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George Bush Speech Inaugural address
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
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