Remarks in Toledo, Ohio

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Sept 2, 1996

The President. Thank you so much to the citizens of Toledo. Thank you very much, Mr. Mayor. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you for making us feel so very welcome tonight. Now, I want to tell you first of all, I love Toledo, and I love to spend the night here. I love to run along the water here in the morning. And I'm delighted to be back.

I've still got my Toledo Mud Hens cap. And I'm glad to be back. I also want to tell you that if you saw Senator Glenn and I talking a little while the program was going, you need to know that at some point in about 15 minutes I'm going to stop, and the whole country is going to see you, because we're going to be talking back and forth to our convention in Chicago. So I want you to help me. Will you do that?

Now, in the meanwhile, I'd like to talk to you a few moments. First, I want to acknowledge your mayor and thank him for his vigorous leadership to help develop Toledo economically and to help fight the crime problem and working with us on it.

Secondly, let me say, there is not in the entire United States Congress another Member of the Congress who is as active and energetic and aggressive and effective on behalf of the constituents as Marcy Kaptur is for you. She's fought for your jobs; she's fought for your welfare; she's fought for your values. You can be proud of her.

And let me say of Senator Glenn, I have known very few people in public life that I would say I admired as much as John Glenn. He is an American hero and a national treasure. He's too modest to tell you, but we did downsize the Government, but we didn't put those Federal employees in the street. We didn't cast them off and forget about them. We gave them early retirement. We helped them find other things to do. And we used the opportunity of the savings to do things like put 100,000 more police back on your streets, to bring your deficit down.

And we used ways to save money and increase the effectiveness of national defense, increase the effectiveness of our ability to respond to emergencies. We cut the budget of the Small Business Administration, for example, and doubled the loan volume. We did those kind of things, in large measure in 1993 and 1994, with the help and leadership of John Glenn. And he deserves a lot of credit for it.

I also - a lot of Ohioans know that Senator Glenn is one of America's leaders on the problem of nuclear proliferation. That's a big old word, but I'll tell you what it means now. During this administration - and thanks in no small measure to the leadership of John Glenn - for the first time since the dawn of the nuclear age, on this night, this beautiful night, there is not a single nuclear missile pointed at a child in the United States of America. And we can be proud of that.

I want to thank the CitiFest organization for helping this to become possible. I want to thank Lucas County Democratic chair Keith Wilkowski for his work on this. And I want to mention two other folks, one, the gentleman to my right who is sitting over there with Chelsea. He's one of yours. His name is Robert Wyckoff. He was wounded fighting for your country in Word War II, but he had never received, after all these years, the combat medals he earned, including the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart. Well, 50 years too late, on our train tonight just before we got to Toledo, it was my great honor to pin on Robert Wyckoff the Bronze Star and the Purple Heart he earned for our country before.

Would you stand up, sir? Let's give him a hand. [Applause] Thank you.

There's another person I want to introduce tonight who is not here, and you'll understand in a minute. Marcy gave Chelsea the keys to the Jeep. [Laughter] One of the things I'm proudest of in America's economic recovery is that for the first time in 20 years, the United States is the auto capital of the world. We're producing more cars than the Japanese, and we're selling more around the world. And tonight, tonight in Chicago at our convention, an autoworker from Toledo named Todd Clancy is speaking on behalf of the working people of America. And I know you can be proud of him.

We have had a wonderful time. We've been to West Virginia, Kentucky; we've been all over Ohio. We started this morning at the State Police Training Academy in Columbus. We've been to Arlington. We had an unbelievable rally in Bowling Green. We are having a good time taking the than across America's heartland, a train that gives me a chance to thank you for giving me the chance to serve as your President, to say that I have worked for you, and to look in your eyes and tell you we've been up there for 4 years every day trying to help you go forward. And we'd like 4 more, because America is on the right track, the right track.

Audience members. Four more years! Four more years! Four more years!

The President. Thank you, thank you. Thank you so much. We're on the right track. And I'll tell you, I want you to watch our convention; we're going to have a good time. And I'm glad a few of our friends from the other party showed up tonight with their signs. You're welcome here. We're glad to have you here.