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Mr. Chief Justice,
Mr. President, Vice President Quayle, Senator Mitchell, Speaker
Wright, Senator Dole, Congressman Michel, and fellow citizens,
neighbors, and friends:
There is a man here who has earned a lasting place in our hearts
and in our history. President Reagan, on behalf of our Nation, I
thank you for the wonderful things that you have done for
America.
I have just repeated word for word the oath taken by George
Washington 200 years ago, and the Bible on which I placed my
hand is the Bible on which he placed his. It is right that the
memory of Washington be with us today, not only because this is
our Bicentennial Inauguration, but because Washington remains
the Father of our Country. And he would, I think, be gladdened
by this day; for today is the concrete expression of a stunning
fact: our continuity these 200 years since our government began.
We meet on democracy's front porch, a good place to talk as
neighbors and as friends. For this is a day when our nation is
made whole, when our differences, for a moment, are suspended.
And my first act as President is a prayer. I ask you to bow your
heads:
Heavenly Father, we bow our heads and thank You for Your love.
Accept our thanks for the peace that yields this day and the
shared faith that makes its continuance likely. Make us strong
to do Your work, willing to heed and hear Your will, and write
on our hearts these words: "Use power to help people." For we
are given power not to advance our own purposes, nor to make a
great show in the world, nor a name. There is but one just use
of power, and it is to serve people. Help us to remember it,
Lord. Amen.
I come before you and assume the Presidency at a moment rich
with promise. We live in a peaceful, prosperous time, but we can
make it better. For a new breeze is blowing, and a world
refreshed by freedom seems reborn; for in man's heart, if not in
fact, the day of the dictator is over. The totalitarian era is
passing, its old ideas blown away like leaves from an ancient,
lifeless tree. A new breeze is blowing, and a nation refreshed
by freedom stands ready to push on. There is new ground to be
broken, and new action to be taken. There are times when the
future seems thick as a fog; you sit and wait, hoping the mists
will lift and reveal the right path. But this is a time when the
future seems a door you can walk right through into a room
called tomorrow.
Great nations of the world are moving toward democracy through
the door to freedom. Men and women of the world move toward free
markets through the door to prosperity. The people of the world
agitate for free expression and free thought through the door to
the moral and intellectual satisfactions that only liberty
allows.
We know what works: Freedom works. We know what's right: Freedom
is right. We know how to secure a more just and prosperous life
for man on Earth: through free markets, free speech, free
elections, and the exercise of free will unhampered by the
state.
For the first time in this century, for the first time in
perhaps all history, man does not have to invent a system by
which to live. We don't have to talk late into the night about
which form of government is better. We don't have to wrest
justice from the kings. We only have to summon it from within
ourselves. We must act on what we know. I take as my guide the
hope of a saint: In crucial things, unity; in important things,
diversity; in all things, generosity.
America today is a proud, free nation, decent and civil, a place
we cannot help but love. We know in our hearts, not loudly and
proudly, but as a simple fact, that this country has meaning
beyond what we see, and that our strength is a force for good.
But have we changed as a nation even in our time? Are we
enthralled with material things, less appreciative of the
nobility of work and sacrifice?
My friends, we are not the sum of our possessions. They are not
the measure of our lives. In our hearts we know what matters. We
cannot hope only to leave our children a bigger car, a bigger
bank account. We must hope to give them a sense of what it means
to be a loyal friend, a loving parent, a citizen who leaves his
home, his neighborhood and town better than he found it. What do
we want the men and women who work with us to say when we are no
longer there? That we were more driven to succeed than anyone
around us? Or that we stopped to ask if a sick child had gotten
better, and stayed a moment there to trade a word of friendship?
No President, no government, can teach us to remember what is
best in what we are. But if the man you have chosen to lead this
government can help make a difference; if he can celebrate the
quieter, deeper successes that are made not of gold and silk,
but of better hearts and finer souls; if he can do these things,
then he must.
America is never wholly herself unless she is engaged in high
moral principle. We as a people have such a purpose today. It is
to make kinder the face of the Nation and gentler the face of
the world. My friends, we have work to do. There are the
homeless, lost and roaming. There are the children who have
nothing, no love, no normalcy. There are those who cannot free
themselves of enslavement to whatever addiction--drugs, welfare,
the demoralization that rules the slums. There is crime to be
conquered, the rough crime of the streets. There are young women
to be helped who are about to become mothers of children they
can't care for and might not love. They need our care, our
guidance, and our education, though we bless them for choosing
life.
The old solution, the old way, was to think that public money
alone could end these problems. But we have learned that is not
so. And in any case, our funds are low. We have a deficit to
bring down. We have more will than wallet; but will is what we
need. We will make the hard choices, looking at what we have and
perhaps allocating it differently, making our decisions based on
honest need and prudent safety. And then we will do the wisest
thing of all: We will turn to the only resource we have that in
times of need always grows--the goodness and the courage of the
American people.
I am speaking of a new engagement in the lives of others, a new
activism, hands-on and involved, that gets the job done. We must
bring in the generations, harnessing the unused talent of the
elderly and the unfocused energy of the young. For not only
leadership is passed from generation to generation, but so is
stewardship. And the generation born after the Second World War
has come of age.
I have spoken of a thousand points of light, of all the
community organizations that are spread like stars throughout
the Nation, doing good. We will work hand in hand, encouraging,
sometimes leading, sometimes being led, rewarding. We will work
on this in the White House, in the Cabinet agencies. I will go
to the people and the programs that are the brighter points of
light, and I will ask every member of my government to become
involved. The old ideas are new again because they are not old,
they are timeless: duty, sacrifice, commitment, and a patriotism
that finds its expression in taking part and pitching in.
We need a new engagement, too, between the Executive and the
Congress. The challenges before us will be thrashed out with the
House and the Senate. We must bring the Federal budget into
balance. And we must ensure that America stands before the world
united, strong, at peace, and fiscally sound. But, of course,
things may be difficult. We need compromise; we have had
dissension. We need harmony; we have had a chorus of discordant
voices.
For Congress, too, has changed in our time. There has grown a
certain divisiveness. We have seen the hard looks and heard the
statements in which not each other's ideas are challenged, but
each other's motives. And our great parties have too often been
far apart and untrusting of each other. It has been this way
since Vietnam. That war cleaves us still. But, friends, that war
began in earnest a quarter of a century ago; and surely the
statute of limitations has been reached. This is a fact: The
final lesson of Vietnam is that no great nation can long afford
to be sundered by a memory. A new breeze is blowing, and the old
bipartisanship must be made new again.
To my friends--and yes, I do mean friends--in the loyal
opposition--and yes, I mean loyal: I put out my hand. I am
putting out my hand to you, Mr. Speaker. I am putting out my
hand to you, Mr. Majority Leader. For this is the thing: This is
the age of the offered hand. We can't turn back clocks, and I
don't want to. But when our fathers were young, Mr. Speaker, our
differences ended at the water's edge. And we don't wish to turn
back time, but when our mothers were young, Mr. Majority Leader,
the Congress and the Executive were capable of working together
to produce a budget on which this nation could live. Let us
negotiate soon and hard. But in the end, let us produce. The
American people await action. They didn't send us here to
bicker. They ask us to rise above the merely partisan. "In
crucial things, unity"--and this, my friends, is crucial.
To the world, too, we offer new engagement and a renewed vow: We
will stay strong to protect the peace. The "offered hand" is a
reluctant fist; but once made, strong, and can be used with
great effect. There are today Americans who are held against
their will in foreign lands, and Americans who are unaccounted
for. Assistance can be shown here, and will be long remembered.
Good will begets good will. Good faith can be a spiral that
endlessly moves on.
Great nations like great men must keep their word. When America
says something, America means it, whether a treaty or an
agreement or a vow made on marble steps. We will always try to
speak clearly, for candor is a compliment, but subtlety, too, is
good and has its place. While keeping our alliances and
friendships around the world strong, ever strong, we will
continue the new closeness with the Soviet Union, consistent
both with our security and with progress. One might say that our
new relationship in part reflects the triumph of hope and
strength over experience. But hope is good, and so are strength
and vigilance.
Here today are tens of thousands of our citizens who feel the
understandable satisfaction of those who have taken part in
democracy and seen their hopes fulfilled. But my thoughts have
been turning the past few days to those who would be watching at
home, to an older fellow who will throw a salute by himself when
the flag goes by, and the women who will tell her sons the words
of the battle hymns. I don't mean this to be sentimental. I mean
that on days like this, we remember that we are all part of a
continuum, inescapably connected by the ties that bind.
Our children are watching in schools throughout our great land.
And to them I say, thank you for watching democracy's big day.
For democracy belongs to us all, and freedom is like a beautiful
kite that can go higher and higher with the breeze. And to all I
say: No matter what your circumstances or where you are, you are
part of this day, you are part of the life of our great nation.
A President is neither prince nor pope, and I don't seek a
window on men's souls. In fact, I yearn for a greater tolerance,
an easy-goingness about each other's attitudes and way of life.
There are few clear areas in which we as a society must rise up
united and express our intolerance. The most obvious now is
drugs. And when that first cocaine was smuggled in on a ship, it
may as well have been a deadly bacteria, so much has it hurt the
body, the soul of our country. And there is much to be done and
to be said, but take my word for it: This scourge will stop.
And so, there is much to do; and tomorrow the work begins. I do
not mistrust the future; I do not fear what is ahead. For our
problems are large, but our heart is larger. Our challenges are
great, but our will is greater. And if our flaws are endless,
God's love is truly boundless.
Some see leadership as high drama, and the sound of trumpets
calling, and sometimes it is that. But I see history as a book
with many pages, and each day we fill a page with acts of
hopefulness and meaning. The new breeze blows, a page turns, the
story unfolds. And so today a chapter begins, a small and
stately story of unity, diversity, and generosity--shared, and
written, together.
Thank you. God bless you and God bless the United States of
America.
George Bush |
