Remarks at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 4, 1996

The President. Thank you very much. Thank you, Philadelphia. Can you hear us in the back? Beyond the fence? Thank you. Thank you for being here today. Thank you, Congressman Chaka Fattah, for your eloquent introduction. What's all that music? [Laughter] Whoever turned it off, give them a hand. That's great. There are a few thousand people out there beyond the fence. Can you hear us back there? Welcome. We're glad to see you.

Thank you, Congressman Chaka Fattah, for your leadership. Thank you, Mayor Rendell, for your outstanding leadership of Philadelphia. It's amazing what you've accomplished for all of America, as you said in your introduction. [Laughter] Congressman Borski, Congressman Foglietta. And I'd like to introduce a person that I hope will be joining them in the United States Congress to fight for you and your future, Joe Hoeffel, a congressional candidate, very near here. Thank you, sir. Thank you, president of the Philadelphia City Council, John Street. Thank you, my good friends, Grover Washington, Patti LaBelle, Boyz 2 Men. Weren't they great?

Thank you, Rodney Peete, for what you said and what you do, and we all wish you well in your recovery. He's in a line of work where he even takes more blows than I do, and he's doing very well. [Laughter] And thank you, Holly, for being here. Thank you, Dr. Papadakis, and thank you, Dr. Judith Roden. Thank you, Chairman Brady and thank you, Catherine Baker Knowles. And I understand that there are students here from 21 different colleges and universities throughout the Delaware Valley, thank you, all of you, for coming here today.

Thank you, Secretary Riley, for being here with me and for being, I believe, the most outstanding Secretary of Education in the history of that department.

Ladies and gentlemen, we're about to elect the last President of the 20th century, the first President of the 21st century. You have a lot at stake in that election. I wanted to come here today where there would be so many young people to ask you to think about your tomorrows. I ask you to go home tonight and before you go to bed, to spend just a few moments asking yourself a simple question: What do I want my country to be like when we cross that bridge into the 21st century? What do I hope my country will be like when my children are my age?

Here we are in Philadelphia, the birthplace of American democracy. When our forefathers gathered here to lead the way into the 19th century over 200 years ago, they restored to the Earth a form of government called democracy that had been all but forgotten for 2000 years. Since ancient Greece, people had given up on the idea that people could be free, could freely govern themselves, could elect their own leaders and make their own decisions and march into the future as equal children of God. It was a revolutionary idea.

And because they did that, they set in motion a whole chain of circumstances that have brought us all here today. All of us from our different ethnic and racial and religious backgrounds, all of us from our different economic circumstances, all of us from all over this great country and from all over the world, we stand here today freely to debate our opinions and discuss our visions, because they did that. What I want you to understand is that we are about to begin a new century and a new millennium where we are radically changing the way we work and live and relate to each other, where we must find a way to meet our challenges and seize our opportunities while preserving the values that have sustained this country and our families and our lives for over 200 years.

Many of you in this audience today will soon be doing jobs that have not been invented yet; many of you will even be doing work that has not been imagined yet. I want to say a special word of thanks to those who are here who are pushing the frontiers of knowledge, the hundreds of scientists and engineers, including many here in Pennsylvania, who have supported our goals in science and technology. And I want to thank especially one of your own who is here today and was a pioneer of the Internet and one of the cochairs of Scientists and Engineers for Clinton-Gore, Pennsylvania's own, David Farber. Thank you for being here today.

If you just think about the Internet, 4 years ago when I took the oath of office as President, about the only people who knew about the Internet were nuclear physicists. Today my cat has his own home page and own Web site. [Laughter] I stop and shake hands with schoolchildren; they know not very much about me, but they have been conversing with Socks on the Internet. [Laughter] Before you know it there will be 100 million people on the Internet.

So when we think about this election, I think it's good to cheer and shout, make a lot of noise and get our emotions running, but I also think you ought to take a little time just to ask yourself, "What do I want this country to be like when we cross that bridge to a new century and a new millennium?"

I have always wanted America to go into this new century with the American dream alive and well for everyone responsible enough to work for it. I have always wanted to know that our country would still be the strongest force in the world for peace and freedom and prosperity. And I have always wanted to know that we could beat the tide of history driving so many people apart around the world, and we could say, we love our diversity, we relish our diversity, we're building a stronger American community with all the different people who come here who share our values and believe in our Constitution.