[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 25 (Monday, June 23, 1997)]
[Pages 882-883]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Commencement Luncheon at the University of California San 
Diego in La Jolla

June 14, 1997

    Thank you very much for the gift. Chelsea will treasure the Dr. 
Seuss T-shirt, and it is an especially appropriate gift since last week 
I spoke at her high school graduation--believe it or not, I was much 
more nervous then than I was today--[laughter]--and I asked Chelsea and 
her classmates to forgive us, their parents, if we were acting a little 
weird that day. And I explained that we were reliving their whole lives 
and that, among other things, we wished just one more time we could read 
children's books to them. So that will always remind her of that, and I 
thank you.
    Let me say to your student body president-to-be, and to the young 
woman who spoke before me at the graduation, if Coleen and Souley are 
emblematic of the undergraduates at the University of California at San 
Diego, this country is in good hands, and you should be able to capture 
virtually every elected position in the entire State--[laughter]--in 
just a few years. It beats anything I ever saw. It was great.
    Let me also thank you for making Dr. John Hope Franklin and the 
members of the President's Advisory Board on Race and the members of my 
Cabinet and the White House and the Members of Congress who are here, 
making us feel so welcome. We brought quite a lot of interlopers here to 
this event today in the hope that it would impress upon the country and 
the press, which will have to tell the country about it, the importance 
of this issue and this moment and our intentions. You have given me a 
great opportunity to be here today, and you've given the Nation a great 
gift if we can do what we set out to do here. And I will never forget 
that.
    I'm especially glad to be here in San Diego to do this. You know, I 
spent a lot of time in this community over the last several years. I 
have come to love it and also to respect it, because I see the capacity 
here to make things work. One of the things I didn't get to talk about 
in my speech--you can't talk about everything--but in the end, we have 
to be judged by whether what we do makes sense or not and produces 
results. This community has one of the lowest crime rates of any major 
city in America. It deals with a whole wide range of complex problems, I 
think, in a very sensible way. And I see people here continually coming 
together across lines that divide them, and I hope that will be a model 
for the entire country. So for all those reasons, I'm very thankful.

[[Page 883]]

    And the last thing I have to say is that early this morning, when I 
had precious little sleep and my body clock was off anyway, my wife 
called with her last-minute criticisms of my speech--[laughter]--which 
is a routine I have come to look forward to in life. [Laughter] And as 
usual, she was right, what she had to say, and I made three changes she 
suggested I make in it. But the last thing she said was, she said, 
``Now, you remind those people that you've only been there once, and 
I've been there twice, and I loved it both times.'' [Laughter]
    Again, Chancellor and all of you as part of the UCSD family, I thank 
you. I thank you on behalf of all of us who have come to visit with you 
today. I thank you for the ideas you have given me. Dr. Franklin, 
members of the board, you might be interested to know, around the table 
here they asked what they could do to help. And I said, well, we needed 
more credible research, and we needed more sources of information for 
the American people about basic things, delivered in understandable 
ways. We'll never have the kind of national conversation we want until 
we first agree on at least most of the facts. You know, if you have a 
different view of the same set of facts than someone else, it is 
wonderful because you never have to give up your bias, because you can 
say, ``The poor soul just doesn't know the facts,'' so you can go right 
on with whatever you think and whatever you believe.
    We are going to need the help of the university community and groups 
like the National Academy of Sciences and others, and we will be back to 
you on that. But the most important thing is, what I saw in the eyes of 
the students of this great university today convinced me without any 
question, that we are doing the right thing, first, and secondly, that 
we will succeed.
    Thank you all. God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 1:24 p.m. in the Birch Aquarium at the 
Scripps Institute of Oceanography. In his remarks, he referred to Souley 
Diallo, incoming associated student body president, University of 
California San Diego; and historian John Hope Franklin, Chair, 
President's Advisory Board on Race. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of these remarks.