pd10ap95 Remarks at the United Nations Transition Ceremony in Port-au-Prince...

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    Q. Last year, President Clinton was the first Chief Executive to 
attend the Final Four

[[Page 526]]

in person. Right now, we are honored. He is definitely the first 
President to ever join us on ``Sports Center.'' From Little Rock--Mr. 
President, you're one for two today. The homestate Razorbacks get in the 
championship game. Your good friend is defeated.
    The President. Well, I'm very proud of both those teams. I'm of 
course proud of Arkansas. They played well. And you can never count the 
Tarheels out. Dean Smith coached a great game there down the stretch. 
And I'm glad we hung on. And it's a real tribute to those young men and 
to Coach Richardson. And of course, I think Eddie Sutton had a great 
season. And I'm very proud of him. But UCLA has fabulous talent. And 
you've said it all night, but the point guard, Edney, was terrific at 
the end. He just took the game over.
    Q. Well, Mr. President, you and I talked earlier today on the phone, 
and we were going through that first-half adjustment, and you said, ``We 
need a big guy inside.'' Were you happy the second half?
    The President. Real happy. You and I were talking--you know, they 
just had to get the ball to Williamson. They did, and he delivered just 
the way he's delivered all year. He's a real clutch player, and he 
played magnificently tonight.
    Q. Mr. President, Dick Vitale. You look at the match-up now, UCLA, 
and you look at the match-up against Arkansas--how do they contain the 
little guy? You're a coach--should they zone? You told Mr. Jarvis to use 
the zone earlier this year against Massachusetts. Should they zone?
    The President. Yes, I did. I think I'd start in the zone. I think 
Williamson will do well. I think that Thurman will do well. And I think 
that we've got enough skill, enough talent to beat them. But boy, 
they're deep, they're fast, and they're good. And we're going to have to 
play great defense to win that game. That's why they really got back in 
this game, I think.
    Q. Mr. President, what has it been like as an Arkansas fan in this 
tournament? Game after game they've survived. They were dead against 
Syracuse before the timeout was called by Lawrence Moten. The average 
margin of victory, just four points. Has it been tough as a fan?
    The President. It's been tough as a fan, but you know, every team 
this team has played has had their best game of the year against them. 
And it's been hard for them to get up. But the last two games they've 
been--they've been a different team in the second half of both the last 
two games. They've played like national champions, and they're going 
back to the final, and they deserve it. It's going to be a great, great 
game, I think.
    Q. Well, Mr. President, now that you've gone through the weekend--
and a little golf, a little basketball--do you have the urge to sneak 
out to Seattle Monday night?
    The President. Oh, I do, but wherever I am, I'm going to be there 
cheering for them. And I'm really proud of them. And I'm excited. The 
fans will see a great game. UCLA's got a terrific team, and this will be 
a very, very exciting final, I predict.
    Q. Mr. President, you better come out here, because word has it that 
John Wooden may be out here to give them a little bit of an edge. They 
need you.
    The President. Well, I'm nowhere near in his class, but I'll be 
screaming my lungs out wherever.
    Q. Thank you very much for joining us.
    The President. Thank you.

Note: The interview began at 9:21 p.m. The President spoke by satellite 
from Doe's Eat Place in Little Rock, AR. In his remarks, he referred to 
Nolan Richardson, coach, and Corliss Williamson, player, University of 
Arkansas Razorbacks basketball team; Eddie Sutton, coach, Oklahoma State 
Cowboys basketball team; and John Wooden, former coach, and Tyus Edney, 
player, U.C.L.A. Bruins basketball team. A tape was not available for 
verification of the content of this interview.


<DOC>
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[Page 526-527]
 
Monday, April 10, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 14
Pages 521-576
 
Week Ending Friday, April 7, 1995
 
Statement on the Major League Baseball Strike Settlement

April 2, 1995

    Today's decision is good news for the game of baseball, its fans, 
and the local economics of the cities where baseball is played.
    While I am heartened to know this season will start with major 
league players, there are a number of underlying issues which still need 
to get resolved. I strongly urge the own- 

[[Page 527]]

ers and players to meet and reach full agreement at the bargaining table 
so that another season won't be in jeopardy.


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[Page 527-531]
 
Monday, April 10, 1995
 
Volume 31--Number 14
Pages 521-576
 
Week Ending Friday, April 7, 1995
 
Remarks at the Dedication of the Dean B. Ellis Library at Arkansas State 
University in Jonesboro, Arkansas

April 3, 1995

    Thank you very much. I think Molly Mayer did a great job, don't you? 
[Applause] I am delighted to be here today with so many old friends. I 
look out across this crowd and see a great portion of my life looking 
back at me, and I'm glad to see you all here.
    I'm delighted to be back at ASU. I got myself a list from my staff--
as I get older my memory begins to fade--I got my staff to pull up a 
list of all the times I have been here at least in official capacity to 
this campus as Governor, and we found--or as attorney general--we found 
a dozen times. I've been here a dozen more times, I know, just to see 
students and have meetings. But it is wonderful to be back here.
    I was glad to see Gene Smith giving his speech. And I'm kind of glad 
you didn't let him retire. [Laughter] He looks young enough to keep 
working to me, and he's certainly done a wonderful job. I thank my 
friend, John Trout, for what he said. I cannot even begin to recount all 
the instances in which I worked with people from Craighead County and 
indeed from all of northeast Arkansas in trying to generate more 
economic opportunities here. I was very glad to be accompanied here 
today by two of your former presidents, Carl Whillock and, of course, 
Congressman Thornton.
    And Rodney Slater and Mack McLarty and I all came up on a 
helicopter. We didn't mean to interrupt your ceremony, but anyway, it's 
not a bad sight to see us coming down. And we were all talking about all 
the changes that had occurred at ASU over the last several years and how 
much better things are. And for that I thank all the members of the 
board of trustees, Larry Ross and the others. And I'm glad to see a lot 
of people I appointed still serving. That's an immensely rewarding 
thing, as well as the members of the board of higher education.
    I'd like to say a special word of thanks to Congresswoman Blanche 
Lambert Lincoln for what is literally a ferocious job of lobbying she 
does in behalf of the interest of the people of the first district. 
There is no Member of the House of Representatives who is on my doorstep 
more often for more different things. And when I complained about it one 
day, she said, ``Well, that's just the way you used to behave when you 
were Governor.'' [Laughter]
    Let me say a special word of thanks to the members of the Arkansas 
Legislature I see out here in the audience. One of them was in 
Washington the other day for a meeting, and he said, ``You know, I kind 
of miss you, and I never thought I'd say that.'' [Laughter]
    I remember coming here in 1977 when I was attorney general. This is 
how I really got interested in helping ASU. I came here to speak to a 
commencement. And it was supposed to be a beautiful day like this, and 
instead it rained, and we had to go inside to the old field house where 
there was no air conditioning. And the rain--you know how it is when it 
gets warm here. The rain just makes it worse. The humidity was sizzling 
around. No one could breathe. The faculty and the students were 
suffocating in their beautiful robes. And I gave a 6-minute speech. 
[Laughter] And I made up my mind that if God ever gave me the 
opportunity to serve long enough, I'd build us a place with air 
conditioning where I could give a longer speech. [Laughter] And that's 
how the Convocation Center got started.
    I have enjoyed immensely being involved with this wonderful place. 
It was mentioned already, the Communications and Education Building and 
the Convocation Center, and now this library. I'll never forget the 
first time I went to an event in the Convocation Center. I've seen a lot 
of games, a lot of athletics. I remember the first time Jonesboro got to 
host the AAU national championship basketball tournament. And I came and 
saw two high school kids play basketball, named Chris Webber and Grant 
Hill, who later had a pretty good career, all because they had the 
experience of playing basketball here when they were 16 years of age.

[[Page 528]]

    I'd also like to say a special word of appreciation to all of you 
who have run all of the programs here, the extra-curricular programs 
here at the university. And I'd like to say a special word of 
appreciation to one of your students who became very, very famous this 
year in that remarkable, wonderful contribution to our understanding of 
American life, ``Hoop Dreams.'' Arthur Agee has really been a great 
example of what we could do with our dreams.
    I'd like to say one other word of introduction. I was profoundly 
pleased to know that a special part of this new library has been set 
aside for a Delta Studies Center. As has already been said, the Delta 
region of our State has always had special meaning for me. When I was a 
boy coming home from college, I used to take a day of my Christmas 
vacation every year and just drive around in the Delta. I never saw a 
place that was so poor economically and so rich in spirit and people.
    And when I was head of the Lower Mississippi Delta Study Commission, 
we made a common commitment to try to invest more in our people so that 
we could be rich in spirit and rich economically. And I know that this 
studies center will carry on the work of that commission and will 
continue its important mission.
    I'd like to say also that--all of you know this, and it's already 
been said, but--I actually ran for Governor for a pretty simple and 
straightforward reason many years ago. I wanted to see the people of my 
State have the same opportunities as the people of the rest of this 
country had. And I believed that the only way we could do it was by 
concentrating on building the economy, maintaining our unique quality of 
life, and educating our people, and doing it in a spirit of partnership.
    All my life I had seen our State held down by public leaders who 
played on our fears and divided us one from another. And for a good long 
time here in Arkansas now we've been working in the opposite direction, 
developing our economy, educating our people, preserving our quality of 
life, and working together.
    I think it's pretty clear that that course has been more successful. 
If you look at the faces of the young people here, if you look at all of 
you here, not only from the cities of eastern Arkansas but from the 
smallest little hamlets who support Arkansas State University, if you 
look at the remarkable job growth our State has enjoyed just in the last 
few years, after a decade of struggling to modernize our economy, it is 
obvious that we made the right decision as a people.
    I ran for President because just as I thought Arkansas was going to 
catch up to the rest of the country, our country was clearly having 
problems getting into the next century with the American dream of 
opportunity for all alive.
    We live in a very unusual time, indeed, almost without precedent I 
think, in human history, where our economy is growing but most of our 
people say they feel insecure. How can that happen? How could we have 2 
years where we'd have over 6 million new jobs, a dramatic drop in the 
unemployment rate, the lowest rates of inflation and unemployment 
combined in 25 years, and still, a majority of the American people say, 
``I am really worried about my future.''
    It has happened because of what America's role in the global economy 
is doing to the lives of ordinary Americans. It has happened because 
even as we create more jobs, most people haven't had an increase in 
their income, and there is increasing inequality in America.
    From the year I was born at the end of World War II until the year I 
was elected Governor in 1978, America rose together economically. Every 
income group and every region was doing better, and they were rising 
together. But in the last 15 years, that's all changed. And it makes 
your mission even more important.
    In the last 15 years, the wealthiest and best educated Americans 
have done right well as we've moved in the global economy. About a third 
of us are doing fine. But about 60 percent of us are working harder for 
the same or lower wages, so that even when we create jobs in America, 
many people wind up being insecure. They say, ``Well, maybe I'll be one 
of the people laid off.''
    And as we move from big corporations to small businesses being our 
main employers, a lot of those big companies are laying people off. Is 
that cause for despair? Not at all. Don't

[[Page 529]]

you forget this, this is still the greatest country in the world. We've 
still got the strongest economy. We're still producing more jobs. We've 
still got the greatest ability to adapt. We still do better at relating 
to one another across racial and religious and ethnic lines than any 
multifaceted country in human history. You should be optimistic about 
the future.
    But what it does mean is that we must now nationally do what we 
tried to do here. As a country we should be focused on growing our 
economy, maintaining our quality of life, educating our people, and 
doing it together. There is a huge debate today about what the 
Government in Washington ought to be doing.
    And you know, ever since the beginning of this Republic, we've all 
loved to cuss the Government, especially at tax time. Every one of us 
can tell at least one, and sometimes 50, stories, that just prove beyond 
any doubt that the Government would mess up a one-car parade. [Laughter] 
But the truth is, if you look over the 200-year history of this country, 
we're still here, the longest lasting democracy in human history, 
because most of the time we did the right thing. Most of the time we met 
the challenges of the day and did the right thing.
    Just parenthetically, I'll tell you, I wish all of you could have 
been with me in Haiti a few days ago to see all our young men and women 
in uniform who revolutionized a country that was mired in violence and 
did it with barely a shot fired. Those young Americans are the best that 
we have to offer. And if we look at them and what works there, that'll 
work for our country as well.
    So now that I'm living in Washington instead of down here with you, 
every day I hear this big debate up there. And the popular thing, of 
course, is just to talk about how the Government would mess up a one-car 
parade and tell everybody they're against it, and say, let's just cut 
everything. That's the new rage in Washington, ``If there were no 
Federal Government, we'd have no problem.'' And the old rage was that 
the Federal Government could solve all the problems.
    Well, based on my experience with you, I would say both ideas are 
wrong and present a false choice. The great things about this country 
are things that the Government can't reach. They have to do with how we 
behave personally and with our families and our communities and what we 
do in the workplace.
    But we need our Government as a partner. And I have tried to say I 
believe with all my heart, if you want us to do well in the 21st 
century, we got to do four things: We've got to have more jobs and 
higher income; we've got to educate our people; we need a Government 
that is smaller and less bureaucratic, that's more oriented toward the 
future than the past; and we have to have more security, more security 
in a profound sense.
    I am proud of the fact that since I've been President there are no 
Russian missiles pointed at the children of the United States for the 
first time since the dawn of the nuclear age. But I also know that our 
security is threatened when there is too much violence on our streets, 
too much violence in our schools. Our security is threatened by drugs. 

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