Remarks to the National Conference on Building Prosperity in the Delta in Arlington, Virginia - Brief Article

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, May 15, 2000

May 10, 2000

Thank you very much. Thank you. Good afternoon, and welcome. Thank you for coming here to meet. I know that we're having a reception over at the White House later this evening; I hope all of you will come, and I look forward to seeing you all there, as well.

I want to begin by thanking Conn Davis for his introduction. He's an impressive young man. In addition to going to Boys Nation, you might be interested to know that he's a football standout and Eagle Scout, and from my point of view, most important, he plays trombone in his school's jazz band. [Laughter]

I also want to thank all the members of our administration who have been part of this. And I can't mention them all, but I especially should note, of course, Secretary Slater is from the Delta, from Lee County, in Arkansas; Bill Ferris, the head of the National Endowment for the Humanities, from Mississippi; our FCC Chairman, Bill Kennard; our Office of Personnel Management Director, Janice Lachance, is here. I thank all of them and the others who are helping me with the Delta, as well as all the people on the White House staff who have worked so hard on this, Lynn Cutler, Lisa Kountoupes, and many others.

Governor Musgrove, we're glad to see you here. Thank you for coming, sir. And we appreciate your leadership, and we're glad to see you down there. I thank Mayor Herenton from Memphis. You know, when I was a boy, we used to go over to the Delta, and everybody who lived east of Little Rock would say that they were not from Arkansas. They lived in the State of Delta, and Memphis was its capital. So I'm glad to see you here, sir. Thank you very much.

I want to thank my Arkansas Congressman from the Delta, Marion Berry. I think he's still here. And if any of you had any idea how many hours he and Senator Blanche Lambert Lincoln have spent literally haranguing me about the entire Delta, not just Arkansas, you would all supplement their salaries generously. They have been wonderful. I want to thank Marion Berry and Blanche Lincoln for what they have done.

Lieutenant Governor Wood, we're glad to have you here. My old friend Jess White, we've been working on these issues for more than 15 years together. And I'd like to say a special word of appreciation to a former Delta Congressman, Mike Espy, who's here--I think, plainly, one of the two or three best Agriculture Secretaries this country has ever had. And I really thank you very much for being here.

I won't go into this in great detail today, but I'm going to have in the next few months some further proposals on agriculture, which I think are important. We should not forget the agriculture component of the Delta's future and the fact that as I warned when it passed, the last farm bill we passed basically is bad for family farmers except when prices are high. When prices are high, everybody's getting along all right. We need to do better in the next farm bill and with agricultural policy to recognize the unique characteristics of the family farm structure that, thank goodness, is still alive in most of the Delta, and we need to do what we can to preserve it.

So I thank you, Mike Espy. And all the farmers that are here, I thank you, and I hope that we will remember that.

Finally, just by way of introduction, I would like to say a special word of appreciation to all of the business leaders who are here, large and small. And if I might, I'd like to say one special word of appreciation to Wayne Leonard and the folks at Entergy. They have been really devoted to this whole idea of our new market strategy and rebuilding the Delta. And I've had I don't know how many people who have told me in the last couple of months that they've had meetings with Wayne or various Entergy executives who have said, "Well, here's what our company's into. Now, let's get past that and let me talk to you about what I really want to talk to you about, which is rebuilding the Delta."

So, for all of you in the private sector that have that kind of commitment--obviously, most of this will be done with and through you, and I thank you all very, very much.

Those of you whom I have had the privilege to know in Arkansas over the last several decades, some of you all my life--there's my State Senator out there, Bud Canada; thank you for being here--and those of you with whom I worked on the Delta Development Commission or on the Southern Growth Policies Board know that this is more than a political issue to me, even more than a public policy problem. I've been interested in the people and the problems and the promise of the Delta for 40 years.

You know, I loved music when I was a child. I was 15 years old when I first went to New Orleans. I still remember everything I did. The first place I ever went where hamburgers cost more than a dollar--I was horrified. [Laughter] I still remember going to Preservation Hall and sitting there as a 15-year-old boy for 4 or 5 hours listening to these old guys play music that I would kill to be able to play like. I still remember everything about it. I still remember how the Delta looked and the bends in the river.