Inaugural adresses

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 remember, 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.

And what do we want the men and women who work with us to say when

we're 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 and 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 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.

And 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'll ask every member of my government to become involved. The

old ideas are new again because they're 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.

And 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 to compromise; we've had

dissension. We need harmony; we've 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's 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 limitation 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. And 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; 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 is 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 woman 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, and easygoingness 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. And 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, t