Remarks to the Wall Street Project conference in New York City

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Jan 19, 1998

Thank you very, very much, Reverend Jackson. Thank you, ladies and gentlemen. Thank you, Mr. Grasso and Mr. Jones, and all the other sponsors of this event for this historic day. I thank Secretary Herman for her leadership and for coming up here with me today, along with our SBA Administrator, Aida Alvarez. I don't know if Ambassador Richardson is in the audience, but I'll take a chance, because if he's here and I don't mention him, I'll live with it from now on - [laughter] - and because he cares deeply about these issues. I also see Reverend Suzan Cook, a member of our race advisory board, here. I have many other friends here, business people, the mayors, and others. I thank the Members of the New York congressional delegation for coming, Congressman Rangel, Maloney, Owens, Manton, and Representative-elect Meeks. And I thank Lieutenant Governor Ross and Comptroller McCall and Speaker Silver, and any other State officials who might be here, and Mr. Green and Mr. Vallone and any other city officials who are here.

Let me say that I've looked forward to this, but it occurs to me, on Martin Luther King's birthday, that the real danger we have here is that Reverend Jackson and I and all the others might be here preaching to the saved, that we all agree with what we're here to talk about. But there is still some merit in our being here in the hope that we can reach beyond those in this room in this very high place to those who are at work down below us today here in New York and throughout the country. Maybe we should have just let Santita sing to them. That would have persuaded them better than anything I could say.

It is true, Mr. Avant, that I told Jesse that I knew this was a historic day, because you've been to the White House a half-dozen times and never worn a tie. [Laughter] So I know that we are onto something big here. [Laughter]

Let me tell you - this is not part of my remarks, but I want to emphasize on Martin Luther King's birthday, since we're here talking about expanding opportunities of American enterprise to all our citizens, what I did this morning before I came up here. This day is always one of my very favorite days as President. This was the day this year that I awarded the Presidential Medals of Freedom. And let me give you some - I may not have every name down here, but I think this is interesting. If you just listen to the names, it will tell you something about your country.

Arnie Aronson, an 86-year-old Jewish American who founded - cofounded the Leadership Conference on Civil Rights, worked all the way back with A. Philip Randolph in the forties on civil rights; James Farmer, 87 years old; Fred Korematsu, the Japanese-American who refused to go quietly into the internment camp in World War II and fought for years to have his conviction overturned - [inaudible] - Mario Obledo, former LULAC leader and one of the founders of the Mexican American Legal Defense Fund; Justin Dart, the man who probably is more responsible for the Americans with Disabilities Act than any other single American citizen; Mardy Murie, a 93-year-old conservationist who lives at the foot of the Grand Tetons in Wyoming, who has done so much to save the West; the distinguished American psychiatrist Robert Coles, who probably has had more influence through his academic writings to promote equal opportunity for all children and the whole cause of citizen service than any other academic in America; Frances Hesselbein, who saved the Girl Scouts when they were on the brink of extinction by diversifying the Girl Scouts and unifying them; Al Shanker of New York - [applause] - posthumously.

My wife said these were just ordinary American citizens, and I said, yes, ordinary American citizens like Brooke Astor and David Rockefeller - I gave them the Medal of Freedom today. [Laughter] And I did it for a very important point that brings us to Wall Street: They had other options. They didn't really have to go out and do good with their lives, but they did it anyway. Wilma Mankiller, the first woman to be chief of the Cherokee Nation; Elliot Richardson, who holds more - who's held more Cabinet positions than any other American citizen, a distinguished Republican who had a lot to do with saving our Constitution. And there were others, Admiral Zumwalt and a couple of others.

But I just give these names to give you a feel for what America is really all about. All these incredibly different people from different walks of life who made our country what it is. And it's a better country. And when it was over today and everybody was filing out of the East Room at the White House, they were all thinking, "Gosh, these people are all so different, but they shared something special in their citizenship, in their service, in their devotion to the ideals of this country. And because they all played their roles, we are a much greater, bigger, better country." That's really what we're here to talk about today.

From the beginning, this country was set on a mission by the Founders - and I quote - "to form a more perfect Union." It was a brilliant formulation of a national mission, because it recognized that our work would never be done and that there is no such thing as perfection, so that we would always have something new to do. And they wrote this Constitution for us that's full of good basic values, recognizing that it would always have to be applied to changing circumstances; and that if we kept the values and kept the mission in mind, that we were always supposed to be forming a more perfect Union, we might have a chance to do better than any other people had in human history. Over 220 years later, we're still here, the longest lasting big democracy in the history of humanity.