Remarks to the Bronx community in New York City: December 10, 1997

Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, Dec 22, 1997

Thank you. Carmen was great, wasn't she? Let's give her another hand. [Applause] I thought she was great. Thank you. Thank you, Genny Brooks, for your vision and for your persistence. Thank you, Paul Grogan, for your vision and your persistence. The whole approach of LISC was years and years and years ahead of Government, and what we have essentially tried to do is to get all of our Government policies to follow the model that LISC was based on all along, and we thank you.

I'd also like to acknowledge the presence here of three people from the city of New York who are very important now to the future of America: our brilliant HUD Secretary, Andrew Cuomo; the Administrator of the Small Business Administration, from Brooklyn, Aida Alvarez; and the Assistant to the President for Public Liaison - I don't know where she is, but she's from the Bronx - Maria Echaveste. Where are you, Maria? Thank you.

I also want to join in congratulating my good friend, your borough president, Freddie Ferrer, on Bronx being an All-American City. Stand up. [Applause] Thank you. I want to thank the deputy mayor for being here, and Senator Rosado and Assemblyman Diaz and the other members of the assembly and city council who are here. I'd like to thank the Boys and Girls Club - the boys and girls of Clara Barton School. I think they made this for me, and it's quite beautiful, isn't it? [Applause] And I thank the Madison square Boys and Girls Club for hosting us. I want to thank all the financial institutions who have helped, who were mentioned earlier. I understand that Frank Duma, the chairman of Bankers Trust, and Walter Shipley, the chairman and CEO of Chase Manhattan, are here.

I'd also like to say - you know, I got my little tour of Charlotte Street on the way up here and it was - to show you what a small world it is, it was given to me by the current president of the Mid-Bronx Desperadoes, Ralph Porter. And I want you to know that - to show you what a small place this is, he will probably have to testify about this now - [laughter] - we grew up in the same town in Arkansas, and his wife worked with my mother for many years in the hospital there. And when he came here, he decided to pitch in - instead of walk away - like the rest of you. And I appreciate that, what all of you have done.

Let me say, more than anything else I want to begin by thanking the people of the Bronx not only for the example you have set here but for the support that you have given to me and to the First Lady and to the Vice President so that we can continue to work to try to make this example real in the lives of people all over this city, all over this country, because my one message here is: Look at where the Bronx was when President Carter came here in despair. Look at where the Bronx was when President Reagan came here and compared it to London in the Blitz. And look at the Bronx today. If you can do it, everybody else can do it. And we are determined to see that it be done.

What we have got to do is to take what you have shown us works and help more neighborhoods all across America do it. And we have seen that this did' not happen by accident. It happened, first and foremost, because of visionary, committed, determined leadership at the local level - people who just wanted a good life. Citizen leaders like Genny, citizens like Carmen said, this is not complicated; why shouldn't I be able to get married and have children in my hometown ? Why shouldn't people be able to work there? Why shouldn't people be able to live in decent housing there? Why shouldn't our children be able to walk the streets there? Why shouldn't our children be able to go to decent schools there? Why? There is no reason why.

They started by asking the right questions. And over time, they got the right answers. This didn't happen in a year or two. No single person can claim credit for it. But over time, you got it right. Now we have to take what you have done here, show the before and after - if I could have any wish out of this, it is not that my speech would be reported tonight on the evening news or in the press tomorrow; I would just like one thing. I would like for every single American to see before and after. And they would know.

And then I would like for them to say, "How did this happen?" and tell your story. Because what I have tried to do relentlessly for 5 years is to reorganize the National Government, to reinvent and reinvigorate it so that we would be organized in a way that would support what you have done.

When I became President, I had been a Governor for 12 years in a State that had a lot of the same problems that the South Bronx had. We never had an unemployment rate under the national average the whole time I was Governor, for 10 years, until I started running for President and a lot of things we had been working on began to manifest themselves.

But I know what it does to people, good people, if they think they can't live in decent housing, in strong neighborhoods, and grownups can't get up and go to a job that makes them proud in the daytime, and the kids can't get up and go to a school that makes them proud in the daytime, and they're scared going to and from work and school anyway. I know what that does to people, and it doesn't have to be that way.