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Remarks to the Community of Los Angeles 5/8/92 [OA 6102] [3]
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[Remarks] to the Community of Los Angeles 5/8/92 [OA 6102] [3]
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1
MAS TER DDDM
Group
Draft One Two
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
during my
all they have done to make this visit. so successful. With all
that has transpired these last few days, I can imagine the
our visit has
headaches we ve probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
vitally
The
community
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles ^ has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us. and
our nation country
I want to
everyone
That's why it's important that I say stat a few things about this my world acorld the
who lool
to Ameuca
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and a model of
Most importantly-
nation.
justice.wdu freedomand
about where we must now go as a country
hand
when people kill or terror one other vern
and
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings. In sum, on the same
each other
tragic
but
property, I can
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
hardly
of hope.
the managine volume
Seemed to come suddenly but it
Iknowit
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
of
fear
and
anger watred
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
must peoplemony people
feel
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
Things aren't
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, poverty and despair.
system
For as I sand gesterday at Mt. Zion Clurch we are
one people - one-fainly one nation under God.
But we can't + stop there. Our children need more than
sympathy - - they need for noto this is no time for parts politics or
Let me tell you a little stay about Rudy Cambell. Saw him on TV.
I
He
Looks to be about eight. His Father Murdered a few years back. I didn't see
his
Mother Didn't see her Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. He Lives in a tough
South central.
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder. " It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
but
should be. Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further --
will move us forward.
unpleasant realities
I believe there are some facts that most Americans can agree
now recognize.
with. Let me spend just a minute on those. Since the sixties, 1960's we have
tried
lots of different programs have been tried -- aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
and policies all with noble intentions-
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for jobs and job
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission, report, or study.
we have spent
Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
But when we look where this path has taken us, it is not where we wanted to go.
years. Check the numbers: Even in the last decade, federal
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
Now Put away the studies and ^ just look around our cities. Some quick
facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
Much of this effort went to construct a safety net - to provide
some security and hopefully some statulity.
3
Now it is 27% -- 5 times as great. If you read about a young
the
black male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, odds
are 4 out of 10. Our young black men are at a crisis: If you're
a black male between 15-25 here in California, you're three times
more likely to be murdered than to enter the University of
California. Kids used to carry just their lunches to school. Today some
Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns were seized here in L.A. -- and
camey
Drug and alcohol abuseare
9ams.
that was in our elementary schools. Numbers for high schools are
serious problems almost everywhere.
10 times as great. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used
alcohol is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has
used marijuana.
In the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the crack
a
epidemic in the wake of the lost generation of inner-city
youth: lives can any of us argue that we've solved the problems of
poverty, racism, and crime? No!
Thanks to a great
removed
card rights
We have made progress removing many of the legal barriers to
revolution,
discrimination and equality of opportunity. [[ But you don't need to look
further than the graffiti on the next street to see that hate,
bigotry and racism still plagues our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of programs like Head Start -
or Aid Elderly to the
- have shown time-tested positive results. But many many more
simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get people
people trapped
off welfare -- it keeps them ^ there. Our safety net as
essential as it is -- stops short of providing the people it
serves a way out of a dehumanizing and inefficient cycle of
poverty. ] the
All
that
Money
all
those
good
intentions
have
not
-
meanuably
improved
The lot of whan america.
The statistics are indeed 4
We know all too well the sobering statistics -- severest in
sum and substance IS
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to help
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
is to create preserve order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and how
can
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
own their own
really matter: how people can own property, or a home, how people
we
can start a business, and create jobs in the community, ensure
that the people not the government are making the big decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
Think of the way thewarld looks right now to the ordinary person
smgle and tun
enougheash to bauly
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on the
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
live -- where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
kind of care you get, and when.
government tells you what doctor you 11 see, and when. If you
a job
the
find part-time work you worry that government may cuts your
if you
welfare benefits. If you save, a manage to put some money away -- towards
the
welfare
a none
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
or for
welfare
your your mays mayber
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
to help
folks welfare
you kid
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
through
college
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
5
dignature
dependency -- a system that would strip away x personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
Every Ameucan knows
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach
a
radical change in our approach to welfare and the imer city economy.
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
we must start with
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
most
theeffer tiveness of government services through consetition at
truly needy, and increase 1 choice. and competition in delivering
keep power close to
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the the people-
community for guidance. and that use states as laboratories for I moration.
and their commities
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
investment -- create jobs.
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
One, We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
andcreate joh.
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
America's inner cities tax breaks for employees.
Two
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
therey Safe neighborhoods an places where am children
can lean But that's not enough. We've
got to revolutioning our schools. DJWe
doit through cleoice + competition - two hey
ideas at the heart of the shalegy )call
6
America 2000.
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded employment,
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
want
people who
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show muster
the
individual initiative the very things that will help them to
leave welfare behind.
toin We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
of value
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
as folks do in the suburbs.
the same choices Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Six fifth fifth
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before." They are
right. And I am proposing it again. because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, S the new
I will say, government doesn't create wealth, free enterprise
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise and peopledo. fill
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
and moral
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
build neighborhoods, citizens people do.
I have
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
my own experience.
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
the old ways of thinking. Now as Lincoln said it is
We've tried other ways to solve problems now is not the time to
think
time to re invent the wheel. We must try something different. arew
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If it's never
a radical break with the policies of the past. It is new because
Try something new
been
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
tried
before.
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
I remain
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
I was stammed, Angula But confident in our systems
American people last Friday. a And when I saw the violence and of justice.
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew we that order had to be restored.
had to restore
a
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
the citizens of Looangeles,
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
Ede would
change.
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
many
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
Nothing could betwing from the truth.
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
And we will
go at this problem again and again until we beat it. Maybe even
if
we
the right thing things
to try some things we haven't tried before.
Even in the short time I've weakere I could sense that
Before I arrived. I was told that the real anguish of the
Stet
People are worred sick about the children.
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children.
This we
I believe all
that
should be able to agree on as well whatever we do must be
our
about the children -- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
askfor
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
loving
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
tells us
We know from a longer term look at history that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people --- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
among
among
between individuals, and between ethnic groups, between races.
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country. Our ability to love and work
together has made America
the mepuation of the world.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
alone
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty-five years.
The simple fact is that In every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
central to
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
10
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
hispanic childre-
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
datt
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
dramatically
challenge is to expand the scale of what we already know works in
community after community.
perhage
worth
here
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated more often than any other
repeating
From now on in Amenca,
servins
is
"Any definition of a successful life must include service to
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
about every community:
children, I mean this First, we must praise what works and
leaders
share what works. Second, our leaders must mobilize and inspire
every
group
Amenca
and
internation
their communities people to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
schools
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
churches-
do
successes many times over. Finally, we must change our hability laws that
its must part.
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In the
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he S learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four
that's when I learned."
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
Weare mght about freedom free -
I believe we are right about family. ^ We are right about enterprise
Andmost of all we are right
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# # #
We have the capacity in am government,
comminities, and in ourselves to transform for
America in on into the nation we have becomed of
generations.
for a
we even had welfare lows.
know don't what
Talked with mayors
we've done
wergone
ownership
the
# dollars cities increase for
ch fed state 00 AFDC
law end order
glorify
media subject
(immortalize drugs violence
3145
"TiME OF TRANSMISSION
TIME OF RECEIPT
UNCLASSIFIED
WHITE HOUSE
SITUATION ROOM
PRECEDENCE: IMMEDIATE
PRIORITY
RELEASER: 154ylen
ROUTINE
DTG: 0721487 MAY 92
MESSAGE NO. 62
CLASSIFICATION UNCLASS
PAGES 18
FROM Carol aarhus
4567750
111 12
(Name)
(Phone Number)
(Room No.)
MESSAGE DESCRIPTION
URGENT
FACT-CHECK As + CHILE
TO (Agency)
DELIVER TO:
DEPT/ROOM NO.
PHONE NUMBER
Dave Demarest
Sentor Staff
Dan McGroarty 3 office C.A.
FOR D2 D2
REMARKS:
URGENT!
UNCLASSIFIED
MAY-07-1992
08:24
FROM
SHE
#*MASTER* *
DDDN
FACT-CHECK CHANGES!
Group
Draft Two
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of Los Angeles for all they
have done during my visit. With all that has transpired these
last few days, I can imagine the headaches our visit has caused,
but I can assure you we do plan to leave on schedule. The
police, the community groups, the Mayor's office, the Governor:
Everyone has been tremendously helpful.
It was vitally important that I come here. The Los Angeles
Community has been the site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for
you, but for our country -- and everyone around the world who
looks to America as a model of freedom and justice. That's why I
want to say a few things about my visit, to speak with you about
what I've seen in this city -- and most importantly -- about
where we must go as a nation. For as I said yesterday at Mt.
If POTUS
used JAG's
zion Church we are one people -- one-family -- one nation under
this remarks is true.
God.
(Anecdote( from tour and meetings.) When people terrorize
He did
one another and burn each others property, I can hardly imagine
Jay it.
the volume of fear and anger people must feel. In sum, on the
same city block -- I saw tragic signs of hatred but remarkable
signs of hope.
MAY-07-1992 00:25 FRUM L.A. TRIP SITE
TO
55577
P.04
2
This tragedy seemed to come suddenly but it has been many,
many years in the making. I know it will take time to put things
right. I could have said "put things right again", but that
would miss the point. Things veren't right before a week ago
Wednesday. Things aren't right in too many cities across
America. We must not return to the status quo -- not here -- not
in any city where the system perpetuates failure, hatred,
poverty, and despair.
Let ne tell you a little story about Rudy Campbell. I saw
him on TV. He looked to be about eight. His father was murdered
a few years back. I didn't see his mother. Rudy is raised by
his twenty-two year old sister who has five kids of her own. He
lives in South Central. Think about what he has already been
through. And that now he says he fears that things will only get
"badder and badder and badder." It breaks your heart. But we
can't stop there. our children need more than sympathy.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
should be -- but not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us
nowhere. Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot
further -- will move us forward. That's what we must do for our
children.
We must start with some unpleasant realities that most
Americans now recognize. Let me spend just a minute on those.
Since the 1960's, we have tried lots of different programs --
3
aimed at stemming the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and
social decay.
Lots of different programs and policies -- all with noble
intentions -- have tried to address the need for adequate
housing, education, jobs and job training. Everything from child
care to welfare to health care has been the subject of some
NOTE: KEMP ares USED USEDTMS STAT.
commission, report, or study.
We have spent huge amounts of money -- some estimates are as
high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five years.
Still waiting
Much of this effort went to construct a safety net -- to provide
some security and hopefully some stability. Even in the last
for OMBto the
decade, federal spending went up for these kinds of efforts. But
deambers
when we look where this path has taken us, it is not where we
wanted to go.
Now put away the studies and just look around our cities.
Some quick facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed
mothers was 5%. Now it is 27%. If you read about a young black
male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, the odds are
almost 1 out of 2. Kids used to carry just their lunches 129 to
school. Today some carry guns. Between 1987 and 1991, 134 gans
129 is
were seized here in L.A. -- and that was just in the elementary
correct figure
schools. Drug and alcohol abuse are serious problems almost
everywhere. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used alcohol
is 70%, and there's & 1 in 10 chance that he OF she has used
marijuana.
Statisticians
orig.
According to a recent national survey, 70% of 8th
are about
graders have used alcohol at least once. One in
10 have used marijuana. (-- WEILL NEVERKNOW HOW
MANY INHALED...)
-3th
MAY-27-1992 08:27 FROM L.A. TRIP SITE
TO
55577
P.06
4
In the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the crack
epidemic sweeping our cities -- in the wake of a lost generation
of inner-city lives: can any of us argue that we've solved the
problems of poverty, racism, and crime? No1
Thanks to a great civil rights revolution, we removed many
Have
of the legal barriers to discrimination and equality of
opportunity. " But you don't need to look further than the
We
graffiti on the next street to see that hate, bigotry and racism
seen area there whe's
still plague our society. 11
Some programs I'm thinking of programs like Head Start or
programs under the Older Americans Act
Rid to the Elderly -- have shown time-tested positive results.
But many simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get
No such
people off welfare -- it keeps people trapped there.
program exists per
The statistics are indeed sobering. The sum and substance
is this: our cities are in serious trouble.
Hans Kuttner
We in government have an absolute responsibility to help
OR
solve these problems. Our first responsibility is to preserve
suggestion:
WÇ?
order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an enabling order.
One where families can flourish, children can learn, and jobs can
decapitalize aid elderly" to the
be created.
Enabling has negative codependers
connotation; also sounds like pia
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
legislation leais of
now it can help communities with the concerns that really matter!
how people can own property, own their own home, start a
business, create jobs, ensure that people not government make the
big decisions that affect the health, education and care of one's
own family.
MAY-27-1992 08:28 FROM L.A. TRIP SITE
TO
55577
5
Think of the way the world looks right now to the single
mother on welfare. Government provides you just enough cash for
the bare necessities. Government tells you where you can live -
Hans Hantner
- where your kids go to school. When you're sick -- government
tells you what kind of care you get, and when. If you find a
job, the government cuts your welfare benefits. If you save, if
has this his
you manage to put some money away -- towards a home or maybe to
help your kid through college -- the government comes after you
for welfare fraud.
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
right now. And then we wonder: why can't folks on welfare take
control of their lives - where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
dependency -- a system that would strip away dignity and
personal responsibility -- wa could hardly have done better than
the system we have today.
Every American knows it's time we tried something different.
A fresh approach -- a radical change in the way we look at
welfare and the inner city economy.
We must start with policies that foster personal
responsibility, policies that refocus entitlement programs to
serve those who are most needy, and increase the effectiveness of
government services through competition and choice. I believe in
policies that keep power close to the people -- and that use
states as laboratories for innovation. I believe in policies
that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase investment -- create
SITE
6
jobs. My agenda for economic opportunity flows from these
principles:
one, we must spark an economic revival in urban America.
That's why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital
gains rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses
and create jobs in America's inner cities. Me must break the
perverse dis-incentives that discourage work and encourage
welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -- stop penalizing
people who want to work and save -- people who must the
individual initiative to leave welfare behind.
missing
WORD
Two, we must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services.
Three, safe neighborhoods are places where our children can
learn. But that's not enough. We've got to revolutionize our
schools. We do it through choice and competition -- two key
ideas at the heart of the strategy I call American 2000. We must
give isaswho? parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities the same
choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to choose
who cares for their children -- and where their children go to
school.
Four, we must promote new hope through home ownership.
That's the aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real
stake in their communities -- something of value they can pass
MAY-07-1992 08:30 FROM L.A. TRIP SITE
TO
55577
P.09
7
along to their kids -- by turning public housing tenants into
homeowners.
Redundant- choose one OR the other.
Finally, fifth, we must assure all Americans access to basic
health care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and
quality, through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Needs
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before." They are
right. And I am proposing it again. Because I am right. Some
Dash or perit
will say, "Where is the new money, the new programs, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, government doesn't create wealth free
enterprise and free people do. I will say, a government program
does not raise children, families do. A government program does
not dispense spiritual and moral guidance, churches, synagogues
and parents do. A government program does not build
neighborhoods, people do.
I'm not a social scientist. I have never pretended to be.
I look at things from my own experience.
"THE DOQUAS OF THE We've tried the old ways of thinking. Now as Lincoln said
QUIET PAST ARE IMAGENATE TOTHE STORMY PRESENT.
WITHOUT
it is time to think anew!" our approach is a radical break
with the policies of the past. It is new because it's never been
Duh.
/
tried before. If ever the Congress needed a reason to try
something new it is Los Angeles, California.
heard
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. I was stunned, but I remain
confident in our system of justice. And when I saw the violence
and rage erupt on your streets, my reaction was the same as most
$
other people. We all knew we had to restore order. A civilized
society cannot tackle any of the really tough problems in the
midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never condone
violence and brutality, and I an confident we never will.
When I saw and read about the heroic acts, the responsible
acts, the selfless acts, of so many of the citizens of Los
Angeles, my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the
future.
so far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
Top of
25
several things. For thirty years we've tried many solutions,
pg 10 we
spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems. But we
say 25
are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
reference years as
nation. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have the
point. We
spirit and the gumption to go at this problem again and again
be should consistent
until we beat it. And we will -- if we try the right things --
things we haven't tried before.
either way.
Even in the short time I've been here, I could sense that
the real anguish of the people in the hardest hit areas is about
their kids. People are worried sick about the children. I
believe all agree that whatever we do must be about the children
-- they are our future. Our actions in the wake of this tragedy
are for them -- not just here in Los Angeles, but all across the
country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see ne last January. I have repeated often what he and others
MAY-27-1992 08:32 FROM L.A. TRIP SITE
/or 2 mayors did mention money. Bradley mentioned need 55577 for
doesn't work anymore. We need new ideas, new innovative
new programs. Almost exact quote by Bradley: the old stuff just
programs issue.) that center on the family. (Quietty hits Great Soc.
Must delete
said to ne that day. They didn't ask for nore programs OF
money They said that the most important problem facing our
sent.
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now for whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a loving home with a mother and a father.
History tells us that societies cannot succeed without some
fundamental building blocks in place. The state of our nation is
the state of our communities. Good communities are safe and
decent. They care for their young people -- instill them with
character and values and good habits for life. They have good
schools. Good communities provide opportunity and hope, rooted
in the dignity of work and reward for achievement.
so this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding bonds
among individuals, and among ethnic groups, between races. We
must not let our diversity destroy us. It is central to our
strength as a country. Our ability to live and work together has
made America the inspiration of the world.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government alone cannot come close to
creating the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of
NOTE: DOJ REQUESTS CITIES IN SCHOOLS DELETION.
C.I.S. IS NOT A FULLY PRIVATE
10 PROGRAM BUT IN FACT RELIES HEAVILY
oN FEDERAL FUNDING CHANNELED THROUGH
DOJ.
people in need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living is 8
WE
Lyon "MUST HAVE"
WANT
a cave for the last twenty-five years.
R
We
ASK/
In every city in America, tens of thousands of groups, and
SUGGE
THAT
30 say or mid change
hundreds of thousands of individuals, who have never been
KIND
OF
involved before, and who will never be paid one nickel for their
SACINO
8.
ENCICE
8
to
efforts, must become partners in solving our most serious social
Pogs.
problems. One need not look far for the evidence that this is
central to the solution. there actually and 100 of them.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs
2,000 CHILDREN
there are MN nembers of One Hundred Black Men mentoring hays in
"THS AREA. on WTHE LOS ANGREUES AREA."
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Programs are In: Black Men working with CHILDREN haps, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
-Englumed
why hispanic ? ALL AT RISK HILDREN
compton
programs helping hispanic children learn -- and so on with the
- long Beach
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
+
- Nicknown
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
Gardens
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to dramatically expand the scale of what we already
know works in community after community.
The phrase I have repeated perhaps more often than any other
is worth repeating here "From now on in America, any definition
of a successful life must include serving others". That goes for
institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
children, I mean this about every community: First, every group
and institution in America -- schools, businesses, churches --
3116
a
soor
P.13
11
must do its part. We must praise what works and share what
works. Second, all leaders -- all leaders must mobilize and
inspire their people to take action. Third, community centers
IN
must link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth,
the media must cover what is working, 50 we can share and repeat
our successes many times over. Finally, we must change our
liability laws that frighten good people away from helping
others.
But there's something society must cultivate that
government cannot provide. Something we can't legislate -- or
establish by government order. I'm talking about the moral sense
that must guide us all. In the simplest terms -- I'm talking
about knowing right from wrong.
Let ne COME. back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four.,. that's when I learned."
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room - to
guarantee that Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have &
shot at a better life.
12
I believe var are right about family. We are right about
freedom and free enterprise. We are right about faith. And most
of all, we are right about America's future. We have the
capacity in our government, in our communities, and in ourselves
to transform America into the nation we have dreamed of for
generations.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# #
TOTAL P.14
Dan- - we're still working on
these two speeches.
Please give input.
(Smith/Aarhus)
May 6, 1992
Draft One
CHILE
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS:
ARRIVAL STATEMENT FOR CHILEAN
PRESIDENT AYLWIN
SOUTH LAWN
WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1992
Friends of Chile and the United States, ladies and
gentlemen. / President Aylwin, I am honored to welcome you to
the White House -- an opportunity not only to exchange views, but
to return hospitality. //
I remember visiting Santiago with my daughter Doro in
December of 1990. I will never forget how warmly you, Dona
Leonor, your family, and the Chilean people received us. //
[Anecdote].
Mr. President, you once described Chile's success as "the
reflection of a mature country that knows what it wants and is
able to achieve it by means of the democratic process." / That
maturity has been hard-won: Americans shared your pain during
Chile's dark years -- when democracy was a fading dream and
peace, a faded hope. / But it has been won. Today, your
government serves its people -- and serves as a model to others.
The same may be said of your leadership: since taking
office, you have revived Chilean democray. / In 19 , Theodore
Roosevelt visited Chile and spoke of a "democratic experiment on
a far vaster scale than has ever been attempted anywhere else in
2
the world. II / As proof, look to next month. Your people will
vote in Chile's first local elections in twenty years.
Look, too, to the economy -- where you have married free
people with free markets: a union of economic growth -- growth
faster than any other economy in Latin America. / Today, your
trade barriers are falling -- your exports rising --- largely
because as a member of the Cairnes Group, you led the way against
agricultural subsidies and protectionism. 11
I salute these achievements. So did the Inter-American
Development Bank -- turning first to Chile to implement its
investment policy program. And under the Enterprise for the
Americas Initiative, Chile was also first to have official debt
to the United States forgiven. // The reason is not only that
our peoples share what your government called the "community of
ideas, of feelings and needs" -- we share this land. We share
more than the New World -- we share a responsibility to keep our
world new. 11
So, last February, we signed an agreement helping Chile
create an environmental project fund with money which would have
otherwise serviced debt -- though we'll continue to address
economic concerns under our 1990 trade and investment framework
agreement. // Our challenge now is to build on those beginnings
-- and show why Bernardo O'Higgins, the father of your
independence, wrote that "the Americas [give] great hopes to
philosophers and patriots alike. " //
3
Today, Chile gives hope to an entire hemisphere. / With
market-oriented reforms, you've led by example. In international
relations, you're leading through integrity: Other nations count
on Chilean leadership in the Organization of American States / in
the United Nations / and in the community of nations. Your
people did the hard work of freedom in Kuwait, El Salvador,
Guatemala, and Cambodia. You joined your neighbors to defend
democracy -- first at last year's OAS General Assembly, then most
recently in Haiti and Venezuela. 11
There's a poem I learned when I was in Chile. Doro
especially likes it. It's called Machado's "Caminante. " /
There's one line I remember: "Traveler, there is no road, you
make a road in traveling." //
Mr. President, I believe Chile is that traveler. Traveling
the road of history -- a history made one step at a time. Chile
offers an eloquent rebuke to those enemies of democracy -- far
left or right -- who try to mislead and confuse the people.
Chile shows how liberty can shape not only a nation of great
promise -- but a people of promises kept. //
Traveling together, Mr. President, we will keep our
promises, and make that road to a better tomorrow. / We are
honored to welcome to welcome to Washington, as our guest, one of
our hemisphere's greatest leaders.
#
#
#
#
(Smith/Aarhus)
May 7, 1992
Draft Two
TOAST
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS:
STATE DINNER TOAST TO PRESIDENT
AYLWIN OF CHILE
WEDNESDAY, MAY 13, 1992
President Aylwin, I am pleased to welcome you and Donna
Leonor to the White House -- and to return the warm reception you
gave me during my visit to your country. / I learned many things
on that trip -- including a Chilean proverb. It goes: "The
shrimp that falls asleep, it is taken by the current." I use it
to scare Ranger. //
Among my memories of my trip was a lunch we shared at your
home in Santiago. In particular, I recall the pride and delight
you took in your children and your grandchildren. / Mr.
President, it has been said that "the greatest glory of a free-
born people is to transmit that freedom to their children." Your
country's bright future lies in the hands and hearts of a free-
born people, determined to see their children born free --
passing liberty from mother to daughter, from father to son. //
Today, I was reminded how your father, an esteemed Supreme
Court Justice, passed his love of law and liberty to his son:
you, yourself a revered legal scholar. And I thought of, how
over sixty years ago, our Louis Brandeis observed that "the final
end of the State was to make men free to develop their
faculties." He added that those who love freedom know "liberty
2
to be the secret of happiness / and courage to be the secret of
liberty. //
Mr. President, Justice Brandeis could find no better example
of courage in pursuit of liberty than the Chilean people and
their leader. Today, Chileans are "free to develop their
faculties" to the fullest -- having inherited the political and
economic rights their parents worked to achieve. They've also
assumed liberty's responsibilities: the knowledge that freedom
taken for granted can become freedom taken away. / Chile
continues the hard work of freedom: defending democracy in Haiti
and Venezuela -- promoting peace in Central America and the
Middle East. //
My friend President Alywin and I first met nearly two years
ago at the White House. Today, I have again had the chance to
observe his insight and eloquence. ( (The President, of course,
is fluent in both English and French. / I'm jealous. / Some say
English is my only foreign language. )) 11
Talking to him today, I knew that Chile will continue to
export its material goods. I know also it will export its
dreams: the courage, hope, and imagination of free markets and
free peoples. Chile teaches others that political differences
never excuse indifference to the law -- and that social needs are
better met by the invisible hand of the free market than by the
iron fist of bureaucracy.
Thirty years ago, President Eisenhower spoke to your people,
saying: "We in the Western Hemisphere are still young nations,
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 6, 1992
MEMORANDUM FOR AIR FORCE ONE COMMENTERS
THROUGH:
PHIL BRADY My
FROM:
DAVID DEMAREST
PD
SUBJECT:
POTUS REMARKS BEFORE L.A. COMMUNITY LEADERS
Please review the attached draft. Submit comments in
writing prior to arrival in L.A.
DDDM
Group
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all
that has transpired these last few days, I can't imagine the
headaches we've probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
2
Let me tell you a little about Rudy Cambell. Saw him on TV.
Looks to be about eight. Father? Murdered a few years back.
Mother? Didn't see her. Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. Lives in a tough
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder." It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
should be. Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further --
will move us forward.
I believe there are some facts that most Americans can agree
with. Let me spend just a minute on those. Since the sixties,
lots of different programs have been tried -- aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for job
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission, report, or study.
Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
years. Check the numbers: Even in the last decade, federal
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
Put away the studies and look around our cities. Some quick
facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
3
Now it is 27% -- 5 times as great. If you read about a young
black male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, odds
are 4 out of 10. Our young black men are at a crisis: If you're
a black male between 15-25 here in California, you're three times
more likely to be murdered than to enter the University of
California. Kids used to carry just their lunches to school.
Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns were seized here in L.A. -- and
that was in our elementary schools. Numbers for high schools are
10 times as great. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used
alcohol is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has
used marijuana.
In the wake of the L.A. riots --- in the wake of the crack
epidemic -- in the wake of the lost generation of inner-city
youth: can any of us argue that we've solved the problems of
poverty, racism, and crime?
We have made progress removing many of the legal barriers to
discrimination and equality. [[ But you don't need to look
further than the graffiti on the next street to see that hate,
bigotry and racism still plagues our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of a program like Head Start -
- have shown time-tested positive results. But many, many more
simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get people
off welfare -- it keeps them there. Our safety net -- as
essential as it is -- stops short of providing the people it
serves a way out of a dehumanizing and inefficient cycle of
poverty.
4
We know all too well the sobering statistics -- severest in
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
is to create order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
really matter: how people can own property or a home, how people
can start a business and create jobs in the community, ensure
that the people not the government are making the big decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
Think of the way it looks right now to the ordinary person
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on -- the
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
live -- where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
government tells you what doctor you'll see, and when. If you
find part-time work -- you worry that government may cut your
welfare benefits. If you save, manage to put some money away --
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
5
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories. I
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
investment -- create jobs.
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
America's inner cities.
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible.
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids --- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before. " They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
7
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life, in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
We've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
time to re-invent the wheel. We must try something different.
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew that order had to be restored.
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
go at this problem again and again until we. beat it. Maybe even
to try some things we haven't tried before.
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever we do must be
about the children -- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
We know from a longer term look at history, that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people -- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
between individuals, and between ethnic groups, between races.
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty-five years.
The simple fact is that in every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
10
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to expand the scale of what we already know works in
community after community.
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated more often than any other
is "Any definition of a successful life must include service to
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
children, I mean this: First, we must praise what works and
share what works. Second, our leaders must mobilize and inspire
their communities to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
successes many times over. Finally, we must change our laws that
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he's learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four
that's when I learned. II
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
I believe we are right about family. We are right about
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# # #
PETERSM.
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 6, 1992
MEMORANDUM FOR AIR FORCE ONE COMMENTERS
THROUGH:
PHIL BRADY
FROM:
DAVID DEMAREST
PD
SUBJECT:
POTUS REMARKS BEFORE L.A. COMMUNITY LEADERS
Please review the attached draft. Submit comments in
writing prior to arrival in L.A.
kill or terrorize
when people, beat auch kill me another
and burn and destroy each others
DDDM
Group
property I can hardly imagine the
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
hetred and Hear among people.
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all
that has transpired these last few days, I can't imagine the
headaches we've probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
Seemed to come suddenly, but it
I know it
This tragedy n has been many, many years in the making.
It
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
right
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday.
The status quo here,
And and In in too many cities across America things is area not right. We must not
let this continue - -
we
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
the
things
^
emptem
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
2
Let me tell you a little about Rudy Cambell. Saw him on TV.
Looks to be about eight. Father? Murdered a few years back.
Mother? Didn't see her. Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. Lives in a tough
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder. " It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
should be. Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further --
will move us forward. So what went wrong in L.A. and what
has gone wrong in American cities?
I believe there are some L facts that most Americans can agree
with. Let me spend just a minute impleasant on those. Since the sixties,
lots of different programs have been tried -- aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for job
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission, report, or study.
Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
years. Check the numbers: Even in the last decade, federal
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
Now
Put away the studies and just a look around our cities. Some quick
facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
3
Now it is 27% -- 5 times as great. If you read about a young
black male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, odds
is
wheth
are 4 out of 10. Our young black men are at a crisis: If you're
THE
a black male between 15-25 here in California, you're three times
more likely to be murdered than to enter the University of
California. Kids used to carry just their lunches to school.
(Aor USA?
Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns were seized here in L.A. -- and
that was in our elementary schools. Numbers for high schools are
10 times as great. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used
alcohol is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has
used
What marijuana. does all this mean. It means that in
+
a the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the crack
epidemic -- in the wake of the lost generation of inner-city
youth: can any of us argue that we've solved the problems of
poverty, racism, and crime;
We have made progress removing many of the legal barriers to
discrimination and equality. [[ But you don't need to look
further than the graffiti on the next street to see that hate,
bigotry and racism still plagues our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of a program like Head Start -
- have shown time-tested positive results. But many, many more
simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get people
off welfare -- it keeps them there. Our safety net -- as
essential as it is stops short of providing the people it
of the net, a way out
serves a way out of a dehumanizing and inefficient cycle of
A
poverty.
4
We know all too well the sobering statistics -- severest in
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
is to create order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
really matter: how people can own property or a home, how people
can start a business and create jobs in the community, ensure
that the people not the government are making the big decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
Think of the way it looks right now to the ordinary person
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on -- the
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
live -- where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
government tells you what doctor you'll see, and when. If you
find part-time work -- you worry that government may cut your
welfare benefits. If you save, manage to put some money away --
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
5
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
Every American knows
rooted in
1ˢᵗ's time we tried something different. A fresh approach
I believe we must start with a set of principles principles
Those princyples
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. a They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
the effectiveness of
truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
because of competition and choice.
government services ^ I believe in policies that rely on the
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories. I
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
investment -- create jobs.
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
America's inner cities.
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible.
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before. " They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
and
parents
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
We've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
time to re-invent the wheel. We must try something different.
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew that order had to be restored.
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
Nothing could be further from the truth.
nation. a In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
And we will if we
go at this problem again and again until we beat it.
Maybe even
the right
that
a
try some things we haven't tried before.
could sense
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
People are worried sick about their children So
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. a This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever we do must be
about the children --- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope ---
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
We know from a longer term look at history, that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people -- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
among
between individuals, and between avony ethnic groups, between among races.
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country. It always has been and always
will
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty-five years.
The simple fact is that in every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
central
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
* engaged Every group in and what institution works, in in what America similar hunt institutions become do part its
are already doing.
10
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
dramatically
challenge is to a expand the scale of what we already know works in
community after community.
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated more often than any other
is Any definition of a successful life must include serving service to
From now on inatoperica, any
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
about every community:
children, I mean this: First, we must praise what works and
1
all
Л*
all leaders
share what works. Second leaders must mobilize and inspire
people
their communities to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
successes many times over. Fifth, Finally, we must change our liability laws that
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he's learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was
four that's when I learned."
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
I believe we are right about family. We are right about
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# # #
We We have the the capacity
in have our government, and in our community,
in ourselves to transform America
to and the nation we have dreamed of
for generations.
HOWE
Bland read
Kerear
Howe
Patitical
DDDM
Group
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
coring
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
1
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all
that has transpired these last few days, I can't imagine the
headaches we've probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
-alloym
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
Chall
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
2
Let me tell you a little about Rudy Cambell. Saw him on TV.
Looks to be about eight. Father? Murdered a few years back.
Mother? Didn't see her. Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. Lives in a tough
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder. " It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
should be. Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further
will move us forward.
I believe there are some facts that most Americans can agree
with. Let me spend just a minute on those. Since the sixties,
lots of different programs have been tried -- aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for job
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission, report, or study.
Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
years. Check the numbers: Even in the last decade, federal
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
Put away the studies and look around our cities. Some quick
facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
3
Now it is 27% -- 5 times as great. If you read about a young
black male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, odds
are 4 out of 10. Our young black men are at a crisis: If you're
a black male between 15-25 here in California, you're three times
more likely to be murdered than to enter the University of
California. Kids used to carry just their lunches to school.
Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns were seized here in L.A. -- and
that was in our elementary schools. Numbers for high schools are
10 times as great. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used
alcohol is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has
used marijuana.
In the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the crack
epidemic -- in the wake of the lost generation of inner-city
youth: can any of us argue that we've solved the problems of
poverty, racism, and crime?
We have made progress removing many of the legal barriers to
discrimination and equality. [[ But you don't need to look
further than the graffiti on the next street to see that hate,
bigotry and racism still plagues our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of a program like Head Start -
- have shown time-tested positive results. But many, many more
simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get people
off welfare -- it keeps them there. Our safety net -- as
essential as it is -- stops short of providing the people it
serves a way out of a dehumanizing and inefficient cycle of
poverty.
4
We know all too well the sobering statistics -- severest in
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
is to create order not the order of a prison yard -- but an
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
really matter: how people can own property or a home, how people
can start a business and create jobs in the community, ensure
that the people not the government are making the big decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
Think of the way it looks right now to the ordinary person
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on -- the
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
nador
live where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
government tells you what doctor you'll see, and when. If you
find part-time work -- you worry that government may cut your
welfare benefits. If you save, manage to put some money away
Toopothead
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
speech
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
5
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
112
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
notoppear
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
tobe
truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
handing
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the
offts
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories. I
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship increase
Stolle
investment -- create jobs.
me
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
cuot
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
defensive)
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
done
America's inner cities.
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
D
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible.
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
I
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
S
care and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
isable
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Education?
?
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before." They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
But does
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
Prolected
guiten partieship
congress can help
7
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
Tooself
promoting-
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
study
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That S how I look
at the world.
We ve tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
time to re-invent the wheel. We must try something different.
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew that order had to be restored.
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
go at this problem again and again until we beat it. Maybe even
to try some things we haven't tried before.
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever we do must be
about the children -- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope
of
Bedris
Batharab
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
We know from a longer term look at history, that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people -- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
between individuals, and between ethnic groups, between races.
silety
or
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty-five years.
The simple fact is that in every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
10
spand
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Koreans
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
3
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
mest
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to expand the scale of what we already know works in
organizars
community after community.
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated more often than any other
is "Any definition of a successful life must include service to
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
children, I mean this: First, we must praise what works and
share what works. Second, our leaders must mobilize and inspire
their communities to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
successes many times over. Finally, we must change our laws that
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he's learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four
that's when I learned."
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
I believe we are right about family. We are right about
to
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
Grogram
what tops
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
seen keysts up.
confort
Fitzwater
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
uchpor
May 6, 1992
MEMORANDUM FOR AIR FORCE ONE COMMENTERS
THROUGH:
PHIL BRADY DVQH
FROM:
DAVID DEMAREST
PD
SUBJECT:
POTUS REMARKS BEFORE L.A. COMMUNITY LEADERS
Please review the attached draft. Submit comments in
writing prior to arrival in L.A.
Navideas - Try them
). Jobs - Incentives U.S. CEDA
Give them accurs like the rish have,
2. Housing - Pay people US. governments 1/2 builders,
Give them access like the vich have.
3. Erime - Weed + Seed
4. Education - Choice SO the poor can C hoose,
Give them access like the rich have.
5. Health- - Health INS, for the poor.
Cive them access like the rich have,
DDDM
Group
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all
that has transpired these last few days, I can't imagine the
headaches we've probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
2
Let me tell you a little about Rudy Cambell. Saw him on TV.
Looks to be about eight. Father? Murdered a few years back.
Mother? Didn't see her. Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. Lives in a tough
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder. " It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
should be. Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further --
will move us forward.
I believe there are some facts that most Americans can agree
with. Let me spend just a minute on those. Since the sixties,
lots of different programs have been tried -- aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for job
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission, report, or study.
Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
years. Check the numbers: Even in the last decade, federal
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
Put away the studies and look around our cities. Some quick
facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
5
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories. I
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
investment -- create jobs.
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
America's inner cities.
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible.
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before." They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
7
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
We've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
time to re-invent the wheel. We must try something different.
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew that order had to be restored.
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
go at this problem again and again until we beat it. Maybe even
to try some things we haven't tried before.
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever we do must be
about the children -- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
We know from a longer term look at history, that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people -- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
between individuals, and between ethnic groups, between races.
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty-five years.
The simple fact is that in every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
10
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to expand the scale of what we already know works in
community after community.
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated more often than any other
is "Any definition of a successful life must include service to
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
children, I mean this: First, we must praise what works and
share what works. Second, our leaders must mobilize and inspire
their communities to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
successes many times over. Finally, we must change our laws that
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he's learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four
that's when I learned.' "
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
I believe we are right about family. We are right about
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# # #
Doskin /Darman
WHITE HOUSE COMMCTR
THU 07 MAY 92 00:28
PG.02
Document No.
326535SS
WHITE HOUSE STAFFING MEMORANDUM
5/6/92
11:00AM, THURS' MAY
DATE:
ACTION/CONCURRENCE/COMMENT DUE BY:
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS: TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
SUBJECT:
ACTION FYI
ACTION FYI
VICE PRESIDENT
HORNER
SKINNER
MCBRIDE
SCOWCROFT
MOORE ON TRIP
PETERSMEYER
ON
DARMAN
BRADY
PORTER on TRIP
BROMLEY
ROGICH
ROLLINS ONTRIP TRIP
CALIO
DEMARE
SMITH
YEUTTER
FITZWATER
GRAY Aberraon 6257
FINDLAY
HOLIDAY
on TRIP
KAUFMAN
BOSKIN
REMARKS:
Please provide comments on the attached directly
to Dan McGroarty, Rm. 122, x2930, with a copy to
this office NO LATER THAN 11:00AM, THURSDAY, MAY 7.
Thank you.
RESPONSE:
partial comments from OMB and Boskin
MASTER
PHILLIP D. BRAN
Assistant to the Please
and Staff Secretary
Photocopy-Preservation
Ext. 2702
WHITE, HOUSE COMMCTR
THU 07 MAY 92 00:28
PG.03
5
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
(Darman)
to
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. (Darman) Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
Boskin
Thisis
government services.
I believe in policies that rely on the
insidethe
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories.
Beltway
I Jargon
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
esp.
laboratories
investment -- create jobs.
reference
Give
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
states
more
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
power
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
America's inner cities.
Janet
Hale Hale
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
This should be done through
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
WHITE, HOUSE COMMCTR
THU 07 MAY 92 00:29
PG.04
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods (Darman) with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've H sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible.
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind. Couples might lose their married eligibility or set
if they seperate/divorce. "Stay married"
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before." They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
WHITE- HOUSE COMMCTR
THU 07 MAY 92 00:30
PG.05
7
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
(Darman) people
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
(Darman)
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I have look
9
less
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
We've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
time to re-invent the wheel. We must try something different.
our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew that order had to be restored.
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
X
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
(Boskin citizens ofL.A)
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
WHITE HOUSE COMMCTR
THU 07 MAY 92 00:31
PG.06
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
several things (Darman) In sum for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
go at this problem again and again until we beat it. Maybe even
to try some things we haven't tried before.
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever we do must be
about the children -- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
We know from a longer term look at history, that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
Sullivan
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 6, 1992
MEMORANDUM FOR AIR FORCE ONE COMMENTERS
THROUGH:
PHIL BRADY JP4
FROM:
DAVID DEMAREST
PD
SUBJECT:
POTUS REMARKS BEFORE L.A. COMMUNITY LEADERS
Please review the attached draft. Submit comments in
writing prior to arrival in L.A.
/ President should make a statement that The
Indicial process are Rodney King event is
still underway and justice 'We are and compartled to appropriate
Jayness actions by our public saflety officials
2. celete "These" on pg 4 and " d your " 11
on pg 7-
Justice/process Justice / process
King quote
DDDM
Group
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all
that has transpired these last few days, I can't imagine the
headaches we've probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
2
Let me tell you a little about Rudy Cambell. Saw him on TV.
Looks to be about eight. Father? Murdered a few years back.
Mother? Didn't see her. Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. Lives in a tough
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder. " It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
should be. Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further --
will move us forward.
I believe there are some facts that most Americans can agree
with. Let me spend just a minute on those. Since the sixties,
lots of different programs have been tried -- aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for job
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission, report, or study.
Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
years. Check the numbers: Even in the last decade, federal
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
Put away the studies and look around our cities. Some quick
facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
3
Now it is 27% -- 5 times as great. If you read about a young
black male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, odds
are 4 out of 10. Our young black men are at a crisis: If you're
a black male between 15-25 here in California, you're three times
more likely to be murdered than to enter the University of
California. Kids used to carry just their lunches to school.
Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns were seized here in L.A. -- and
that was in our elementary schools. Numbers for high schools are
10 times as great. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used
alcohol is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has
used marijuana.
In the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the crack
epidemic -- in the wake of the lost generation of inner-city
youth: can any of us argue that we've solved the problems of
poverty, racism, and crime?
We have made progress removing many of the legal barriers to
discrimination and equality. [[ But you don't need to look
further than the graffiti on the next street to see that hate,
bigotry and racism still plagues our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of a program like Head Start -
- have shown time-tested positive results. But many, many more
simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get people
off welfare -- it keeps them there. Our safety net -- as
essential as it is -- stops short of providing the people it
serves a way out of a dehumanizing and inefficient cycle of
poverty.
4
We know all too well the sobering statistics -- severest in
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
is to create order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
really matter: how people can own property or a home, how people
can start a business and create jobs in the community, ensure
that the people not the government are making the big decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
Think of the way it looks right now to the ordinary person
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on -- the
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
live -- where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
government tells you what doctor you'll see, and when. If you
find part-time work -- you worry that government may cut your
welfare benefits. If you save, manage to put some money away --
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
5
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories. I
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
investment -- create jobs.
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
America's inner cities.
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible.
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before." They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
7
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be.
I look
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
We've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
time to re-invent the wheel. We must try something different.
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew that order had to be restored.
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
e
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
go at this problem again and again until we beat it. Maybe even
to try some things we haven't tried before.
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever we do must be
about the children -- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
We know from a longer term look at history, that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people -- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
between individuals, and between ethnic groups, between races.
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty-five years.
The simple fact is that in every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
10
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to expand the scale of what we already know works in
community after community.
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated more often than any other
is "Any definition of a successful life must include service to
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
children, I mean this: First, we must praise what works and
share what works. Second, our leaders must mobilize and inspire
their communities to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
successes many times over. Finally, we must change our laws that
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he's learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four
that's when I learned."
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
I believe we are right about family. We are right about
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# # #
PORTER
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 6, 1992
MEMORANDUM FOR AIR FORCE ONE COMMENTERS
THROUGH:
PHIL BRADY
FROM:
DAVID DEMAREST
PD
SUBJECT:
POTUS REMARKS BEFORE L.A. COMMUNITY LEADERS
Please review the attached draft. Submit comments in
writing prior to arrival in L.A.
DDDM
Group
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the Tc City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all
HE CAN IMAGINE. THEN DON'T HAVE TO SAY
CITY AND COUNTY
that has transpired these last few days, I can t imagine the
OUR VISIT HAS
headaches we ve probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
MOST IMPORTANTLY
h about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
will take a long ong time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
2
Let me tell you a little about Rudy Cambell. I Saw him on TV.
HE
HIS
Looks to be about eight. < Father? h WAS Murdered a few years back.
I DIDN'T SEE HIS
L
Mother?. Didn't see her. Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. h HE Lives in a tough
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder. It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
OUR DISCUSSION IS
should be. h Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further --
THEY CAN HELP
will move us forward.
SOBERING REALITIES
NOW RECOGNIZE.
I believe there are some facts that most Americans can agree
with. Let me spend just a minute on those. Since the sixties; 1960s
WE HAVE TRIED
lots of different programs have been tried aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission report), S or study. IES
WE HAVE SPENT
IN AN EFFORT TO ADDRESS THESE PROBLEMS
SOUNDS A BIT DEFENSIVE. THIS SHOULD SOUND
AND MATER-OF-FACT.
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for job
NUMEROUS
h Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
EVEN
years. Check the numbers: Even L in the last decade, federal
INCREASED
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
BUT WHEN WE ASSESS LOOK WHERE THIS PATH HAS TAKEN us, II GIVES US All PAUSE.
Put away the studies and look around our cities. Some quick
IT ISNOT WHERE WE WANTED TO 60.
facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
effort went
* THE CENTRAL THRUST of MUCH of THIS COMMITMENT of RESOURCES HAS BEEN TO
CONSTRUCT A SAFETY NET 1 TO PROVIDE SOME SECURITY AND HOPEFULLY SOME
STABILITY.
3
Now it is 27% -- 5 times as great. If you read about a young
the
the
black male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, odds
FACE
are 4 out of 10. Our young black men are at a crisis: If you're
ARE
a black male between 15-25 here in California, you re three times
more likely to be murdered than to enter the University of
California Kids used to carry just their lunches to school.
Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns were seized here in L.A. -- and
The Drug and alcohol abuse are
that was in our elementary schools. L Numbers for high schools are
serious problems everywhere
10 times as great. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used
alcohol is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has
used marijuana.
In the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the crack
A
epidemic -- in the wake of the lost generation of inner-city
youth: can any of us argue that we've solved the problems of
poverty, racism, and crime?
IN removed
We have made progress removing many of the legal barriers to
discrimination and equality. [[ But you don't need to look
further than the graffiti on the next street to see that hate,
bigotry and racism still plagues our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of a program like Head Start -
- have shown time-tested positive results. But many, many more
simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get people
off welfare -- it keeps them there. Our safety net -- as
essential as it is -- stops short of providing the people it
serves a way out of a dehumanizing and inefficient cycle of
DEPENDENCY
poverty.
The statistics are indeed solzering
We know all too well the sobering statistics severest in
sum AND SUBSTANCE IS:
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
PEACE AND
is to create order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an
A PEACE
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and AT how
can
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
really matter: how people can own property or a home, how people
HOW WE CAN
can start a business and create jobs in the community, ensure
CITIZENS people
that the people not the government are making the big I decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
CONSIDER HOW THE WORLD
uneughorged father
Think of the way it looks right now to the ordinary person
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on -- the
THIS ISNOT TRUE.
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
live -- where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
DETERMINES THE HEALTH CARE you RECEIVE.
government tells you what doctor you 11 see, and when If you
what kind of care you set, and when
find part-time work -- you worry that government may cut your
welfare benefits. If you save 1 AND manage to put some money away --
WELFARE
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
WE HAVE
Every one of those things happens with the system we ve got
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
5
Stel
DISCOURAGE
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
ENCOURAGE
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
MOST
POLICIES THAT
truly needy, and L increase choice and competition in delivering
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories. I
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
investment -- create jobs.
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
A REVIVAL THAT IS BUILT
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
AND CREATE JOBS
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
America's inner cities.
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
THAT
5
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
ANIN441505 10N INCHAM NO
DEPENDENCY.
6
S
JOBS
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with, expanded
educational opportunities and social services. [And I've sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible CAN Do WITHOUT CONGRESSIONAL ACTION
REVERSE
We must break the perverse dis incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
TANGIBLE
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
choice and competition will help crorebolutions our
system of education
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before. " They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, s the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
and moral
7
SYNAGOGUES AND PARENTS
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
people
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I HAVE
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
OUT of my EXPERIENCE.
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
AND
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
WE HAVE CONSTRUCTED A SAFETY NET BUT WE HAVE NOT PROVIDED A WAY OUT
We 've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the OF POVERTY
LADDER of OPPORTUNITY. THAT is WHAT OUR CITIES NEED. THAT IS WHAT my AGENDA
time to re invent the wheel. We must try something different.
15 ABOUT. IT IS A NEW APPROACH THAT IS DESPERATELY NEEDED.
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If
AGENDA
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew that order had to be restored.
CONCENTRATE ON BUILDING LADDERS OF OPPORTUNITY
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
many
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
AND great deal of yet AND THE PROBLEMS PERSIST.
solutions, L spent a lot of moneyo and haven t solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
CONVICTION
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to To HAVE
WE HAVE THE
go at this problem again and again until we beat it. Maybe even
COURAGE TO BUILD, TO INNOVATE, AND TO DO
to try some things we haven't tried before.
sensed
GREATEST
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
I BELIEVE
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever STeT we do must be
ALL
that
THAT
OUR
about the children they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
ASK FOR
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
LOVING
a child lives in a L home with a mother and a father.
TEACHES US
We know from a longer term look at history that societies
ed
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people --- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
between individuals, and between ethnic groups, between races.
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty five years.
The simple fact is that in every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
10
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
DIFFERENT.
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to expand the scale of what we already know works in
community after community.
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated/more often than any other
WORTH REPEATING AGAIN:
is L"Any definition of a successful life must include service to
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
children, I mean this: First, we must praise what works and
share what works. Second, our leaders must mobilize and inspire
their communities to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
REPLICATE
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
successes many times over. Finally, we must change our laws that
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In
the
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
the
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he S learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four
that's when I learned. "
SHOULD
That S got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
AN OPPORTUNITY
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
I believe we are right about family. We are right about
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# # #
Holiday Holi day
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 6, 1992
MEMORANDUM FOR AIR FORCE ONE COMMENTERS
THROUGH:
PHIL BRADY JJH
FROM:
DAVID DEMAREST
PD
SUBJECT:
POTUS REMARKS BEFORE L.A. COMMUNITY LEADERS
Please review the attached draft. Submit comments in
writing prior to arrival in L.A.
DDDM
Group
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all
that has transpired these last few days, I can't imagine the
headaches we've probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
2
Let me tell you a little about Rudy Cambell. Saw him on TV.
Looks to be about eight. Father? Murdered a few years back.
Mother? Didn't see her. Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. Lives in a tough
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder." It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
should be. Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further --
will move us forward.
I believe there are some facts that most Americans can agree
with. Let me spend just a minute on those. Since the sixties,
lots of different programs have been tried -- aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for job
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission, report, or study.
Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
years. Check the numbers: Even in the last decade, federal
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
Put away the studies and look around our cities. Some quick
facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
3
Now it is 27% -- 5 times as great. If you read about a young
black male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, odds
are 4 out of 10. Our young black men are at a crisis: If you're
a black male between 15-25 here in California, you're three times
more likely to be murdered than to enter the University of
California. Kids used to carry just their lunches to school.
Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns were seized here in L.A. -- and
that was in our elementary schools. Numbers for high schools are
10 times as great. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used
alcohol is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has
used marijuana.
In the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the crack
epidemic -- in the wake of the lost generation of inner-city
youth: can any of us argue that we've solved the problems of
poverty, racism, and crime?
We have made progress removing many of the legal barriers to
discrimination and equality. [[ But you don't need to look
further than the graffiti on the next street to see that hate,
bigotry and racism still plagues our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of a program like Head Start -
- have shown time-tested positive results. But many, many more
simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get people
off welfare -- it keeps them there. Our safety net -- as
essential as it is -- stops short of providing the people it
serves a way out of a dehumanizing and inefficient cycle of
poverty.
4
We know all too well the sobering statistics -- severest in
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
is to create order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
really matter: how people can own property or a home, how people
can start a business and create jobs in the community, ensure
that the people not the government are making the big decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
Think of the way it looks right now to the ordinary person
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on -- the
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
live -- where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
government tells you what doctor you'll see, and when. If you
find part-time work -- you worry that government may cut your
welfare benefits. If you save, manage to put some money away --
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
5
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories. I
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
investment -- create jobs.
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses in
America's inner cities.
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
we
to
seen
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
check
dates
Angeles as soon as possible.
effidation not
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
sue
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before. " They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
7
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
We've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
This seems at oaks was next line
time to re invent the wheel. We must try something different.
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
was stumed. Angula
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
Outrage Disgrist, Anger.
Too.
mild
as most other people. r We all knew that order had to be restored.
a
reaction
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
to the
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
death,
riotst
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
destruc
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of (relief) and hope for the future.
for
me
next
1
be
word
to
of
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
go at this problem again and again until we beat it. Maybe even
to try some things we haven't tried before.
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever we do must be
about the children -- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
We know from a longer term look at history, that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people -- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
between individuals, and between ethnic groups, between races.
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty-five years.
The simple fact is that in every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
10
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to expand the scale of what we already know works in
community after community.
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated more often than any other
is "Any definition of a successful life must include service to
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
children, I mean this: First, we must praise what works and
share what works. Second, our leaders must mobilize and inspire
their communities to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
successes many times over. Finally, we must change our laws that
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he's learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four
that's when I learned. II
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
I believe we are right about family. We are right about
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# # #
CAM
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON
May 6, 1992
MEMORANDUM FOR AIR FORCE ONE COMMENTERS
THROUGH:
PHIL BRADY JJ4
FROM:
DAVID DEMAREST
PD
SUBJECT:
POTUS REMARKS BEFORE L.A. COMMUNITY LEADERS
Please review the attached draft. Submit comments in
writing prior to arrival in L.A.
DDDM
Group
Draft One
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all is Successful an odd
cduring my
word
that has transpired these last few days, I can't imagine the
we
headaches we've probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
I want to
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this my
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
Nation
about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
2
P
Let me tell you a little about Rudy Cambell. Saw him on TV.
Looks to be about eight. Father? Murdered a few years back.
Mother? Didn't see her. Rudy is raised by his twenty-two year
old sister who has five kids of her own. Lives in a tough
neighborhood. Think about what he has already been through. And
that now he says he fears that things will only get "badder and
badder and badder. " It breaks your heart.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" that can all be debated. And it
But c
should be. Not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us nowhere.
Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot further --
will move us forward.
I believe there are some £ facts things that most Americans can agree
on
X
with. Let me spend just a minute on those. Since the sixties,
lots of different programs have been tried -- aimed at stemming
the tide of urban violence, drugs, crime, and social decay.
Lots of different programs have tried to address the need
for adequate housing, for health care, for education, for job
training. Everything from child care to welfare to health care
has been the subject of some commission, report, or study.
Huge amounts of money have been spent -- some estimates are
as high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five
years. Check the numbers: Even in the last decade, federal
spending went up for these kinds of efforts.
Put away the studies and look around our cities Some quick
facts In 1960 the percentage of births to unwed mothers was 5%.
But all that world - all those good intentions.
have America. Many argue that its made things worse,gy
not urably improved the of of urban
3
Now it is 27% -- 5 times as great. If you read about a young
black male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, odds
are 4 out of 10. Our young black men are at a crisis: If you're
Could be
a black male between 15-25 here in California, you're three times
read to
more likely to be murdered than to enter the University of
imply
racist
California. Kids used to carry just their lunches to school.
admissions
rather than
Today some
Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns were seized here in L.A. -- and high murder
that was in our elementary schools. Numbers for high schools are rate
?
cany
10 times as great. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used
guns.
alcohol is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has
used marijuana.
In the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the crack
epidemic -- in the wake of the lost generation of inner-city
youth: can any of us argue that we've solved the problems of
poverty, racism, and crime?
We have made progress removing many of the legal barriers to
discrimination and equality. [[ But you don't need to look
further than the graffiti on the next street to see that hate,
bigotry and racism still plagues our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of a program like Head Start -
- have shown time-tested positive results. But many, many more
simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get people
A social
is
off
welfare
--
it
keeps
them
there.
Our safety net
as
essential as it is stops short of providing the people it necessary, but
Too
serves a way, out of a dehumanizing and inefficient cycle of
have been
too many
many
poverty.
programs nothing do to help
the one me
entargled in
urban Americans
have now
4
We know all too well the sobering statistics -- severest in
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
are in serious trouble.
We help in government have an absolute responsibility to
e
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
is to create preserve order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
Families and
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
really matter: how people can own property or a home, how people
can start a business and create jobs in the community, ensure
that the people not the government are making the big decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
a single womand
Think of the way it looks right now to the ordinary person
and
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on
the
cuts
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
benefits
your
and
live -- where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
if
you
takes
government tells you what doctor you'll see, and when. If
you
married.
Forever
to
repair
brohen find part-time work -- you worry that government may cut your
windows
welfare benefits. If you save, manage to put some money away --
disculars elevators.
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
5
disnity
and
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
new
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
LEX
based
I believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
on
old
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are maths
very simple: Order is better than disorder Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
I believe in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the
community for guidance and that use states as laboratories. I
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
investment -- create jobs.
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital gains
America's rate for entrepreneurs inner cities. and and investors tax who breaks locate businesses For employees. in
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
Seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible.
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
and
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
savings
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities -- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before." They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do.
A government program does not dispense
7
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
people
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
All thi
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer coaching
to
quetto
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
We've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
time to re-invent the wheel. We must try something different.
Please.
Our approach is different. Let 6 give it a chance to work. If
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
Angeles, California.
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
we had to tore
as most other people. We all knew that 6 order had to be restored.
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
8
So far I have spoken about what government can do. Now let
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
several things. In sum, for thirty years we've tried a lot of
solutions, spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems.
But we are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
nation. In other words, we have the spirit and the gumption to
go at this problem again and again until we beat it. Maybe even
to try some things we haven't tried before.
Before I arrived I was told that the real anguish of the
people in the hardest hit areas is about the children. This we
should be able to agree on as well -- whatever we do must be
about the children -- they are the future. Our actions in the
wake of this tragedy are for them -- not just here in Los
Angeles, but all across the country.
Your own Mayor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see me last January. I have repeated often what he and others
said to me that day. They didn't say more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now in whether a child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a home with a mother and a father.
We know from a longer term look at history, that societies
cannot be successful without some fundamental building blocks in
place. The state of our nation is the state of our communities.
9
Good communities are safe and decent. They care for their young
people -- instill them with character and values and good habits
for life. They have good schools. And good communities provide
opportunity and hope, rooted in the dignity of work and reward
for achievement.
So this is obviously not a crisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding the bonds
between individuals, and between ethnic groups, between races.
We must not let our diversity destroy us. Our diversity is
central to our strength as a country.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building a new American community. And
history shows us that government cannot come close to creating
the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of people in
need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in a cave
for the last twenty-five years.
The simple fact is that in every city in America, tens of
thousands of groups, and hundreds of thousands of individuals,
who have never been involved before, and who will never be paid
one nickel for their efforts, must become partners in solving our
most serious social problems. One need not look far for the
evidence that this is part of the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools programs,
there are XX members of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
10
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping young people learn -- and so on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
less severe. So it only makes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to expand the scale of what we already know works in
community after community.
Perhaps the phrase I have repeated more often than any other
is "Any definition of a successful life must include service to
others". That goes for institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopeful future for our
children, I mean this: First, we must praise what works and
share what works. Second, our leaders must mobilize and inspire
their communities to take action. Third, community centers must
link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth, the
media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat our
successes many times over. Finally, we must change our laws that
frighten good people away from helping others. Finally, there's
something society must cultivate that government cannot provide.
Something we can't legislate -- or establish by government order.
I'm talking about the moral sense that must guide us all. In
simplest terms -- I'm talking about knowing right from wrong.
Let me come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's a lesson he's learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
11
--- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "They should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four
that's when I learned. "
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Now, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantee Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have a shot
at a better life.
I believe we are right about family. We are right about
faith, about America's future. We must take these steps to
reclaim the American Dream for the people of our cities.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
#
#
#
Sheehan
DDDM
Group
Draft One
S2 MAY 6 P5: 28
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of the City of Los Angeles for
all they have done to make this visit so successful. With all
trouble that has transpired these last few days, I can't imagine the
G(trite) headaches we've probably caused, but I can assure you we do plan
to leave on schedule. The police, the community groups, the
Mayor's office, the Governor: Everyone has been tremendously
helpful.
It was important that I come here. Los Angeles has been the
site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for you, but for all of us.
That's why it's important that I say a few things about this
visit, to speak with you about what I've seen in this city -- and
about where we must now go as a country.
[Anecdote (s) from tour and meetings.] In sum, on the same
city block -- I saw shocking signs of hatred and remarkable signs
of hope.
This tragedy has been many, many years in the making. It
will take a long time to put things right. I could have said
"put things right again", but that would miss the point. Things
weren't right before a week ago Wednesday. The status quo here,
and in too many cities across America is not right. We must not
return to the status quo -- not here -- not in any city where the
status quo perpetuates failure, hatred, and despair.
4
We know all too well the sobering statistics -- severest in
goes
our nation's urban areas. The summary fact is this: our cities
without saying
are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to
participate in solving these problems. Our first responsibility
is to create order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an
enabling order. One where families can flourish, children can
learn, and jobs can be created.
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
its responsibility to help communities with the concerns that
really matter: how people can own property or a home, how people
can start a business and create jobs in the community, ensure
that the people not the government are making the big decisions
that affect the health, education and care of one's own family.
Think of the way it looks right now to the ordinary person
on welfare. Government provides you the money you live on -- the
1st and 15th of every month. Government tells you where you can
live -- where your kids go to school. When you're sick --
government tells you what doctor you'll see, and when. If you
find part-time work -- you worry that government may cut your
welfare benefits. If you save, manage to put some money away --
you worry that government may come after you for fraud.
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
right now. And then we wonder: why can't these people take
control of their lives -- where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise a system that would perpetuate
my specific edits arent important It is the concept of helping
linkers "get". real language to beaurocratic lingo that people don't
5
dependency -- a system that would strip away personal
responsibility -- we could hardly have done better than the
system we have today.
It's time we tried something different. A fresh approach.
II believe we must start with a set of principles -- principles
that give the word opportunity real meaning for people. They are
very simple: Order is better than disorder. Tolerance is better
than intolerance. Work is better than welfare. Opportunity is
handonts
better than entitlement. Independence is better than dependence.
Ownership is better than tenancy. And traditional family values
are better than moral relativism and government paternalism.
reword give people
I believe make in policies that foster personal responsibility,
policies that refocus entitlement programs to serve those who are
providing truly needy, and increase choice and competition in delivering
programs that give people choices and foster competition in
just like sector The heal they competition of our
government services. I believe in policies that rely on the private
each of you, the
policies let the dowhat's best for the
sector.
community for guidance and, that use states as laboratories.
I
in
believe in policies that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase
(txample,
investment -- create jobs. Wisconsin example on welfare
My economic opportunity plan flows from these principles:
plan to revive our economy is based in
We must spark an economic revival in urban America. That's
why I want to see Enterprise Zones, with a zero (explain capital what gains ct is)
Texplain what they are)
rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate put businesses in
America's inner cities.
We must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by crime and
drugs. program We're doing that through our a new initiative called Weed and
Seed to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
6
career criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
educational opportunities and social services. And I've sent to
Its working in Philladelphra
Congress today an urgent request to bring Weed and Seed to Los
Angeles as soon as possible.
We must break the perverse dis-incentives that discourage
work and encourage welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -
- stop penalizing people who manage to work and save and show
individual initiative -- the very things that will help them
leave welfare behind.
We must promote new hope through home ownership. That's the
aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real stake in their
communities --- something they can pass along to their kids -- by
turning public housing tenants into homeowners.
We must give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities
the same choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to
choose who cares for their children -- and where their children
go to school.
Finally, we must assure all Americans access to basic health
care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and quality,
through my comprehensive plan for health care reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before. " They are
right. And I am proposing it again because I am right. Some
will say, "Where is the new money, the new program, the new
bureaucracy?" I will say, a government program does not raise
children, families do. A government program does not dispense
7
spiritual guidance, churches do. A government program does not
build neighborhoods, citizens do.
I'm not a social scientist. Never pretended to be. I look
at things from a more uncomplicated point of view. As a father
with kids -- now with grandkids. As a volunteer -- coaching
little league or knocking doors for the United Negro College
Fund. As someone who spent half his life in a business trying to
build a future for his family. As someone who spent the other
half of his life trying to serve the public. That's how I look
at the world.
We've tried other ways to solve problems -- now is not the
time to re-invent the wheel. V We must try something different.
Let's Focus our time money and energy on what works and get rid of roadblocks
Our approach is different. Let's give it a chance to work. If in our
ever the Congress needed a reason to pass my plan it is Los
way.
Angeles, California. If ever the American people needed a
reason to support my plan it is Los Angele, California
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
American people last Friday. And when I saw the violence and
rage erupt on your streets, once again, my reaction was the same
as most other people. We all knew that order had to be restored.
A civilized society cannot tackle any of the tough problems in
the midst of chaos. It's as simple as that. We must never
condone violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
And when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the
responsible acts, the selfless acts, of so many of your people,
my reaction was one of relief -- and hope for the future.
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Gady
700 P.M
night before
DDDM
Group
Draft Two
PRESIDENTIAL REMARKS TO THE COMMUNITY OF LOS ANGELES
FRIDAY, MAY 8, 1992
[ACKNOWLEDGMENTS]
Let me first thank the people of Los Angeles for all they
have done during my visit. with all that has transpired these
last few days, I can imagine the headaches our visit has caused,
but I can assure you we de plan to leave on schedule. The
police, the COMMUNITY groups, the Mayor's office, the Governor:
Everyone has been tremendously helpful.
felt It was vitally important that I come here. The Los Angeles
Community has been the site of a terrible tragedy. Not just for
you, but for our country -- and everyone around the world who
looks to America as a model of freedom and justice. That's why I
want to say a few things about my visit, to speak with you about
what I've seen in this city -- and most importantly -- about
Where we must go as a nation. For as I said yesterday at Mt.
Zion Church we are one people -- one-family -- one nation under
God.
J
kill; police. The scens if racial division. But in the wake of this terrib le
& LYet in this city, I saw signs of Lotired. Gaffiti bragging about
(Anesdote(s) from tour and meetings. 1411 When people terrorize of
tragedy, whe have seen a remembable springtime of hope an at pouring
love
one another and burn each others property, I can hardly imagine
and healing
the volume of fear and anger people must feel. In sum, on the
act cooperation
in this city
name city block -- I saw tragic signs of hatred but remarkable
of light.
signs of hope.
Storess re-opening
at- Donatrons of tosd flowing into the
just days after Lein wiped
checkes of 50th Central and crenshaw
Accodi to major Bradlay 507 000 points of light at last weekend, whatevery
xn have in the
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This tragedy seened to come suddenly but it has been many,
many years in the making. I know it will take time to put things
right. I could have said "put things right again", but that
would miss the point. Things weren't right before a week ago
Wednesday. Things aren't right in too many cities across
America. We must not return to the status quo -- not here -- not
in any city where the system perpatuates failure, hatred,
poverty, and despair.
Let as tell you & little story about Rudy Campbell. I saw
him on TV. He looked to be about eight. His father was murdered
a few years back. I didn't see his mother. Rudy is raised by
his twenty-two year old sister who has five kids of her own. He
lives in South Central. Think about what he has already been
through. And that now he says he fears that things will only get
"badder and badder and badder." It breaks your heart. But we
can't stop there. our children need more than sympathy.
What went wrong in L.A. -- what were the "underlying
causes", the "root problems" -- that can all be debated. And it
should be mem but not to assign blame. Casting blame gets us
nowhere. Honest talk and principled actions will get us a lot
further -- will move us forward. That's what we must do for our
children.
We must start with SORS unpleasant realities that most
Americans now recognize. Let me spend just a minute on those.
Since the 1960's we have tried lots of different programs --
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aimed at stemming the tide of urban violence, drugs, crima, and
social decay.
Lots of different programs and policies -- all with noble
intentions -- have tried to address the need for adequate
housing, education, jobs and job training. Everything from child
care to welfare to health care has been the subject of some
commission, report, or study,
We have spent huge amounts of money -- some estimates are as
high as two and a half trillion dollars over twenty-five years.
Much of this effort went to construct a safety net -- to provide
some security and hopefully some stability. Even in the last
decade, federal spending went up for these kinds of afforts. But
when we look where this path has taken us, it is not where we
wanted to go.
Now put away the studies and just look around our cities,
Some quick facts: in 1960 the percentage of births to unwed
mother's was 5% Now it is 27%. If you read about a young black
male dying, odds are that he was murdered. In fact, the odds are
almost 1 out of 2. Kids used to carry just their lunches to
school. Today some carry guns. Between 1987 and 1991, 134 guns
were saired here in L.A. -- and that was just in the elementary
schools. Drug and alcohol abuse are serious problems almost
everywhere. The chances that an 8th grader has ever used alcohol
is 70%, and there's a 1 in 10 chance that he or she has used
marijuana.
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In the wake of the L.A. riots -- in the wake of the creck
epidemic sweeping our cities -- in the wake of a. lost generation
of inner-city lives: can any of us argue that we've solved the
problems of poverty, racism and crime? No!
Thanks to a great civil 1ghts revolution, we removed many
of the legal barriers to discrimination and equality of
opportunity [[ But you don't need to look further than the
graffiti on the next street to nee that hate, bigotry and racism
still plague our society. ]]
Some programs -- I'm thinking of programs like Head Start or
Aid to the Elderly -- have shown time-tested positive results.
But many simply have not worked. Our welfare system doesn't get
people off welfare -- it keeps people trapped there.
The statistics are indeed subering. The sum and substance
is this: our cities are in serious trouble.
We in government have an absolute responsibility to help
solve these problems. Our first responsibility is to preserve
order -- not the order of a prison yard -- but an enabling order.
One where families can flourish, children can learn, and jobs can
be created. Insut
A
I have taken a hard look at what the government can do and
how it can help communities with the concerns that really matter:
how people can own property, own their own home, start a
business, create jobs, ensure that people not government make the
big decisions that affect the health, education and care of one's
own family.
OPD*
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Think of the way the world looks right now to the single
mother on welfare. Government provides you just. enough cash for
the bare necessities. Government tells you where you can live
- where your kids go to school. When you " sick -- government
tells you what kind of care you get, and when. If you find a
job, the government cuts your welfare benefits. If you save, if
you manage to put some money away -- towards a home or maybe to
help your kid through college -- the government comes after you
for welfare fraud.
-
Every one of those things happens with the system we've got
right now, And then we wonder: why can't folks on welfare take
control of their lives -* where's their sense of responsibility?
If we had set out to devise $ system that would perpetuate
dependency -- a system that would strip away dignity and
personal responsibility - we could hardly have done better than
the system we have today.
Every American knows it's time we tried something different.
A fresh approach -- & radical change in the way we look at
welfare and the inner city economy.
We must start with policies that foster personal
responsibility, policies that refocus entitlement programs to
serve those who are most needy, and increase the effectiveness of
government services through competition and choice. I believe in
policies that keep power close to the people -- and that use
states as laboratories for innovation. I believe in policies
that encourage entrepreneurship -- increase investment -- create
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LOS ANGELES, CA
Today, mannating
that los Angeles will be
a weeds seed community
6
which nears that our tangeted
#20 million
jobs. My agenda for economic opportunity flows from these
can flow
program
principles:
to
one, we must spark an economic revival in urban America
that that
That's why I want to sae Enterprise Zones, with a zero capital
need
gains rate for entrepreneurs and investors who locate businesses
it
and create jobs in America's inner cities. We must break the
most
perverse dis-incentives that discourage work and encourage
And I wait
welfare. We've got to reform our AFDC rules -- stop penalizing
to see them
people who want to work and save -- people who must the
Congressitant now has
individual initiative to leave Velfare behind.
Two, we must reclaim neighborhoods now ravaged by drime and
been
to This you LM.
drugs. We're doing that through a new initiative called Weed and
seed -- to "weed out" the gang leaders, the drug dealers and
BitthB alam
carser criminals, and "seed" those neighborhoods with expanded
bell hous
educational opportunities and social services.
had
Three, safe neighborhoods are places where our children can
someed-
learn. But that's not enough. We've got to revolutionize our
right herein
schools. We do it through choice and competition -- two key
ideas at the heart of the strategy I call American 2000. We must
vos
Ageles.
give parents in our nation's hardest-hit communities the same
stask
choices. Parents, not the government, should be free to choose
songress now
who cares for their children -- and where their children go to
school.
John pash entry
Four, we must promote new hope through home ownership.
nones
That's the aim of our HOPE initiative, to give people a real
within and Anlia
stake in their of communities -- something of value they can pass
Phillinibe
irstrone-
to
the
the landers Cagress to
Sos
bill
10 we designated
central
mane
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,
along to their kids -- by turning public housing tenants into
homeowners.
Finally, fifth, we must assure all Americans access to basic
health care -- and we can do it without compromising choice and
quality, through my comprehensive plan for health cara. reform.
Some will say, "you've proposed all this before. They are
G have
right. And I an proposing it again. Because I am right.
Some
remarkable fand a
will say, "Where is the new money, the new programs, the new
consensus
on bederet
bureaucracy?" I will say government doesn't create wealth, free
iDwill
enterprise and free people do. I will say, a government program
take
to wrate
does not raise children, families do. A government program does
not dispense spiritual and moral guidance, churches, synagogues
spotunity
walk
and parents do. A government program does not build
these
neighborhoods, people do.
streets
I'm not a social scientist. I have never pretended to be.
forthl
last
I look at things from my own experience.
few
We've tried the old ways of thinking. Now as Lincoln said
days-
"it is time to think anew." our approach is a radical break
with the policies of the past. It is new because it's never been
Evenone-- Republic Denocrat
tried before. If ever the Congress needed a reason to try
something new it is Los Angeles, California.
agrees that
When I saw the verdict in the Rodney King case, my reaction
hel We
was not much different than the rest of America, as I said to the
give people
grt to
American people last Friday. I was stunned, but I remain
astake a
confident in our system of justice. And when I saw the violence
in they
and rage erupt on your streets, my reaction was the same as most
astake
premitames
Bbishow agreed
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what This city this city needs most how is hope
8
midst society other people of cannot chaos. tackle We It's all knew as any simple of we the had as really to that. restore tough We must order problems never A civilized in condone the
violence and brutality, and I am confident we never will.
when I saw and read about the heroic acts, the responsible
acts, the selfless acts, of so many of the citizens of Los
Angeles, my reaction was one of relief and hope for the
future.
ad when I have seen the tremenlous attoring
of IX see the
generasity ml kaving in the cleaning effort
seeds
So far I have spoken about what government can do. New let
50
me talk about what society must do. I have said we can agree on
such
of
A
(Bot
several things. For thirty years we've tried many solutions,
hope.
spent a lot of money, and haven't solved the problems But we
are not a morally, spiritually, or intellectually bankrupt
cornote areate
nation. Nothing could be further from the truth. We have the
spirit and the quaption to go at this problem again and again
this
until wa beat it. And we will -- if we try the right things --
hope
things we haven't tried before.
alone,
not
Even in the short time I've been here, I could sense that
by am
the real anguish of the people in the hardest hit areas is about
their kids. People are worried sick about the children. I
wans
believe all agree that whatever we do must be about the children
-- they are our future. Our actions in the wake of this tragedy
are for them -- not just here in Los Angeles, but all across the
country.
Your own Heyor Bradley was among a group of mayors who came
to see BE last January. I have repeated often what he and others
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I
,
said to ze that day. They didn't ask for more programs or more
money. They said that the most important problem facing our
cities is the dissolution of the family. They're right. What's
the determining fact right now for whether B child has hope --
stays in school, stays away from drugs? It's not the level of
federal aid. It's not a HUD grant or an SBA loan. It's whether
a child lives in a loving home with A mother and a father.
History talls us that societies cannot succeed without some
fundamental building blocks in place. The state of our nation is
the state of our communities. Good communities are safe and
decent. They care for their young people -- instill them with
character and values and good habits for life. They have good
schools. Good communities provide opportunity and hope, rooted
in the dignity of work and reward for achievement.
so this is obviously not & orisis just of economics. This
is about rebuilding our spirit. It's about rebuilding bonds
among individuals, and among ethnic groups, between races. We
must not let our diversity destroy us. It is central to our
strength as a country. our ability to live and work together has
made America the inspiration of the world.
That's why guaranteeing a hopeful future for the children of
our cities is about a lot more than rebuilding burned out
buildings. It's about building & new American community. And
history shows us that government alone cannot come close to
creating the scale and energy needed to transform the lives of
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people in need. Anyone who believes otherwise has been living in
a cave for the last twenty-five years.
In every city in America, tens of thousands of groups, and
hundreds of thousands of individuals, who have never been
involved before, and who will never be paid one nickel for their
efforts, must become partners in solving our most serious social
problems. one need not look far for the evidence that this is
central to the solution.
Right now, this community has many of the answers within
itself. For example, there are four Cities in Schools' programs,
there are XX nembers of One Hundred Black Men mentoring boys in
South Central Los Angeles. If instead there were Ten Thousand
Black Men working with boys, and twenty-five Cities in Schools
programs helping hispanic children learn -- and 50 on with the
hundreds of people and groups that work with kids -- there is no
question that what happened last week would have been much, much
less severe. so it only nakes sense that a large part of our
challenge is to dramatically expand the scale of what we already
know worksw-in community after community.
The phrase I have repeated perhaps more often than any other
is worth repeating here "From now on in America, any definition
of s successful life must include serving others". That goes for
institutions as well as individuals.
When we look to ensure a decent and hopaful future for our
children, I mean this about every community: First, every group
and institution in America -- schools, businesses, churches --
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must do its part. We must praise what works and share what
works. Second, all leaders -- all leaders must:mobilize and
inspire their people to take action. Third, community centers
must link those that care with those who need the help. Fourth,
the media must cover what is working, so we can share and repeat
our successes many times over. Finally, we must change our
liability laws that frighten good people away from helping
others.
But. there's something society must cultivate that
government cannot provide. Something we can't legislate -- or
establish by government order. I'm talking about the moral sense
that must guide us all. In the simplest terms -- I'm talking
about knowing right from wrong.
Lot as come back again to that little boy I spoke about
earlier -- Rudy Campbell. There's M lesson he learned that
survived the horror and the hate. In the midst of all the chaos
-- in the midst of so much that's gone wrong -- he knows what's
right. When he was asked about the violence, here's what he
said, "These should know what's right and wrong, because when I
was four... that's when I learned."
That's got to give us hope. God bless Rudy Campbell. And
God bless the person who cared enough to teach him right from
wrong. Nov, it's up to us -- everyone of us in this room -- to
guarantes that Rudy and all the millions of kids like him have &
shot at a better life.
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I believe we are right about family. We are right about
freedom and free enterprise. We are right about faith. And most
of all, we are right about America's future We have the
capacity in our government, in our communities, and in ourselves
to transform America into the nation we have dreamed of for
generations.
Thank you for the conviction you have to act on your
beliefs. Thank you for all you have done. God bless the United
States of America.
# # #
Insut A :
We've tried to take immediate steps this
work to bring a helpful ord er back to Sath
Central, ad Koreatown, ad Lok Beach, ask Congton,
as all of the arads of greater Los Angeles
affected by this tragedy. A special task
force has been trying to help spead aid to
rebuild businesses, to house those tho lost their
homes, to help feed these who lost their
nighborhood grocery, ad to create jdos.
community
we've got to re-invest in these neighborhoods
So I an today directing the SBA, as it dispenses
its disaster loans, to at the interest rate in
half to those who return to the neighborhoods affected
by this tragedy 1: Los Angeles. But the real
issue is the longer term: how can we
create opportunity for every Amorican in
every neighbor hood in America.