[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 33, Number 45 (Monday, November 10, 1997)]
[Pages 1710-1711]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks in the Arts and Culture Session of the Democratic National 
Committee's Autumn Retreat on Amelia Island

November 1, 1997

[The discussion is joined in progress.]

    Q. With regard to the national, also looking to the international, I 
have a couple of questions I'd like to ask the President. What impact do 
you think on our culture and our arts Cuba will have after Castro?
    The President. Well, if you think baseball is an art form, and I 
do--[laughter]--it will be huge. [Laughter]
    No, to be more serious, there are a lot of Cuban artists, Cuban 
musicians. All you have to do is look at the impact of South American, 
Central American music and arts in the United States now--Caribbean art. 
I think it's obvious that it will be significant. It will be one--when 
we get back together with more normal relations with Cuba, it will be 
one of the principal benefits of it.
    Let me say, if I might, on the general point, Glenn made the points 
that I wanted to make about this. The assault on the NEA and the NEH 
needs to be seen against the background of the apparently less 
ideologically driven reduction in the availability of music and art 
generally in the schools, in the public schools, which we saw because of 
financial problems and other decisions being made.
    If you look at what's happened--and let me explain that. The cutting 
of the budget of the NEH and the NEA and the attempt to do away with 
them basically had two legs of support, not one. There was obviously the 
sort of right-wing ideological attack based on the symbolism of some 
controversially funded projects, photography exhibits or whatever. 
Beyond that, there were Members of Congress, with the deficit being what 
it was, making the same sort of judgments that school board members made 
all across America: ``I can't dismantle the football team and the 
basketball team; I'll get rid of the arts and the music program for all 
the kids, because, by definition, most of them aren't all that good in 
art and music. And nobody is going to come down on me if I do it. And I 
don't have to take on any institutional interests to do it. And after 
all, it's just a piddly amount of money.''
    Now, I think because the Balanced Budget Act has been passed and 
we've cut the deficit by more than 20 percent and because we have taken 
on the ideological argument, I think, and, first of all, tried to 
respond to some of the more legitimate concerns about how the projects 
were funded and, secondly, tried to reaffirm the positive notions that 
what the NEA and NEH has done--I think at the national level we've sort 
of stemmed the hemorrhage. I would submit that that's not nearly enough, 
first of all, because it's only a small portion of the more. And 
secondly, because I think what you said is terribly important. We have 
all this data that kids that come from different cultures with different 
languages have their language facilitation, their ability to learn 
English, to read in English, to think and relate to people in a new 
culture dramatically accelerated if they're more proficient and more 
exposed to music and arts and other ways of hooking their mind in.
    We have a lot of evidence that kids from very difficult situations 
do much better in math if they have a sustained exposure to music, for 
reasons that are fairly obvious, if you think about it.
    So what I would like to ask all of you to do--I'd like to invite you 
to do something.

[[Page 1711]]

I don't have an answer; this is not a set-up deal. I never thought about 
it until I realized I was going to come do this panel. I have given a 
lot of thought to what our gift to the next century ought to be in terms 
of our approach to the arts. And yes, I'm glad I stood up for the NEA 
and the NEH, and I won a political battle--fine. It's one percent of the 
more.
    What should we do with this one percent of the money? If we want 
more than this, what case should we make for getting more? What would we 
do with it? And in a larger sense, what should our mission be in terms 
of the public role of the arts, particularly for our children? What 
arguments could we make to make the schools have it a priority again?
    I see something like the Harlem Boys Choir or all these incredible 
arts programs in New York or whatever, and I feel two things: I am 
exhilarated, like we all are, but then I wonder how many other little 
kids are going out there to some other school every day where they still 
don't even have a music teacher. And what about them?
    That's not an argument not to do what's being done, but I would 
invite you--a lot of you know so much more about this than I do, but I'm 
telling you, I've been in school after school after school after school 
where the buildings are old, and they can't be maintained, and they shut 
down the music and arts programs, and they shut down, by the way, all 
the recreational programs except for the varsity sports, which I also 
think is a mistake.
    People are whole people. Even poor kids--you talked about this--it's 
hard to say, ``Why spend money on the arts when you have problems with 
welfare and poverty and all that?'' Because poor people need their 
spirits nourished. Most children are not all that conscious of being 
poor unless they're genuinely deprived or brutalized. But when they grow 
up, they remember experiences that lift their spirits when they're 
young.
    So I guess what I'm saying is, we need an affirmative strategy. We 
played good defense, and we won--big deal. How would you go to a 
conservative Republican group in town X and argue that this investment 
ought to be made either in the National Endowment of the Arts or in the 
community, or that the arts and music programs ought to be restored and 
here's why. That's what we need now, and that's what we ought to be 
doing now. We shouldn't be playing defense with this issue.
    I mean, so what? You won a fight in Congress over one percent of the 
money. It was very important symbolically because it gave dignity and 
strength and integrity to your efforts, and I'm very glad we fought it. 
It also makes a lot of difference to some programs in the country. But 
we need an affirmative strategy for the next century.
    And I hope one of the things that will come out of this seminar is 
that some of you will come out of this being willing to work with our 
Millennium Project and with the White House generally to get off the 
defense and get on offense. And I don't mean to hurt anybody else. I 
don't see this as necessarily a big political winner for us. I'm not 
interested in the politics of this. I'm just talking about what's right 
for the children and the future of this country.

Note: The President spoke at 11:50 a.m. in Plaza One at the Ritz-Carlton 
Hotel. In his remarks, he referred to Glenn D. Lowry, director, The 
Museum of Modern Art.