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 4                      UNIVERSITY OF SOUTH CAROLINA
 5                          SPRING COMMENCEMENT
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 7
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 9
10                           KEYNOTE ADDRESS OF
11               JANET RENO, UNITED STATES ATTORNEY GENERAL
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17                          Friday, May 3, 1996
18                           Carolina Coliseum
19                        Columbia, South Carolina
20                               3:00 P. M.
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24                              REPORTED BY
25                          LESLIE S. TOOLE, CSR
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 1                                CONTENTS
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 3                                                      Page
 4       Keynote Address by Attorney General Reno        3
 5       Certificate of Reporter                        17
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                                                          3
 1
 2                         P R O C E E D I N G S
 3       (The following text is the verbatim keynote address
 4       given by United States Attorney General Janet Reno.)
 5             ATTORNEY GENERAL RENO:  Thank you very, very
 6       much.  I am honored to share this day with you.  And it
 7       is so wonderful to look out to see so many who have
 8       worked so hard to obtain their diploma today.
 9                I especially want to say hello to my fellow
10       chemistry majors.  In 1960, I earned my Chemistry Degree
11       from Cornell University.  So to you parents who worry
12       that your graduating sons and daughters still lack a
13       clear career goal, I suggest give them a little more
14       time.  You never know what might happen.
15                Since my graduation in 1960, so many things in
16       America have changed for the better.  In 1960, the Iron
17       Curtain divided the world between freedom and
18       dictatorship.  Just two weeks ago, I walked the streets
19       of Budapest, alongside the free people of Hungary, and I
20       talked with western Europeans and eastern Europeans
21       alike about our common fight against crime.  
22          In 1960, even after the Supreme Court outlawed racial
23       segregation, much of America was still divided into two
24       nations, black and white.  But in the civil rights
25       efforts that soon followed, our nation kept the promises

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 1       the founding fathers made, and finally made equality the
 2       law of the land.
 3               In 1960, when I graduated from college, people
 4       told me a woman couldn't go to law school.  And when I
 5       graduated from law school, people told me, "Law firms
 6       won't hire you."  Thirty years later, no one has ever
 7       told me I couldn't be Attorney General.  
 8                You are graduating into an amazing era.  In
 9       1960, nobody had ever heard of the Internet.  No one had
10       been to the moon.  The CAT scan was not invented until
11       1973.  But even though our world is more safe, our
12       country is more just, and new technologies are changing
13       our lives, nobody would say that we are a nation without
14       serious, serious challenges.  
15               Many of these challenges seem so stubborn and
16       unyielding, such as violent crime, homelessness, and
17       poverty.  Others seem complex and inscrutable, like the
18       international economy and the spread of AIDS.  And
19       others seem overwhelming, like the fear of terrorism and
20       environmental catastrophe.  But America is a nation of
21       optimists and problem-solvers.  Each generation looks to
22       its children to keep our society moving and to make life
23       better.  After the parties and the vacations and the
24       graduate degrees yet to come, America will look to you
25       for help.  For no matter where you go, and what you do,

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 1       you can make a difference.
 2                 That's what I would like to talk about today. 
 3       For in these last thirty years, too many people of good
 4       will have looked at these very hard problems and started
 5       throwing up their hands and turning away.  They are
 6       getting caught up in the three deadly sins of our public
 7       life:  extremism, cynicism, and defeatism.  
 8                 The first great threat to our optimistic
 9       spirit is extremism.  For it blinds us to the tough,
10       tough choices we all confront when we wrestle with the
11       difficult problems of today.  
12           The historian Arthur Schlesinger once observed that America's 
13       progress and freedom were fueled by what he called the "vital center"
14       in American politics.  He meant a place where men and
15       women of reason and good will could meet, regardless of
16       their political party affiliation, a place to hash out
17       their differences and debate the problems of the day.  A
18       lively debate, to be sure, sometimes even unruly.  But
19       one carried out on common terms with respect for the
20       other person.
21                 The vital center has always been a place where
22       people might be divided in their approach to solving a
23       problem, but where they were united as Americans in
24       their determination to act reasonably and to see the
25       virtue in other points of view.  In short, the politics

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 1       of the vital center means using democracy as a process
 2       of working together, to find solutions that attack
 3       problems with progress, slow sometimes, terribly slow,
 4       and exhausting, to be sure.  But always in the American
 5       tradition of reforms that are not perfect, but taken one
 6       step forward, one important step forward.
 7                 Today I fear many Americans are forgetting
 8       about the vital center.  Too often, in today's politics,
 9       on all sides, people are confronting tough problems, and
10       retreating to extremes and simple solutions, instead of
11       embracing the complexity that problem-solving always
12       demands, and that democracy requires.  
13           You may not like everything that government does; I know I 
14       don't.  But the alternative is not to throw up your hands or turn to
15       violence.  What we must do is to sit down together as
16       reasonable people and make our government do what is
17       right, and stop doing what may be wrong-headed or
18       wasteful.
19                 Extremism wants to spread, when the race is
20       really a marathon.  Extremism wants to escape the
21       complexity of democracy, and the staggering diversity of
22       human nature, but it never can.  Extremism argues that
23       problems are easy to solve, but if they were, we would
24       have licked them a long, long time ago.  
25           As Attorney General, I deal with problems that frustrated 

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 1       previous Attorney Generals for years, such as crime, terrorism,
 2       and domestic violence.  There is no vaccination for
 3       crime, as there is for polio.  The only thing we have is
 4       hard work, seven days a week.  Parents raising children
 5       right, police walking the beat every single night, and
 6       prosecutors putting criminals behind bars, one by one.
 7                     We're not a bumper sticker away from solving
 8       terrorism.  We have to be eternally vigilant, close our
 9       borders to those who threaten us, and work slowly and
10       patiently for peace in the lands where foreign
11       terrorists come from.  Just as we must fight the hatred
12       and the paranoia that fuels domestic terrorism. 
13                 There is no sound byte that can make domestic
14       violence go away.  You have to stop abusers, one by one,
15       and let them know that there is never an excuse for
16       hitting someone you love.  We have to build shelters one
17       at a time to give victims a safe place away from the
18       abuse, and we have to help victims rebuild their lives
19       slowly and steadily.  
20                 The vital center knows that problems are
21       complicated, and that answers are rarely simple.  I hope
22       that in your lives you will choose the course of
23       leadership, not partisanship.  Think twice when someone
24       has a simple answer.  Remember that so many of our
25       problems took decades to get where they are.  That no

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 1       amount of sloganeering can fix them overnight. 
 2            And don't ever forget to listen.  For I have learned so much
 3       when I have listened to the people with whom I have
 4       disagreed.  Sometimes I have changed my mind, and
 5       sometimes I have changed theirs.
 6                 The second great threat to our nation's
 7       optimistic spirit is cynicism.  Maybe you have faced it
 8       already.  The cynic knows so much about what is wrong,
 9       and why it can't be fixed.  He can tell you which
10       baseball players strike out the most, and why planes and
11       stock markets crash.  She can tell you which public
12       figures were caught doing something wrong, why the
13       current peace negotiations are doomed, and why so many
14       marriages end in divorce.  It may be a beautiful South
15       Carolina day, but the cynic knows it's going to rain
16       again someday.
17                 Of course, cynicism never happens by itself. 
18       It always builds on genuine problems and disasters. 
19       Watergate and other scandals convinced millions of
20       Americans that government was permanently broken, and
21       that everyone in public life was some sort of alien from
22       ordinary American life, that they might as well have
23       landed in a spaceship.  
24           In fact, you can look at any of our institutions, and you can find 
25       a scandal, and cynics told you so.  Sports heroes, police officers, business

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 1       leaders, doctors, ministers, teachers and politicians;
 2       everyone can point to people in all walks of life who
 3       have fallen below society's standards.
 4                We can use a funny line to dismiss politicians
 5       or teachers or Wall Street bankers, but that's the easy
 6       way out.  And after we do, what's different?  Nothing,
 7       except that fewer people are willing to work to make our
 8       government better, care for the helpless amongst us, or
 9       build a business that puts its customers' needs first. 
10       At the very least, if you're finding yourself falling
11       prey to cynicism, consider it's cousin, skepticism.
12                At least the skeptic has an open mind.  The
13       skeptic sees all the same problems, and asks all the
14       same questions, but is willing to let the answer be good
15       or bad.  If you're a recovering cynic, and you have made
16       it back to skepticism, why not just take the final step,
17       and become an idealist in the best American tradition?
18                 And I don't mean for a minute that you should
19       be naive.  The Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. talked
20       about the need for all of us to have a tough mind and a
21       tender heart.  I can tell you that no one can come to
22       Washington and ever hope to do well, if they don't start
23       the morning by asking tough questions, and end the day
24       getting real answers.  But this nation was founded by
25       idealists with tough minds, and with tender hearts, and

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 1       they formed a government designed to check the worst in
 2       human nature, just as they risked their lives to found a
 3       country that cherished freedom and liberty over
 4       oppression.  They took the hard way, and they made a
 5       difference.
 6                 A month ago, as the sun was setting, before it
 7       rose again on Easter morning, I was in Dover, Delaware,
 8       listening to President Clinton honor Commerce Secretary
 9       Ron Brown, and 32 other Americans who died in the plane
10       crash in Bosnia.  They were young and old, men and
11       women, government workers and business leaders, but they
12       were all there because they believed they could help a
13       ravaged country heal from civil war.  These 33 lives,
14       said the President, show us the best of America.  They
15       are a stern rebuke to the cynicism that is all too
16       familiar these days.  He talked about how family after
17       family told him how their loved ones were proud of their
18       work, and believed in what they were doing, and believed
19       they could make a difference.
20                 Finally, I want to talk to you about the
21       brother of extremism and cynicism:  defeatism.  Not
22       everyone faces hopelessness, but no one is far away from
23       someone who does.  It may be across town, where family
24       can't afford to pay the rent, or take the child to the
25       doctor, because they don't have a job.  It may be in the

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 1       next classroom, where a student is convinced that he
 2       will never succeed, that no one cares, and that street
 3       crime will be the only way out of a hard life.  It might
 4       be next door, where a wife or child faces terror every
 5       night, at the hands of an abusive spouse or parent.
 6                 You may never find yourself at the bottom of
 7       life's pit, and if you do, I pray that you have the
 8       energy and the courage to get up and out.  But you may
 9       know someone who has fallen, someone who doesn't even
10       want to try, because they are sure it won't make a
11       difference if they do.
12                 Defeatism isn't always dramatic.  When more
13       people stay at home on Election Day, it means that they
14       don't see how voting can make their lives any better. 
15       When good people hear the screams outside or next door,
16       and shut their windows, they have given up hope that
17       they can work with the police and the community to make
18       our streets safer.  
19                 And worst of all, what about the children who
20       never learn to hope?  Their bright faces have fallen by
21       age 12.  Perhaps they are ignored or abused.  Maybe they
22       can find their first real family in a gang.  But what if
23       there is a police officer who spends time with that
24       child, to get him off on the right path?  What if a
25       neighbor or counselor takes the time to make a

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 1       difference?  What if defeatism is met head-on by the
 2       apostles of the American dream, people who know in their
 3       hearts that we can all do better?
 4                 One of your greatest challenges in this world
 5       will be to learn how to deal with extremis, cynicism,
 6       and defeatism.  But the more I travel around America,
 7       the more I see we can.  I see what the alternative to
 8       these evils are.  It's right in front of our face, if we
 9       will just lift up our eyes and see it.  
10            Nobody can choose the problems they face, but everybody has 
11       the power to choose how they will respond to them, and the
12       Americans past and the Americans present are 
13       filled with, people who have faced up to their choice,
14       and who have chosen the path of action, and who have chosen
15       to stand for what is right and good in the world.
16                  Ten minutes east of here is the W. A. Perry
17       Middle School.  Eight years ago, like a lot of schools,
18       it faced so many tough problems, like teen pregnancy,
19       drugs and violence.  And a woman named Mary Solomon made
20       a choice.  She's not a politician, or a generous
21       millionaire, or a road scholar.  She could have just let
22       the problem be, and closed her doors, and even moved
23       somewhere else.  
24                  But Mary Solomon made her choice, and took a
25       stand.  She organized forty of her neighbors.  None of

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 1       them had children in the school, but all of them
 2       remembered better days.  They formed the Perry Middle
 3       School Task Force.  Together, they got the school board
 4       to fix up the school.  Then they heard there was no
 5       money in the budget for a nurse, so they got grant money
 6       to pay for one.  They identified more resources to fight
 7       drugs, got the city police to work with students, and
 8       worked with social workers to turn things around.  
 9                   Mary Solomon and the Perry Middle School Task
10       Force made a choice.  And they made a difference.  Teen
11       pregnancies fell nearly ninety percent.  Students had
12       more extracurricular activities to keep them on the
13       right path.  A whole school of young people is being
14       taught to reject extremism, cynicism, and defeatism in
15       their life.  Mary Solomon is here today with us, and I'd
16       like her to stand and be recognized for taking the stand
17       she has.  (Pause).  
18                   In my own hometown in August of 1992, I
19       watched the people of Miami respond to Hurricane Andrew,
20       as you watched people respond to Hurricane Hugo.  In the
21       first two or three days, the world seems to fall apart
22       from you.  There was no cohesion, there was no
23       community, there was no society.  People looked stunned
24       and adrift.  But then people came together.  They
25       started directing traffic on their own, and delivering

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 1       materials, and bringing water, and
 2       reaching out and caring and helping.  And that community
 3       is stronger and better for it today.  
 4                  And then, almost a year ago, on the Sunday
 5       that followed the terrible tragedy in Oklahoma City, I
 6       went to a memorial service in that town, and watched the
 7       people of that city come together, to speak out against
 8       the violence that had spawned that blast, to work with
 9       law enforcement to hold those who had done it
10       accountable, and to reach out to the survivors, to help
11       them begin to heal.  
12                  I have been Attorney General now for three
13       years.  My faith in the American people, and their
14       ability to deal with adversity, has never been so
15       strong.  I have never been so sure that we can prevail
16       against the causes of wrong in this world.  I know we
17       can defeat extremism, and reclaim the vital center.  I
18       know we can defeat cynicism, and seek what is good
19       amidst all that is bad.  I know we can defeat defeatism,
20       and teach those who have fallen to get up and hope
21       again. 
22                  It won't be easy, and it will take a lot more
23       than any speech can ever do, but I come here today
24       because you are the future of this country.  I know you
25       have the energy.  I know you have the commitment.  I

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 1       know you can make the choice to stand for what is right
 2       and good in this world.  If you choose public service,
 3       you will be choosing one of the most rewarding and
 4       fulfilling careers our society can offer.  But whether
 5       you are running a business, or teaching a class,
 6       prosecuting criminals, or raising a family, you can make
 7       a difference.
 8                  In another springtime, 33 years ago, the
 9       Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. sat in a Birmingham
10       jail, exhausted from years of seeking justice for all. 
11       He was dispirited, and now even some of his fellow
12       ministers were saying he should back off and wait for
13       progress to happen on its own.  He must have struggled
14       to keep cynicism out of his every thought, and sitting
15       in that jail cell day after day, with progress coming
16       slowly or not at all, he had to wonder why any man had a
17       right to hope.  
18                  But Reverend King made his choice.  He began
19       writing until his words filled the margins of a
20       secondhand newspaper.  The power of his choice flowed
21       out of then pen, and into the conscience of America.
22                  Today, as you prepare to make your choices in
23       life, I would like to close with a few of those words
24       from Dr. King's letter from that Birmingham jail:
25            "We must come to see that human progress never

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 1            rolls in on wheels of inevitability.  It comes
 2            through the tireless efforts and persistent work of
 3            men, willing to be co-workers with God, and without
 4            this hard work, time itself becomes an ally of the
 5            forces of social stagnation.  We must use time
 6            creatively, and forever realize that the time is
 7            always right to do right."
 8       I hope and pray that you will make your choice the
 9       choice of standing for what is right and good in this
10       world.  Thank you, congratulations, good luck, and God
11       bless you.
12                   (End of verbatim keynote address.)
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                                                          17
                          CERTIFICATE OF REPORTER

         STATE OF SOUTH CAROLINA   )   ss:
         COUNTY OF RICHLAND        )

              I, Leslie S. Toole, the officer before whom the 
         foregoing proceedings were recorded, do hereby certify
         that the foregoing proceedings were taken by me to the
         best of my ability and thereafter reduced to typewriting
         under my direction; and that the foregoing pages 
         constitute a true, accurate, and complete transcription
         of said proceedings.

                                  ______________________________
                                       LESLIE S. TOOLE, CSR
                                       Notary Public in and for
                                       State of South Carolina

         My commission expires February 12, 2001.