[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 24 (Monday, June 15, 1998)]
[Pages 1057-1059]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at the Grand Opening of the Thoreau Institute in Lincoln

June 5, 1998

    Thank you, please sit down. Well, we've been here a long time in 
this beautiful setting, and if Thoreau were here, he would say we need 
more silence and less talk. But I have immensely enjoyed what has been 
said.
    Senator Kerry has been a consistent, devoted supporter of the 
environment, and he was profoundly eloquent about it today. Senator 
Kennedy has worked so hard for projects like this one for so long now, 
but he has a way of telling a personal story that brings home to people, 
who might not otherwise be engaged, the importance of the moment.
    You know, I thought I'd get a few brownie points for coming here and 
saying, because

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of his work here, I gave Don Henley the National Humanities Medal last 
year. But that's nothing compared to Ted Kennedy coming here and calling 
him the ``big fish'' and the ``distant drummer'' at the same time. 
[Laughter]
    I would very much like to thank all the people who Don mentioned. I 
know Ed Begley, Jr., and Tony Bennett were on before; they've been good 
friends of ours. I thank Jimmy Buffett and Joe Walsh and all the 
musicians and other friends of Don who have helped. I thank you, Kathi, 
for your magnificent work. And I'm grateful to the National Endowment 
for the Humanities for supporting this project. And I thank you all for 
clapping when we said we weren't going to let it be done away with, 
along with the NEA.
    I'd like to recognize two people who aren't here today, but who 
played an important role in getting this endeavor off the ground with 
Don: the late Paul Tsongas and the late Michael Kennedy. Thank you, to 
them.
    Hillary and I got to walk a little along the path coming down here 
today. It's very frustrating being where we are now because back when we 
had real lives, we used to walk in the woods a lot. [Laughter] And so to 
be able to come here and only be able to walk 200 yards so that our 
friends with the cameras could at least get a good picture so the 
American people could get a real feel for the magnificent work that's 
been done here, it winds up almost being more real to them than it is to 
us sometimes. [Laughter] But it was enough just to see what moved 
Thoreau to move here on July 4, 1845, so that he could live deeply and 
deliberately.
    In a way, he was engaging in his own experiment in independence, in 
the finest tradition of American citizenship. A lot of you know that 
Thoreau was a friend of Emerson, who talked about our Revolution as 
``the shot heard 'round the world.'' In many ways, Thoreau's sojourn 
here at Walden was also a shot heard 'round the world. And it continues 
to echo today. That's why, as Hillary said, we have to, all of us, 
support saving it, along with our other national treasures.
    I want to reiterate something Don said in a rather delicate, soft, 
Southern fashion: They need more money here. [Laughter] And since we'll 
probably be on television, if anyone within the sound of my voice--
[laughter]--whoever read Thoreau, who was ever inspired by his writings 
and what he stood for, we have to raise a $12 million endowment and pay 
off a construction loan. Send a check. [Laughter] You'll be proud you 
did. [Applause] Thank you.
    Well, let me get back to the point I mentioned. Thoreau has echoed 
over the decades and now more than a century. And what do we have to 
learn from him, and what does it mean in 21st century terms? First, we 
have to live in harmony with nature. What does that mean? That's one 
thing for one guy living on a pond. You've got 260 million people in 
this country; they can't do that. What does it mean?
    For us, it means that we have to completely give up the notion that 
we can only grow our economy if we destroy the environment, and we'll 
just do it little by little. We have to learn a whole new way of 
thinking so that we grow our economy by improving the environment and 
living in greater harmony with ourselves here in this country and around 
the world. It is a fundamental insight that Americans of all political 
factions, all backgrounds, all walks of life must embrace.
    Second, in an era where for the first time in history more people on 
the globe live under governments of their own choosing than do not, the 
first time ever a majority of people live under governments of their own 
choosing, it is well to remember that oppression still lives in the 
world and that there is a great deal of tension and, as the Good Book 
says, wars and rumors of war. We must not forget both the power and 
moral superiority of civil disobedience over violence in the face of 
injustice.
    As Hillary said, Dr. King, Gandhi, Mandela, all were moved by the 
insights of Thoreau. We must not forget that today. We must not forget 
for a moment the value of self-reliance; nor must we forget the fact 
that Thoreau came here and wrote about solitude, that he learned more 
about his fellow human beings and the proper relations among people from 
his solitude, because if he had too much contact with other people, he 
thought you came to take too much for granted and frittered too much 
away. We must be both

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self-reliant and interdependent, and that is a lesson that Thoreau 
learned that we can learn from him today. And in a world that is getting 
smaller and smaller and smaller, it is a very important lesson, indeed.
    Finally--I love this quote, so I want to close with it. We have to 
understand that in a fundamental, moral way we are interconnected not 
only with nature but with all other people, and that any attempt to 
define ourselves in a way that elevates us at someone else's expense--
any effort anywhere in the world by people to put themselves in a group 
that can only succeed if they're putting someone else down is wrong and, 
in this world, unaffordable. Listen to what Thoreau said: ``Let us 
settle ourselves and work and wedge our feet downward through the mud 
and slush of prejudice and delusion till we come to a hard bottom and 
rocks in place which we can call reality.''
    It is a great mistake to think this man was just a dreamer. Like all 
truly wise people, he understood that altruism was the ultimate form of 
enlightened self-interest, that no one can pursue self-interest and 
material things devoid of a heart or a spirit.
    Today we still have a whole lot of ``mud and slush of prejudice and 
delusion'' in this and every other society. With all our prosperity, we 
still can't afford it; there is too much to be done.
    So let us hope and pray that Walden Pond will flourish. Let us hope 
and pray that people will come to these woods forever from now on to 
learn not only more about themselves and their relationship with nature 
but the proper order of human society and the responsibility of every 
citizen to preserve it. If that happens, Don Henley and all of his 
cohorts will have given an astounding gift to America's future.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:30 p.m. on the lawn of the Institute. In 
his remarks, he referred to musician Don Henley, founder, and Kathi 
Anderson, executive director, Thoreau Institute; actor Ed Begley, Jr.; 
singer Tony Bennett; musicians Jimmy Buffett and Joe Walsh; and 
President Nelson Mandela of South Africa. This item was not received in 
time for publication in the appropriate issue.