committed 
already in the first 100 days to embracing national standards for 
learning, and for the first time ever in America, having an examination 
of fourth and eighth graders in reading and math. We have got hundreds 
of businesses--hundreds and hundreds--committed to helping us move a 
million people from welfare to work.
    We had Hillary's conference on early childhood and the brain and the 
magnificent summit of service in Philadelphia last weekend. That 
embodies what I think America is at its best, putting people first, 
putting our country's future first, not taking cheap shots. And after a 
long fight, we also ratified the Chemical Weapons Convention, which will 
take us a long way toward eradicating the threat of chemical weapons 
from the face of the Earth. We are moving in the right direction.
    What I want to say to you tonight in closing are two brief points: 
First of all, it bothers me that members of both parties, at this moment 
of America's greatest influence, most profound economic and social 
renovation, when we are in the greatest position of all to try to bring 
the people of the world together in economic cooperation and 
competition, advancing democracy and human rights, finding ways globally 
to preserve our little planet's environment--that people in both parties 
somehow feel afraid of the future and afraid of the rest of the world, 
and don't want to eagerly embrace it.
    If you believe for a moment that we can fulfill the legacy of 
Franklin Roosevelt and continue to lead the world by hunkering down, 
withdrawing, turning our backs on a waiting world that longs for what we 
now almost take for granted, that is wrong. The Democratic Party at the 
end of World War II under Franklin Roosevelt and Harry Truman said to 
the rest of the world, ``Come on, we'll all get together and go forward 
together,'' and I want you to be a part of that kind of Democratic Party 
for the 21st century.
    And the last thing I want to say is that Franklin Roosevelt was an 
awfully good politician. After all, he managed to get himself elected 4 
times. He managed to always look happy and strong and confident no 
matter what personal pain he might have endured. And he was marvelously 
successful because he liked people and he liked politics.
    And I hope you're here tonight because you like politics. And I hope 
you never stop liking politics. And I wish that we could have had this 
event tonight in the Lincoln Bedroom, but we did not have enough coffee 
in the White House. [Laughter]
    Now, the next time somebody asks you why you're helping us, tell 
them the stories I told you tonight and think about the people you know 
whose lives have been changed by what we have done in moving the AIDS 
drugs more rapidly to market, in coming out for the family leave law, in 
making college more affordable for people, in creating all these jobs to 
give people the chance to work in dignity, and having the biggest drop 
in

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welfare rolls in the history of the country. Now, you think about that. 
All that was made possible by the American political system.
    I am proud of you. I want you to be proud of you. And I want you to 
get up tomorrow and say, ``I'm glad I was part of that. America is 
better than it was four years ago. It's going to be better four years 
from now. And the most important thing is my grandchildren will live in 
a 21st century that is worthy of American's glorious past.''
    Thank you, and God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 9:20 p.m. at the D.C. Armory. In his 
remarks, he referred to actor Tommy Lee Jones; Gov. Roy Romer of 
Colorado, general chair, Steve Grossman, national chair, Alan D. 
Solomont, national finance chair, Carol Pensky, treasurer, Democratic 
National Committee; Abe Pollin, owner of the NBA Washington Bullets and 
the NHL Washington Capitals; Tommy Boggs, attorney; Dan Dutko, chair, 
Victory Fund; Morton Bahr, international president, Communications 
Workers of America; Janice Griffin, Vice President, Prudential; and 
Robert L. Johnson, chairman and chief executive officer, BET Holdings, 
Inc.