Remarks in Littleton, Colorado

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, June 23, 1997

Thank you very much. First I want to thank Robert and Erica for reminding us of what we need to do to make sure all our children have the tools they need to succeed in this new global economy, and indeed, for reminding us about what most of our endeavors are about. I think they did a good job, don't you? Let's give them another hand. [Applause]

Thank you, Kristy, for your very kind words and even more for the power of your example. And I want to thank my good friend, Mayor Webb, for being our host. He and Mrs. Webb have been good friends to Hillary and me over the years, and I'm thrilled to be in Denver. I thank my friend and former colleague, Governor Romer, and Mrs. Romer. Among other things, Governor Romer is recognized as the most important Governor in our country on the subject of education, which is something I want to talk to you about today, and I know you're proud of what he has done.

I thank the host committee and the honorary chairs and vice chairs of the Denver Summit. I thank Representative Diana DeGette, who is doing a good job for you in Congress and came down with me today, City Council President Cathy Reynolds. I'd like to thank the National Digital TV Center and Leo Hindry and David Beddow who showed me around through this remarkable place.

Some of you may know that I'm sort of a, to put it charitably, a movie freak. My wife used to say that I would watch anything that came on the screen if it started out, and it was obviously a movie. And inside I saw 35 movies being digitalized and sent out over various channels, and I almost didn't come out. But I couldn't bear to think of you going through this.

I want to thank all the people here from the Curtis Community Project and the Mouse Campers, thank you for being here. I'd like to say a special word of thanks to a member of my Cabinet, your former mayor, Federico Pena, who just became a father for the third time just a couple of days ago. You know how much he loves Denver, and he thinks this is important, or he wouldn't he here, although he's here with permission, I might add.

I want to thank the Director of Summit Affairs and the Executive Director of the Summit, Harold Ickes and Debbie Willhite, and their great team for what they have done. And again, Mr. Mayor and Governor, let me thank you for the incredible support that Denver and Colorado have given to the Summit of the Eight.

I don't need to tell you why we really came here. Denver is a city that America can be proud of, a city bursting with the promise of the new century that is upon us, with the most educated people in America; a city that has increased its exports to the rest of the world 60 percent faster than the rest of our country in the last 5 years; a community that, as has been said, once drew its wealth from mine shafts and factories and the land, now thriving on telecommunications, aerospace, banking, computer software, and the magnificence of its environment.

Over a century ago, Walt Whitman wrote of the Colorado pioneers, "All the past we leave behind; we enter a newer, mightier world." Today, the men and women of Denver are cutting new paths. In this very building the product of our culture is transforming from analog to digital, from yesterday's technology to tomorrow's, beamed to satellites that gird the globe, seen by billions around the world.

When the leaders of the world's leading industrial democracies arrive here for the Summit of the Eight, they will be struck not only by the breathtaking beauty of the Rockies but by the powerful optimism of a city both proud of its past and focused on the future.

With our summit partners, we'll have an opportunity to cut a new path to that future, to work to deepen and extend the benefits of the global economy and protect people more against its down sides, to reach out to bring new partners into that economy, from Africa to all other parts of the word, to spread democracy and human rights around the world, and to meet new dangers of our common security that cross all national borders now: international crime and drug trafficking, terrorism and the spread of weapons of mass destruction, the emergence of infectious diseases that can sweep the globe, and environmental decay that embraces us all.

We host our partners at a time when America's economy is the healthiest in a generation and the strongest in the word. Our economic success is a strategy that all of you have participated in. It is born of the dynamic center that has kept America moving forward for more than two centuries, a new American economic approach that required us to puncture myths and push past yesterday's stale debates, that enabled us to move earlier and more strongly than most other nations into the new global economy.

In 1993 we put in place a new economic strategy designed to help America move from the industrial to the information age, to move into a new century and a new millennium with three very simple but profound goals in mind: to make sure the American dream is alive for all of our citizens, to make sure our American community is growing more united even as it becomes more diverse, to make sure America continues to lead the world for peace and freedom and prosperity.