Remarks to the Montgomery County community in Norristown, Pennsylvania

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Jan 25, 1999

January 20, 1999

Thank you very much. First, let me say to all of you that when we came in here tonight, I think it's fair to say that Hillary and Al and Tipper and I were literally overwhelmed by this reception. And I knew that this was a wonderful community; I knew this was a wonderful school. I knew there was a lot of enthusiasm, but it didn't all quite add up until I realized that we had caused your exams to be delayed. And I want you to know that we're having such a good time, we'd be delighted to come back about this time next term if you want. We can make this a regular thing. [Laughter]

I want to thank Dr. Williams for his magnificent invocation. I thank Dr. Woodall for the remarks he made, for making us welcome here, and for the example that he and Mr. Spencer, the principal here, all the teachers here, and all the students and teachers from this school and the other schools here represented. I thank you for what you're doing and for the example you're setting for America.

I'd like to thank all of our musicians and the choir for playing and singing for us. I thought they were great. And I want to thank Melissa for speaking so well. Weren't you proud of her? Did she do a great job, or what? [Applause] I'm glad I never had to run against her for anything. [Laughter]

I also want to thank all these wonderful people from Pennsylvania who have come here, all the officials and citizens from this area and from Philadelphia and nearby areas. Let me say, there was a lot of talk tonight keying off Reverend Williams' invocation about vision.

I'd like to say something else, if I might, out of respect to others. It is a good thing to have a vision, because otherwise you never know where you're going. So you have to have one. I ran for President, beginning in 1991, because I thought our country was drifting and because I believed that if you look at these young people here - one elementary school in this area has kids from 50 countries speaking 13 languages - and if you look at all these young people and their parents and everybody in this room, and you imagine what the world is going to be like, and you know it's going to get smaller and smaller, and we're going to have more and more relationships, and the borders will become more and more open, it's hard to imagine any country in the world that is remotely as well positioned as America to give people the chance to make the most of their own lives.

But we had to have a vision. My vision for the 21st century was pretty simple. I wanted us to have a country for the children of the Gores and the Clintons and all the other kids in our country where every person who was a responsible citizen would have a genuine opportunity to live out their dreams. I wanted us to have a country where over all the differences between us - we would relish those differences, our racial, our religious, our cultural differences; our serious differences we would debate seriously. But we would honor our common humanity and our shared values as Americans enough to say what unites us is so much more important than what divides us. We will build one America in the 21st century.

And I wanted us to continue to be the country, as we grew more diverse and, therefore, had deeper and deeper ties with more and more other people around the world. I wanted America to recognize that because of our wealth and position, we have not only the opportunity but a responsibility to continue to be the world's leading force for peace and freedom and prosperity for others. It is good for ourselves to do the right thing in trying to build the rest of the world and build closer ties.

Now, it is a good thing to have a vision; you can't get started without it. Otherwise you don't know where you're going. The Vice President talked about Tommy Lasorda and Mike Piazza. My favorite baseball player of all time, because he was such a wonderful speaker, was Yogi Berra. You know, Yogi Berra said, "We don't know where we're going, but we're making good time." [Laughter] So you have to have a vision. But you have to have something else, too. You have to have people who are willing to act on it.

I hope you could see with the four of us up here, we like being together. We've worked closely together. We see ourselves as a family, and we see our allies as a family. When I came to Washington, I wanted to do something about homelessness, but Tipper Gore helped me do it. I wanted to raise the consciousness of America about all kinds of things that we sort of kept hidden under the rug but were hurting people. Mental health was one of the most important. Tipper Gore helped me do it.

I wanted to prove that we could have a smaller Government - we now have the smallest Federal Government since 1962 - but I wanted to do it in a way that wouldn't just throw good Federal employees in the street and that would enable us to do more. The Vice President made it possible for us to do that; he led that effort.

I wanted to prove that we could grow the economy and improve the environment by doing things like building new cars that would triple gas mileage. The Vice President has led our efforts there and in dealing with all the promise of new technology in trying to hook up all our schools and libraries to the Internet and in managing a big portion of our relations with Russia, South Africa, and other countries. I can say without qualification that no Vice President in history has had so much responsibility or done so much good. So the vision requires an action.