Remarks at the University of Central Oklahoma in Edmond, Oklahoma

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, April 15, 1996

Thank you very much. Governor Nigh, Mrs. Nigh, Congressman Istook, Mr. Mayor, Mr. Speaker, the other distinguished guests on the platform, and to the students and the other members of the University of Central Oklahoma community and family, Governor David Walters and Mrs. Walters, and to all the people who are here with me today because of the mission we are on.

Let me say it's good to be back here. I heard the students laughing when Governor Nigh announced that I was here 8 years ago, and I was thinking, most of the students were in grade school the last time I was here. [Laughter] Later this year I'll be eligible for my AARP card - [laughter] - but I'm still glad to be here.

As all of you know, and as the Governor said, I came here today to Oklahoma to pay my respects nearly a year after the tragedy of the bombing, to attend a memorial service for the families of those who were victims, for the survivors and their families, and others who were Federal employees who worked there, and to help your State officials to dedicate the beginning of the child care center which will be rebuilt, which is a remarkable accomplishment, and to meet with this scholarship committee, which informed me of the results which were just announced to you by Governor Nigh.

And it is coming at an especially sad but ironically appropriate time, just a couple of days after we suffered the loss of our Secretary of Commerce and a number of fine Federal employees - some of them very young, barely older than some of the students here - a number of fine U.S. military personnel, and some of our country's most outstanding business leaders in that plane crash in Bosnia.

I would like to make just two points briefly. I know it's cold and you've been waiting a long time, but I ask you to reflect on two things. That plane went down in Bosnia full of people who have worked very hard to help the American people fulfill their potential. Ron Brown was immensely proud of the fact that more than any other Commerce Secretary and Commerce Department in our history, they had been instrumental in opening new avenues for people to buy American products and American services and create jobs for Americans, so that when young people get out of college they can get jobs, good jobs, jobs that pay better than average, jobs with a good future.

But these people went to Bosnia with only the most modest expectation of any personal gain for themselves. They went there to try to use the power of the American economy to help bring opportunity to the Bosnians so that peace wouldn't fall apart and instead would take hold.

But the main thing I want to say is that my friend Ron Brown, who grew up in Harlem, never forgot where he came from and spent his lifetime trying to help other people realize their dreams. When our hearts were breaking over what happened in Oklahoma City - it was this madness that somebody for some perverted political purpose could take everyone else's life away from them who weren't even standing in the way, they just happened to show up in the wrong time in the wrong place. And so I would like to say two things to you today.

First of all, all of us need to ask ourselves a year later, what are our responsibilities not only to help the children, who were tragically robbed of their parents in Oklahoma City, to fulfill their dreams but to provide that opportunity for all people? I've worked very hard to expand the quality and availability of college loans and the college scholarships for children of modest incomes. I'm still hoping we'll pass a balanced budget amendment in our legislation in this Congress that will include a tax cut that gives families a deduction for the cost of college tuition, because I think it's the best possible tax break we could give America, to do that.

But this is not a political issue. Every American has an interest in seeing every other American be able to live out their dreams. And we have certain positive responsibilities, just like Ron Brown believed that we did, to try to do that, and access to higher education is, perhaps, the most important one.

The second thing I want to ask you about, especially the young people, is to think about where do we go from here. And as horrible and personal as the bombing of the Federal building was to you, I want you to try to step back a minute and put it in a larger context. It was, first and foremost, an act of terror. What is terror? Terror is when someone, allegedly for some philosophical or political reason, believes they have the right to take innocent lives, not people who are fighting them in war, not people who are wearing uniforms, not people who are staring at them across a battle line but just to take an action that will take the lives of people who just happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.

And we are seeing that all over the world, and you see it in two ways. First, you see homegrown terror, people in your own country that are so profoundly alienated they think they have a right to do this. You've been reading about the Unabomber in recent days. That's an example of that. You remember when the religious fanatics in Japan broke open poison gas in the Japanese subway and killed a lot of people and a few days later could have killed hundreds more, but miraculously, the second attempt was thwarted. That's an example of that.