Remarks at Our Lady Help of Christians School in Los Angeles - Pres. Clinton; Los Angeles, California - Transcript

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Nov 29, 1993

And so I tell you, we are doing everything we can to try to give you the tools you need to make your community safer. But we have to make up our mind that we will no longer tolerate children killing children, children having guns and being better armed than police officers, neighborhoods unsafe. We can do better. And we're going to have to do it for all of our people without regard to race or income or region. You deserve as much, and we have to do it.

Father Santillan mentioned Cesar Chavez. Think how horrified he would be, God rest his soul, if he were still here today to pick up the paper and read about the 2-year-old child being killed. He was a devotee of non-violence and self-sacrifice, not violence and self-indulgence.

Tomorrow we celebrate with regret the 30th anniversary of the assassination of our Nation's only Roman Catholic President, John Kennedy. Think how he would feel, after having spent his time as President reaching out to Latin America and the Alliance for Progress, reaching here at home to get our young people into the Peace Corps, trying to help improve opportunities for Americans, to think of all the horrible things that are happening to our young people in this country.

Think of how Robert Kennedy, who flew to California and helped Chavez break a 26-day fast, would feel here today. Hands bleeding from the clutches of an adoring mob at the end of this fast, Robert Kennedy said this to the farm workers those long years ago, "When your children and grandchildren take their place in America, going to high school and college and taking good jobs at good pay, when you look at them you will say" --he said to the farm workers--" 'I did this. I was there at the point of difficulty and danger.' And though you may be old and bent with labor, no man will stand taller than you when you say, 'I marched with Cesar.'" They marched so that these children could have opportunity, not danger. And we have to give it to them.

But let me also say to you, my fellow Americans, I am well aware that we cannot repair the troubled wounds of this country simply by making ourselves safer on our streets. We must also give our young people more to say yes to. I have worked as hard as I could to turn this economy around, to bring jobs to this country, to bring jobs to this troubled part of our Nation. Southern California now has a higher unemployment rate than any other State. We have got to do better. I know and you know that not only faith and family but work, work is required to organize society, to keep it safe and whole and strong and marching forward.

And so we have made a good beginning. In 10 months more new jobs have come into the private sector than in the previous 4 years but nowhere near enough to put all the people of east Los Angeles to work who want their jobs. We must do better, and we will.

I fought hard and without apology for the North American Free Trade Agreement because I know Mexico is our partner in the future, whether anyone likes it or not, and we have to grow together in strength together. And because I know that no wealthy country on the face of this Earth can create more jobs for its people or higher incomes for people who work harder and smarter unless there are more customers for the products and services the people produce, we have to have those customers. We will find some of them in Mexico and in Chile and in Venezuela and in Colombia and in Argentina and all over Latin America, because we are reaching out to our friends south of our borders again for a great new partnership, for opportunity there and opportunity here in east Los Angeles. It is important.