From: dianem@boi.hp.com (Diane Mathews)
Subject: Re: TRANSCRIPT OF CLINTON'S INAUGURATION SPEECH??
Date: Thu, 21 Jan 1993 18:13:35 GMT
Organization: Hewlett-Packard / Boise, Idaho

Subject: News:  Clinton's Inaugural Address
Date: Wed, 20 Jan 1993 18:06:17 GMT

   WASHINGTON (AP) -- Following is the text of President Bill
   Clinton's inaugural address:

   My fellow citizens:

   Today, we celebrate the mystery of American renewal.

   This ceremony is held in the depth of winter. But, by the words we
   speak and the faces we show the world, we force the spring.

   A spring reborn in the world's oldest democracy, that brings forth
   the vision and courage to reinvent America.

   When our founders boldly declared America's independence to the
   world and ourpurposes to the Almighty, they knew America, to endure, would
   have to change.

   Not change for change's sake, but change to preserve America's
   ideals -- life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness. Though we march
   to the music of our time, our mission is timeless.

   Each generation must define what it means to be an American.

   On behalf of our nation, I salute my predecessor for his
   half-century of service to America. And I thank the millions of men
   and women whose steadfastness and sacrifice triumphed over
   Depression, fascism, and Communism. 

   Today, a generation raised in the shadows of the Cold War assumes
   new responsibilities in a world warmed by the sunshine of freedom
   but threatened still by ancient hatreds and new plagues.

   Raised in unrivaled prosperity, we inherit an economy still the
   world's strongest, but weakened by business failures, stagnant
   wages, increasing inequality, and deep divisions among our own
   people. 

   When George Washington first took the oath I have just sworn to
   uphold, news traveled slowly across the land on horseback and
   across the ocean by boat. Now, the sights and sounds of this
   ceremony are broadcast instantaneously to billions around the
   world.

   Communications and commerce are global; investment is mobile;
   technology is almost magical; and ambition for a better life is now
   universal. We earn our livelihood America today in peaceful
   competition with people all across the earth.

   Profound and powerful forces are shaking and remaking our world,
   and the urgent question of our time is whether we can make change
   our friend and not our enemy.

   This new world has already enriched the lives of millions of
   Americans who are able to compete and win in it. But when most
   people are working harder for less; when others cannot work at all;
   when the cost of health care devastates families and threatens to
   bankrupt our enterprises, great and small; when fear of crime robs
   law-abiding citizens of their freedom; and when millions of poor
   children cannot even imagine the lives we are calling them to lead
   -- we have not made change our friend.

   We know we have to face hard truths and take strong steps. But we
   have not done so. Instead, we have drifted, and that drifting has
   eroded our resources, fractured our economy, and shaken our
   confidence.

   Though our challenges are fearsome, so are our strengths. Americans
   have ever been a restless, questing, hopeful people. And we must
   bring to our task today the vision and will of those who came
   before us.

   From our revolution to the Civil War, to the Great Depression to
   the civil rights movement, our people have always mustered the
   determination to construct from these crises the pillars of our
   history.

   Thomas Jefferson believed that to preserve the very foundations of
   our nation, we would need dramatic change from time to time. Well
   my fellow Americans, this is our time. Let us embrace it.

   Our democracy must be not only the envy of the world but the engine
   of our own renewal. There is nothing wrong with America that cannot
   be cured by what is right with America.

   And so today, we pledge an end to the era of deadlock and drift --
   and a new season of American renewal has begun.

   To renew America, we must be bold.

   We must do what no generation has had to do before. We must invest
   more in our own people and in our own future, and at the same time
   cut our massive debt. And we must do so in a world in which we must
   compete for every opportunity.

   It will not be easy; it will require sacrifice. But it can be done,
   and done fairly, not choosing sacrifice for its own sake, but for
   our own sake. We must provide for our nation the way a family
   provides for its children.

   Our Founders saw themselves in the light of posterity. We can do no less.

   Anyone who has ever watched a child's eyes wander into sleep knows
   what posterity is. Posterity is the world to come -- the world for
   whom we hold our ideals, from whom we have borrowed our planet, and
   to whom we bear sacred responsibility.

   We must do what America does best: offer more opportunity to all
   and demand more responsibility from all.

   It is time to break the bad habit of expecting something for
   nothing, from our government or from each other. Let us take more
   responsibility, not only for ourselves and our families but for our
   communities and our country.

   To renew America, we must revitalize our democracy.

   This beautiful capital, like every capital since the dawn of
   civilization, is a place of intrigue and calculation. Powerful
   people maneuver for position and worry endlessly about who is in
   and who is out, who is up and who is down, forgetting those people
   whose toil and sweat sends us here and pays our way.

   Americans deserve better. And in this city today, there are people
   who want to do better. So I say to you, let us resolve to reform
   our politics, so that power and privilege no longer shout down the
   voice of the people. Let us put aside personal advantage so that we
   can feel the pain and see the promise of America.

   Let us resolve to make our government a place for what Franklin
   Roosevelt called "bold, persistent experimentation," a government
   for our tomorrows, not our yesterdays.

   Let us give this capital back to the people to whom it belongs.

   To renew America, we must meet challenges abroad as well as at
   home. There is no longer a clear division today between what is
   foreign and what is domestic -- the world economy, the world
   environment, the world AIDS crisis, the world arms race -- they
   affect us all.

   Today, as an old order passes, the new world is more free but less
   stable. Communism's collapse has called forth old animosities and
   new dangers. Clearly America must continue to lead the world we did
   so much to make.

   While America rebuilds at home, we will not shrink from the
   challenges, nor fail to seize the opportunities, of this new world.
   Together with our friends and allies, we will work to shape change,
   lest it engulf us.

   When our vital interests are challenged, or the will and conscience
   of the international community defied, we will act -- with peaceful
   diplomacy when possible, with force when necessary. The brave
   Americans serving our nation today in the Persian Gulf, in Somalia,
   and wherever else they stand are testament to our resolve.

   But our greatest strength is the power of our ideas, which are
   still new in many lands. Across the world, we see them embraced --
   and we rejoice. Our hopes, our hearts, our hands, are with those on
   every continent who are building democracy and freedom. Their cause
   is America's cause.

   The American people have summoned the change we celebrate today.
   You have raised your voices in an unmistakable chorus. You have
   cast your votes in historic numbers. And you have changed the face
   of the Congress, the presidency, and the political process itself.

   Yes, you my fellow Americans have forced the spring.

   Now, we must do the work the season demands.

   To that work I now turn, with all the authority of my office. I ask
   the Congress to join with me. But no President, no Congress, no
   government, can undertake this mission alone.

   My fellow Americans, you, too, must play your part in our renewal.

   I challenge a new generation of young Americans to a season of
   service -- to act on your idealism by helping troubled children,
   keeping company with those in need, reconnecting our torn
   communities. There is much to be done -- enough indeed for millions
   of others who are still young in spirit to give of themselves in
   service, too.

   In serving, we recognize a simple but powerful truth: We need each
   other.  And we must care for one another.

   Today, we do more than celebrate America; we rededicate ourselves
   to the very idea of America:

   -- an idea born in revolution and renewed through two centuries of
   challenge;

   -- an idea tempered by the knowledge that, but for fate, we -- the
   fortunate and the unfortunate -- might have been each other;

   -- an idea ennobled by the faith that our nation can summon from
   its myriad diversity the deepest measure of unity;

   -- an idea infused with the conviction that America's long heroic
   journey must go forever upward.

   And so my fellow Americans, as we stand at the edge of the 21st
   Century, let us begin anew with energy and hope, with faith and
   discipline, and let us work until our work is done. The scripture
   says, "And let us not be weary in well-doing, for in due season, we
   shall reap, if we faint not."

   From this joyful mountain top of celebration, we hear a call to
   service in the valley.

   We have heard the trumpets. We have changed the guard. And now --
   each in our own way, and with God's help -- we must answer the call.

   Thank you and God bless you all.




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