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California Institute of Technology 6/14/91 [OA 6034]
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323151499
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California Institute of Technology 6/14/91 [OA 6034]
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Records of the White House Office of Speechwriting (George H. W. Bush Administration)
Speech Draft Files
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Originally Processed With FOIA(s):
FOIA Number:
S
S
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MARKER
This is not a textual record. This is used as an
administrative marker by the George Bush Presidential
Library Staff.
Record Group/Collection:
George H.W. Bush Presidential Records
Collection/Office of Origin:
Speechwriting, White House Office of
Series:
Speech File Draft Files
Subseries:
Chron File, 1989-1993
OA/ID Number:
13572
Folder ID Number:
13572-005
Folder Title:
California Institute of Technology 6/14/91 [OA 6034]
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G
26
17
2
1
91 JUN 17 P2:31
THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
(Los Angeles, California)
For Immediate Release
June 14, 1991
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
IN COMMENCEMENT ADDRESS TO
THE CALIFORNIA INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY
California Institute of Technology
Los Angeles, California
10:35 A.M. PDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you, Pete, for that very generous
introduction. I'm delighted to see Gayle with you over here.
Congressman Moorhead -- and to the business at hand -- your Chairman
of the Board Dr. Mettler, who I've known for years and admired and
respected. Dr. Everhart, the President; Dr. Jennings: Dr. DuBridge:
Dr. Beckman; Dr. Brown; Mr. Avery; Dr. Shuster -- hello. (Laughter.)
I'd also like to acknowledge this distinguished Board of
Trustees that I had the honor to meet with just a while ago. And
it's a pleasure to be here at CalTech -- my first visit. I'm told
it's the first visit of a seated President since Teddy Roosevelt.
However, my trip back to Washington, I understand, will
be delayed. Some of CalTech's Finest reassembled Air Force One in
the (Laughter.) lobby of my hotel. (Laughter and applause.) Ditch Day, perhaps.
You look restless out there -- let me tell you about a
Yale graduation. I will confess to having gone to Yale. A minister
gave the graduation speech. "Y," of course, was for youth. That
took 40 minutes. "A," altruism -- brushed that one off in 20
minutes. "L" was for loyalty -- 45 minutes. "E" for enterprise --
30 minutes. The speech ended and most of the kids had left. There
was one guy praying. (Laughter.) The minister went over and said,
"Oh, son, I'm glad to see a man of faith here. What were you praying
for?" He said, "I was giving thanks that I didn't go to the
California Institute of Technology." (Laughter.)
So I'll try to be respectful in that regard. But I
should say with pride that we celebrate today the centennial of
CalTech. This institution has accomplished astonishing things in 100
years. Your students, your professors and your graduates have peered
into the heart of the atom, gazed out at stars billions of miles
away. They've inspired new medicines and biotechnologies; and
they've hurled rockets into the heavens. And they've helped redefine
the sciences upon which modern technology -- and modern life --
depend. CalTech's mission is outward-looking, its quest
never-ending, and its path of discovery truly remarkable.
We now stand on the verge of a new voyage in the American
experience -- charting a fresh course to a world of unseen
possibilities and promise. (Crowd disruption.) This is mild
compared to what I normally run into. I feel, out of respect for the
office, it ought to be greater. (Laughter and applause.) But to
reach it, we will need a strong, swift current of ideas. Thomas
Aquinas once said that if the highest aim of a captain were to
preserve his ship, he would stay in safe harbor forever. Now, as our
imagination mulls over the prospects for the 21st century, the time
has come to leave port and set sail -- to the new world beyond.
Many Techers have already explored new worlds -- worlds
of the positron and the quark, and the fingerprint of the human gene,
- 2 -
and the microcosm of the silicon chip. These brilliant men and women
understood the architecture of a problem -- and they knew how to
navigate the maze of possibilities that stood between them and a
solution. Like them, you think about the opportunities -- not the
obstacles - that lie ahead.
I think of the day I graduated from college. We were
impatient, were optimistic, bored with the speaker -- but we sensed a
coming adventure. And I suspect it's the same with you. Only this
time, you probably aren't thinking about becoming farmers, like
Barbara and I were. My generation built our future with mortar and
brick and machinery. And yours will propel us toward destiny and
innovation, ingenuity, and imagination.
Earlier this century, Henry Luce declared this "The
American Century." In his time, that future consisted of smelters
and smokestacks -- heavy, productive industries. And now, as this
American Century draws to a close, ours is an age of microchips and
MTV. Ours is an economy increasingly dependent not upon our natural
resources or geographic location, but upon knowledge. As you well
know, knowledge is dynamic -- never standing still. And it expanõs
beyond the horizon. So my challenge to you today is to push beyond
future. today's horizons and create new and more distant horizons for your
This is the next frontier. In the 21st century,
knowledge will shape the power of the individual -- as well as the
power of the nation. Knowledge, defined in our labs and libraries,
on bookshelves and computer screens. Whether you're in the military,
at the market or on the mainframe, that knowledge will define
opportunity.
Some call this The Third Wave -- or The Information Age
-- or the New Age of Discovery. With a nod to Henry Luce, I believe
this serves as a cornerstone for the Next American Century. If we
face this future foursquare -- if we accept the call to unleash our
imaginations we will transform this nation. Ano I have no doubt
America will transform the world.
We begin with the free market, the powerhouse of
ingenuity. Free markets and free people breathe life into the
American Dream. Look at the good that people can achieve: Charles
Richter and George Nousner's research has saved untold lives through
their work on predicting and preparing for earthquakes. Harry Gray's
research could lead to our harvesting energy from sunlight the same
way the plants do. And medical researcher Pamela Bjorkman's research
may someday prevent such diseases as arthritis and diabetes.
Look at all the creative entrepreneurs, the ones
transforming basic research into new products -- the ones with that
knack for know-how. This is a true story: I got a letter the other
day from a company named Gemstar, founded by four CalTech grads.
They'd heard me talk about our six national education goals to
achieve excellence by the year 2000. I once joked that the seventh
goal should be that by the turn of the century, Americans must be
able to get their VCRs to stop flashing "12:00." (Laughter.)
I admit that I didn't think it was possible. (Laughter.)
But this team of upstarts, CalTechers, invented a device that solves
the VCR clock problem easily. (Laughter.) They wrote, "Ne respond
promptly to your national call for VCR literacy by the year 2000 --
in fact, nine years ahead of schedule." (Laughter.)
Well, with mentors like these, there may be hope for
students like me, still struggling with the complexities of this age
of technology. Their kind of entrepreneurs -- their approach to
entreprencurship helped make our nation prosperous and great. This
kind of can-do spirit, this expression of natural American creativity
will make our new education strategy work. America 2000, as we call
it, summons the nation to create a New Generation of American Schools
-- schools that break the mold, schools where all students reach
world-class (+) standards of performance in English, science, history,
- 3 -
geography and mathematics. It's time that we started measuring
success by something other than the federal dollars spent.
(Applause.) Let's not ask ourselves: What does it cost? Let's ask:
Does it work?
This administration has rewarded programs in which
government acts intelligently and programs produce results. Head
Start, where kids get the tools they need to start school ready to
learn -- it works -- and we support it. He've expanded Head Start
funding by over $700 million in the last two years.
We advocate programs that employ free market incentives
-- like tax credits for low-income parents to choose their own child
care -- because they use human nature as a lever, not as an obstacle.
We support initiatives that create opportunity -- like our housing
vouchers for public housing tenants. Our HOPE initiative gives
public housing tenants control over their lives and their futures.
But, you see, home ownership and tenant management --
these are the waves of progress that can truly reduce hopelessness
and despair in our great country.
Whether in schools, in child care centers, or factories
or neighborhoods, we must ensure that government is part of the
solution -- not part of the problem.
I'm not opposed to government per SE. I'm not a
government-basher. But we in government must understand, bigger
isn't better: better is better. (Applause.)
One hundred days ago today, I asked the Congress -- and
Pete referred to this -- to tackle the urgent problems here at home
with the same commitment that this country dedicated itself to in
tackling the crisis in the Persian Gulf. I spelled out a
comprehensive domestic agenda, but asked Congress, recognizing the
complexities, to pass just two bills in 100 days -- a comprehensive
anticrime bill and a transportation bill to do something about the
infrastructure in our country. These bills would work. As a matter
of fact, I sent that crime bill to the Hill 24 months ago -- two
years ago tomorrow. Neither bill has reached my desk -- and the
American people, as they look at our system, don't understand why.
The American people don't understand what's so hard about
passing a bill in 100 days to fight crime. They don't understand the
delay, the inaction, the foot-oragging, particularly when they see
that Congress can pass a funding bill for a ferry boat in Samoa or a
study of the Hatfield-McCoy feud while threatening to cancel the
manned space program and the Space Station Freedom.
Last week, a congressional committee nearly cancelled the
Second Golden Age of space exploration and its possibilities for new
knowledge, new technology, and whole new industries here on Earth.
Thanks to wiser heads in Congress, both Democrat and Republican, the
Space Station survived - not, as some believe, at the expense of
science. Science and space must be partners in the budget wars, both
vital investments in the future.
Me must invest now in a brighter future. That's why our
administration fully supports high performance computing, and math
and science education. We're also proposing a 13-percent increase,
bringing research and development to $76 billion. Ne want to
increase funding for the supercollider by more than 100 percent.
Government and the free market often converge in the field of basic
research. Together, they help produce a brighter future for all
Americans. And that's why my commitment to it is 30 strong.
Host Americans find beltway bickering mystifying --- and
they should. We ought to think of nobler issues and purposes. Ne
must call upon our higher aspirations. We've done it before -- first
carving out a superpower out of the wilderness, and then creating the
most prosperous, educated society on Earth -- and now, thanks to the
leadership of many right here on this stage, reaching beyond our
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planet to the glory of space.
With the telescopes on Mount Palomar, with the Keck
Telescopes in Hawaii, your astronomers are looking farther than
mankind has looked before. Your JPL labs enable unmanned space
missions such as the Pioneers and Voyagers to touch the distant
boundaries of our solar system.
And here in Pasadena, scientists can now use the world's
fastest computer. I hear that the computer is so advanced, it can
actually calculate the number of "Tommy's Burgers" that you all eat
-- (laughter and applause) -- and I am told -- this may be
far-fetched -- that it can reprogram the scoreboard at the Rose Bowl
even faster. (Laughter and applause.)
You know, it's great -- CalTech is one of the few schools
in the country where "P.C." has always stood for "personal computer."
To guarantee that the 21st century becomes the Next
American Century, we must combine the might of the free market and
intelligent government with something else: the brilliance of those
who make a difference in the lives of others, including the ones that
I refer to as the Points of Light.
We know what it takes to solve problems in our own
neighborhoods. Some among us have decided to step to the front lines
of the war on drugs; others have taken time to teach others to read,
or volunteered to care for AIDS babies after work at night.
Your education here at CalTech enables you to lead, to
use your talents for the sake of our country and communities and our
children. Those of you who volunteered to help abused women and
children at the Hestia House, or taught kids to read in Pasadena, or
helped the boys and girls at Five Acres -- you have accepted the
challenge. You understand that with your diploma today comes a
commitment to reach for the horizons of justice and opportunity,
freedom and peace.
In the Next American Century, all of us will have a
responsibility to lead. Each part of our communities -- the union
halls, the police clubs, the chambers of commerce, the parents,
teachers -- everyone can use their power to solve problems. Because,
if you think about it, there isn't a problem in America that isn't
being solved somewhere.
Whether you're drawn to the magic of the marketplace, to
the honor of public service, or to the ethic of serving others, each
of you will be building an America whole and good. Your generation
will map our voyage into the next century. I join you in your guest
for faraway places and salute your vision of worlds unseen.
Thank you for your hospitality. And may God bless each
and every one of you as you graduate from this wonderful institution.
Thank you very, very much.
END
10:54 A.M. PDT