[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 36, Number 24 (Monday, June 19, 2000)]
[Pages 1371-1373]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Remarks at a Reception for Mayor Anthony A. Williams of the District of 
Columbia

June 15, 2000

    Thank you. You know, when the Mayor said he was going to run for 
Mayor, he was absolutely terrified about making a political speech. I 
think he's about got the hang of it, don't you? [Laughter] I thought it 
was great.
    I want to thank him and Diane for their willingness to serve. I want 
to thank Greg and Kathy and the others who put on this event tonight, 
and Ron and Beth for opening their home once again for an imminently 
worthy cause. I want to thank Senator Dole or President Dole or Bob--
[laughter]--for being here and for speaking, and Jack Kemp who came and 
left. And Judge Webster, thank you for being here.
    I'd like to thank all the Republicans and Democrats and the 
independents who are here in support of our Nation's Capital tonight. I 
will be very brief but, I hope, to the

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point, because I'll be moving out of Washington in a few months. But 
when I moved here, I had very rich memories because I had gone to school 
in Washington, and I lived in Washington for 4 year in the mid-sixties. 
So I was here when the city burned. I was here when the city's main 
thoroughfares were often full of empty stores. I've seen it at its best, 
at its worst, and at its in-between.
    When I came back here and Hillary and Chelsea and I moved into Blair 
House in the 3 weeks before I took office, one of the first things I did 
was to walk down Georgia Avenue and meet with the merchants and talk to 
them. And I always wanted to have a chance to be a good citizen of 
Washington, DC.
    I worked with Senator Moynihan and others who were rebuilding 
Pennsylvania Avenue and was proud to be there at the dedication of the 
Reagan Building, which I think has been a wonderful addition to this 
great city. I went with Steve Case not very long ago to a high school 
here to talk about how we could improve the quality of education with 
technology.
    I was, just today, with Reverend Wintley Phipps, whom a lot of you 
know, at the U.S. Dream Academy here in Washington, doing wonderful work 
giving kids from very tough backgrounds a chance to have a better life. 
I love this place. And I was honored that we had a bipartisan big block 
of support for the legislation to revitalize DC.
    Essentially, what we did was, we took--the Federal Government 
assumed the functions that the DC government was having to pay for, that 
no other city in America had to pay for because all the other cities had 
a State to pay for it. We've also provided big tuition support for DC 
students to go out of State to school as in-State students and tried to 
provide some initiatives to encourage more private investment here, as 
well as to have the Government do more directly. And we've got a lot 
more to do, and I hope in the next 6 months, working with Speaker 
Hastert and others, you will see a big bipartisan initiative which will 
lead to more investment in the District of Columbia. So I hope that will 
happen.
    But you know, it has been my great honor on your behalf to travel to 
over 60 other countries. Senator Dole and I did an event the other 
night, and he said he was glad that the event could be scheduled on a 
night when I was visiting America. [Laughter] And I took it pretty well, 
considering I was jet lagged. Actually, I thought it was pretty funny.
    But I've been to all these other capitals. You know, I've been to 
Paris. I've been to London. I've been to Moscow. I've seen the billion-
dollar restoration of the Kremlin, which is breathtaking, if any of you 
ever get a chance to see it. But there is no capital city in the world 
as beautiful as Washington. And there is no city now that is any more 
diverse.
    Yes, we've still got a lot of these problems, but what Tony Williams 
did was to prove that the Mayor's Office was a job, a very important 
job, a job that required vision and leadership as well as management 
skills, but a job where arithmetic still counted, a job where it still 
mattered if you showed up for work and really worked hard, all day, 
every day, a job where it mattered if you treated everybody just the 
same, whatever their race or political affiliation. And because all of 
us love the District of Columbia, he enlisted in an overwhelming 
response by being extraordinarily good at doing what he'd be the first 
to tell you he simply should have done.
    And now that we have the kind of leadership that he has given our 
city, I want to ask all of you, when I'm gone from here and I'm no 
longer a citizen of this city, it will always be a big part of my 
childhood, always be obviously the major part of my adult life and 
service, but we can make this city in every way the finest capital in 
the world and a good place for all the children who live in it. And 
ironically, in order to do one, we have to do the other.
    We owe it to this man to help him, not just with contributions but 
every day. No one could ask for more from a Mayor than he is giving us. 
We have to be willing to give whatever he asks from us.
    Thank you very much.

 Note:  The President spoke at 7:39 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to Mayor Williams' wife, Diane Simmons Williams; 
event cochairs Greg Earls and Kathy Kemper;

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reception hosts Ronald I. Dozoretz and Beth Dozoretz; Steve Case, 
president and chief executive officer, America On-Line; former Senator 
Bob Dole; former Representative Jack F. Kemp; and gospel singer Wintley 
Phipps, founder and director, United States Dream Academy.