[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 14 (Monday, April 6, 1998)]
[Pages 526-527]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
The President's Radio Address

March 28, 1998

    Good morning. In the storefronts and shop windows of Jonesboro, 
Arkansas, there are signs that read, ``Our hearts are with Westside 
Middle School.'' Even though Hillary and I are far away from our home 
State, our hearts, too, are with Westside, and with the grieving 
families whose loved ones were killed or injured in that tragic incident 
just 4 days ago.
    This is the third time in recent months that a quiet town, and our 
Nation, have been shaken by the awful specter of students being killed 
by other young people at schools. We join the families of Jonesboro and 
all America in mourning this terrible loss of young life, life so full 
of promise and hope so cruelly cut short.
    We mourn the loss of Natalie Brooks, of Paige Ann Herring, of 
Stephanie Johnson, of Brittany Varner, and of a heroic teacher, Shannon 
Wright, who sacrificed her own life to save a child. These five names 
will be etched in our memories forever and linked forever with the names 
of Nicole Hadley, Jessica James, and Kayce Steger of Paducah, Kentucky, 
and Lydia Kay Dew and Christina Mennefee of Pearl, Mississippi. Our 
thoughts and our prayers are with all their families today.
    We do not understand what drives children, whether in small towns or 
big cities, to pick up guns and take the lives of others. We may never 
make sense of the senseless, but we have to try. We have seen a 
community come together in grief and compassion for one another, and in 
the determination that terrible acts like these must no longer threaten 
our Nation's children.
    Parents across America should welcome the news reported just this 
month by Attorney General Reno and Education Secretary Riley that the 
vast majority of our schools are safe and free of violent crime. We've 
worked hard to make our schools places of learning, not fear, places 
where children can worry about math and science, not guns, drugs, and 
gangs. But when a terrible tragedy like this occurs, it reminds us there 
is work yet to be done.
    I have directed Attorney General Reno to bring together experts on 
school violence to analyze these incidents to determine what they have 
in common and whether there are further steps we can take to reduce the 
likelihood of something so terrible recurring.
    Already we've seen the remarkable difference community policing has 
made in our Nation's streets. Now we have to apply that same energy and 
resolve to our schools to make them safer places for children to learn, 
play, and grow. At school there must be full compliance with our policy 
of zero tolerance toward guns, and at home there should be no easy 
access to weapons that kill.
    Protecting our children from school violence is more than a matter 
of law or policy; at heart, it is a matter of basic values, of 
conscience and community. We must teach our children to respect others. 
We must instill in them a deep, abiding sense of right and wrong. And to 
children who are troubled,

[[Page 527]]

angry, or alone, we must extend a hand before they destroy the lives of 
others and destroy their own in the process.
    We have to understand that young children may not fully appreciate 
the consequences of actions that are destructive but may be able to be 
romanticized at a twisted moment. And we have to make sure that they 
don't fall into that trap.
    Three towns: Jonesboro, Pearl, Paducah--too many precious lives 
lost. The white ribbons that flutter today in my home State of Arkansas 
are a poignant and powerful challenge to all of us, a challenge to come 
together for the sake of our children and for the future of our Nation.
    Thanks for listening.

Note: The address was recorded at 12:52 p.m. on March 27 at the Cape 
Grace Hotel in Cape Town, South Africa, for broadcast at 10:06 a.m. on 
March 28.