so I say to you tonight let's give our children a future. Let us take away their guns and give them books. Let us overcome their despair and replace it with hope. Let us, by our example, teach them to obey the law, respect our neighbors, and cherish our values. Let us weave these sturdy threads into a new American community that once more stand strong against the forces of despair and evil because everybody has a chance to walk into a better tomorrow.
Oh, there will be naysayers who fear that we won't be equal to the challenges of this time, but they misread our history, our heritage, even today's headlines. All those things tell us we can and we will overcome any challenge.
When the earth shook and fires raged in California; when I saw the Mississippi deluge the farmlands of the Midwest in a 500 year flood; when the century's bitterest cold swept from North Dakota to Newport News it seemed as though the world itself was coming apart at the seams. But the American people, they just came together. They rose to the occasion, neighbor helping neighbor, strangers risking life and limb to stay total strangers, showing the better angels of our nature.
Let us not reserve the better angels only for natural disasters, leaving our deepest and most profound problems to petty political fighting.
Let us instead by true to our spirit, facing facts, coming together, bringing hope and moving forward.
Tonight, my fellow Americans, we are summoned to answer a question as old as the republic itself, what is the state of our union?
It is growing stronger but it must be stronger still. With your help and God's help it will be.
Thank you and God Bless America.
***
State of the Union Address
William J. Clinton
January 24, 1995
Mr. President, Mr. Speaker, members of the 104th Congress, my fellow Americans:
Again we are here in the sanctuary of democracy. And once again, our democracy has spoken.
So let me begin by congratulating all of you here in the 104th Congress, and congratulating you, Mr. Speaker.
If we agree on nothing else tonight, we must agree that the American people certainly voted for change in 1992 and in 1994.
And as I look out at you, I know how some of you must have felt in 1992.
I must say that in both years we didn't hear America singing, we heard America shouting. And now all of us, Republicans and Democrats alike, must say: We hear you. We will work together to earn the jobs you have given us. For we are the keepers of the sacred trust and we must be faithful to it in this new and very demanding era.
Over 200 years ago, our founders changed the entire course of human history by joining together to create a new country based on a single, powerful idea. We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, endowed by their creator with certain inalienable rights. Among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.
It has fallen to every generation since then to preserve that idea--the American idea--and to deepen and expand its meaning in new and different times. To Lincoln and to his Congress, to preserve the Union and to end slavery. To Theodore Roosevelt and Woodrow Wilson, to restrain the abuses and excesses of the Industrial Revolution and to assert our leadership in the world. To Franklin Roosevelt, to fight the failure and pain of the Great Depression and to win our country's great struggle against fascism.
And to all our Presidents since, to fight the cold war. Especially, I recall two who struggled to fight that cold war in partnership with Congresses where the majority was of a different party. To Harry Truman, who summoned us to unparalleled prosperity at home and who built the architecture of the cold war. And to Ronald Reagan, whom we wish well tonight, and who exhorted us to carry on until the twilight struggle against Communism was won.
In another time of change and challenge, I had the honor to be the first President to be elected in the post-cold-war era, an era marked by the global economy, the information revolution, unparalleled change in opportunity and in security for the American people.
I came to this hallowed chamber two years ago on a mission: To restore the American dream for all our people and to make sure that we move into the 21st century still the strongest force for freedom and democracy in the entire world.
I was determined then to tackle the tough problems too long ignored. In this effort I am frank to say that I have made my mistakes. And I have learned again the importance of humility in all human endeavor.
But I am also proud to say tonight that our country is stronger than it was two years ago.
Accomplishments
Record numbers, record numbers of Americans are succeeding in the new global economy. We are at peace, and we are a force for peace and freedom throughout the world. We have almost six million new jobs since I became President, and we have the lowest combined rate of unemployment and inflation in 25 years.
Our businesses are more productive and here we have worked to bring the deficit down, to expand trade, to put more police on our streets, to give our citizens more of the tools they need to get an education and to rebuild their own communities. But the rising tide is not lifting all the boats.
While our nation is enjoying peace and prosperity, too many of our people are still working harder and harder for less and less. While our businesses are restructuring and growing more productive and competitive, too many of our people still can't be sure of having a job next year or even next month. And far more than our material riches are threatened, things far more precious to us: our children, our families, our values.
Our civil life is suffering in America today. Citizens are working together less and shouting at each other more. The common bonds of community which have been the great strength of our country from its very beginning are badly frayed.
What are we to do about it?
More than 60 years ago at the dawn of another new era, President Roosevelt told our nation new conditions impose new requirements on Government and those who conduct Government. And from that simple proposition he shaped the New Deal, which helped to restore our nation to prosperity and defined the relationship between our people and their Government for half a century.
That approach worked in its time but today we face a very different time and very different conditions. We are moving from an industrial age built on gears and sweat to an information age demanding skills and learning and flexibility.
Our Government, once a champion of national purpose, is now seen by many as simply a captive of narrow interests putting more burdens on our citizens rather than equipping them to get ahead. The values that used to hold us all together seem to be coming apart.
So tonight we must forge a new social compact to meet the challenges of this time. As we enter a new era, we need a new set of understandings not just with Government but, even more important, with one another as Americans.
New Covenant
That's what I want to talk with you about tonight. I call it the New Covenant but it's grounded in a very, very old idea that all Americans have not just a right but a solemn responsibility to rise as far as their God-given talents and determination can take them. And to give something back to their communities and their country in return.
