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House Journal: Page 1885: Tuesday, April 25, 1995

 me, because in my state people are very suspicious of too much
political power, you know. And I thought I was still pretty
young and healthy, but half of them wanted to give me a gold
watch, you know, and send me home.
And I never will forget one day when I was running for my fifth
term, I was out at the State Fair doing governor's day at the
State Fair, which I always did, and I would just sit there and
anybody that wanted to talk to me could up and say whatever was
on their mind, which was, for me, a hazardous undertaking from
time to time - since they invariably would do exactly that. And
I stayed there all day long, and I talked about everything under
the moon and sun with the people who came up and, along about
the end of the day, this elderly fellow in overalls came up to
me and he said, Bill, you going to run for governor, again? And
I hadn't announced yet. I said, I don't know. If I do, will you
vote for me? He said, yes, I always have. I guess I will again.
And I said, well, aren't you sick of me after all these years?
He said, no, but everybody else I know is.
But he went onto say - and that's the point I want to make about
state government - he said, people get tired of it because all
you do is nag us. You nag us to modernize the economy, you nag
us to improve the schools, you just nag, nag, nag. But he said,
I think it's beginning to work. And what I have seen in state
after state after state over the last 15 years, as we have gone
through these wrenching economic and social changes in America
and as we face challenge after challenge after challenge, is
people consistently able to come together to overcome their
differences, to focus on what it will take to build a state and
to move forward. And we need more of that in America.
In Iowa, you do embody our best values. People are independent,
but committed to one another. They work hard and play by the
rules, but they work together. Those of us who come from small
towns understand that everybody counts. We don't have a person
to waste. And the fact that Iowa has done such a good job in
developing all of your people is one of the reasons that you are
so strong in every single national indicator of success that I
know of. And you should be very, very proud of what, together,
you have done.
I saw some of that American spirit in a very painful way in
Oklahoma City this week, and all of you saw it as well. I know
you share the grief of the people there. But you must also share
the pride of all Americans in seeing the enormity of the effort
which is being exerted there, by firemen and police officers,
and nurses, by rescue workers, by people who have come from all
over America and given up their lives to try to help Oklahoma
City and the people there who have suffered so much loss,
rebuild.
I want to say again what I have tried to say for the last three
days to the American people. On this National Day of Service,
there is a service we can do to ensure that we build on, and
learn from, this experience.
We must always fight for the freedom of speech. The First
Amendment, with its freedom of speech, freedom of assembly and
freedom of worship, is the essence of what it means to be an
American. And I dare say every elected official in this room
would give his or her life to preserve that right for our
children and our grandchildren down to the end of time.
But we have to remember that that freedom has endured in our
nation for over 200 years because we practiced it with such
responsibility; because we had discipline; because we understood
from the Founding Fathers forward that you could not have very,
very wide latitude in personal freedom until you also had, or
unless you also had, great discipline in the exercise of that
freedom.

Iowa General Assembly

Index: House Journal (76th General Assembly: Session 1)

© 1995 Cornell College and League of Women Voters of Iowa

Comments? hjourn@legis.iowa.gov.

Last update: Sun Jan 14 21:05:02 CST 1996
URL: /DOCS/GA/76GA/Session.1/HJournal/01800/01885.html
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