[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 34, Number 45 (Monday, November 9, 1998)]
[Pages 2253-2258]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on Presenting the Arts and Humanities Awards

November 5, 1998

    The President. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen, for the wonderful 
welcome. I just realized that at the moment of greatest unity for my 
political party in many years, my wife has told the president of the 
AFL-CIO that I crossed a picket line. [Laughter] But it's true. 
[Laughter]
    Let me join Hillary in thanking the representatives of the NEA, the 
NEH, the Museum and Library Services for all they have done. I thank 
Senator Baucus, Senator Durbin, Congressman and Mrs. Engel, 
Congresswoman Morella for being here and for their support for the arts 
and humanities.
    There are many, many other supporters in both parties of the arts 
and humanities in the Congress who wanted to be here today, but in light 
of Tuesday's election results in Minnesota, they're in the gym working 
out. [Laughter]
    I'd like to thank our USIA Director, Joe Duffy, for being here, and 
a special thanks to our wonderful Secretary of Education, Dick Riley, 
and his wife, Tunky. Thank you for being here. Secretary Riley's going 
to persuade them to try to work out their minds as well as their bodies. 
[Laughter]
    Paul Klee once said, ``Art does not reproduce the visible, rather it 
makes it visible.'' Today, we honor an extraordinary group of Americans 
whose daring vision and indelible contributions to arts and humanities 
have opened all our eyes to the richness, diversity, and miracles of the 
human experience.
    We are blessed to live in an era of breathtaking change and 
unlimited possibility: an economy that is the strongest in a generation; 
hopeful reductions in many of our social problems; around the world, a 
surging tide of democracy in lands where creativity and freedom once 
were viciously suppressed; an emerging global community united 
increasingly by the technological revolution, commercial ties, and 
greater interaction.
    But we know that change also, always, brings new challenges and, 
perhaps, even as important, can obstruct old, unresolved difficulties. 
Now more than ever, therefore, we need our artists and patrons, our 
historians and educators to help us make sense of the world in which we 
live, to remind us about what really matters in life, to embody the 
values we Americans hold most dear: freedom of expression, and tolerance 
and respect for diversity.
    For more than 200 years, through dance and songs, in paint or on 
paper, Americans have expressed their individuality and their common 
humanity. This tradition of our shared culture is one we must nurture 
and take with us into the new millennium.
    Today we proudly honor 19 men and women, a theater troupe, and one 
organization, all of whom have laid the foundation for a new century of 
greater American creativity.
    First, the National Medal of the Arts. More than 50 years ago, a New 
York City mother, looking for a way to keep her 7-year-old son off the 
streets, decided to send him with his sister to her ballet class. From 
there, Jacques D'Amboise leapt to the pinnacle of the dance, thrilling 
audiences as principal dancers for the New York City Ballet, landing 
roles in Hollywood musicals, creating timeless ballets of his own. With 
his National Dance Institute, he has given thousands of children, like 
those we saw today, the same opportunity he had, to strive for 
excellence and expression through dance.
    Those who know him know he would walk a thousand miles for his kids. 
And this spring he will be doing just that, hiking the length of the 
Appalachian Trail to raise money for his institute.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Jacques D'Amboise.

[[Page 2254]]

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. D'Amboise.]

    The President. From ``Blueberry Hill'' to Capitol Hill, and 
countless concert halls and honky-tonks in between, Fats Domino has 
brought musical joy to millions, including me. I was this morning trying 
to remember all the lyrics to all the songs that I could. I will spare 
you a recitation. [Laughter]
    Antoine Domino grew up in New Orleans speaking French, English, and 
boogie-woogie. His talent was as big as his frame and his nickname. In a 
career spanning half a century, his rich voice and distinctive piano 
style helped to define rock and roll, the music that more than any other 
creative force in America has brought the races together. When I heard 
he couldn't make the ceremony I thought, ``Ain't That a Shame.'' 
[Laughter] But I'm thrilled that his daughter, Antoinette Domino Smith, 
is here to accept the medal on behalf of her remarkable father, Fats 
Domino.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Ms. Domino Smith.]

    The President. When the movie ``Urban Cowboy'' came out, Ramblin' 
Jack Elliot must have laughed, because even though he sings like he was 
raised on the range, he was actually born, as he puts it, ``on a 45,000-
acre ranch in the middle of Flatbush.'' [Laughter] He left home at 15 to 
join the rodeo, where he learned to sing cowboy songs. But it was 
hearing his first Woody Guthrie record that transformed him into the man 
Sam Shepard called a ``wandering, true American minstrel.''
    Since then, he's traveled the world with his guitar and recorded 
more than 40 albums, winning a Grammy and fans from Bob Dylan to Mick 
Jagger. In giving new life to our most valuable musical traditions, 
Ramblin' Jack has, himself, become an American treasure. Ladies and 
gentlemen, Ramblin' Jack Elliot.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Elliot.]

    The President. From the industrial skyscrapers of Louis Sullivan to 
the prairie houses of Frank Lloyd Wright, to the elegant geometry of 
I.M. Pei, Americans have defined the field of architecture in the 20th 
century. No architect better expresses the American spirit of our time 
than Frank Gehry. From concert halls to shopping malls, he has given the 
world buildings that are fearless and flamboyant, that trample the 
boundaries of convention. There are few architects whose works so stirs 
the imagination that people will cross oceans just to see it built. But 
his Guggenheim Museum in Bilbao, Spain, has attracted architecture 
pilgrims for years.
    When people ask what America aspired to on the eve of the 21st 
century, they will look to the work of this remarkable man, Frank Gehry.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Gehry.]

    The President. President Franklin Roosevelt once said that the 
conditions for art and democracy are one. Citizen activist and arts 
patron Barbara Handman has dedicated her entire life to ensure that 
those conditions are met. Her sustained support for the arts, fighting 
to keep some of New York's historic theaters from going dark, serving on 
the city's theater advisory board, and many other activities have 
enriched our Nation's cultural life. Her passionate advocacy of the 
first amendment has enlarged our vital freedoms.
    When we celebrate the arts today we also celebrate the commitment of 
Americans like Bobbie, whose activism and generosity are essential, and 
just as essential as our artists, to the flourishing of our arts and the 
preservation of our ideals.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Barbara Handman.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Ms. Handman.]

    The President. The revered and visionary painter, Agnes Martin, once 
told a reporter that ``everyone sees beauty, and art is a way to 
respond.'' Throughout a lifetime, she has responded to the beauty of her 
world with luminous graphite lines, fields of white or bands of subtle 
color on canvas. For more than 40 years, her quiet, spare paintings have 
conveyed happiness and innocence to viewers and have earned the 
Saskatchewan native and naturalized American a place among

[[Page 2255]]

America's foremost abstract artists. Her work is featured in the 
permanent collections of our finest galleries.
    Today, even into her mideighties, she continues to paint every 
morning, finding inspiration in the solitude of her studio in Taos, New 
Mexico. Ladies and gentlemen, the remarkable Agnes Martin.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Ms. Martin.]

    The President. Sixty years ago, Gregory Peck abandoned pre-med 
studies for the sound stages of Hollywood. While he never practiced the 
healing art, his performances have helped to heal some of our countries 
deepest wounds. For many, he will always be Atticus Finch, the Alabama 
lawyer whose brave stand for justice and against racism in ``To Kill a 
Mockingbird'' stirred the conscience of a nation. He won an Oscar for 
that role and would star in 55 films: ``Gentlemen's Agreement,'' ``Roman 
Holiday,'' ``The Guns of Navarone.'' He has been a tireless advocate for 
the arts, serving on the National Council on the Arts, as president of 
the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.
    Today, he tours America in a one-man show, sharing memories with 
fans who still consider him the handsomest man on Earth. It's a great 
honor for me to present this award as a genuine fan of Gregory Peck.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Peck.]

    The President. We've seen it so many times in movies and in real 
life, a star falls ill only to be replaced by a promising ingenue who 
then catapults to stardom. Fifty years ago that stage was the Met; the 
opera was ``Don Giovanni''; and the ingenue was a 19-year-old soprano 
from the Bronx, Roberta Peters. She went on to achieve international 
acclaim, giving voice to the great heroines of opera: Lucia, Gilda, the 
Queen of the Night. She is, you might say, for all of us coarser types, 
the Cal Ripken of opera--[laughter]--having performed as many as 30 
times a season, achieved the longest tenure of any soprano in the Met's 
history, and appeared on the ``Ed Sullivan Show'' a record 65 times. She 
has sung for every President from President Eisenhower to President 
Bush. Now it is time for this President to honor her.
    It is an honor to present our next winner with the Medal of Arts. 
Ladies and gentlemen, Roberta Peters.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Ms. Peters.]

    The President. What Dublin was to Joyce or Yoknapatawpha County was 
to Faulkner, Newark is to Philip Roth. [Laughter] Who would have though 
this melting pot of immigrant aspirations, of Jews, Italians, Irish, 
African-Americans, would have yielded a voice as distinct and powerfully 
American as Philip Roth? He and his many literary alter egos, from 
Nathan Zuckerman to, quote, Philip Roth, unquote, have been among us now 
for four decades. He brought to the world's attention a generation of 
writers from what he calls ``the other Europe,'' whose instinct for 
freedom matches his own. His last four books, ``Patrimony,'' ``Operation 
Shylock,'' ``Sabbath's Theater,'' ``American Pastoral,'' have each won a 
major literary award. Improbable as it may seem, this brash kid of 
Newark has become a grand old man of American letters.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Philip Roth.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Roth.]

    The President. You know what he said when I gave him the award? He 
said, ``I'm not so old as you think.'' [Laughter] And Hillary said, 
``It's just a literary expression.'' [Laughter]
    To indulge his passion for art, something he needs, I might say, as 
an expatriate southerner who can never quite leave the romance of his 
roots, the chairman and CEO of Sara Lee, John Bryan, now just has to 
show up for work, for covering the walls of the Sara Lee's downtown 
Chicago headquarters is a vast collection of impressionist paintings by 
Monet, Matisse, Pissaro.
    But a few months ago, Sara Lee announced that it would donate the 
entire collection to museums around the country. This generosity is not 
unusual. Under John's leadership, Sara Lee has supported the arts all 
across America; the Lyric Opera in Chicago, the Dixon Gallery and 
Gardens in Memphis

[[Page 2256]]

are just two. From the cakes they bake to the paintings they share, Sara 
Lee does, indeed, nourish the world.
    Thank you, John Bryan. Please accept this medal on behalf of Sara 
Lee and a grateful nation.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Bryan.]

    The President. The 1974 birth of Chicago's Steppenwolf Theatre in a 
church basement has been described as ``a moment when the cosmos got 
lucky.'' Through a miraculous mix of talent and vision, Steppenwolf has 
reconciled the contradictions of modern theater. It stages edgy, 
experimental productions that still manage to attract mainstream 
audiences. It is an ensemble company that shuns the star system, and yet 
it has launched its fair share of stars: John Malkovich, Gary Sinise, 
Joan Allen. That those stars regularly skip movie roles to act in 
Steppenwolf plays speaks volumes about the magic of this theater.
    To the many Tony Awards Steppenwolf has won, it is now my privilege 
to add the National Medal of Arts. Dr. Martha Lavey, the artistic 
director, is here to accept the medal, along with an historic gathering 
of 32 members of her troupe. And if they're out there, I'd like to ask 
them to stand as she comes up, please.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Dr. Lavey.]

    The President. It's every performer's dream. In 1953 Gwen Verdon 
exited the stage after a brief solo in the Broadway musical ``Can-Can,'' 
only to hear the crowd go wild, shouting, ``We want Verdon.'' Quite 
literally, she stole the show. After that first Tony Award-winning 
performance, she just kept dancing. Her collaboration with the great 
choreographer, Bob Fosse, defined the art of jazz dance. She gave 
brilliant performances in shows from ``Damn Yankees'' to ``Sweet 
Charity'' to ``Chicago,'' winning three more Tonys and fans all over the 
world. In movies ranging from ``The Cotton Club'' to the recent, 
critically acclaimed film, ``Marvin's Room,'' this famous redhead is 
showing us all that she is still alive and kicking.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Ms. Gwen Verdon.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Ms. Verdon.]

    The President. Now, the National Humanities Medals.
    Ever since President Eisenhower asked the then 28-year-old Stephen 
Ambrose to edit his papers, he has animated history with stories of 
great leaders and average citizens whose common denominator is their 
uncommon heroism. With a storyteller's ear for narrative and a scholar's 
eye for detail, he puts us in the shoes of our most courageous 
Americans, from 19-year-old citizen soldiers storming the beaches of 
Normandy to Lewis and Clark as they opened the American West. His work 
has inspired Americans to make pilgrimages to long forgotten historic 
sites brought to life by his prose.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Stephen Ambrose.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Ambrose.]

    The President. The son of a pianist and music store owner, E.L. 
Doctorow is perhaps the finest chronicler of the changing rhythms of 
American life. From ``Ragtime'' to ``Billy Bathgate,'' to ``The 
Waterworks,'' he has captured the cacophony of American life and turned 
it into melodies that resonate in readers' minds long after they turn 
the final page. His narratives are such compelling physic histories of a 
young nation, struggling with the divergent impulses of human nature, 
that they have earned him both critical acclaim and popular appeal. He's 
a true literary lion, a caring professor, a gentle soul. I am grateful 
that I have had the chance to learn a lot about my country from his 
work.
    Ladies and gentlemen, E.L. Doctorow.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Doctorow.]

    The President. Ten years ago Harvard's Diana Eck began to notice 
that her students weren't just choosing her class on Indian religions to 
learn about a foreign culture. They were enrolling to learn more about 
their own heritage. She was inspired to explore how America, founded by 
people in search of religious freedom, has changed and been

[[Page 2257]]

changed by the religions of our recent immigrants.
    She has found the religions of the world in America's own backyard: 
mosques in Massachusetts, Hindu temples in Houston; and even a century-
old Buddhist temple in her native Montana. And through a new CD ROM, 
``On Common Ground: World Religions in America,'' she is helping us to 
appreciate not only the richness of our diversity, but the strength of 
our shared values.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Diana Eck.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Ms. Eck.]

    The President. For 10 years an adult literacy teacher struggled to 
motivate her students. Then, when she became a mother, she realized that 
a parent will do for her child what she will not do for herself. ``If 
you want to teach a person to read,'' Nancy Gaj thought, ``teach her to 
read to her children.'' She brought this insight to her work with female 
inmates in a North Carolina prison, with dramatic results. The mothers 
not only learned to read, their children did better in schools and their 
families grew stronger. Through her literacy program, MOTHEREAD, Gaj has 
unleashed the power of family reading in schools and homes all across 
America. Today America honors a true revolutionary of literacy, Nancy 
Gaj, with the National Humanities Medal.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Ms. Gaj.]

    The President. Near the beginning of this century, W.E.B. Du Bois 
predicted a ``black tomorrow'' of African-American achievement. Thanks 
in large measure to Henry Louis Gates, that tomorrow has turned into 
today. For 20 years he has revitalized African-American studies. In his 
writing and teaching, through his leadership of the Dream Team of 
African-American scholars he brought together at Harvard, Gates has shed 
brilliant light on authors and traditions kept in the shadows for too 
long. From ``signifying monkeys'' to small-town West Virginia, from 
ancient Africa to the new New York, Skip Gates has described the 
American experience with force, with dignity and, most of all, with 
color.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Henry Louis Gates, Jr.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Gates.]

    The President. In high school in Beirut, Vartan Gregorian was so 
brilliant his teachers called him ``Professor.'' At the Carnegie 
Corporation of New York, now they call him ``President.'' But at Brown 
University, where he just concluded 9 successful years at the helm, he's 
remembered simply and fondly as Vartan, the most approachable and 
engaging man on campus. Public education has been his faith and greatest 
enthusiasm. As an Armenian child in Iran, as a student in Lebanon and 
the United States, then as president of the New York Public Library, 
where he restored grandeur and purpose to one of America's great 
institutions.
    President, philanthropist, friend, Vartan Gregorian is, as one 
magazine put it, ``a phenomenon.'' And we're proud to honor him today.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Gregorian.]

    The President. Growing up in La Jolla, California, Ramon Eduardo 
Ruiz spent nights listening to his immigrant father's tales of the 
heroes and history of Mexico. After serving as a pilot in World War II, 
he took his passion for Mexico's past to the halls of academia, becoming 
one of America's premier and pioneering scholars of Latin American 
history.
    He has dedicated his life to exploring what he calls ``the saga of 
the Mexican people, a story of sporadic triumphs played out on a stage 
of tragic drama.'' His history of Mexico, ``Triumphs and Tragedy,'' is 
taught in colleges and universities all across our country, shaping a 
new generation's understanding of the heritage and homeland of millions 
of our fellow Americans.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Ramon Eduardo Ruiz.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Ruiz.]

[[Page 2258]]

    The President. For more than 50 years, Arthur Schlesinger has been 
at the vital center of our public life. He has not only chronicled the 
American history, he has helped to define it, as the fighting 
intellectual of the Americans for Democratic Action, adviser to Adlai 
Stevenson, special assistant to President Kennedy. A renowned historian, 
like his father, Schlesinger has steered Americans on a straight and 
sensible course through the changing tides of history, from the age of 
Jackson to the multicultural Nation in which we live today.
    As he has written of the leaders he served, Professor Schlesinger, 
throughout his life, has taken ``the Promethean responsibility to affirm 
human freedom against the supposed inevitabilities of history.'' What a 
remarkable life he has lived; what wonderful books he has written.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Arthur Schlesinger.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Schlesinger.]

    The President. I want to choose my words rather carefully now before 
honoring one of America's leading students of Presidential rhetoric. 
[Laughter] ``Lincoln,'' Garry Wills has written, ``knew the power of 
words to win a war, to change history, to shape a nation.'' Garry Wills, 
too, understands the power of words. And his own books and essays have 
given eloquent voice to our past and to our present.
    In the Pulitzer Prize-winning ``Lincoln at Gettysburg,'' he offered 
new perspectives on the most important speech in American history--the 
way it redefined our Constitution in the minds of our people and 
rededicated our Nation to our revolutionary ideals. Whatever his 
subject, politics or popular culture, the classics or even boxing, his 
insight is unsurpassed. I find that difficult to acknowledge from time 
to time. [Laughter] Like his students at Northwestern, Hillary and I, 
and indeed, all America are grateful for his brilliant and iconoclastic 
scholarship.
    Ladies and gentlemen, Garry Wills.

[The President and the First Lady presented the medal and congratulated 
Mr. Wills.]

    The President. The late Dizzy Gillespie once said of his fellow jazz 
trumpeter, Louis Armstrong, who had blazed musical and professional 
trails before him, ``No him, no me.''
    Today, a grateful nation says to the 21 medalists in this room, ``No 
you, no we.'' Thank you for opening doors of hope. Thank you for opening 
doors of artistic and intellectual possibility. Thank you for opening 
them for all Americans and lighting the way to our common future.
    Thank you very much.

Note: The President spoke at 11:18 a.m. on the South Lawn at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Patricia Engel, wife of 
Representative Eliot L. Engel; Ann Riley, wife of Secretary of 
Education, Richard W. Riley; and actor/playwrite, Sam Shepard. The 
transcript made available by the Office of the Press Secretary also 
included the remarks of the First Lady.