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OCR Page 1 of 31THE WHITE HOUSE
Office of the Press Secretary
For Immediate Release
May 20, 1998
REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
ON TOBACCO LEGISLATION
South Lawn
10:25 A.M. EDT
THE PRESIDENT: Thank you. Thank you very much. First
of all, I'd like to thank Tara and Emily. There's really nothing
much more to say after their presentations. They weren't so muted
and shy, I think we all got the point. Didn't you think they were
terrific? Give them another hand. I thought they were great. Thank
you. (Applause.)
I'd like to thank all the members of Congress who are
here. I think they were all mentioned except we missed Congressman
Borski who is in the first seat. No minister would do that in a
congregation. (Laughter.) Thank you for being here, all of you.
Thank you, Reverend Jackson. I thank the public health advocates who
are here. I thank the young people who are here, both behind me and
a few out there in the audience. I thank the parents of our speakers
who came, and other parents who are here for what they have done.
I can't thank the Vice President enough for his
longstanding and absolutely passionate, indeed all-consuming interest
in this issue. I think it would be fair to say -- he talked about
how we looked at the issue and all the obstacles to it, and I went
ahead. The people that had the most influence on me were the Vice
President, the First Lady and our daughter. And that was three -- if
there were 300 million on the other side, the three would have a
majority. So I thank them all, and especially the Vice President for
years and years and years of dedicated work on this issue.
(Applause.)
This morning I was thinking that when I was the age of
-- even younger than most of the people here in the audience, most of
the children here, the biggest public health threat to us was polio.
America went to work and conquered the disease, and I was actually
part of the first group of children to be immunized against polio.
Today we all know our greatest public health threat to
our children, and indeed to all Americans, are all the related things
that can happen to people who are addicted to tobacco. I was a
little older than most of the children here when the Surgeon General
sounded an alarm that has grown louder, clearer, and more difficult
to ignore every year -- the warning that smoking kills.
For a generation Americans of all ages and walks of
life, including young people just like those whom we honor here
today, have answered that alarm by fighting tirelessly to conquer
this deadly threat to protect the health of our people. In the face
of very powerful opposition, our nation has actually won some
victories, both large and small, requiring all cigarette packages to
carry warning labels, prohibiting cigarette advertising on the
airwaves, banning smoking on domestic airline flights. But today, we
stand on the verge of passing legislation that will do far more than
anything we have every done to stop the scourge of youth smoking.
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