Software Vault: The Gold Collection/Software Vault - The Gold Collection (American Databankers) (1993).ISO/cdr11/wh930513.zip/05-13F.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1993-06-13 | 18KB

From @lex-luthor.ai.mit.edu:[e-mail]  Thu May 13 19:22:14 1993
Date: Thu, 13 May 1993 18:39-0400
From: The White House <[e-mail]>
To: [e-mail]
Subject: President's Remarks at Democratic Gala in New York

                           THE WHITE HOUSE

                    Office of the Press Secretary

______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                               May 12, 1993

                       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
          AT DEMOCRATIC NATIONAL COMMITTEE PRESIDENTIAL GALA

                Lincoln Center For The Performing Arts
                          New York, New York

9:35 P.M. EDT

         THE PRESIDENT:  Thank you very much.  To Bruce and to
Lew, and to all of you, I've had a wonderful time tonight.  These
lights are so bright, I only know half the people I've shaken hands
with.  It has been a wonderful time.

         I want to thank all the people who made this dinner
possible, and I want to thank the wonderful entertainment.  The choir
was terrific.  (Applause.)  The group doing all the wonderful old
songs from Dionne Warwick in the '60s were magnificent.  (Applause.)
         I was delighted to see Barry Manilow again in such
wonderful voice, and grateful for his many contributions to our
common efforts.  (Applause.)  I appreciated Phil Hartman saying he
voted for me, but it's not quite enough for all the abuse I've put up
with in advance.  (Laughter and applause.)

         And I want to say to my friend, Whoopi Goldberg:  Mayor
Dinkins has a telephone call for you over here if you will go over
and get it.  (Laughter.)

         Ladies and gentlemen, all of you who made this night
possible -- Lew and Bruce, Bob Rose and the other committee
members -- Bob Berry, Bill Bordman, Paul Montrone, George Norcross,
Felix Roatan, Ann Shepard, John Sweeney and Steve Swift, thank you
all.  Thank you, Roy Furman.  Thank you, David Wilhelm.  (Applause.)

         A lot of you were here with me a long time ago.  I
remember once more than a year ago when I came to New York and there
were hundreds people here in a hotel for a fundraiser for me, I was
dropping like a rock in New Hampshire.  All those experts said I was
dead.  I hear their call again.  (Laughter and applause.)

         People who couldn't see the long road and didn't want to
think of the fight as something that was bigger than any person were
all preoccupied.  And I just couldn't believe all these folks were
even showing up for a dinner in New York.  It was so dark in the
campaign, I thought, well, people will go ahead and send their checks
and stay home.  I imagined going into this vast ballroom and making a
speech to eight people.

         And I was feeling pretty sorry for myself, frankly.  And
I told this story many times, but a man stopped me at the hall who
was working at the hotel and said that he was a Greek immigrant and
he was going to vote for me because his son asked him to -- was only
10 years old.  That if I got elected, he wanted me to do something
for his son.  He said, "Where I come from, we were poor but we were
free.  Here, I make more money, but my boy's not free.  He can't go
across the street and play in the park without accompaniment from me.
He can't even go to his schools safely without my going with him.
And I want you to work to help make my boy free."  And it made me
remember what politics was all about.  I don't even remember what I
said that night, but I know all of a sudden I had forgotten about me
and started thinking about the rest of America.  And I think that is
what we ought to think about tonight.

         When we talk about a program, it only counts if there
are people behind it.  New York City, for all of the problems you may
think you have, has registered the first decline in the crime rate in
36 years, because you did something about community policing.
(Applause.)  So we know now that there is a strategy which can make
people freer.  That's what personal safety is.  And there is no
excuse for not doing something about it.  And that's what politics is
about -- focusing on the dreams and hopes and fears and needs of
people.  Sometimes I think that when we have these wonderful dinners,
which are delightful to me -- I've gotten to see some of you that I
haven't even seen since the election, just to say a simple thank you
to you.  Remember, we all did it so that we can make a difference in
people's lives.

         I want to say a special word of tribute here with all
the people from New York and New Jersey and Connecticut, and my
friend, Mayor Rendell and others here from Pennsylvania, and even a
handful of folks here from my home state.  They were the ones who
were clapping when Lou Katz gave his Arkansas pander.  I appreciate
it.

         I want to say a special word about one person who is
here.  I want to congratulate my friend, Jim Florio on winning the
John F. Kennedy Profiles in Courage Award -- (applause) -- for facing
the financial problems of his state, for facing educational problems
of his state and, yes, for being willing to stand up for the police
officers and the people of his city and state who wanted to be safe
from crime, standing up to the gun lobby and being for safe streets.
That's why he got the award.  (Applause.)  Doing real things, even if
they weren't so hot in the polls at the time.

         Now, our country is being called upon together to try to
do the things that we just talked about in the campaign.  Governor
Mario Cuomo said again today when he introduced me at the Cooper
Union that we campaign in poetry, but we must govern in prose.  It's
another way of saying, and a more eloquent way of saying it's a lot
easier to talk about change than it is to do it.

         I was overwhelmed today to have the opportunity to speak
on the same spot where Abraham Lincoln spoke at the Cooper Union in
1860.  And I went back and read large portions of Mr. Lincoln's
speech.  He came to the Cooper Union and catapulted himself into the
nomination of the Republican Party, into the presidency and into the
history and hearts of America.  He did it by saying this is a
difficult time, we have to ask hard questions and give strong
answers.  He said that we could not allow slavery to continue to
expand; and that if we did, it would destroy the United States.  He
said in many other places that if the house is divided against
itself, it could not stand.

         Lincoln went on to become president, and he expanded his
vision and he eventually signed the Emancipation Proclamation
abolishing slavery.  In the White House we have a painting called
"Waiting for the Hour," of black slaves watching a clock at five
minutes to 12:00 midnight, waiting for the stroke of midnight,
January 1st, 1863 for the Emancipation Proclamation to become
effective.  Several times a week, often late at night, I go alone
into the room where Lincoln signed that proclamation, and I
remembered what the presidency is really for -- to help the American
people move forward.  (Applause.)

         It is for us now to put this house in order.  And the
beginning is to stop denying our problems and to accept some common
responsibility for solving them.  The first thing we have to do is to
prove that the government can be trusted with your money by passing a
budget that will bring the deficit down.  Look what has happened.
(Applause.)  Look what has happened just since the election because
finally the country has an administration trying to do that.  Long-
term interest rates going down very low -- 20-year low.  Billions of
dollars, tens of billions being recycled into this economy, giving
people the opportunity to make a new start.  We have got to do that.
         We also have to deal with this health care crisis.  You
know, so many of you said nice things about Hillary tonight, and I
want to say I appreciate it, because about every third day she stops
speaking to me because I asked her to run the health care project.
(Laughter.)  It is the most complex, the most daunting task in our
domestic life.  But it is also perhaps the most urgent.

         If we cannot give working families the security of
knowing they're not going to lose their health care, if we can't give
businesses the security of knowing that health care doesn't have to
go up at two or three times the rate of inflation, if we can't
provide coverage to the 35 million Americans which don't have it, if
we can't face the crises of AIDS and the lack of health care in rural
areas and big cities, and if we can't invest in research in those
things that we have not come to grips with in health care, what can
we do as a country?  Every other nation has done a better job of many
of these things than we do; and so we must.  (Applause.)

         They say, well, you should only do one thing at a time.
You can't walk and chew gum at the same time in Washington; that's
what they say.  But I say we will do one thing at a time, but we have
to honestly put it all out there.  If you want to bring the deficit
down, you have to do health care.  The only purpose of bringing the
deficit down is to make the economy healthy.  You have to invest in
new technologies and give people incentives to create opportunity for
others.  It is not so simple as to say, well, just think about this
and let another idea cross your mind a year or two from now.  We have
got to be about the business of rebuilding America.  And we can do
that if we keep our eyes on the whole picture.  Bring the debt down,
invest in our future, deal with the health care crisis.  Deal with
the special problem of special people in special areas that have been
left out and left behind.  I believe we can do these things.

         I also have to tell you here at this magnificent
fundraiser tonight that I am so humbled that so many of you have
helped me for so long and asked for nothing in return, and others
have done it in spite of the fact that many of the changes that I
have advocated are not in your personal, immediate, short-term
interest.  You ought to be proud of that, because I'm proud of you.
(Applause.)

         One of the problems that has just killed this country is
that all of us have had our blinders on and we've been able to see
about six inches in front of our eyes.  And all of Washington for too
long has been dominated by that.  Eighty thousand lobbyists, because
of the absence of a compelling national public vision, each picking
apart the public interest, now I think we have to follow through,
also, on our commitment to political reform, to campaign finance
reform, to lower the cost of campaigns, reduce the influence of PACs
and open the airwaves to challengers.  (Applause.)  It'll also be
nicer for you if you could only go to one dinner a year instead of
four or five.  It's a good thing.  We should do it.  (Applause.)

         I also believe that we have to continue on this whole
reform track.  We passed a modified line-item veto in the House of
Representatives.  The Senate ought to pass it and let the President
take the heat for controlling unnecessary spending.  We ought to
continue to work to open up the political process.  (Applause.)
Hallelujah, the gridlock was broken yesterday and the United States
Congress passed the motor voter bill to open up the political process
to young people all across the country.  (Applause.)

         These are things that can make a difference.  We have to
begin to think about America in terms of what's in it for all of us
together so that we can move forward together.  Let me just mention
one or two things tonight.  A couple of days ago I was in Cleveland.
And on the way out of town, I went by a little pierogi place started
by a wonderful young woman who wanted to start her own restaurant,
couldn't get a bank loan.  She came from a big Polish family, so she
just took the Cleveland phone book and called hundreds of people with
Polish surnames and asked them to invest in her business until she
got 80 folks to give her $3,000 apiece, and she's doing real well
now.  They're the kind of people that we ought to be fighting for.
(Applause.)

         When I got to another one of my meetings, I saw a woman
who had six children and was supporting these children all by
herself, making a handsome salary that she had to give up because one
of her children was so desperately ill.  The only way she could
afford the child's health care was to become eligible for government
assistance, because we don't have a health care system.  And she was
there in my speech with her beloved child and their $100,000 a month
medical bills.  They're the people who are worth fighting for.
(Applause.)

         I received a letter yesterday from a wonderful young man
and his wife who became friends of mine in New Hampshire and had a
desperately ill child who had troubles at birth, and he lost his
health insurance and he had to choose between working and not working
to get on public assistance, and he struggled on.  And the letter
says that he just had to file for bankruptcy, but he hasn't given up
on himself or his family or his country, and he wants me to keep
fighting to make the economy better.  That's what this whole effort
is all about.  There are real people and lives and dramas worthy of
the greatest admiration behind so many stories in this room, so many
stories in this country.

         I ask you for your continued support.  I ask you to
support the suggestion I made today that we're going to put all this
money we're trying to raise into a deficit reduction trust and say to
the American people every dollar of the tax will go to reduce the
debt, and none of the taxes will be raised without the spending cuts.
Tell the Congress that we ought to do it, instead of just fooling
around with it and talking about it.  (Applause.)

         But I ask you, finally, to remember that the atmosphere
in which we labor, you and I, is still heavily laden with cynicism
and skepticism.  People have been disappointed on and off for 20
years.  I was looking the other night at a little bit of history, an
account of the Kennedy administration, reminding me that when
President Kennedy was elected, the same sort of time, the same sort
of moment, except that over 70 percent of the American people, when
he went in, believed that leaders told the truth to the American
people and believed they could trust their leaders to do the right
thing.  We don't have that today.

         One of the things that those of you who had some
personal contact and personal involvement in this administration can
do is to help to restore the sense of faith that the American people
used to take for granted.

         We simply can never succeed -- ever -- if every step
along the way is burdened with people who are denying their own
responsibility, waiting for someone to deliver them while making no
effort, waiting for someone else to blame, letting the spike that
comes out of every conflict overcome the larger vision and purposes
that we are about.  I am telling you, if we could do one thing
tonight that would guarantee the success of everything else we're
going to do, would be all of us in our own way to walk out of here
and say, let's try to put aside all of our differences and think
about how we can lift up the people of this country.  Let us, for a
few months, suspend all of our cynicism and instead put our faith in
the process that took us to the polls last November.  Let us try to
bring out the best in one another even in the most heated debates in
the Congress.

         I worry from time to time only about one thing -- and
that is that the people who have to make these decisions will not
feel the energy of the American people desperately saying change,
have the courage to change; challenge me, bring out the best in me,
do not give into the pressures and the temptations of the moment, but
go forward to a better life.  (Applause.)

         I ask all of you, too, to remember that I'm going to get
up every day and go to work, and work hard.  Some days, I work
smarter than other days, but every day I'll work hard.  I ask you to
remember that one of the great challenges of being President is to
try to devote enough time and attention to the job to get the job
done and save enough time to stay among the people, selling what
you've done and listening, and making the proper adjustment when
there is something more you need to learn.

         I asked so many of you back during the election not to
take the election as the end, but the beginning of this enterprise.
And so I invite you again to be a part of this great enterprise with
your ideas as well as your spirit.  We've got four years of work to
do.  We can move this country forward in great ways and in profound
ways that will benefit millions; indeed, all of the people of this
country.  But it's going to take every last good idea and every last
ounce of will and vision and every ounce of courage and faith.

         You have to be a part of that.  I want you to leave here
tonight knowing that I still want that just as badly as I did in the
election.  I did not run for this job to move into the White House,
as great an honor as that is.  I did not run for this job even to
have the enormous privilege of standing on Harry Truman's balcony and
looking at the statue of Thomas Jefferson every night.  I ran for it
to be faithful to the tradition they established by making your life
better, and you have to help me do that.

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

                                 END9:54 P.M. EDT