Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930429.zip/4-29E.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-07 | 12KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail] Thu Apr 29 18:28:37 1993
Date: Thu, 29 Apr 1993 15:50-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
Subject: President's Remarks to Justice Dept. Employees  4.29.93
To: [e-mail]

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary
______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                             April 29, 1993


                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                  WITH JUSTICE DEPARTMENT EMPLOYEES


                        The Justice Department

1:12 P.M. EDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  When Janet Reno
was confirmed, she said she never wanted to be called General, but
only Janet.  But somehow I feel I should call her General.  She
certainly seemed in command to me yesterday up on the Hill.
(Applause.)

         I want to say to all of you what an incredible honor it
has been for me as a citizen of this country, as well as President,
to be in the Justice Department for the first time, to walk down the
halls and to see the wonderful work that was done more than 50 years
ago now, in building this great building during the Great Depression,
when President Roosevelt was trying to lift the spirits of the
country by putting the people to work.  That's still a pretty good
idea I think.  (Laughter.)

         To walk into the Attorney General's office and see the
magnificent portrait of Robert Kennedy, who was my favorite Attorney
General from my childhood.  (Applause.)  And mostly, just to shake
hands with all the employees here.  I think it is so easy for us to
forget in the ebb and flow of events, when we were so focused on the
moment, and easy for the American people to forget that every day
there are so many Americans who could have chosen a different life,
who get up every day and come to work in this building because they
believe in simple justice and fairness and in doing right by the
American people.  And I want you to know that I appreciate that very,
very much, and I thank you for your service.  (Applause.)

         After years of taking a different course, I am doing my
best to turn this government around -- to change the way things
operate here; to convince the American people that we are serious
about the economy, serious about reducing the deficit, serious about
investing in the real needs of our people, serious about providing
fairness to the middle class and to others who are willing to work
hard and play by the rules in America, and serious about trying to
bring all the people of this country together again in a great
national community in which we all recognize that we are in this
together.

         The changes we are making go well beyond policy and
particular bills.  And I hope beyond politics, to a whole new idea of
hope in this country as we move toward the 21st century.  The idea
that we can keep the American Dream alive, preserve our basic values
and make the new future that all of you and your children deserve.

         I thought about this a lot when I was Attorney General;
that when you work to ensure the full protection of a law for every
citizen, you help to sustain the most fundamental values of democracy
and, indeed, to provide for the freedom of all.  I know most of you
came here with similar feelings for the law.  I have enormous respect
for your motives.  I come from a generation that revered the law,
because we believe it gave us the tools to help people and, in my
part of the country, that it was the only instrument that would ever
enable us all -- black and white together -- to live as equals.
(Applause.)

         I still believe those things.  Today before I came over
here, I had a whole string of people into my office who I had known
for years and years and years, and they were laughing about how
sometimes I may seem almost naive because I genuinely feel more
idealism and hope today than I did in the first day I entered public
life than I did on the first day I cast a vote as a young man.  I
still believe that we can make a difference -- that we can live up to
the ideals enshrined in the Constitution, and that we have the
obligation to do so.  And I asked Janet Reno to become the Attorney
General of the United States because I knew she believed that, too.
(Applause.)

         Since I became President, I have spent a good deal of
time trying to focus on law enforcement issues because I saw all
across this land in the last year and a half when I ran for President
the enormous amount of insecurity and fear that so many Americans
felt -- living in their homes, walking on their streets.  Many of you
may have heard me tell this story, at least in the media, before, but
one of the most gripping things that ever happened to me in the race
for President occurred in a hotel in New York.

         It was about a week before the New Hampshire primary.  I
looked like I was yesterday's news, to say the least.  I was walking
through this corridor to go to a big fundraiser full of people who
wondered why they had bought tickets.  (Laughter.)  I was feeling
sorry for myself.  And a man who worked in the hotel as a waiter
stuck his hand out and grabbed my hand, and he said, "My 10-year-old
boy studies the presidential race in school, and he says you should
be president so I will be for you.  I'm an immigrant from Greece."
And he said, "I will be for you because my boy wants me to be."  But
he said, "You know, where I came from we were so much poorer, but at
least we were free."  And he said, "Now when my boy walks outside
from our apartment he cannot go across the street and play in the
park unless I am with him because he won't be safe.  We live only two
blocks from the school and he cannot walk to his school unless I am
with him because he won't be safe.  So if I do what my boy wants me
to do and I vote for you, will you make my boy free?"

          And all of a sudden I couldn't remember what I was
feeling sorry for myself about.  But I did remember one of the
reasons I wanted to be president -- and one of the solemn duties of
the government of the United States and every other law enforcement
jurisdiction in this country.  And I think it's time that we move
from the incredible gulf between rhetoric and reality to doing some
very specific things that will make the American people safer.  We
ought to pass and sign the Brady Bill.  (Applause.)

         I will propose a major new safe schools program so that
children at least can be drug free and safe in their schools.  I have
just appointed Lee Brown, who was the Police Chief of Atlanta,
Houston, and New York City, to be the Director of the Drug Control
Office, the first police officer ever to hold that position -- a
person who pioneered community policing and actually can show how the
crime rate went down in communities where there were enough police
officers on the street to walk the beat and know their neighbors and
work to prevent crime, not just to catch criminals after crimes had
occurred.

         I have asked for more resources for drug education
programs and treatment programs.  And I want to increase police
presence in our communities, so I've asked for substantial new
funding to eventually add up to 100,000 more police officers on our
street.  (Applause.)

         Some of them will come, I hope, through the crime bill
that I hope we can pass this year that was filibustered last year.
That's a thing -- institution I've learned to have less and less
respect for as we go along.  (Laughter.)  Some of them will come from
incentives we give from people coming out of the service as we build
down our armed services and give people incentives to move into
police or teaching.  Some of them will come from the national service
corps, which we will announce tomorrow in New Orleans, as people who
will pay off their college loans by working as police officers.

         I had hoped that some would come from the jobs program,
which contained $200 million for more police officers.  But we are
going to work together to do this.  When I sat in the Attorney
General's office just a few moments ago, it's the second issue she
brought up.  She said, we've still got to deliver for the American
people.  We have to give them the police officers they need and the
security they need.  And we're going to do it.  (Applause.)

         I also want our government to set an example.  I want us
to have a tougher child support enforcement program.  I've asked my
appointees to adhere to the strictest ethics law ever applied to
Executive Branch appointees.  I have cut my own White House staff and
begun a government-wide review of every program we operate, so that
we can show the American people we are trying to be   accountable and
responsible and effective, and that we're trying to make sure that
when we do something in Washington, it's for the good of the people
out there who pay the bills and not just four ourselves.

         Our country is great because we have succeeded over 200
years in providing opportunity to all -- freedom of speech and
worship and association to all, providing equal justice to all.  We
have become the custodian of freedom's dream for the entire world,
because people like you have decided to give your lives to this great
call.

         My goals for this Justice Department are simple:  I want
it to be free of political controversy and political abuse.  I want
it to be an innovator in crime reduction and in law enforcement.  I
want it to create a genuine partnership with those who work with us
in state and local systems of justice.  I want it to set an example
in the practice of law and in the protection of civil rights that
will make all Americans proud.  (Applause.)  And I want the American
people to believe that you are their partners in making our
communities, our children and our families safe again.

         In closing, let me say how very, very proud I am to name
these seven Attorneys General, Assistant Attorneys General, to your
Justice Department team.  Some of them are new to me; some I have
known and admired a very long time.  At least one of them once sued
me.  (Laughter.)  Shows you how broad-minded I am.  (Laughter.)  And
I can tell you, I am very pleased that each of them has agreed to
join our administration.

         This may surprise you if you've been reading the press
reports, but with these appointments,   our administration has in 100
days nominated 172 people for consideration by the Senate.  At the
same point in their administrations, President Reagan had named 152
people and President Bush had named 99.  By any measure, we're doing
a fairly good job in staffing up this administration with high-
quality folks.  And I might add -- since I look across here, I can't
resist saying, a third of them are women for a change.  (Applause.)

         Today when I walked through these halls and I went to
the Attorney General's office, I couldn't help but remember that it
was 25 years ago in this springtime when Robert Kennedy, by then a
Senator from New York, was running for President and was subsequently
killed, just two days before I graduated from college, with one of my
roommates working in his office.  It's impossible for me still,
especially now, as I think back across those 25 years, not to be
moved by his memory and his work and the power of the example he set
for all Americans, regardless of their gender or color or station in
life.

         My hope 25 years from now, another daughter or son of
America will walk in here and remember what you have accomplished
here and be moved.  I believe the tradition of greatness here is
still very much alive.  I believe that Janet Reno and the team that
she is assembling can bring it to life for all Americans.

         The American people want you to succeed in your work; I
do, too.  Working together, we can be proud to honor the tradition of
the Justice Department by ensuring it's great future.

         Thank you all and God bless you.  (Applause.)

                                 END1:26 P.M. EDT