[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 35, Number 43 (Monday, November 1, 1999)]
[Pages 2150-2152]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a ``Broadway for Hillary'' Celebration in New York City

October 25, 1999

    Now, you all just relax while I get used to my new role. [Laughter] 
Somewhere between the amen corner for Jimmy Naughton, the straight man 
for Rosie, and the warmup for Hillary, I'll figure out something to do. 
[Laughter]
    Jim, that was a heck of a speech. It's a good thing you didn't 
file--Al and Bill would be nervous about that. [Laughter]
    I want to thank all of you for being here tonight. I'm profoundly 
grateful to everyone who conceived and put together this program, and 
all the people who gave their time. I remember the ``Broadway for 
Clinton'' program back in June of '92. And I remember the people who 
performed and the people who came, because I was running third in the 
polls back then. [Laughter] But by the time the convention rolled 
around, everything had changed.
    I want to thank Senator Schumer for his remarks and his support; the 
New York legislative leaders that are here: Speaker Silver, Majority 
Leader Bragman, Senator Martin Connor; Judith Hope, the State Democratic 
chair; our borough president, C. Virginia Fields; the Bronx borough 
president, Freddy Ferrer; City Council Speaker Peter Vallone; 
Comptroller Alan Hevesi; and Mark Green, our longtime friend, the public 
advocate. Thank you all very much. And thank you, Rosie, and everyone 
else who performed.
    Jim Naughton said most of the stuff I was going to say--[laughter]--
and better. So I would just like to say a few things. First, thank you 
for being so good to us in New York. Thank you for 1992, for the 
convention, for the vote. Thank you for 1996--the largest margin of 
victory we had in any State in America. Thank you for welcoming us here 
when we leave the White House. Thank you for being here tonight, not 
only as supporters but as friends.
    October's a great month for us and our family. First, we celebrate, 
on the 11th, our anniversary. We just had our 24th wedding anniversary. 
And then we celebrate Hillary's birthday. And now, thanks to your doing 
this, and the fact we get back about 2 in the morning, we expect to have 
like a 24-hour celebration.
    We have been very blessed, Hillary and I, and we've been blessed by 
our family, our friends, and the opportunity to serve in public life. I 
am very grateful for all the work that we have done together over all 
these years. I am very grateful that now my wife has a chance to do what 
I thought she ought to do 26 years ago when we finished law school. And 
I was really afraid, as I have told many of our friends--and some of our 
old friends are nodding their heads out there--the only thing that 
really worried me about our getting married was that somehow she would 
be denied the opportunity to share her gifts in the most important way. 
For we have always only cared most, in our work life, about public 
service. I have watched her for over 30 years give--I've only watched 
her

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for 29 years, but, for 30 years and more--care passionately about 
children and give herself to service.
    The first job she had out of law school was with the Children's 
Defense Fund. She could have gone to work for any number of law firms, 
but she wanted to help kids. Then she became head of the Legal Services 
Corporation Board, when President Carter was in office. She then became 
chair of the Children's Defense Fund board. She headed the education 
reform movement in Arkansas when I was Governor. And as First Lady, she 
has literally inspired tens of millions of mothers and their children 
all around the world, trying to get a better deal for young girls and 
their families in poor villages from Africa to Latin America to Asia.
    She has been a major force in the passage of legislation that will 
enable us to insure over 5 million children with health insurance. It 
makes it easier for people to adopt children. She has worked on all the 
things we have done to try to reduce violence against our young people. 
She has played a major role in all of our reforms in education, early 
childhood learning, and health care. And in so doing, she has always 
been willing to do it without getting, really, anything like the credit 
she deserved for the work she did and the impact she had. Over all these 
years, I have seen her driven by a personal sense of responsibility to 
serve, partly because she does believe it takes a village to raise a 
child or to raise a country.
    When we went to Washington in 1992, late '92, about 3 weeks before 
the inaugural, we had some ideas that we thought would work to turn our 
country around in a very troubled time. They were just ideas, just an 
argument. But the country gave us a chance, and the results have been 
good. Jimmy Naughton listed some of them.
    What I want to say to you tonight in bringing Hillary on is this, in 
my lifetime, we have never had the chance, as a nation, we have today. 
The country was going in the wrong direction; now it's going in the 
right direction. We have the lowest unemployment in 29 years, the lowest 
welfare rolls in 30 years, the lowest crime rate in 30 years, first 
back-to-back surpluses in 42 years, the lowest poverty rate in 20 years. 
We're moving in the right direction.
    But we all know there are these huge challenges out there--the aging 
of America, the largest and most diverse group of kids we ever had, the 
opportunity and the responsibility we have to give poor people a chance 
to be a part of this prosperity for the first time ever. In my lifetime, 
this has never happened. In the 1960's, we had an economy that, for a 
few years, was maybe about like this. But we had the civil rights 
crisis, and we had the war in Vietnam, and we became divided, and we 
never got around to doing it. Now all we have to overcome is the 
politics of pettiness and personal destruction. We have to lift 
ourselves out of that as one country, one America.
    All the things that Jim said a Senator will have to decide are true. 
But the thing you ought to think about is this: New York has distinct 
challenges and unprecedented opportunities. Your country has the first 
chance in your lifetime to imagine and then to build the future of our 
dreams for our children and for our grandchildren. And it will only 
happen if we are led by the right people.
    I have done everything I could do to leave this country in good 
shape. There is still a lot more we can do in the next 15 months. But 
fundamentally, the decisions the voters make in the year 2000, the 
millennial year, will determine whether we do what so many people do 
when times are good--get distracted, become self-indulgent, make short-
term and often foolish decisions; or we seize the chance of a lifetime.
    The best I can give the American people now is to do my best to make 
sure that they know that the person I love most in the world is without 
any doubt the ablest, most passionate, most committed, most visionary 
public servant I have ever known.

Note: The President spoke at 9:30 p.m. at the Ford Center for the 
Performing Arts. In his remarks, he referred to author James Naughton, 
who introduced the President; talk show host and event emcee Rosie 
O'Donnell; Vice President Al Gore and former Senator Bill Bradley, 
Democratic candidates for President; Sheldon Silver, speaker, and 
Michael J. Bragman, majority leader, New York State Assembly; State 
Senator Martin Connor; C. Virginia Fields, president, Borough of

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Manhattan; Fernando Ferrer, president, Borough of the Bronx; and Alan 
Hevesi, comptroller, and Mark Green, public advocate, New York City. The 
transcript released by the Office of the Press Secretary also included 
the remarks of the First Lady.