Well, I was just sitting here thinking two things. First, when the Vice President got really warmed up- -I thought to myself, first, it will become slightly obvious to this audience that he and I come from a little further south in the United States. And then I was thinking, when he really got going, I wish I had people walking the aisles passing the plate. Anyway, the second thing I thought in the midst of this wonderful event was that I wish that I could take the Pep Band with me for the next month or two wherever I go. I want to say to Chancellor Aiken and President Stukel and Mayor McCollum, Mayor Satterthwaite, Congressman Ewing, Senator Durbin, and Senator Moseley-Braun, Secretary Riley, and Mr. Vice President, I am delighted to be here. I have spent a lot of time in Illinois in the last 7 years, and this State has been very good to me in many ways. The Vice President has been here a lot, and Hillary came and got a honorary degree and was able to speak here. And I have heard from also our families, friends what a wonderful place this is. I do not know how, with all my roaming across America, I have never lit down here before, but I am sure glad I got here today. And I thank you for making me feel so welcome. If you heard the State of the Union last night or just listened to the Vice President here today you know that-you know there is a reason we are here, because you represent, both all of you individually and this great institution, what we are trying to build for the future of America. Last night I talked about all the changes that have occurred just in the last few years. We have had one foot in the 21st century for quite some time. The generation living today has lived through more changes in more different areas in a shorter time than virtually any generation in the history of this country. And when the Vice President and I took office, we were committed to trying to make America work again, to try to fix the things that just were not working for ordinary people, and then to free us up to sort of imagine the future and take the steps that were necessary to get us to the future we want to build. How can we strengthen this country for the 21st century? What do we have to do?

Remarks at the University of Illinois in Champaign-Urbana, Illinois


Now, I do not want to go over everything that was said, and besides that, I cannot do as well as the Vice President. He must have gotten 30 more minutes sleep than I did last night. But I want to talk to you about just two or three things that I think we should be thinking about for tomorrow. Let me begin with a bit of history, and your chancellor mentioned it earlier, or ENTITY did. Shortly before-shortly after Abraham Lincoln was elected President, Congressman Justin Morrill, from Vermont, asked his colleagues to help him create a system of land grant colleges. It was in the middle of the Civil War, and frankly, most of them thought he was nuts. You know, people were worried about the survival of the Union. But Abraham Lincoln was always worrying about other things, even in the middle of the Civil War. At night, when I work in the White House, I go to an office that I have had restored to the way it was in the mid-1800's. And I remember that that room was Abraham Lincoln's waiting room during the Civil War. And all during the Civil War, at certain appointed hours, he kept a time apart to meet with ordinary citizens. If you wanted a job in a post office in Baltimore in 1862, if you came at the appointed day, at the appointed hour, you could walk up to the room that I go into every night, and sit there, and Abraham Lincoln would see you; ENTITY would see you and listen to you tell why you wanted a post office job. And when he was asked why he did this, he said, I have to remember that people are concerned about other things, and I want this war to be over so all of us can go back to thinking about things like that. So he always thought about what life would be like when the war was over. And he was open to this. In 1862, Morrill's bill passed, and President Lincoln signed it into law. It became one of the wisest investments our Nation ever made, and the University of Illinois, here, was one of the original land grant colleges under that Morrill Act. It is played a dramatic role in helping to shape our Nation. You heard and you were cheering about all the Nobel Prize winners and all that. The Vice President pointed out that it was here that the transistor was invented; Jack Kilby, class of '47, co-invented the microchip.


NCSA, headed by Larry Smarr, launched a billion-dollar browser industry. Illinois and other land grant colleges have literally led our way into the information age. And it all stemmed from something somebody did in 1862 that no one could have imagined would one day have led to all you see around you. I think Lincoln would have liked the Pep Band. But he could not have imagined it. So that is what we have been trying to do. And you heard the Vice President say that basically our view was-the first thing we had to do was we had to get rid of the deficit, but we had to do it in a way that would enable us to invest in our future. We had to shrink the Government, but we had to do it in a way that would allow us to be more active in the areas that were important to our future, that would help to bring us together and widen the circle of opportunity. Now, as you look ahead, I'd just like to mention three things today that I think the University can have a major impact on, two directly and one indirectly. First, we should look to the millennium to try to speed the pace of scientific and technological advances in ways that benefit all of us. So I proposed last night a huge increase in medical research, an increase in the National Science Foundation, a doubling of the National Cancer Institute, because I believe we have enormous opportunities there, and you should be a part of that. I think it is highly likely that many of you who will be having children in the next 3 or 4 years will have children that will live into the 22d century because of the work that will be done in places like the University of Illinois. The second thing that I think we should think about is we should reaffirm our commitment to the exploration of outer space. I talked a little about the international space station last night and about Senator John Glenn at 77 years old going back into space. It is so thrilling, and I know all of you are happy about that. But we are learning a lot from our work in space about how our bodies work here on Earth and about how our environment works here on Earth and how it might be better preserved. And so I ask all of you to continue to support the work we are doing there. And finally, I'd ask you to support, as the Vice President said, this next generation Internet.


I mean, can you really believe that only 5 years ago there were just 50 webpages on the Internet; that the Internet was the private preserve of physicists 5 years ago, and now, most 8-year-olds know more about it than their parents? I mean, that gives you some sense of the speed of change. So we are trying to develop the next generation Internet, and Larry Smarr is helping us, and if it works, it will work about 1,000 times faster than the present one does. I do not know how we can absorb any more speed in information, but we have to be able to. We have to maintain public support across party lines and regional lines and age lines and race lines and all kinds of lines for investments in the future. We always have to be trying to shape the future, and we need your help to do that. Now, the second thing that I want to emphasize is that I want all of you to support the proposition that we have to make, in the years ahead, a college education as universal as a high school education is today. Now, why do I say that? Already it is perfectly clear from looking at all the census figures that any young person who has at least 2 years of college or more is highly likely to get a job with growing income prospects and high stability and the prospect of positive change in the future. Now, a young person with less than 2 years of college is highly likely to be in a job where income increases do not keep up with inflation, subject to changes which may be unstable and not positive. We have to create a network of lifetime learning. We have to, first of all, make our elementary and secondary education as excellent as our higher education is today so more people will be prepared to go to college. But then we literally-we have got to make sure that college is open to all. Now, as the Congressman said, 1997 was the best year for education in a generation, and I believe, clearly, the best year since the GI bill was passed. If you listen to all the things that were done-and I will just litanize them for you-I think you can make a compelling case that the doors of college have been opened to everybody who will work for it. 220,000 new Pell grant scholarships and the maximum amount increased; 300,000 new work-study positions; 50,000 AmeriCorps slots for people who do community service work and earn money to go to college.


As Senator Moseley-Braun said, she cosponsored the bill to make interest on student loans tax deductible again; there are IRA's now that you can invest in and then withdraw from, tax-free, if the money is used for education. The first 2 years of college, virtually all Americans are eligible for a $1,500 tax cut to pay for tuition in the first 2 years of college, the HOPE scholarship; and then another tax credit for the 3d and 4th years of college, for graduate school, and for further job training-a lifetime learning credit. But what I want to say to you is, all of you who are here, I came here to ask, as a great university, in whatever service groups you are in, in whatever family or neighborhood or church networks you have, you need to get this message out to people who are coming on behind you. We need every child in this country to know that if he or she works hard and learns what they are supposed to learn, they can all go to college now. And we need them there for our future in the 21st century. Now, the last thing I want to ask your help on in the coming year, because we are going to have a big dialog about it, is something that all of you students probably never think about, and that is Social Security and your retirement. I do not know about you, but when I was your age, I never thought about it. The older you get, the faster time goes. I never will forget, once, a few years ago, I saw a man who was 76 years old at an airport meeting his brother, getting ready to go to his sister's funeral. And I said, What are you thinking about? He said, You know, Bill, it does not take long to live a life. I say that to say that even the young must care for the future, even the young must think about their obligations to generations yet unborn; that America must work as a seamless web of community, always doing what is best for today and tomorrow. Now, what is that got to do with Social Security? There are polls that say that young people in their twenties think it is more likely that they will see UFO's than that they will ever collect Social Security. And all of you know that the Social Security system is supposed to be in trouble. Now, what does that mean?


It is not in trouble today; nobody today has got any problems drawing their money. In fact, today we collect more money in Social Security taxes every year, quite a bit more, than we pay out. The problem is that when the baby boomers retire-starting with me, I am the oldest of the baby boomers-people my age and down about 18 years younger, we are the largest group of Americans that have ever lived, except the group that started first grade last year-second grade, or third grade, whatever it is, something in grade school-because we have got more children in schools now, public schools, than we had during the baby boom generation for the first time. But we are going to have 18, 20, 25 years where there will be a huge number of people on Social Security in their retirement years, compared to the people who are paying in. Now, the question is, what is the best way to prepare for the retirement of the baby boomers in ways that do not either rob those people who need it of their secure retirement or impose intolerable burdens on our children, who, in turn, will be burdened in raising our grandchildren? I do not know anybody in my generation who believes that we ought to just take it out on you and put our feet up when we turn 65 and turn away from the obligations we have to contribute to the further growth and vitality of people who are younger than we are. So the question is, what is the fairest way to change this? What is best for people who are on Social Security now? What is best for the baby boomers? What is best for young people in their twenties and thirties just starting to pay into the system? What is best for the kids that are in high school now who have not even started? We are going to spend a year having forums all across the country, completely nonpartisan, trying to bring people in and debate it. And then about a year from now, I am going to convene the leaders of Congress, and we are going to try to craft historic bipartisan legislation to reform Social Security, to save it for the 21st century, to make sure it is there not just for the baby boomers but for everybody in this audience and all your children, too, so we will have a system that works, so that people who work hard and do their part will know they will have elemental retirement security and that we can do it without bankrupting the country.


I think we can do it. I know we can do it. But it is going to take your good-faith involvement-people of all ages. And since what we do may affect how you proceed throughout your entire worklife, we have got to have people involved in their twenties, in their thirties. The young people of this country have got to be involved in this debate. It will affect you as much as anybody else. But if we do it, it will be just sort of like balancing the budget. You will never do that. We spend less money on debt; we invest more money in our future; we have a stronger economy. The same thing will be true of Social Security. Once we make the adjustments necessary to fix it, the increase in confidence, the increase in savings, the increase in belief in the future of this country as we go forward together will be absolutely astonishing. And we need you to be a part of it. The last thing I want to ask about-the Vice President touched this briefly, and he knows more about it than I do-but we need young people in this country, particularly young people in our university system, to convince the rest of America that we must and we can address the challenge of climate change and global warming. Now, I can tell you, I have been working on the economics of energy efficiencies for over 20 years now in various guises. I am convinced that the technology is out there right now to do what we need to do to do our part to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in factories, in power generation systems, in homes and office buildings. And we are getting very, very close in automobiles. But listen, this is your future; this is your life; this is the world your children and your grandchildren will have to live in, in the 21st century. This is crazy for us not to do this. We do not have to take the economy down; we will lift the economy up. And you have to take the lead in helping us meet this challenge. those are just four of the things that are out there. Reach out across the lines that divide us. Do not let people-do not ever let people who are divisive or pessimistic convince you that there is anything this country cannot do. I can look at you and tell you that this country can do anything we put our minds to. Thank you, and God bless you.


We meet at the beginning of a new year, at a moment that is also a new era for our two nations and for the world. For half of this century, the Soviet Union and the United States stood locked in a nuclear standoff. For our two nations and for the world, cold war, hot words, and the constant threat of war seemed imminent, indeed, at times inevitable. The time that we might meet as friends and the time that we might meet in freedom seemed distant, indeed a dream. has set foot in a democratic Russia. to turn an adversarial relationship into one of friendship and partnership. We stand together today in this great city at the threshold of a new world of hope, a widening circle of freedom for us and for our children. This historic opportunity would simply not have been possible without our combined common effort. President, I salute you for your unwavering commitment to democratic reform and for the history you have written since the heroic day in August '91 when you climbed atop that tank to defend Russia's democratic destiny. And I also want to salute the heroism of the Russian people themselves, for it is they who will determine that Russia's democratic course is irreversible. Today, as we meet on Russian soil, home to 1,000 years of heritage and history, to a people rich in scientific and creative talent, I want to assure the Russian people on behalf of all Americans, we understand that Russia faces a difficult passage. We are with you in your struggle to strengthen and secure democratic rights, to reform your economy, to bring to every Russian city and village a new sense of hope and the prospect of a future forever free. Let me say clearly, we seek no special advantage from Russia's transformation. Yes, deep arms reductions, broader and deeper economic ties, expanded trade with Russia, all are in the interest of my country. But they are equally in the interest of the Russian people. Our future is one of mutual advantage. We seek a new relationship of trust between our military forces. They once confronted each other across Europe's great divide, and let them now come together in the cause of peace. We seek full cooperation to employ our collective capabilities to help resolve crises around the world. We seek a new cooperation between the U.S. and Russia and among all states to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons and other weapons of mass destruction.

The President's News Conference With President Boris Yeltsin of Russia in Moscow


Your excellency, my fellow citizens, it is with the greatest pleasure that I find myself facing an audience in this great State. I echo the wish of the governor that it might be our privilege to stay a long time in Idaho and know something more than her fame, know her people, come in contact with her industries, and see the things that we have all so long read about and admired from a distance; but, unfortunately, it is necessary for us to go back to Washington as soon as we can, though it was a great pleasure to escape from Washington. The people of the United States do not live there, and in order to know what the people of the United States are thinking about and talking about it is necessary to come and find out for yourself. I have taken pains since I was a boy so to saturate myself in the traditions of America that I generally feel a good deal of confidence that the impulses which I find in myself are American impulses; but no matter how thoroughly American a man may be, he needs constantly to renew his touch with all parts of America and to be sure that his mind is guided, if he be in public station, by the thoughts and purposes of his fellow countrymen. It was, therefore, with the most earnest desire to get in touch with you and the rest of my fellow countrymen that I undertook this trip, for, my fellow countrymen, we are facing a decision now in which we can not afford to make a mistake. We must not let ourselves be deceived as to the gravity of that decision or as to the implications of that decision. It will mean a great deal now, but it will mean infinitely more in the future. America has to do at this moment nothing less than prove to the world whether she has meant what she said in the past. I must confess that I have been amazed that there are some men in responsible positions who are opposed to the ratification of the treaty of peace altogether. It is natural that so great a document, full of so many particular provisions, should draw criticism upon itself for this, that, or the other provision. We went into this Great War from which we have just issued with certain assurances given ourselves and given the world, and these assurances can not be fulfilled unless this treaty is adopted.

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


We told the world and we assured ourselves that we went into this war in order to see to it that the kind of purpose represented by Germany in this war should never be permitted to be accomplished by Germany or anybody else. Do not let your thoughts dwell too constantly upon Germany. Germany attempted this outrageous thing, but Germany was not the only country that had ever entertained the purpose of subjecting the peoples of the world to its will, and when we went into this war we said that we sent our soldiers across the seas not because we thought this was an American fight in particular, but because we knew that the purpose of Germany was against liberty, and that where anybody was fighting liberty it was our duty to go into the contest. We set this Nation up with the profession that we wanted to set an example of liberty not only, but to lead the world in the paths of liberty and justice and of right; and at last, after long reflection, after long hesitation, after trying to persuade ourselves that this was a European war and nothing more, we suddenly looked our own consciences in the face and said, This is not merely a European war. This is a war which imperils the very principles for which this Government was set up, and it is our duty to lend all the force that we have, whether of men or of resources, to the resistance of these designs. And it was America never let anybody forget this it was America that saved the world, and those who propose the rejection of the treaty propose that, after having redeemed the world, we should desert the world. The settlements of this treaty can not be maintained without the concerted action of all the great Governments of the world. I asked you just now not to think exclusively about Germany, but turn your thoughts back to what it was that Germany proposed. Germany did direct her first force against France and against Belgium, but you know that it was not her purpose to remain in France, though it was part of her purpose to remain in Belgium. She was using her arms against these people so that they could not prevent what she intended elsewhere, and what she intended elsewhere was to make an open line of dominion between her and the Far East.

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


The formula that she adopted was Bremen to Bagdad, the North Sea to Persia to crush not only little Serbia, whom she first started to crush, but all the Balkan States, get Turkey in her grasp, take all the Turkish and Arabian lands beyond, penetrate the wealthy realms of Persia, open the gates of India, and, by dominating the central trade routes of the world, dominate the world itself. That was her plan; and what does the treaty of peace do? For I want you to remember, my fellow countrymen, that this treaty is not going to stand by itself. The treaty with Austria has now been signed; it will presently be sent over, and I shall lay that before the Senate of the United States. It will be laid down along exactly the same lines as the treaty with Germany; and the lines of the treaty with Germany suggest this, that we are setting up the very States which Germany and Austria intended to dominate as independent, self-governing units. We are giving them what they never could have got with their own strength, what they could have got only by the united strength of the armies of the world . We have given them what I have called their land titles. We have said, These lands that others have tried to dominate and exploit for their own uses belong to you, and we assign them to you in fee simple. They never did belong to anybody else. It was brigandage to take them. We give them to you in fee simple. But what is the use of setting up the titles if we do not guarantee them? And that guaranty is the only guaranty against the repetition of the war we have gone through just so soon as the German nation, 60,000,000 strong, can again recover its strength and its spirit, for east of Germany lies the fertile field of intrigue and power. At this moment the only people who are dealing with the Bolshevist government in Russia are the Germans. They are fraternizing with the few who exercise control in that distracted country. They are making all their plans that the financing of Russia and the commerce of Russia and the development of Russia shall be as soon as possible in the hands of Germans; and just so soon as she can swing that great power, that is also her road to the East and to the domination of the world.

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


If you do not guarantee the titles that you are getting up in these treaties, you leave the whole ground fallow in which again to sow the dragon's teeth with the harvest of armed men. That, my fellow citizens, is what article 10, that you hear so much talked about in the covenant of the league of nations, does. It guarantees the land titles of the world; and if you do not guarantee the land titles of the world, there can not be the ordered society in which men can live. Off here in this beloved continent, with its great free stretches and its great free people, we have not realized the cloud of dread and terror under which the people of Europe have lived. We would rather die now than live another 50 years under the cloud that has hung over us ever since the Franco-Prussian War of 1870-71, because we have known that this force was gathering, we have known what the purpose was ultimately to be, we have known that blood and terror lay ahead of us, and we can not and will not live under that cloud any more. America, my fellow citizens, is necessary to the peace of the world. America is absolutely necessary to the peace of the world. Germany realizes that; and I want to tell you now and here I wish I could proclaim it in tones so loud that they would reach the world Germany wants us to stay out of this treaty. Not under the deception that we will turn in sympathy toward her. Not under the. delusion that we would seek in any direct or conscious way to serve Germany, but with the knowledge that the guaranties will not be sufficient without America, and that, inasmuch as Germany is out of the arrangement, it will be very useful to Germany to have America out of the arrangement. Germany knows that if America is out of the arrangement America will lose the confidence and cooperation of all the other nations in the world, and, fearing America's strength, she wants to see America alienated from the peoples from whom she has been alienated. She wants to see one great nation left out of this combination which she never would again dare face. Evidences are not lacking nay, evidences are abounding that the pro-German propaganda has started up in this country coincidently with the opposition to the adoption of this treaty. Are we going to prove the enemy of the rest of the world just when we have proved their savior?

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


Do not let anybody delude you, my fellow citizens, with the pose of being an American. If I am a true American I will study the true interests of America. If I am a true American I will have the world vision that America has always had, drawing her blood, drawing her genius, as she has drawn her people, out of all the great constructive peoples of the world. A true American conceives America in the atmosphere and whole setting of her fortune and her destiny. And America needs the confidence of the rest of the world just as much as other nations do. America needs the cooperation of the rest of the world to release her resources, to make her markets, above all things else to link together the spirits of men who mean to redeem the race from the wrongs that it has suffered. This western country is par excellence the country of progressivism. I am not now using it with a big P. It does not make any difference whether you belong to the Progressive Party or not; you belong to the progressive thought, and I hope every intelligent man belongs to the progressive thought. It is the only thought that the world is going to tolerate. If you believe in progress, if you believe in progressive reform, if you believe in making the lot of men better, if you believe in purifying politics and enlarging the purposes of public policy, then you have got to have a world in which that will be possible; and if America does not enter with all her soul into this new world arrangement, progressives might as well go out of business, because there is going to be universal disorder, as there is now universal unrest. Do not mistake the signs of the times, my fellow countrymen, and do not think that America is immune. The poison that has spread all through that pitiful nation of Russia is spreading all through Europe. There is not a statesman in Europe who does not dread the infection of it, and just so certainly as those people are disconcerted, thrown back upon their own resources, disheartened, rendered cynical by the withdrawal of the only people in the world they trust, just so certainly there will be universal upsetting of order in Europe. And if the order of Europe is upset, do you think America is going to be quiet? Have you not been reading in the papers of the intolerable thing that has just happened in Boston?

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


When the police of a great city walk out and leave that city to be looted they have committed an intolerable crime against civilization; and if that spirit is going to prevail, where are your programs? How can you carry a program out when every man is taking what he can get? How can you carry a program out when there is no authority upon which to base it? How can you carry a program out when every man is looking out for his own selfish interests and refuses to be bound by any law that regards the interests of the others? There will be no reform in this world for a generation if the conditions of the world are not now brought to settled order, and they can not be brought to settled order without the cooperation of America. I am not speaking with conjecture, my fellow citizens. I would be ashamed of myself if upon a theme so great as this I should seek to mislead you by overstatement of any kind. I know what I am talking about. I have spent six months amidst those disturbed peoples on the other side of the water, and I can tell you, now and here, that the only people they depend upon to bring the world to settled conditions are the people of America. A chill will go to their heart, a discouragement will come down upon them, a cynicism will take possession of them, which will make progress impossible, if we do not take part not only, but do not take part with all our might and with all our genius. Everybody who loves justice and who hopes for programs of reform must support the unqualified adoption of this treaty. I send this challenge out to the conscience of every man in America, that if he knows anything of the conditions of the world, if he knows anything of the present state of society throughout the world and really loves justice and purposes just reform, he must support the treaty with Germany. I do not want to say that and have it proved by tragedy, for if this treaty should be refused, if it should be impaired, then amidst the tragedy of the things that would follow every man would be converted to the opinion that I am now uttering, but I do not want to see that sort of conversion. I do not want to see an era of blood and of chaos to convert men to the only practical methods of justice. We are not exempt from those very subtle influences which lead to all sorts of incidental injustice.

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


We ourselves are in danger at this present moment of minorities trying to control our affairs, and whenever a minority tries to control the affairs of the country it is fighting against the interest of the country just as much as if it were trying to upset the Government. If you think that you can afford to live in a chaotic world, then speak words of encouragement to the men who are opposing this treaty, but if you want to have your own fortunes held steady, realize that the fortunes of the world must be held steady; that if you want to keep your own boys at home after this terrible experience, you will see that boys elsewhere are kept at home. Because America is not going to refuse, when the other catastrophe comes, again to attempt to save the world, and, having given this proof once, I pray God that we may not be given occasion to prove it again! We went into this war promising every loving heart in this country who had parted with a beloved youngster that we were going to fight a war which would make that sacrifice unnecessary again, and we must redeem that promise or be of all men the most unfaithful. If I did not go on this errand through the United States, if I did not do everything that was within my power that is honorable to get this treaty adopted, and adopted without qualification, I never could look another mother in the face upon whose cheeks there were the tears of sorrowful memory with regard to the boy buried across the sea. The moral compulsion laid upon America now is a compelling compulsion, and can not be escaped. My fellow countrymen, because it is a moral issue, because it is an issue in which is mixed up every sort of interest in America, I am not in the least uneasy about the result. If you put it on the lowest levels, you can not trade with a world disordered, and if you do not trade you draw your own industries within a narrower and narrower limit. This great State, with its untold natural resources, with its great undeveloped resources, will have to stand for a long generation stagnant because there are no distant markets calling for these things. All America will have to wait a long, anxious generation through to see the normal courses of her life restored.

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


So, if I were putting it upon the lowest conceivable basis of the amount of money we could make, I would say, We have got to assist in the restoration of order and the maintenance of order throughout the world by the maintenance of the morale of the world. That, I suspect, is what most of the opponents of the league of nations, at any rate, try to lead you to believe, that this is a league of arms. Why, my fellow citizens, it is a league to bring about the thing that America has been advocating ever since I was born. It is a league to bring it about that there shall not be war, but that there shall be substituted for it arbitration and the calm settlement of discussion. That is the heart of the league. Every member of the league, and that will mean every fighting nation in the world except Germany, agrees that it will never go to war without first having done one or the other of two things either having submitted the matter in dispute to arbitration, in which case it agrees absolutely to abide by the result, or having submitted it to consideration by the council of the league of nations, in which case it promises to lay all the documents, all the facts, in its possession before the council and to give the council six months in which to consider the matter, and, if it does not like the opinion of the council at the end of the six months, still to wait three months more before it resorts to arms. That is what America has been striving for. That is what the Congress of the United States directed me to bring about. Perhaps you do not know where; it was in an unexpected place, in the naval appropriations bill. Congress, authorizing a great building program of ships and the expenditure of vast sums of money to make our Navy one of the strongest in the world, paused a moment and declared in the midst of the appropriation bill that it was the policy of the United States to bring about disarmament and that for that purpose it was the policy of the United States to cooperate in the creation of a great international tribunal to which should be submitted questions of international difference and controversy, and it directed the President of the United States, not later than the close of this war, to call together an international conference for that purpose. It even went so far as to make an appropriation to pay the expenses for the conduct of such a conference in the city of Washington. And that is a continuing provision of the naval appropriations bill.

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


When I came back with this covenant of the league of nations, I had fulfilled the mandate of the Congress of the United States; and now they do not like it. There is only one conceivable reason for not liking it, my fellow citizens, and to me as an American it is not a conceivable reason; that is that we should wish to do some nation some great wrong. If there is any nation in the world that can afford to submit its purposes to discussion, it is the American Nation. If I belonged to some other nations, there are some things that I know that I would not like to see submitted to the discussion of mankind, but I do not know anything in the present purposes of the United States that I would not be perfectly willing to lay upon any table of counsel in the world. In carrying out the mandate of the Congress, I was serving the age-long purpose of this great people, which purpose centers in justice and in peace. You will say, Well, why not go in with reservations? I wonder if you know what that means. If the Senate of the United States passes a resolution of ratification and says that it ratifies on condition that so and so is understood, that will have to be resubmitted to every signatory of the treaty; and what gravels me is that it will have to be submitted to the German Assembly at Weimar. That goes against my digestion. We can not honorably put anything in that treaty, which Germany has signed and ratified, with Germany's consent; whereas it is perfectly feasible, my fellow countrymen, if we put interpretations upon that treaty which its language clearly warrants, to notify the other Governments of the world that we do understand the treaty in that sense. It is perfectly feasible to do that, and perfectly honorable to do that, because, mark you, nothing can be done under this treaty through the instrumentality of the council of the league of nations except by a unanimous vote. The vote of the United States will always be necessary, and it is perfectly legitimate for the United States to notify the other Governments beforehand that its vote in the council of the league of nations will be based upon such and such an understanding of the provisions of the treaty. The treaty is not susceptible of misunderstanding.

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


I do not object to painting the rose or refining fine gold; there is not any phrase in the covenant of the league of nations that can legitimately be said to be of doubtful meaning, but if the Congress of the United States wants to state the meaning over again in other words and say to the other nations of the world, We understand the treaty to mean what it says, I think that is a work of supererogation, but I do not see any moral objection to it. But anything that qualifies the treaty, anything that is a condition to our ratification of it, must be submitted to all the others, and we must go over this process again; this process which took six months of intensive labor, which took six months of very difficult adjustment and arrangement, which quieted jealousies, which allayed suspicions, which set aside controversies, which brought about the most extraordinary union of minds that, was ever brought about in so miscellaneous an assembly, divided by so many interests. All that must be gone over again, and in the meantime the world must wait and its unrest grow deeper, and all the pulses of life go slower, waiting to see what is going to happen, all because the United States asks the other governments of the world to accept what they have already accepted in different language. That is all that it amounts to; I means, all that the reasonable reservations amount to. Some of them amount to staying out altogether, some of them amount to a radical change of the spirit of the instrument, but I am speaking now of those which some men of high conscience and of high public purpose are seriously pressing in order that there may be no misunderstanding. You can avoid a misunderstanding without changing the document. You can avoid a misunderstanding without qualifying the terms of the document, because, as I have said and shall say again and again, America is at liberty as one of the voting members of the partnership to state how she understands the articles of copartnership. I beg that these things may sink in your thoughts, my fellow countrymen, because we are at a turning point in the fortunes of the world.

Address at Coeur D'Alene, Idaho


Well I do not care what Rich Little says. If you have got a stage wait, that'll fill it as good as anything. The President was referring to comedian Rich Little, who had performed an impersonation of the President at a pre-Inaugural event. You know, yesterday morning I spoke a great deal about the spirit of the American people, that America will prevail because that spirit is strong. But for Nancy and me, there are some other very special people whose spirit has made the past few days the very best of our lives. And I know that with them and they'd be the first to say hundreds and hundreds of helpers, many of you, gave of themselves to make the inaugural ceremonies outstanding. I had a little batch of phone calls to make today, and a number of them were out of the country. And you might be interested to know that one of the Prime Ministers I spoke to said that their whole nation watched our inaugural, and they said the reaction was, there will never again be one like it. That is due to Charlie and Bob and their helpers. And Mary Jane, I think, was very much a part of Bob in all of that help, full time. Now, as one who went to all the balls last night I can attest to the fact that the guests who came to Washington, in addition to not finding any dancing room- or in spite of that, they were caught up, as we were, in a time of great happiness and expectation. And those things do not happen by accident. It takes people who are devoted; it takes creative people and patient people. And I know what all of you who worked on this went through in these past few weeks. I know the kind of responsibilities you had. I know the multiple problems that descended on these two who were in charge. And let me say that there may have been many toasts raised recently, but whether we have got a glass in our hand or not, it is time to toast the inaugural committee for a job well done and for gratitude that is well deserved. And again, I know that I would have the agreement of these chairmen back here when I say there is another group connected with this, perhaps not specifically of the committee, but they could not have done it without them. And that is the group that through their generosity made possible, with their resources as well as their time, to make January 20th a very special day. It is wonderful to see you here. God bless you.

Remarks at a White House Reception for the Presidential Inaugural Committee


President Sweeney, it is great to see you here, to see all of you out here and all of those behind. I always knew the CWA was behind me, but when I saw so many people up here, I thought it was a literal truth today. I want to say I also believe that two gentlemen who came with me are still here, Florida representatives, our Democratic Congressman, Representative Alcee Hastings, and Attorney General Bob Butterworth. I welcome them here. I came here, first and foremost, to say a simple thank you. Thank you for what you do to make America great. Thank you for what you have done for me and the Vice President. Thank you for the help you have given us to move this country forward. You prove it. The bounty we enjoy today is in no small measure the result of your hard work, every day programming computers, manning customer service centers, electronically filing news stories, running MRI machines, laying the very cable of the information superhighway. The CWA is building the new economy of the 21st century, In that endeavor, the ENTITY-Gore administration and our allies in Congress have been your partners. Remember what it was like when I became ENTITY 6 1/2 years ago? opportunity in return for responsibility; a community of all Americans; and a Government committed to giving the American people the tools and conditions they needed to solve their problems and make the most of their own lives. That strategy was set in motion with our economic plan in 1993. In the years since, we have turned the red ink of deficits into the black ink of surpluses, lowered interest rates, and fueled an economic expansion of truly historic proportions. Meanwhile, we have nearly doubled investment in education and training; put more police on the street and taken more guns out of the hands of criminals; invested more in technology, medical research, in cleaning up the environment; passed family leave and other familyfriendly measures, including substantial tax cuts to help families pay for college and to help families raise their children. We showed, in other words, that our Democratic administration could balance the budget while honoring our values. Now, because we believe it is wrong for any child to be without access to the Internet, one of the greatest vehicles of opportunity the world has ever seen, we created our E-rate program to make sure every classroom thanks to the leadership of Vice President Gore every classroom in America can be hooked up to the Internet by the year 2000.

Remarks to the Communications Workers of America Convention in Miami Beach, Florida


We are well over half way there now, and I thank you for your role in that. I also want to thank Morty Bahr for serving on the advisory council on the national information infrastructure, which laid the groundwork for the E-rate program, which has brought discount after discount after discount to poor schools and libraries throughout America to make sure everybody can afford to be part of the information superhighway. Now, because we believe all Americans should have the means to upgrade their skills, we unveiled in January a new initiative to offer literacy and job training to every single working American who needs it now and who will need it in the future. And again, Morty Bahr was there with me at the unveiling, having served on our 21st century work force commission. And now, because we believe that to be secure means meeting the challenge of the aging of America by reforming Social Security and Medicare, providing more health care security, more retirement security, and strengthening our economy, we have put forward a sweeping proposal to use most of our surplus for these purposes. Today I want to talk to you in detail about the challenge of strengthening and modernizing Medicare for the 21st century. But with the baby boom retirement just ahead of us and more Americans living longer, the number of Medicare beneficiaries is simply growing faster than the number of workers paying into the system. By the year 2015, the Medicare Trust Fund will be insolvent, just as the baby boom generation begins to retire and enter the system, eventually doubling the number of Americans over 65 by the year 2030. Over the last 6 1/2 years, we have taken some important steps to strengthen Medicare. We have helped to extend the life of the Trust Fund to 2015 by fighting waste, fraud, and abuse, and taking tough action to contain costs, in 1993 and in 1997. But we must do more, not only to extend the solvency of Medicare but to ensure that its benefits keep up with the advances of modern science. No one, for example, no one would devise a Medicare program, if we were starting from scratch today, without including a prescription drug benefit. It was not as important back in 1965. Many of the drugs we now use to treat heart disease, arthritis, and other conditions did not even exist back then when Medicare was first created. When it comes to securing health care and its benefits, nobody nobody has done more than the CWA.


When it comes to controlling health care costs and maintaining quality of care, no union has worked harder or more cooperatively with employers and insurers than the CWA. What you have done for your retired members, we as a nation must now do for all our senior citizens. Last month I set out a plan to secure and modernize Medicare. First and foremost, my plan would provide what every single objective expert has said Medicare must have if it is to survive: more resources to shore up its solvency. The plan would devote 15 percent of the Federal budget surplus over the next 15 years to Medicare to extend the life of the Trust Fund to 2027. Second, the plan will use the force of competition and the best practices now in the private sector to keep costs down without sacrificing quality. Third, the plan will allow Americans between the ages of 55 and 65 who do not have health insurance, on the job or in their retirement, to buy into Medicare in a way that does not compromise the solvency of the Trust Fund. This is a huge issue today, with more and more early retirees and others who do not have health insurance and simply cannot afford it in the private marketplace in the years when they may be most vulnerable. Fourth, the plan will modernize Medicare's benefits to match the advances of medical science. For example, almost every week, researchers seem to develop a new preventive screening to catch diseases in their early stages. Unfortunately, the copayments Medicare charges for these tests leads many seniors struggling to pay rent and utility bills to put off getting those tests done until it is too late. It makes no sense for Medicare to put up roadblocks to screenings and then turn around and pick up the much more expensive hospital bills the screenings might have avoided. That is why our plan will eliminate the deductible and all copayments for all preventive services. We pay for it by requiring modest copays for lab tests that are often overused and indexing the very modest part B premium. If we are going to do this right, we must help seniors to meet their greatest growing need, the need for affordable prescription drug coverage. Now, many of our friends in the other party say, Well, a lot of seniors have drug coverage today. But 15 million do not , and more are losing it every single day; and a lot of them are paying an arm and a leg for very modest coverage.


For those who have good plans, they are not having any problems because our plan on this is entirely voluntary. It provides voluntary prescription drug coverage, paid for largely with resources we will save from making Medicare more competitive and innovative, plus a small fraction of the surplus that is dedicated to Medicare. This benefit will cover half of all prescription drug costs, up to $5,000, when fully phased in, with no deductible at all, and all for a modest premium that will be less than half the price the average Medigap policy costs, and will not apply will not apply to seniors up to 130 percent of the poverty line. This is a good deal for America, and we ought to do it. It is a program our seniors can afford, provided in a way the rest of America can afford. Nobody knows better the value of prescription drug coverage than union men and women who have fought hard for drug benefits more generous than those I am proposing. But retired unionists are among the fortunate few. I say again, nearly 15 million Medicare beneficiaries lack prescription drug benefits altogether. Nearly half of them are not poor; they are middle class Americans. With prescription drug prices rising, the pressure is on employers to cut back or eliminate prescription drug coverage, and it is becoming more intense. Much of that pressure is coming from competing employers who do not offer these benefits. You and your employers should not have to fight this battle by yourselves. Of course, America works best when we work together to meet our common challenges. Yesterday at the White House, I met with leaders of both parties to discuss the budget and my plan for Medicare. I was pleased that Republican leaders expressed a willingness to work together with us. But they are putting together a tax plan today that leaves no resources available from the surplus for strengthening Medicare. That is why I am asking Republican leaders, in the interest of saving Medicare, to reconsider the size of their tax cut plan. We worked very hard in putting this plan together to squeeze every penny of savings we could out of Medicare without harming the quality of care. But to extend the life of the Trust Fund for a quarter century without devoting a portion of the surplus to Medicare would mean listen to this would mean holding spending increases in Medicare to a rate that is more than 60 percent below what private insurance is expected to grow. That would severely cut both the quality and the quantity of health care available to seniors on Medicare, and that will not happen on my watch.


I am pleased that there does seem to be an agreement between the Republican leaders and our Democratic leaders and myself to devote that portion of the surplus attributable to Social Security taxes just to Social Security. But it is critical that we have a so-called lockbox that actually locks in the debt reduction that we get from not spending that money and gives the benefit of that debt reduction to Social Security, so that we can extend the life of the Trust Fund, as my plan does, the Social Security Trust Fund, to 2053, adding 53 years from here to there. I will be talking more about this later, but the Social Security Trust Fund is expected to last until 2035 now. It is even more important that we devote some of these funds to Medicare right now because Medicare is expected to be insolvent almost 20 years earlier, in 2015. We, as a nation, have got some big choices to make in the next few months. We have got to decide what to do with this surplus. Did you ever think a few years ago we'd even be having this conversation? We had a $290 billion deficit when I took office; it was supposed to be up to $380 billion this year. We quadrupled the debt 4 times quadrupled the debt in 12 years. So I realize that it is tempting for a Congress to say, Well, 16 months before election, let us do what is most immediately pleasing, whether it is right for America over the long run or not. This is a big test for us, for our wisdom, for our judgment, for our concern for our people and their future. I think the right choice is to devote most of the surplus to saving Social Security and Medicare. Let me tell you and let me walk through this with you again because, under our plan, besides reforming and saving Social Security and Medicare, this plan will allow us to pay off publicly held debt to make America debt-free in 15 years for the first time since 1835. Now, what does that mean to the Government? It means when you pay your tax money, we are not spending 13, 14, or 15 cents on every dollar of your taxes just to pay interest on the debt. What does it mean to ordinary citizens right now and every year from now on? It means if America is on a path to becoming debt-free, interest rates will be lower. That means businesses can borrow at less cost. That means more new investment, more jobs, and more money for higher wages.


It means average families can borrow at less cost. That means lower home mortgages, lower credit card payments, lower car payments, lower college loan payments. I am telling you, the average family will save a whole lot more under this plan looking after our future than they will under the tax cut plan offered by the other party. in education, in hiring those 100,000 teachers, in medical research, in technology, in preserving the environment, in modernizing our national defense. We will not have the money to do that. And again I say, this is a mistake because our plan has a sizable tax cut, nearly a quarter trillion dollars for middle income families to meet their crucial needs for child care, for longterm care, for saving for retirement. It provides tax cuts for building world-class schools, for developing and installing new environmental technologies, for funding the new markets initiative, which I highlighted on my tour to the poorest parts of America last week, simply to say we will give you the same tax breaks to invest in poor areas in America we give you to invest in poor areas overseas. We can save Social Security and Medicare and make Medicare better. We can make America debt-free, giving our children a stronger economy and all of you lower interest rates. We can still have a good-size tax cut, but not as large as the one the Republican leaders propose. Again I say, their plan would spend almost the entire non-Social Security portion of the surplus on tax cuts. It would not extend the solvency of Medicare by a single day. Depending on how they do it, it might not extend the solvency of Social Security by a single day. It would force drastic cuts in education, research and technology, defense, and the environment. It would mean not paying off the debt and leaving us and our children more vulnerable to higher interest rates, a higher level of Government spending for interest payments alone, higher taxes in years to come, a weaker economy, itself more vulnerable to the kind of global financial turmoil we have all seen in the last couple of years.


an America debt-free, with Social Security intact and Medicare even better, and a substantial tax cut; or a return to the spend now, pay later approach that will not save and strengthen Medicare, may or may not lengthen the life of Social Security, will certainly cut education and other vital programs, and again I say, over the long run, will be far more costly to every person in this room and every working family in the entire United States. I believe we all want Republicans and Democrats and independents the strongest possible America for our children. I am encouraged by the tone and the substance of the meeting I had yesterday with the leaders of Congress in both parties. So I ask again the Republican leaders in Congress, for the sake of saving Medicare and strengthening our future, to reduce the size of your tax cut and join us in putting first things first. If we would sit down at the table like responsible family members and figure out how much it would cost us to meet our current obligations to education, defense, and other things, what we have to do to save Social Security and Medicare, not just for the baby boom generation but for their children and grandchildren who otherwise will be spending money they need to get along, to pay for education, to pay for the future on their parents, then we could figure out how much is left over for the tax cut. That is what I have tried to do, because I think it is the right thing for America. To my fellow Americans who may think that this is just one of those Washington debates, and one side makes their side sound good and the other side makes their side sound so good, and it is all just a bunch of politics, all I can offer is the record of the last 6 1/2 years. Think about it; with your help, we have nearly 19 million new jobs, the longest peacetime expansion in history, the lowest crime rate in 26 years, the lowest welfare rolls in 30 years, the highest homeownership in history, the lowest minority unemployment rates ever recorded. We have declining rates of teen pregnancy, smoking, and drug abuse. We have cleaner air, cleaner water, and safer food. We have got 90 percent of our children immunized against serious childhood illnesses for the first time. We have had 100,000 young people working in our communities in AmeriCorps, making America better and earning their way to college.


The record indicates that when we say something is good for America's future, it probably is good for America's future. That is why we are trying to pass this Patients' Bill of Rights they are debating up there today. Think how you would feel that is what I asked the Senators to do today think how you would feel if it was your child, your wife, your husband, and the question was, your doctor says you need to see a specialist and your HMO accountant says you do not . Should you have to hassle it out for 3 months? Think how you would feel if God forbid you got hurt in an accident outside this convention hall and the ambulance had to drive you past two or three hospitals until they finally got to one covered by your HMO. Depending on what kind of injury you had, it could just be much more painful or terribly devastating. Think how you would feel if your small employer changed health care providers in the middle of your wife's pregnancy or in the middle of the husband's chemotherapy treatment, and they said, I am sorry; I know this is traumatic. I know you are 6 months pregnant and you have had a terrible pregnancy, but here is a new doctor for you. I know your life is on the line and you have got great confidence in this doctor supervising your chemotherapy treatment, but here is a new doctor for you. I just try to think about what is right for the American people. Oh, they will tell you how much it costs up there. But we put in the Patients' Bill of Rights for the Federal employees; its cost, less than a buck a month a policy to comply with. The Congressional Budget Office says that, at the most, it would cost $2 a month a policy. Do not you think it is worth $24 a year to know that when you need to see a specialist, you can see one? So that is what we are trying to do with our proposal to modernize schools, to finish hiring 100,000 teachers, to put even more police on the street, and take even more guns out of the hands of more criminals; and that is what we are trying to do by shining the light of enterprise and opportunity at America's poorest communities; and most of all, that is what we are trying to do with our plan to save Social Security and Medicare, provide that prescription drug benefit, and make America debt-free.


First of all, I want to thank all the previous speakers for saying everything that needs to be said; I am free to say whatever I like. I am deeply indebted, as all of you know, to this city and this State for many things, the most important of which is clearly the First Lady, who asked me to be remembered to all of you tonight. I have a picture on my wall in my office of Hillary and me on St. Patrick's Day in 1992 in Chicago that was the night of the primaries in Illinois and Michigan, the night we knew that unless the wheel completely ran off, I would probably become the nominee of our party. And from that day and before to this, no place has been better to us and to the Vice President and to our whole team than the city of Chicago and the State of Illinois. And I am profoundly grateful to all of you, and I thank you for it. I also want to say a word of appreciation to Steve Grossman, who has done a magnificent job. I thank Congressman Rangel, who has to put on his uniform every day. He is now in the most severe combat he is been in since the Korean war, I think, with the Republicans in the House, but he holds up his end right well. And I thank you, Charles. I am proud of you in every way. I want to thank Secretary Daley, who will soon get over being 50. It is all a matter of perspective, you know. I want to thank Mayor Daley for his leadership here and his support and friendship. I thank Senator Durbin for many things and for being so courageous in his leadership to protect our children against the dangers of tobacco, to keep our streets and our communities safe, and many other things. I want to say a little more about Carol Moseley-Braun in a moment. I want to thank Reverend Jesse Jackson for being a good friend of my family in personal as well as political ways, and for doing a superb job for our country as our Special Envoy to Africa, a very important part of America's future. Now, you heard all the politics. I would like to talk a little bit about specifically about Illinois and how if fits into the larger picture of America and our future. I ran for President because I honestly believed our country was not doing what was necessary to prepare for a new century, a new millennium, a completely new way of living and working and relating to each other and the rest of the world.

Remarks at a Unity '98 Dinner in Chicago, Illinois


And I think that what we have sought to do is best captured in the theme the First Lady picked for our Millennium Project, the things we are doing over the next 2 1/2 years to celebrate the coming of a new century and a new millennium. The theme is Honoring the past; imagining the future. to offer new ideas based on our oldest values; to deepen the meaning of our freedom; to widen the circle of opportunity; to build the bonds of our Union stronger; to help America be the strongest force for peace and freedom and prosperity in the world; to give our children all our children the best chance to live out their dreams any generation of children has ever known. That is what we have worked on doing. They spark ideas. They spark the human spirit. They motivate people to act. But in the end, you have to turn the words into action. And I would like to just give you one example. The lion's share of credit for the economic statistics the Vice President reeled off belongs to the American people, to their hard work, their ingenuity, their good citizenship. But the policies of this administration have plainly played a role in giving people the tools to do what has been done and creating the conditions for success. If it had not been for Carol Moseley-Braun or Glenn Poshard or Charlie Rangel or Al Gore, the economic plan in 1993 which drove interest rates down, drove the deficit down, got investment up, expanded our commitment to promote economic opportunity in the inner cities, including in Chicago would not have passed, because it passed by one vote in both Houses, because every single member of the other party voted against it. And I want to tell you that I am proud to be a member of my party and proud to be an ardent supporter of the reelection of Senator Carol Moseley-Braun and the election of Glenn Poshard. There is I was told today when I came into Chicago that Congressman Poshard's opponent has an ad on attacking him for voting for our 1993 economic plan, claiming it was a big tax increase, neglecting to point out that income taxes were raised on about two-tenths of a percent of the American people, that 5 times as many people in Illinois got a tax cut as got a tax increase working families who need it the most and that that bill lowered the deficit 92 percent before the bipartisan balanced budget agreement passed and, therefore, was the single most important vote to the economic recovery America enjoys today.


I think Glenn Poshard should thank his opponent for advertising for him. It is a good difference between Republicans and Democrats. They are still trying to mischaracterize the bill that brought America back. And I hope you will send a message on election day, by reelecting Carol Moseley-Braun and electing Glenn Poshard, that Illinois likes this economy and will support people who brought it about. We have the lowest crime rate in 25 years. The crime bill of 1994 played a major role in that, with 100,000 police on the street and grants to communities like Chicago not just to punish people but to give our young people something to say yes to, so that more communities could have more programs like your afterschool programs here and your summer school programs here. And most of the members, not all but most of the members of the other party voted against it. Carol Moseley-Braun and Glenn Poshard voted for it. And so, if you like the fact that Chicago has all these new police officers under the crime bill and you like what has been done here to make the streets safer, I think you should show that you like it when words are turned into action by voting to reelect Carol Moseley-Braun and to elect Glenn Poshard. I think these are the kinds of things that you have to say to people. Now, as the Vice President said, we have to decide what we are going to do with the good times we have. We are sobered and humbled when our friends in Asia, who once we thought would never have any economic problems again, have their own struggles. We are heartbroken at what has happened in Africa to our Embassies, the tragic loss of life of American public servants and the more than 200 Africans who have died now and thousands wounded because some terrorist criminal wanted to hurt America. But this reminds us that freedom is a precious thing, prosperity is a wonderful thing, but in a dynamic world they bring responsibilities. And this election year should not be about negative 30-second ads, or all the mean things they have said about me or the rest of you, or any mean thing we can say back to them. It really ought to be about what do we do now. We have been given the gift of this moment of prosperity, which gives us confidence and energy. What do we do with it? What have you done in the times in your life when you thought everything was hunkydory?


After things have been tough and they were tough for America for a long time the natural thing to do is to sort of say, Man, I have been working like crazy. That was really, in fairness, the import behind the quote by the Speaker that the Vice President read, We do not really have to do anything. We just have to avoid another shutdown and get out of town. And things are so good, and we have got more money than the Democrats do. We will be fine in the election. We will worry about all of this tomorrow. And that is playing into what is often the dominant feeling in human nature. I suggest to you it would be a mistake for us to have that attitude today as a nation and that instead we ought to say, Hey, we may not get a time this good again for a while. Let us take this time to think about the big, long-term challenges this country faced, and let us go on and face them and deal with them now. If we cannot do it now, when will we ever have a better time? And that is what we ought to be thinking about now. So I will tell you what I think they are, in no particular order you may have different rank order. They have been alluded to already, but let me just tell you because this is why it is important to have people in the positions of Congressmen and Senators who will make good decisions about this. One of the biggest challenges this country is going to face every advanced country is going to face it is when all the baby boomers retire. I know; I am the oldest of the baby boomers. I am the oldest man my age in America now. Because we are the biggest group of Americans ever to live, until this group of kids that just started school last year, when we retire, at present rates of retirement, birth rates, and immigration rates, for the first time since Social Security came in there will only be about two people working for every one person eligible for Social Security. The system we have, that has literally on its own lifted half of our elderly people out of poverty, is unsustainable as it is. But it has done a lot of good for the elderly, for the disabled, for children whose parents die when they are still children. So one of the things that we have to do and we ought to do it early next year we ought to stop fooling around with it.


We should reform Social Security to preserve its best characteristics and make sure it will survive into the 21st century. You have to decide, who do you think you want to do that? And do not you want somebody that will come in there and keep the very best of the system but have the courage to tell you what changes have to be made now? The same thing is true of Medicare. We have to do that. That is why I have said, Let us do not spend any of this surplus on a spending program or a tax cut that I like, even something I would dearly love to do. Let us do not do that until we know we have done what is necessary to save Social Security for the 21st century. It is popular to say, I want to give you a tax cut, or I am going to give you a new program, and we are going to have a surplus, and it is projected to be such and such. Well, let me tell you, we will not even have the surplus until October 1st. And we have been waiting for 29 years to get out of the red. I'd just kind of like to look at the black ink for just a few months before we go squander this money that we do not even have yet. And I think down deep inside you and every other responsible person in Illinois, Republican, Democrat, or independent, knows that is the right thing to do. So go out and say, we ought to save Social Security first, and you are for that. I think everybody in America knows we have got the best system of higher education in the world. And one of my proudest achievements as President is that, working with the Congress, we have opened the doors wider than ever before with the HOPE scholarships, the Pell grants, the work-study grants, letting people deduct the interest on their student loans, all of the things that we have done. No one believes we have got the best elementary and secondary education in the world for all our children yet. No one believes that, because it is not true. But we need it. And I have given this Congress an agenda for smaller classes in the early grades and more teachers and modernized schools, whether we are repairing old schools or building new ones, and connecting all the classrooms to the Internet and providing for better trained teachers and raising standards and trying to support things like the mayor's reforms here in Chicago, including more afterschool programs and more summer school programs.


And that school construction and repair initiative would not be a part of my program if it were not for Carol Moseley-Braun. And it ought to pass, and if you reelect her, you will send a loud message to Washington that you believe it ought to. We just glanced over the Patients' Bill of Rights today. You know, there are 160 million Americans in managed care. And when Hillary and I told the American people we had to find a way, because managed care was growing, to allow people to be in managed care to control costs, but we ought to make health care affordable and available and quality for all Americans, we were attacked by our adversaries, saying we wanted to have the Government take over health care. I will tell you something interesting. When they attacked me for that, 40 cents on the dollar of health care dollars came from public sources. Because employers cannot afford to buy health insurance, so they do not cover their employees, and more and more people even in the work force are eligible for Government-funded programs today. But 160 million Americans in Medicare our Patients' Bill of Rights is the next big item on the health care agenda. Because we think that it is a good thing to manage health care costs and control them, but you ought to be able to go to an emergency room if you get hurt, without having to lay there on the gurney. How would you feel if somebody in your family were in a car wreck, lying in an emergency room on a gurney, and you are trying to call the insurance company to get authorization? We believe if somebody needs a specialist, they ought to be able to get a specialist. And if the doctor believes that, he ought to be free to say so. That is what we believe. We believe if a woman is 6 months pregnant and her employer changes insurance carriers, she ought not to have to give up her obstetrician before the baby's born. Or if somebody is taking chemotherapy and they are 80 percent of the way through and the same thing happens, they ought to be able to stay with their oncologist until the treatment is over. That is what this Patients' Bill of Rights is about. It is about common sense, balancing of the need to control costs on the one hand with the need never to forget that the health care of the American people comes first. We are for that.


We have a few a very few Republicans who are helping, and God bless them, including the physician representing the State of Iowa in the House of Representatives, a brave man, Congressman Ganske. But the leadership of the other party is against this, and what they would do would make it weaker. We believe, with all this stuff being computerized, you ought to have more privacy in your medical records, not less. And I think most of you think that. That is what the Patients' Bill of Rights is about. Carol Moseley-Braun is for it; the leadership of the other party is against it. On that ground alone you should make sure she gets reelected. This is a big battle for how you and your families and your children will live in the 21st century. I could go right down the list with the environment; with the need for us to build one America working together; with the need to provide more economic opportunity in inner cities, isolated rural areas where there has been no opportunity; and with the need for America to fulfill its responsibilities. The Vice President made the remarks about the International Monetary Fund and the U.N. You know, Reverend Jackson and I and the First Lady and a big delegation, we just went to Africa not very long ago. Believe it or not, several of those African economies are growing at 5, 6, 7, 8, 9 percent a year. They want to buy our products. An investment there today will pay our children many times over in return tomorrow. All over the world, people still look to us to take the lead to stand against the kind of terrorism that we experienced just a few days ago; to stand against the kind of racial and ethnic and religious hatreds that we see in places like Bosnia, that are the part of the process of peace in the Middle East and Northern Ireland. And if we want to be a source of peace and freedom and prosperity all around the world, then we have to have people who will say in Congress, I realize it is not free. I am prepared to invest in it and go home to my hometown in the heartland of America and say it is important. You know why it is important in Illinois? How many people do you believe, if you went down to the central part of this State and said, Do you know what the IMF is? could give you an answer? Or, It is the International Monetary Fund; do you know what it does?


5 months ago, I visited Athens, the first visit by Prime Minister to Greece in more than a generation. Today, in welcoming Prime Minister Mitsotakis to the White House, our two countries reaffirm the value of close contact to address common concern. Prime Minister, in the past 3 years, we have witnessed a world transformed, and your continent has been right at the center of change. terrorism, international drug trade, ethnic conflict. peaceful, prosperous, and free. The U.S. continues to be as concerned as we have been in the past with Greece's security and the sanctity of its borders. We continue to help Greece strengthen its defenses. And we support the progress your nation has made toward economic reform, liberalizing trade and investment. The longstanding conflict in Cyprus, and Yugoslavia's fratricidal civil war. Let me start with Yugoslavia. Who can fail to be moved by these heartrending images, carnage and suffering on a scale that recalls the horrors of the Second World War rather than the hopes of the new era we have now entered. The U.S. supports the European Community's efforts, the EC's efforts, including economic sanctions, to stop the fighting. We remain convinced that a negotiated settlement, helped along by the United Nations and the interested international community, is possible, necessary, and certainly long overdue. In the case of Cyprus, I again offer the good offices of the United States to overcome a source of bitter conflict between two of our valued allies. We continue to hope for an international high-level meeting on Cyprus as early as possible in 1992. With good-faith negotiations, and the continued efforts of the United Nations Secretary-General, we can make progress in producing a settlement acceptable to all parties. Not only the millions who trace their own ancestry to your country, but, as relative newcomers now in our third century of democracy, as a people who revere Greece as the birthplace of democracy more than two millennia ago. It is been a very special pleasure having this opportunity to meet with you again, to have you and your able team here in Washington, DC today, and to wish Greece on behalf of all Americans every blessings for the new year.

Remarks Following Discussions With Prime Minister Constantinos Mitsotakis of Greece


Hillary and I are delighted to welcome all of you here today, including our Acting Secretary of Veterans Affairs, Togo West; the National Security Adviser, Sandy Berger; Senator Robb and Congressman Evans; Deputy Secretary of Defense Hamre; Secretary Dalton; General Shelton and other members of the Joint Chiefs; General McCaffrey; Deputy Secretary Gober; Mr. Bucha, the president of the Medal of Honor Society, and General Foley and other recipients of the Medal of Honor who are here. To all the commanders of our veterans service organizations and proud members of the United States Marine Corps and former marines, to the friends and the large and wonderful family of General Day and Mrs. Day, we welcome you. I thank Captain Pucciarelli for the fine invocation. He is not devoid of a sense of humor; before we came out here, he said he was going out to offer the exorcism. To those who lived through World War II and those who grew up in the years that followed, few memories inspire more awe and horror than the battle for Okinawa. In the greatest conflict the world has ever known, our forces fought no engagement more bitter or more bloody. In 82 days of fighting, America suffered more than 12,000 dead in this final epic battle, the most costly one during the entire Pacific war. At the very heart of this crucible was the fight for a hill called Sugar Loaf, the key to breaking the enemy's line across the south of the island, some of the grimmest combat our forces had ever seen. The marines on Sugar Loaf faced a hail of artillery, mortars, and grenades. They were raked by constant machinegun fire. Time and again, our men would claw their way uphill only to be repulsed by the enemy. Progress was measured by the yard. On May 14th, 1945, a 19-year-old corporal named Jim Day led several other marines to a shell crater on the slope of Sugar Loaf. What happened then surpasses our powers of imagination. On the first day in that isolated hole, Corporal Day and those with him fought off an advance by scores of enemy soldiers. That night he helped to repel three more assaults, as those with him fell dead or injured. Braving heavy fire, he escorted four wounded comrades, one by one, to safety. But he would not stay in safety. Instead, he returned to his position to continue the fight. As one of his fellow marines later reported, the corporal was everywhere.

Remarks on Presenting the Congressional Medal of Honor to Major General James L. Day, USMC (Retired)


He would run from one spot to another trying to get more fire on the enemy. When the next day broke, Corporal Day kept on fighting, alone but for one wounded fellow marine. Through assault after assault and into his second night, he fought on. Burned by white phosphorus and wounded by shrapnel, he continued to fire his weapon and hold his ground. He hauled ammunition from a disabled vehicle back to his shellhole and fought and fought, one assault after another, one day, then the next. The battle on Sugar Loaf decimated two Marine regiments. But when Corporal Jim Day was finally relieved after 3 days of continuous fighting, virtually alone, he had stood his ground. And the enemy dead around his foxhole numbered more than 100. His heroism played a crucial part in America's victory at Sugar Loaf. And that success opened the way to the capture of Okinawa and the ultimate triumph of the forces of freedom in the Pacific. Now, for this extraordinary valor, we recognize James L. Day as one of the bravest of the brave. In words that echo from the peaks of American military history, he has distinguished himself, at the risk of his life, above and beyond the call of duty. As Commander in Chief, I am proud to award General Day our Nation's highest military honor, the Medal of Honor. the name Jim Day belongs in the rolls of the Corps' greatest heroes, alongside Dan Daly, Smedley Butler, Joe Foss, and John Basilone. General, your achievements leave us all in awe. In particular, it is hard to know whether we should be conferring on you a Medal of Honor for bravery or for modesty. Let me tell you the story of how we happen to be here today, over 50 years later. Although the battle for Okinawa was still raging when his battlefield commanders nominated young Corporal Day for this decoration, so many died in the fighting and so many reports were lost in the battle, the paperwork simply never went forward in 1945. General Day later said that awards were not on their minds in those days. As he put it, We just had a job to do, and we wanted to get the job done. Years later, when veterans of Sugar Loaf wanted to restart the process, Jim Day forbade them from doing so. Then a general, he felt that seeking such an honor would set a bad example for those he commanded.


I want to thank each of you, as ENTITY did, for this wonderful welcome and for the privilege of coming back to Maine again. When Senator Muskie talked about the last speech he made in this park, he told me that that evening while he was waiting on Senator Kennedy to come here that you people waited almost 4 hours in almost zero weather. And although I was not here, I am grateful and understanding of the loyalty and the appreciation you had for that great man whom I succeeded and for whom this park was named. We have tried to carry forward his program, put it on the statute books, and execute it as he would have had us do. The last 2 days we have traveled throughout the northeastern part of the United States and New England and we have talked about the problems of our people. We talked about pollution in Lake Erie in Buffalo yesterday. We talked about the problems of our cities where 75 percent of all of our people are going to be living in just a matter of a few years, in Syracuse. Last evening we dedicated a Hill-Burton hospital and talked about medical care, and the treatment of our bodies, and what we are going to do to save lives, and how we got rid of polio, and how we are going to get rid of cancer, and how we are going to stop heart disease--one of the greatest killers in this country. This morning we talked to the young people over at the University of Rhode Island about their rights, about civil rights, about constitutional rights. But we also talked about the responsibilities that go with those rights and the understanding that goes with them. Later in the day we were at New Hampshire, and we talked about the thing that is on most of your minds--our men in Vietnam, and how we can bring peace to the world and bring honor to ourselves. I am going to talk about another subject here in Lewiston tonight, because I am so happy to be back in Maine. Today, Congressman Hathaway, Senator Muskie, Governor Reed, Senator Smith, Senator Pell, Senator Mansfield, Senator McIntyre, Senator Aiken, Senator Prouty, Governor Volpe, Governor King, and a number of other public officials have been with me. But we have not been talking party matters. We have been talking people matters; problems of people. We do not want to just talk about problems all the time. We want to talk about our successes, too. And I am going to do that tonight.

Remarks at the John F. Kennedy Memorial Park, Lewiston, Maine.


Two years ago I stood on the steps of the city hall in Portland and I quoted from a message that Governor Joshua Chamberlain once sent to the Maine legislature. A government has something more to do than govern and levy taxes to pay the Governor .... Government must also encourage good, point out improvements, open roads of prosperity, and infuse life into all the right enterprises. I promised the citizens of Maine that night that we would try to follow that course if we were selected for this place of leadership. And I have come back tonight to report that we have lived up to that promise. Your Government--and I think it is very important that each of you always remembers this is your Government, not my Government-this is your Government and it has been infusing life into one right enterprise after another. And I think there is no better example of this than the promising new Maine project that we call the Dickey hydroelectric project. We are going to put more than $300 million into this project, and every single one of those dollars will be a good, sound investment in the future of a stable Maine and in the future of all America. Milton Semer of Auburn and Hal Pachios, my Associate Press Secretary, from Portland. But we were talking the other evening and one of them said, You know, Mr. President, so many people have been listening so long to the old voices that constantly talk about big government, that they have not caught up with the fact the United States is a very big country. Our population increased by more than 2 million people alone just last year. Half a century from now we will have over 400 million Americans. So we cannot have a stagecoach government in the era of orbiting astronauts. Government has to keep up with the times, and it has to stay ahead of the problems. I came here tonight to pledge to you good people--who are Americans first, but select the best government you know how--I came here to pledge you that as long as I lead this country we are going to keep up and catch up. But I came here to say something else. It is not the responsibility of the leaders of the Congress--some of whom are here with us this evening--alone. It cannot be done in Washington alone. It has to be the goal of every man and woman, every boy and girl. Every one of you has to pitch in and improve the corner of the country that you live in.


We can pass laws to bring justice to all our people, whatever their color. We can spend money for housing, education, and training. But until we have a domestic good-neighbor policy on every block, in every city, on every roadway, there is going to be racial strife in America. We can start new programs to try to clean up the ghettoes of our cities, but until the people who live in our suburbs are color blind, there will continue to be discrimination in America. We can establish training programs for young people who need a second chance, but until law-abiding citizens give them their second chance, there is going to be delinquency in America. So if I could write just one letter to every American citizen tonight, I would make it brief, but I would try to make it directly to the point. My fellow American, democracy depends on whether you are willing to conduct yourself as if the destiny of many others were in your hands, as if the future and the character of our Nation were to be decided by what you are and by what you do. Live every day with the knowledge that America is the sum total of all the decisions that you and people like you are making this very hour. I would write that letter because I believe that what America needs more than it needs anything else right now is a strong dose of self-discipline. We need it to carry through and to support our men who are in the rice paddies of Vietnam tonight. We need it to bring racial peace and social justice to all our citizens in the United States. We need it to bring education to the mind and health to the bodies of all of our boys and girls in this country tonight. And we need it to maintain the strong economy that gives all of our people good jobs at good wages tonight. Because never forget that no matter how many harassing, frustrating problems you may have, the strong economy is the underpinning of America's material strength. Let me illustrate what I mean. People are talking a lot about inflation this election year. These same people used to talk a lot about unidentified flying objects. Where did it come from? I do not know the answers. But I do think that we should try to put the problem of inflation into perspective--and not just in terms of the early 1930's when prices were very low but few people had many dollars to buy much with.


I mean the perspective that comes from looking at both sides of the prosperity coin --looking at the rising prices without forgetting the rising standard of living. We talk a lot about it these days--and we are doing a lot about it. There is want and there is some hunger--there is more of each than any of us would like to have. But I think most of you people that I am looking at here tonight in Lewiston, like most of my fellow Americans that I have seen in over 25 States, are tonight enjoying the best standard of living that you have ever known. Now it may be in the 1930's some of you were doing better. It may be in the 1940's some of you were doing better. It may be in the 1950's some of you were doing better. But I think the majority of us are doing better now than we have ever done before. They have gone up 10 percent since 1961. During that same time, though, wages have gone up, too. They have gone up not 10 percent as the prices have, but the wages have gone up 17 percent and most of you can buy more tonight than you could with your paycheck 6 years ago. In 1966 the average wage--I try to make this as understandable as I can--the average wage of a factory worker will buy twice as much in the retail stores as it would when I came to Washington in 1931. I want to repeat that because I want all of you to listen to it. In 1966, the year of our Lord tonight, the average wage of a factory worker will buy twice as much at retail as it would when I first came to Washington in 1931. You could buy more bread, and more butter, and more milk, and more molasses, and more bacon with one hour of your earnings last year than you could in 1960. And that is also true of steaks, and potatoes, and tomatoes, and liver--if you ever eat it. It is a fact that Americans are eating better food at a lower real cost than they have ever eaten before. After you get through paying your taxes--to all the Presidents and Governors and I do not know whether Senators and Congressmen think they have anything to do with it or not--but after you get through paying your taxes, your family is spending 18 percent of its income on food, 18 percent tonight, this year, compared to 26 percent of its income that it was paying 20 years ago.


We are going to do our best to have stabilization, but they have gone up and they will go up some more--but so has your standard of living gone up. We have a goal, we have an objective, we have a future for America. We want to leave this world better than we found it. We have advantages that our fathers and our grandfathers did not have. And we want our children to have things that we do not have ourselves. So, prices have gone up and your standard of living has gone up, too. I hope you will keep that in perspective. You know, I think that may have been what President Franklin Roosevelt's friend meant when he saw President Roosevelt during the 1940 campaign. You remember President Roosevelt asked him how he was voting. And his friend said, Republican. Is the third term bothering you? It is just that I voted Republican the first time you ran --this fellow lived in Maine, not in Lewiston, but in Maine-- and I voted Republican the second time you ran --that was 1936, you know-- Now this is not to say that we should or we will ignore the threat that is made to our stabilization program and that comes with inflation. I want you to know that, as your President, every day that I open my office I am going to be concerned about rising prices and will try to do as much as I intelligently can about them. But I am as deeply concerned with finding the right way to deal with inflation. And that brings me back to my central point. This morning at the University of Rhode Island I said along with rights we have responsibilities. self-discipline. The ideal way to keep the economy healthy without inflation is restraint--restraint on the part of those whose decisions have a real impact on prices. And I am looking into a lot of faces of people who make decisions that can probably have more impact on prices than I can. For 2 years now I have urged business and labor in many, many conferences I have had at the White House to bargain responsibly to reach decisions that will not trigger inflation. And I am proud to report to you that many businessmen and many labor leaders have responded with restraint and with self-discipline to their President's pleas. I am sad to report to you that not all of them have, and as a result we are faced tonight with a real danger to the prosperity which you have enjoyed for 6 consecutive years.