He tried his best but it looks like many of us today are not listening.
He was
called the Great Communicator because he communicated. He spoke from the Oval
Office 34 times in 8 years. That’s more than 4 times a year. When was the last
time we heard from our President speaking from the Oval Office?
Near the end of his address, I found 5 lines that I could
not resist underlining because I see what he said there as a real danger to
this good nation of ours.
Farewell Address to the Nation
January 11, 1989
My fellow Americans:
This is the 34th time I'll speak to you from the Oval Office and
the last. We've been together 8 years now, and soon it'll be time for me to go.
But before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I've been
saving for a long time.
It's been the honor of my life to be your President. So many of
you have written the past few weeks to say thanks, but I could say as much to
you. Nancy and I are grateful for the opportunity you gave us to serve.
One of the things about the Presidency is that you're always
somewhat apart. You spend a lot of time going by too fast in a car someone else
is driving, and seeing the people through tinted glass -- the parents holding
up a child, and the wave you saw too late and couldn't return. And so many
times I wanted to stop and reach out from behind the glass, and connect. Well,
maybe I can do a little of that tonight.
People ask how I feel about leaving. And the fact is, ``parting
is such sweet sorrow.'' The sweet part is California and the ranch and
freedom. The sorrow -- the goodbyes,
of course, and leaving this beautiful place.
You know, down the hall and up the stairs from this office is
the part of the White House where the President and his family live. There are
a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to stand and look out of
early in the morning. The view is over the grounds here to the
Washington Monument, and then the Mall and the Jefferson Memorial. But on
mornings when the humidity is low, you can see past the Jefferson to
the river, the Potomac, and the Virginia shore. Someone said
that's the view Lincoln had when he saw the smoke rising from the
Battle of Bull Run. I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the
morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and then a sailboat on
the river.
I've been thinking a bit at that window. I've been reflecting on
what the past 8 years have meant and mean. And the image that comes to mind
like a refrain is a nautical one -- a small story about a big ship, and a
refugee, and a sailor. It was back in the early eighties, at the height of the
boat people. And the sailor was hard at work on the carrier Midway, which was
patrolling the South China Sea. The sailor, like most American servicemen,
was young, smart, and fiercely observant. The crew spied on the horizon a leaky
little boat. And crammed inside were refugees from Indochina hoping
to get to America. The Midway sent a small launch to bring them to the
ship and safety. As the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one
spied the sailor on deck, and stood up, and called out to him. He yelled,
``Hello, American sailor. Hello, freedom man.''
A small moment with a big meaning, a moment the sailor, who
wrote it in a letter, couldn't get out of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither
could I. Because that's what it was to be an American in the 1980's. We stood,
again, for freedom. I know we always have, but in the past few years the world
again -- and in a way, we ourselves -- rediscovered it.
It's been quite a journey this decade, and we held together
through some stormy seas. And at the end, together, we are reaching our
destination.
The fact is, from Grenada to the
Washington and Moscow summits, from the recession of '81 to '82,
to the expansion that began in late '82 and continues to this day, we've made a
difference. The way I see it, there were two great triumphs, two things that
I'm proudest of. One is the economic recovery, in which the people
of America created -- and filled -- 19 million new jobs. The other is
the recovery of our morale. America is respected again in the world
and looked to for leadership.
Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of
this. It was back in 1981, and I was attending my first big economic summit,
which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates among the member
countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of government
of the seven industrialized nations. Now, I sat there like the new kid in
school and listened, and it was all Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped
titles and spoke to one another on a first-name basis. Well, at one point I
sort of leaned in and said, ``My name's
Ron.'' Well, in that same year, we began the actions we felt would ignite an
economic comeback -- cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. And
soon the recovery began.
Two years later, another
economic summit with pretty much the same cast. At
the big opening meeting we all got together, and all of a sudden, just for a
moment, I saw that everyone was just sitting there looking at me. And then one
of them broke the silence. ``Tell us about the American miracle,'' he said.
Well, back in 1980, when I was running for President, it was all
so different. Some pundits said our programs would result in catastrophe. Our
views on foreign affairs would cause war. Our plans for the economy would cause
inflation to soar and bring about economic collapse. I even remember one highly
respected economist saying, back in 1982, that ``The engines
of economic growth have shut down here, and they're likely to stay that way for
years to come.'' Well, he and the other opinion leaders were wrong. The fact
is, what they called ``radical'' was really ``right.'' What they called
``dangerous'' was just ``desperately needed.''
And in all of that time I won a nickname, ``The Great
Communicator.'' But I never thought it was my style or the words I used that
made a difference: it was the content. I wasn't a great communicator, but I
communicated great things, and they didn't spring full bloom from my brow, they
came from the heart of a great nation -- from our experience, our wisdom, and
our belief in the principles that have guided us for two centuries. They called
it the Reagan revolution. Well, I'll accept that, but for me it always seemed
more like the great rediscovery, a rediscovery of our values and our common
sense.
Common sense told us that when you put a big tax on something,
the people will produce less of it. So, we cut the people's tax rates, and the
people produced more than ever before. The economy bloomed like a plant that
had been cut back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic program
brought about the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family
income up, the poverty rate down, entrepreneurship booming, and an explosion in
research and new technology. We're exporting more than ever because American
industry became more competitive and at the same time, we summoned the national
will to knock down protectionist walls abroad instead of erecting them at home.
Common sense also told us that to preserve the peace, we'd have to become strong
again after years of weakness and confusion. So, we rebuilt our defenses, and
this New Year we toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have
the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons --
and hope for even more progress is bright -- but the regional conflicts that
rack the globe are also beginning to cease. The Persian Gulf is no longer a war
zone. The Soviets are leaving Afghanistan. The Vietnamese are preparing to pull
out of Cambodia, and an American-mediated accord will soon send 50,000
Cuban troops home from Angola.
The lesson of all this was, of course, that because we're a
great nation, our challenges seem complex. It will always be this way. But as
long as we remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future
will always be ours. And something else we learned: Once you begin a great
movement, there's no telling where it will end. We meant to change a nation,
and instead, we changed a world.
Countries across the globe are turning to free markets and free
speech and turning away from the ideologies of the past. For them, the great
rediscovery of the 1980's has been that, lo and behold, the moral way of
government is the practical way of government: Democracy, the profoundly good,
is also the profoundly productive.
When you've got to the point when you can celebrate the
anniversaries of your 39th birthday you can sit back sometimes, review your
life, and see it flowing before you. For me there was a fork in the river, and
it was right in the middle of my life. I never meant to go into politics. It
wasn't my intention when I was young. But I was raised to believe you had to
pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you. I was happy with my career in
the entertainment world, but I ultimately went into politics because I wanted
to protect something precious.
Ours was the first revolution in the history of mankind that
truly reversed the course of government, and with three little words: ``We the People.'' ``We the People'' tell
the government what to do; it doesn't tell us. ``We the People'' are the
driver; the government is the car. And we decide where it should go, and by
what route, and how fast. Almost all the world's constitutions are documents in
which governments tell the people what their privileges are. Our Constitution
is a document in which ``We the
People'' tell the government what it is allowed to do. ``We the People'' are
free. This belief has been the underlying basis for everything I've tried to do
these past 8 years.
But back in the 1960's, when I began, it seemed to me that we'd
begun reversing the order of things -- that through more and more rules and
regulations and confiscatory taxes, the government was taking more of our
money, more of our options, and more of our freedom. I went into politics in
part to put up my hand and say, ``Stop.'' I was a citizen politician, and it
seemed the right thing for a citizen to do.
I think we have stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I
hope we have once again reminded people that man is not free unless government
is limited. There's a clear cause and effect here that is as neat and
predictable as a law of physics: As government expands, liberty contracts.
Nothing is less free than pure communism -- and yet we have, the
past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Union. I've
been asked if this isn't a gamble, and my answer is no because we're basing our
actions not on words but deeds. The detente of the 1970's was based not on
actions but promises. They'd promise to treat their own people and the people
of the world better. But the gulag was still the gulag, and the state was still
expansionist, and they still waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia,
and Latin America.
Well, this time, so far, it's different. President Gorbachev has
brought about some internal democratic reforms and begun the withdrawal from
Afghanistan. He has also freed prisoners whose names I've given him every time
we've met.
But life has a way of reminding you of big things through small
incidents. Once, during the heady days of the Moscow summit, Nancy and I
decided to break off from the entourage one afternoon to visit the shops
on Arbat Street -- that's a little
street just off Moscow's main shopping area. Even though our visit was a
surprise, every Russian there immediately recognized us and called out our
names and reached for our hands. We were just about swept away by the warmth.
You could almost feel the possibilities in all that joy. But within seconds, a
KGB detail pushed their way toward us and began pushing and shoving the people
in the crowd. It was an interesting moment. It reminded me that while the man
on the street in the Soviet Union yearns for peace, the government is
Communist. And those who run it are Communists, and that means we and they view
such issues as freedom and human rights very differently.
We must keep up our guard, but we must also continue to work
together to lessen and eliminate tension and mistrust. My view is that
President Gorbachev is different from previous Soviet leaders. I think he knows
some of the things wrong with his society and is trying to fix them. We wish
him well. And we'll continue to work to make sure that the Soviet Union that
eventually emerges from this process is a less threatening one. What it all
boils down to is this: I want the new closeness to continue. And it will, as
long as we make it clear that we will continue to act in a certain way as long
as they continue to act in a helpful manner. If and when they don't, at first
pull your punches. If they persist, pull the plug. It's still trust but verify.
It's still play, but cut the cards. It's still watch closely. And don't be
afraid to see what you see.
I've been asked if I have any regrets. Well, I do. The deficit
is one. I've been talking a great deal about that lately, but tonight isn't for
arguments, and I'm going to hold my tongue. But an observation: I've had my
share of victories in the Congress, but what few people noticed is that I never
won anything you didn't win for me. They never saw my troops, they never saw Reagan's
regiments, the American people. You won every battle with every call you made
and letter you wrote demanding action. Well, action is still needed. If we're
to finish the job, Reagan's regiments will have to become the Bush brigades.
Soon he'll be the chief, and he'll need you every bit as much as I did.
Finally, there is a great tradition of warnings in Presidential
farewells, and I've got one that's been on my mind for some time. But oddly
enough it starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years:
the resurgence of national pride that I called the new patriotism. This
national feeling is good, but it won't count for much, and it won't last unless
it's grounded in thoughtfulness and knowledge.
An informed patriotism is what we want. And are we doing a good
enough job teaching our children what America is and what she represents in the
long history of the world? Those of us who are over 35 or so years of age grew up in a different America.
We were taught, very directly, what it means to be an American. And we
absorbed, almost in the air, a love of country and an appreciation of its
institutions. If you didn't get these things from your family you got them from
the neighborhood, from the father down the street who fought
in Korea or the family who lost someone at Anzio.
Or you could get a sense of patriotism from school. And if all else failed you
could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated
democratic values and implicitly reinforced the idea that America was
special. TV was like that, too, through the mid-sixties.
But now, we're about to enter the nineties, and some things have
changed. Younger parents aren't sure that an unambivalent appreciation
of America is the right thing to teach modern children. And as for
those who create the popular culture, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the
style. Our spirit is back, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it.
We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is
freedom -- freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of enterprise. And
freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs production [protection].
So, we've got to teach history based not on what's in fashion
but what's important -- why the Pilgrims came here, who Jimmy Doolittle was,
and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. You know, 4 years ago on the 40th
anniversary of D - day, I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late
father, who'd fought on Omaha Beach. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said,
``we will always remember, we will never forget what the boys
of Normandy did.'' Well, let's help her keep her word. If we
forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I'm warning of an eradication of
the American memory that could result, ultimately, in an erosion of the
American spirit. Let's start with some basics: more attention to American
history and a greater emphasis on civic ritual.
And let me offer lesson number one about America: All great
change in America begins at the dinner table. So, tomorrow night in the
kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been
teaching you what it means to be an American, let 'em know
and nail 'em on it. That would be a very
American thing to do.
And that's about all I have to say tonight, except for one
thing. The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've thought a
bit of the ``shining city upon a hill.'' The phrase comes from John Winthrop,
who wrote it to describe the America he imagined. What he imagined
was important because he was an early Pilgrim, an early freedom man. He
journeyed here on what today we'd call a little wooden boat; and like the other
Pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would be free.
I've spoken of the shining city all my political life, but I
don't know if I ever quite communicated what I saw when I said it. But in my
mind it was a tall, proud city built on rocks stronger than oceans, wind-swept,
God-blessed, and teeming with people of all kinds living in harmony and peace;
a city with free ports that hummed with commerce and creativity. And if there
had to be city walls, the walls had doors and the doors were open to anyone
with the will and the heart to get here. That's how I saw it, and see it still.
And how stands the city on this winter night? More prosperous, more secure, and happier than it was 8 years
ago. But more than that: After 200 years, two centuries, she
still stands strong and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady
no matter what storm. And she's still a beacon, still a magnet for all who must
have freedom, for all the pilgrims from all the lost places who are hurtling
through the darkness, toward home.
We've done our part. And as I walk off into the city streets, a
final word to the men and women of the Reagan revolution, the men and women
across America who for 8 years did the work that brought America back. My
friends: We did it. We weren't just marking time. We made a difference. We made
the city stronger, we made the city freer, and we left her in good hands. All in all, not bad, not bad at all.
And so, goodbye, God bless you, and God bless the United States
of America.
Note: The President spoke at 9:02 p.m. from the Oval
Office at the White House. The address was broadcast live on nationwide radio
and television.
Date 01/11/1989
Would I kid u?
Smartfella
