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 slum. 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.