Remarks to the community in Billings

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, June 5, 1995

Thank you very much. Thank you for that wonderful, wonderful welcome. It is great to be back in Montana and great to have that kind of reception. I know it's hot, and I was thinking you might just feel the need to stand up and down to keep cool. [Laughter]

I want to thank the Billings High School Band. Didn't they do a good job on "Hail to the Chief"? Thank you, Chancellor Sexton, for making me feel at home. Thank you, Governor Racicot, for coming out here and meeting me at the airport and coming over to be with us here. I have - I was a Governor for 12 years, and I served with 150 other Governors. Most of my friends in Arkansas thought that I just couldn't get another job. [Laughter] But in a lot of ways, it was the best job I ever had. At least you could know people, and they knew you. And because I come from a State that's a little bigger than Montana but not much, more populous but smaller, and I always loved being Governor. Three people I served with are also here today, and I'd like to introduce them: the Governor of Colorado, Roy Romer; the former Governor of Wyoming, Mike Sullivan; and your former Governor, Ted Schwinden. They're all over here with me. I hate to tell Governor Racicot this, but when we started, Governor Romer and Governor Schwinden and I didn't have any gray hair, and Governor Sullivan had lots of hair. [Laughter]

Congressman Williams, thank you for your wonderful introduction and for your incredible enthusiasm and for occasionally playing golf with me. [Laughter] I'd also like to say a special word of appreciation to Senator Baucus who is not here, but who has given me a lot of good advice over time, and I've been better off when I've taken it than when I've ignored it. [Laughter]

I also want to tell you, I'm glad to be here at this campus. You know, the last time I was here, I appeared at the other college, so this is sort of equal time. And I thank you for giving me a chance to give you equal time.

I feel very much at home here. I was saying, before I became President, for 12 years I was Governor of Arkansas. And I knew everybody and everybody knew me, and they called me by my first name. And even my enemies smiled when they saw me. And if people were mad at me, they told me to my face, but they didn't have to hear it indirectly from somebody else; we all really knew what was going on.

And one of the most frustrating things about being President is, with 260 million people in this country and so many intermediaries between you and the White House and the people out where they live, it's hard to know sometimes - I mean, look, half the time when I see the evening news, I wouldn't be for me, either. [Laughter] So I'm glad to be back at a place where we can be directly involved and know the truth, right?

I'd also like to thank my friends from the American Indian tribes from Montana for coming today. Thank you very much. I'm glad to see you. I see another person from Montana back in Washington from time to time that some of you know and all of you must admire very greatly, Senator Mike Mansfield.

You know, he's ninety-some-odd now, and he still gets out and walks every day, and he's still just as blunt and straightforward as he ever was. About a year and a half ago, we had a ceremony in the Rose Garden at the White House, naming former Vice President Mondale to be the Ambassador to Japan. And Mike Mansfield showed up because they had served together in the Senate. I saw him back there, and I thought, well, I'll just mention that Mike's here, and he's probably gone out and had his walk for the day, and he'll like that. So I said, "And I see Senator and former Ambassador to Japan Mike Mansfield in the back, and I'll bet he's already walked his 5 miles today," And there was total quiet before they started applauding, and he said, "Seven." [Laughter]

When I was a young man in college in Washington, I worked for my Senator, Senator Fulbright, who served with Mike Mansfield and who just died at the age of 90, just before his 90th birthday. And when I showed up in Washington, he was 87. And the day before he had lunch with me, he'd had lunch with Mike Mansfield. And Mike Mansfield said, "Now, Bill, how old are you again?" And he said, "I'm 87." And Senator Mansfield said, "Oh, to be 87 again." [Laughter] I say that to tell you he's still in real good shape, and you can still be very proud of him.

Ted Schwinden and I were laughing as I was coming in here today. Ten years ago this summer, my family and I came here to Montana and spent the night in the Governor's Mansion and got up the next morning about 4:30 a.m. and piled into a helicopter to explore the wildlife of the Missouri River area where you have the wildlife refuge, then we got on a rail line and went from Cutback all the way to Whitefish. Except we weren't in a railcar, we were in one of those blazers that has the attachments to the rails. Now, I thought I had been in remote circumstances and rough conditions - [laughter] - but we went over a gorge that was about 300 feet high in a blazer on a narrow set of railroad tracks, and I wasn't nearly as courageous as I thought I was. But I still remember how beautiful it was all the way down in that gorge and how well I could see it. We went to Glacier National Park. We stayed on a little lake in a lodge I think that's now closed. It was one of the great experiences that our family has had together, ever, in our whole life, and I'm always grateful for that.