pd10ap00 Statement on the Death of John Robert Starr...

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ban. This is a big deal because it shows you how they define community.
    How would you feel if I said, ``You know, nearly everybody who goes 
in an airport is a good, honest citizen, 99.9 percent of them are, and 
those metal detectors when it's crowded and you're late for your plane 
are a real pain, you know, especially if you've got a big money clip or 
something that keeps going off. It just drives you crazy. So I want to 
take all of the metal detectors out of the airports, and the next time 
somebody blows up a plane, I'm going to throw the book at them.'' You 
think about it. That is the logic that the other party has in blocking 
this commonsense gun legislation. This is a big deal. And it will carry 
over into other issues. It does carry over into the tobacco issue and 
many others. So there is a huge difference.
    But maybe most important of all, there is a difference about how we 
define our community. We're for the hate crimes legislation. We're for 
the ``Employment Non-Discrimination Act.'' We believe that everybody 
ought to be a part of America if they're willing to obey the law and 
work hard, then everybody ought to have a chance. We think everyone 
matters; we think we all do better when we help each other. That's what 
we believe.
    I think that's even more important than our commitment to high 
technology and scientific research. One of the unbelievable ironies of 
this world in which we live is that we think about now, in the next few 
years, not only these energy advances I mentioned, but just in a couple 
of months, I will be able to announce the sequencing of the human 
genome, that it will be finished. And then before you know it, we'll 
figure out how to block the genes that cause Alzheimer's or Parkinson's.
    Before you know it, we'll be able to find cancers when there are 
just a few cells. There will be unbelievable advances in biochemistry, 
and a lot of you have been a part of that. We'll find out what's in the 
black holes in the universe in the next two or three decades. It's an 
amazing time.
    Now, isn't it interesting, since all of you are in the .com world, 
that for all the wonders of the modern world, the biggest problem people 
face is the oldest problem of human society, the fear of the other, 
people who are different. And therefore, the most dangerous thing in a 
society are people who seek to exploit that fear of the other and that 
difference.
    I just got back from India and Pakistan and Bangladesh. Now, I was 
in a little Indian village--you may have seen it, I was dancing with the 
village women, and they were throwing flowers and everything--a very 
poor village, but they have a computer with

[[Page 708]]

software sufficient to give the poorest villagers, in Hindi or English, 
or good visuals, if they don't read very well, all of the information 
available from every national and state agency in India in a little 
village, and they have a printer.
    So I watched a woman with a newborn baby come in and get the web 
page for the health department on the line, and she had it on her screen 
and exactly what she was supposed to do in the first few months of her 
baby's life. And then she printed it out, and she took it home, and she 
had information in this remote rural village in India, just as good as 
anybody could get here in northern California.
    I went to Hyderabad, where I met with the chief government minister. 
They have 18 government services on the Internet now. If you're there, 
you can get a car licensed on the Internet. Nobody goes to the revenue 
office anymore. Governor, if you do that, you'll be elected until the 
end of your life. [Laughter] This is an amazing thing.
    If you look at America, there are 750 companies in Silicon Valley, 
alone, headed by Indian-Americans. There are 200 ethnic groups in 
America; Indians and Pakistanis both rank in the top five in per capita 
income and per capita education. And yet, they are sitting there staring 
at each other across the divide of Kashmir with nuclear weapons. And 
they can't let it go, and they can't get beyond it.
    Can you imagine what would happen to the Middle East, in no time, if 
we could actually resolve the remaining differences? It's no accident 
that Ireland has the fastest growing economy in Europe, because they 
finally started to make peace with one another. And yet, everywhere we 
see these demons.
    It's very important that the governing part in Washington believe 
that we can be one America and be committed to the future and a unifying 
vision of the future. I want Al Gore to be President, not just because 
I'm grateful to him for being what everybody knows is the most 
influential Vice President in history, but because he understands the 
future, and he has the ideas, the experience, and the will, the 
strength, to lead us there.
    I want these people to get in the majority, not just because I feel 
terrible that they fell on the sword for me when we had to get this 
economy moving again and we had to take a stand for sensible gun safety 
laws, but because I know they can represent that kind of future. I can 
look at every Member here and imagine some--remember some conversation 
I've had with them over the years that just made me proud that they were 
members of my party.
    I just want to leave you with this thought. Most of you who have 
done real well here are younger than I am. And I never thought--you 
know, the older you get, young is always defined as somebody who's a 
year younger than you are. But I want to tell you a story about this 
moment, because I want you to understand, this is a terribly important 
election. I have worked as hard as I could to turn our country around 
and get us moving in the right direction. We have the lowest 
unemployment rate in 30 years, the lowest African-American and Hispanic 
unemployment rate ever recorded, the lowest female unemployment rate in 
40 years. That's the good news. But there's still people in places left 
behind.
    We've got the lowest crime rate in 25 years, but the country's still 
too dangerous. We still haven't stepped up to our environmental 
responsibilities. And there are still a lot of dangers out there in the 
world. One of the reasons that I hope so much that this China MFN bill 
will pass, then getting China into the WTO, is that I think it will 
reduce the tensions across the Taiwan Strait, and I don't want a 
conflict there that will totally set back all of east Asia for a 
generation. I want them to keep moving forward, and I think it's 
important.
    So let me say this. I want you all to listen to this--especially 
those of you who are younger than me. In February we celebrated the 
longest economic expansion in American history. So I got all my little 
team together and we were laughing, probably being a little too self-
congratulatory, because you had as much to do with it as we did. All I 
did was try to create the conditions and give people the tools to make 
the most of their own lives.
    But I asked them, I said, when was the last longest economic 
expansion in history? And it was between 1961 and 1969, when we grew up. 
So let me tell you a story about

[[Page 709]]

that. And I'm not telling you this to get anybody down. There's no more 
optimistic person in this tent tonight than me. But I want you to listen 
to this--1964, at the high watermark of the last longest economic 
expansion in history, I graduated from high school. Lyndon Johnson was 
President, uniting the country after President Kennedy's tragic 
assassination. We had low unemployment, low inflation, high growth, and 
everybody thought it was just going to go on and on and on.
    We had a civil rights challenge, but everyone thought it was going 
to be handled in the Congress and the courts, not in the streets, 
because we had a President and a Congress who believed in them. No one 
believed that what was then a sort of simmering conflict in Vietnam 
would rip the heart out of America. And so we just rolled along. We 
thought it would go on.
    Then, what happened? Four years later, in 1968, I graduated from 
college--2 days after Robert Kennedy was killed; 2 months after Martin 
Luther King was killed; 9 weeks after Lyndon Johnson said he couldn't 
run for President; a few weeks before Richard Nixon was elected 
President, claiming that he represented the Silent Majority, which means 
that those of us who were on the other side were outcasts. We were in 
the loud minority. And it was the first of many elections where we 
attempted to divide America between ``us'' and ``them.'' And those that 
weren't ``us'' were by definition ``them.'' They weren't our crowd, and 
they didn't have a place at our table. And just a few weeks after that, 
in early 1969, the last longest economic expansion in American history 
came to an end.
    Now, what I want to say to you as a citizen was that I have waited 
for 35 years, since I was a little boy, starting out in life, to see my 
country have a chance to build a future of our dreams for our children. 
We are free of internal crisis. The threats we have in the world, while 
serious, are not paralyzing. You have created a whole new economy that 
hasn't repealed the laws of supply and demand but has made them 
infinitely more elastic with infinitely more possibilities.
    This is the kind of chance that comes along once in a lifetime. 
Don't let this election be about little things, and don't let this 
election be about divisive things. This is a time for building 
tomorrows. It comes along once in a great, long while. You have helped 
to make it so. And you can make sure that we make the most of this 
election.
    These people should be elected because they represent the future, 
and they represent unity, and they believe we can go forward together. 
It is a precious gift. We have fought for it and worked for it and stood 
for it in strong winds. But now, it must be ratified in this election.
    If somebody asked you tomorrow why you came here tonight, tell them 
that. Tell them we've got the chance of a lifetime to build a future of 
our dreams for our children, and you believe that these Democrats can 
give it to you.
    Thank you, and God bless you.

Note: The President spoke at 10:10 p.m. at a private residence. In his 
remarks, he referred to reception hosts Jim and Bridget Jorgensen; State 
Assemblyman Mike Honda, candidate for California's 15th Congressional 
District; State Senator Adam Schiff, candidate for California's 27th 
Congressional District; attorney John Doerr; Eric Schmidt, chairman of 
the board and chief executive officer, Novell, Inc.; Gov. Gray Davis of 
California; and Charlton Heston, president, National Rifle Association.


<DOC>
[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents]
 [frwais.access.gpo.gov]
                         

[Page 709-717]
 
Monday, April 10, 2000
 
Volume 36--Number 14
Pages 691-770
 
Week Ending Friday, April 7, 2000
 
Remarks at a Democratic Leadership Council Conference
in San Jose, California

April 3, 2000

    Thank you. Thank you very much. Thank you. You saw me do this with 
my eyes. The lights are so bright in here that we only know when you 
applaud at the right times that we're talking to a DLC audience. 
[Laughter] Let me say, first of all, how delighted I am to be at the 
Tech Museum of Innovation. And I want to thank all the people from the 
museum who have made us feel welcome here, a lot of them are sitting 
over here. But this is a very appropriate place for us to be meeting, 
and I think we ought to give them a big hand for welcoming us here.
    I want to thank Mayor Ron Gonzales for welcoming us here and for 
reminding me of that historic meeting 10 years ago when Al From and I 
came out here. Some of you here

[[Page 710]]

were there then, in addition to Ron. I see Larry Stone and Toni Casey 
out here. And Steve Wesley wasn't there then. He was there shortly 
after. There were many others there I'm delighted to see, because we 
started something profoundly important then.
    I want to thank the Members of Congress who are here. In addition to 
Zoe Lofgren, Cal Dooley, and Anna Eshoo, and I think Representative 
Martin Frost may be here--someone said he was--from Texas. He was one of 
our early Members. I want to thank State Controller Kathleen Connell, 
who is here, and California Board of Education member Reed Hastings. I 
want to thank all the CEO's who have come today. I see my friend Dr. 
Irwin Jacobs, and Meg Whitman and Eric Benhamou. There are many others 
here. And I want to thank one of the people who was the architect of the 
economic policy that got so many kudos here, Laura Tyson. I think she's 
sitting in the second row there, although it's very bright.
    I also want to thank the young people from City Year who are sitting 
in the back. When the San Jose contingent came in, I just happened to be 
coming into San Jose that night, and I welcomed them here. But they are 
the manifestation of our commitment to citizen service that grew out of 
one of our DLC projects. We really believed we could build an American 
community that was stronger and relished its diversity and still 
extolled its common values, if we could get more people involved in 
citizen service. And that's what AmeriCorps and City Year are all about, 
and I'm delighted that San Jose has such a strong representation. 
They're actually having their national conference out here in a few 
weeks, and I hope all of you will support them in every way you can.
    Let me say, most of what needs to be said has been said. I do want 
to say a special word of appreciation, too, to Governor Davis. He has 
done so well on education; he has done so well on the economy; he has 
done so well on crime. But actually, Gray, I was even coming to 
California before you got elected and Chelsea came to Stanford. 
[Laughter] Actually, I think I've been here more than any President in 
history. I think, you know, something like 35 or 40 times.
    But one of the things that I really appreciate is that when you say 
and when Zoe Lofgren says, we can govern from the center. I think it's 
very important that everyone understand that we define that as a 
dynamic, not a static, term; that we get people together and find a 
common approach that is oriented toward change, not the status quo. It 
would be difficult to look at a period of American history that has had 
more consistent, constructive change in the private, as well as in the 
public sector than we have seen in the last few years. So I think that 
that's something I want to emphasize.
    And while I'm here, because I don't know when I'll have a chance to 
come back and say this, I want to thank Governor Davis for the work he's 
done in education to prove that if you have high standards and genuine 
accountability and you put your money where your mouth is, all our 
children can learn. I believe that.
    I want to thank him and all of you, particularly in Silicon Valley, 
for your support of the charter school movement. When I became 
President, there was one charter school in America. There are now over 
2,000, and I think we'll make our goal of 3,000 by the end of the year. 
And I hope we will continue to see it grow and flourish.
    I want to thank you for being on the cutting edge of change on the 
issue of gun safety, as well, Governor. Last year California passed laws 
to ban junk guns, limit handgun sales to one a month, and to stiffen the 
assault weapons ban. Since then, we've seen similar State action all 
across America. Today, just today, Massachusetts is beginning to enforce 
tougher consumer product safety rules for guns, banning junk guns, 
requiring trigger locks, and the Maryland Legislature is considering 
legislation, as we speak, on child safety locks.
    Next week I'm going to California to support a citizen ballot 
initiative--to Colorado, excuse me, in a State that, by registration, 
has become more and more Republican in the last 7 years. But they've got 
a citizens' ballot initiative out there in the aftermath of Columbine 
that would close the gun show loophole and require background checks on 
all gun sales. So I'm pleased about that.

[[Page 711]]

    We also announced a landmark agreement with Smith & Wesson, the 
large gun manufacturer, to change for the better the way guns are 
manufactured, marketed, and sold. And already 10 California cities and 
counties, including San Mateo County, your neighbor, have pledged, when 
they buy weapons for their police forces, to support manufacturers who 
have high standards for gun safety and dealer responsibility.
    This is a huge deal, and it is appalling, the abuse that Smith & 
Wesson has taken from people who don't want to have sensible safety 
measures, for recognizing the fact, which is, an enormous percentage of 
crimes are committed with guns, are committed with guns that come from a 
very small percentage of dealers. And all they've said is, ``We're going 
to try to manufacture safer guns, and we're going to try to use more 
responsible dealers.'' And for their trouble, they have been subject to 
enormous abuse. Smith & Wesson's almost up there with me in the abuse 
we're getting from that crowd. [Laughter]
    But I just want to say--you know, somebody asked me the other day 
what I thought about all those mean things Charlton Heston said about 
me. And I said, I still like to watch his movies. [Laughter] And I still 
think he's a nice fellow. But I think the American people have decided 
that we can have our hunting and our sports shooting and still have 
sensible prevention. And this should not be the only area of our life 
where we don't prevent bad things from happening in the first place.
    Once again, I hope the United States will be following the lead of 
California, and I hope that we can pass our sensible gun safety 
legislation before the anniversary of the Columbine tragedy on April the 

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