[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 30 (Monday, August 2, 1999)]
[Pages 1505-1508]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks on the 25th Anniversary of the Legal Services Corporation

July 27, 1999

    Thank you very much. Let me say, first of all, I apologize for being 
late. I've been over meeting with the Russian Prime Minister, and you 
would have given me a pass, I think. I was doing good work, I hope.
    Lucy, thank you for your statement, and on behalf of all of us, for 
the award. Let me say, I could just sit here and sort of look at all the 
people that are here. I hesitate to even call people by name, but I want 
to thank all the Members of Congress who are here, including Congressman 
Berman and Congressman Ramstad. I'd also--I see Mr. Conyers and 
Congressman Cardin, Congressman Allen, Congresswoman Waters, former 
Congressman Fox, and Father Drinan, we're glad to see you here, sir. 
Thank you. Sarge and Eunice Shriver; the ABA presidents, Jerry

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Shestack, Bill Ide, Roberta Cooper Ramo, William Paul. And I see former 
Secretary of Commerce and Trade Ambassador Mickey Kantor, who was on the 
Legal Services board with Hillary.
    We all go back a long way, all of us who care about this, it seems 
like. Doug Eakeley and Tom Allen and I, we went abroad together as young 
men 30 years ago. We must have gotten infected with a Legal Services 
virus. [Laughter] Judge Broderick, it's good to see you here. And Jim 
Ramstad said, we were there 36 years ago--is that how long it was? 
[Laughter] They're coming tomorrow; you should come back. Make you feel 
old, or young, as the case may be.
    I want to say that for our family, the Legal Services Corporation 
has been very important. My wife has done many things I've been proud 
of, but I have never been more proud of anything than her service on the 
Legal Services Corporation to which President Carter appointed her, and 
the work she did as the chair of that Corporation.
    You know, here in Washington, everybody's got a lawyer. Whether you 
need one or not, everybody's got a lawyer, you know? [Laughter] We 
forget what it's like to have a lawyer be the difference between 
homelessness and having a stable home; between unemployment and the 
security of a job; between the disintegration of a household and holding 
a family together in difficult times. The Legal Services Corporation has 
made equal justice not a political cause, but an everyday occurrence. We 
have tried to advocate that--I see our former chief advocate, Mr. 
Dellinger, there--but this is a personal thing for those of us who have 
experienced it.
    Hillary's brother, in the back, was a public defender for many years 
in Miami. And Janet Reno, as a prosecutor, supported efforts to make 
sure that everybody had a decent defense--something that I think is a 
sterling example.
    Every one of you in this room has that sort of story. But those of 
us who are old enough to remember when it was different feel it perhaps 
the more strongly. And I want to thank Howard Berman and Jim Ramstad for 
giving voice to the struggles we're now engaged in in Congress. 
Sometimes I think that the Legal Services Corporation, even though it's 
very young--25 years old--is suffering from the infirmity of its success 
and, perhaps, from the success of our economy at this moment that we 
have people who may make this decision without the benefit of memory. So 
I ask you to remember.
    It was in 1962, not that long ago, when the Supreme Court had not 
yet established a constitutional right to counsel in criminal cases. 
Then the idea of legal assistance in civil cases was a distant dream. 
Disadvantaged Americans who had a hard enough time just getting through 
the day found that the legal system was stacked against them, and even 
if it wasn't, they couldn't possibly know it because they couldn't get a 
lawyer.
    Our country's faith in the law was strained in the hearts of many 
because of injustice and the stain of racism. But the men and women who 
founded the Legal Services Corporation knew that educating people about 
the legal rights they did have was critical in the fight for equal 
rights; that if people did not know about their rights and could not 
exercise them, the fact that the Supreme Court had enshrined them was of 
little practical impact.
    Today, thanks in large measure to the efforts of the Legal Services 
Corporation and the countless lawyers you have inspired, it is clear 
that a lot of progress has been made. Lucy's story really tells the 
tale. The doors of opportunity are open wider, and we are fortunate now 
to be living in a period of unique prosperity, with the lowest minority 
unemployment in our history and the highest homeownership in our 
history. We have the lowest crime rates and welfare rolls in a 
generation. But you and I know there are still a lot of poor folks out 
there. There are still people in places that have been left behind, even 
by this great recovery.
    I traveled across the country a couple of weeks ago, from Appalachia 
to the Mississippi Delta, to East St. Louis, to the Pine Ridge Indian 
Reservation, south Phoenix, and East Los Angeles. And there are still 
people out there--most of them, by the way, are working; most of them 
are working, doing the same thing you and I do every day, for much 
lesser rewards--who are having enormous difficulties. So we have this.

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    It is also true that in spite of the progress that we've made in 
meeting the promise of equal justice, there are still a lot of people 
out there who don't trust the legal system or the law enforcement 
system. So there is a need, a crying need for the work of the Legal 
Services Corporation. And that's idealistic, hard-working lawyers--
virtually 100 percent of whom could be making a lot more money doing 
something else--who believe that the law should be an instrument that 
benefits us all equally and that the rights that are enunciated in the 
law books and in the Supreme Court cases should be real in the lives of 
all Americans.
    President Kennedy did call for equal justice here 36 years ago. Last 
week in this room, with another glittering array of legal talent, from 
lawyers to judges to scholars of all races and backgrounds in this 
country, we renewed our pledge to that ideal.
    Today I think we have to say again, equal justice is the birthright 
of every American. It is the obligation of those of us in public life 
and politics to try to bring the benefits of this economic recovery into 
every corner of our country. But the Scripture says that the poor will 
be with us always. But American law says they will not be disadvantaged 
under the law. And until we close the gap between our principles and our 
reality, we will need the Legal Services Corporation.
    For years now, some in Congress have tried to dismantle it. They 
have seen it as a political thing. I do not believe it is political to 
say a poor person should have the same right as a rich person. I do not 
believe it is political to say we have to bring the law into the real 
lives of all Americans.
    We have stood firm against the opposition to the Legal Services 
Corporation. I'm proud that every budget we have submitted has requested 
more funding for Legal Services. Like Congressman Ramstad and 
Congressman Berman--and by their presence here, all the other Members 
who are here--I was deeply disappointed that last week the 
Appropriations Subcommittee in the House voted to cut my request in 
half, leaving hundreds of thousands of American families without the 
critical legal protections they need.
    But need is the wrong word. Under the law, they are entitled to them 
as citizens. For 25 years, the Legal Services Corporation has stood 
above the fray of partisanship, but in the fray of the grimy details of 
daily life that require legal protection and legal assistance. I ask 
Congress to put politics aside, to follow on this issue the model of the 
Legal Services Corporation, and give the full funding and support the 
Corporation needs. In a very large budget, it is a very small item. But 
it has an enormous impact.
    Think how outraged Americans of both political parties in all 
political philosophies would have been if this fine woman and all of her 
fellow tenants had been thrown on the street for failure to pay electric 
bills that they paid. We could have passed the hat in America and 
collected the annual budget of the Legal Services Corporation to help 
them. You know that's true. How then can we walk away from the people 
who save them, and can save so many like them every day, in every way--
in publicized and quiet ways that we will never know?
    Thomas Jefferson once said that equal justice is a bright 
constellation of our political faith. With conscience and conviction, 
let us get the support for the Legal Services Corporation it needs. We 
cannot let the bright constellation dim. Twenty-five is too young, and 
there are still too many people out there who need you.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 5:08 p.m. in the East Room at the White 
House. In his remarks, he referred to Prime Minister Sergey Stepashin of 
Russia; Legal Services Corporation client Lucy Johnson, who introduced 
the President; former Representative Jon D. Fox; R. Sargent Shriver, 
honorary cochairman, Consortium for the National Equal Justice Library, 
and his wife, Eunice Kennedy Shriver; Father Robert F. Drinan, professor 
of law, Georgetown University; Jerome J. Shestack, R. William Ide III, 
Roberta Cooper Ramo, former presidents, and William G. Paul, president-
elect, American Bar Association;
Douglas Eakeley, chair, Legal Services Corporation board of directors; 
retired Marin County, CA, Superior Court Judge Henry J. Broderick; 
former Justice Department Solicitor General Walter E. Dellinger; and the 
First Lady's brother, Hugh

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Rodham. The transcript made available by the Office of the Press 
Secretary also included the remarks of the First Lady.