Ronald Reagan Make America Great Again Ronald Reagan Make America Great Again Speech Transcript
Transcript of Reagan'southward Farewell Address to American People
Run into the commodity in its original context from
Jan 12, 1989
,
Section ZZZZZZ , Page
0Purchase Reprints
TimesMachine is an exclusive do good for home commitment and digital subscribers.
About the Archive
This is a digitized version of an article from The Times's impress archive, before the first of online publication in 1996. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not modify, edit or update them.
Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other issues; we are continuing to work to ameliorate these archived versions.
Post-obit is a transcript of President Reagan'southward speech to the nation final night from the White House, every bit recorded by The New York Times:
My fellow Americans, this is the 34th fourth dimension I'll speak to you lot from the Oval Part, and the last. We've been together eight years now, and soon it'll be time for me to go. Only before I do, I wanted to share some thoughts, some of which I have been saving for a long time.
It'due south been the honor of my life to be your President. Then many of y'all have written the past few weeks to say cheers, only I could say as much to you. Nancy and I are grateful for the opportunity you gave us to serve.
Ane of the things nearly 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 likewise belatedly and couldn't return. And and so many times I wanted to cease, and reach out from backside the drinking glass, and connect. Well, perhaps I can do a picayune of that this night.
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 liberty. The sorrow? The goodbyes, of course, and leaving this beautiful place.
Y'all know, down the hall and up the stairs from this function is the function of the White House where the President and his family unit live. At that place are a few favorite windows I have up there that I like to stand and expect out of early on 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, y'all can run across 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 boxing of Balderdash Run. Well, I see more prosaic things: the grass on the banks, the morning traffic as people make their way to work, now and and then a sailboat on the river. Reflections at a Window
I've been thinking a fleck at that window. I've been reflecting on what the past 8 years have meant, and hateful. And the paradigm that comes to mind similar a refrain is a nautical ane - a small-scale story about a big ship, and a refugee, and a sailor.
It was back in the early Eighties, at the pinnacle of the gunkhole people, and the crewman was difficult at piece of work on the carrier Midway, which was patrolling the South China Body of water. 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-scale launch to bring them to the ship, and prophylactic. Equally the refugees made their way through the choppy seas, one spied the sailor on deck, and stood upwardly and called out to him. He yelled, "Hello, American sailor - Hi, Freedom Man."
A small moment with a big significant, a moment the sailor, who wrote it in a letter of the alphabet, couldn't become out of his mind. And, when I saw it, neither could I.
Because that'due south what information technology has to - it was to exist an American in the 1980'due south; We stood, once again, for freedom. I know we always take only in the past few years the world - once again, and in a way, we ourselves - rediscovered it.
It'due south been quite a journey this decade, and nosotros held together through some stormy seas. And at the stop, together, nosotros 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, nosotros've made a departure. Two Great Triumphs
The way I see it, there were two peachy 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 once again in the world, and looked to for leadership.
Something that happened to me a few years ago reflects some of this. Information technology was dorsum in 1981, and I was attending my outset big economic tiptop, which was held that year in Canada. The meeting place rotates amongst the fellow member countries. The opening meeting was a formal dinner for the heads of regime of the 7 industrialized nations. Well, I saturday there like the new kid in schoolhouse and listened, and information technology was all Francois this and Helmut that. They dropped titles and spoke to one another on a start-proper name basis. Well, at one point I sort of leaned in and said, "My proper name's Ron."
Well, in that same twelvemonth, we began the actions we felt would ignite an economic improvement: cut taxes and regulation, started to cut spending. Soon the recovery began.
Two years after, some other economical summit, with pretty much the same cast. At the big opening meeting, nosotros all got together, and all of a sudden simply for a moment I saw that everyone was just sitting there looking at me. And then 1 of them broke the silence. "Tell us about the American miracle," he said.
Well, dorsum in 1980, when I was running for President, it was all and then 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 recollect one highly respected economist proverb, back in 1982, that "The engines of economical 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 simply "desperately needed." 'The Great Communicator'
And in all that fourth dimension I won a nickname - "The Great Communicator." But I never thought information technology 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 leap full bloom from my brow, they came from the heart of a swell nation - from our experience, our wisdom, and our belief in the principles that take guided us for two centuries.
They called it the Reagan Revolution, and I'll accept that, just for me it e'er seemed more like the Smashing Rediscovery: a rediscovery of our values and our mutual 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 ever before. The economy bloomed like a establish that had been cut back and could now grow quicker and stronger. Our economic programme brought well-nigh the longest peacetime expansion in our history: real family income upwardly, the poverty rate downwardly, entrepreneurship booming and an explosion in research and new technology. We're exporting more than now than ever considering American industry became more competitive, and at the same time we summoned the national will to knock downward protectionist walls away instead of erecting them at home.
Common sense besides told usa that to preserve the peace nosotros'd have to become strong again later years of weakness and confusion. Then nosotros rebuilt our defenses - and this New Year nosotros toasted the new peacefulness around the globe. Not only have the superpowers actually begun to reduce their stockpiles of nuclear weapons - and promise for fifty-fifty more than progress is bright - merely the regional conflicts that rack the world 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 volition before long send l,000 Cuban troops home from Angola. 'We Changed a World'
The lesson of all this was, of grade, that because we're a great nation, our challenges seem complex. Information technology volition always be this manner. But every bit long every bit nosotros remember our first principles and believe in ourselves, the future volition always be ours.
And something else we learned: once you lot begin a great movement, there'due south no telling where information technology'll stop. Nosotros meant to change a nation, and instead, we changed a world.
Countries beyond 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'southward has been that, lo and behold, the moral mode of government is the practical style of government. Commonwealth, the profoundly good, is also the profoundly productive.
When you've got to the point where you can celebrate the anniversaries of your 39th birthday you lot can sit down back sometimes, review your life and encounter it flowing before you. For me, there was a fork in the river, and it was correct 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 y'all had to pay your way for the blessings bestowed on you lot. I was happy with my career in the amusement world, but I ultimately went into politics considering I wanted to protect something precious. 'We the People'
Ours was the starting time revolution in the history of mankind that truly reversed the form of government, and with iii little words: "We the People."
"Nosotros the People" tell the Authorities what to practice, it doesn't tell united states of america. "We the people" are the commuter - the Government is the auto. And we determine where information technology should get, 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 exercise. "We the people" are free.
This conventionalities has been the underlying basis for everything I tried to do these past viii years.
But back in the 1960's when I began, it seemed to me that we'd begun reversing the social club of things - that through more than and more rules and regulations and confiscatory taxes, the Government was taking more of our freedom. I went into politics in part to put up my hand and say, "Finish!" I was a citizen-politico, and it seemed the correct thing for a citizen to do.
I call back we take stopped a lot of what needed stopping. And I hope we have once again reminded people that human is not costless unless authorities is limited. At that place's a clear cause and event here that is equally neat and predictable as a law of physics: as authorities expands, liberty contracts. Actions Based on Deeds
Zip is less gratis than pure communism, and all the same nosotros have, the past few years, forged a satisfying new closeness with the Soviet Marriage. I've been asked if this isn't a gamble, and my answer is no, because we're basing our actions non on words but deeds.
The detente of the 1970's was based not on actions but promises. They'd promise to care for their own people and the people of the globe better, but the gulag was however the gulag, and the land was still expansionist, and they nevertheless waged proxy wars in Africa, Asia and Latin America.
Well, this time, and then far, it'south different: President Gorbachev has brought virtually some internal democratic reforms and begun the withdrawal from Afghanistan. He has also freed prisoners whose names I've given him every fourth dimension we've met.
Simply life has a way of reminding you of big things through pocket-size incidents. In one case, 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'southward 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 lot could almost feel the possibilities in all that joy. Merely within seconds, a One thousand.K.B. 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 information technology are Communists - and that means we and they view such problems equally freedom and human rights very differently. 'Continue Upwardly Our Guard'
We must go on 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 call back he knows some of the things wrong with his society and is trying to fix them. Nosotros wish him well. And we'll continue to work to make sure that the Soviet Matrimony that eventually emerges from this process is a less threatening one.
What information technology all boils downward to is this: I want the new closeness to keep. And it will as long as we make it clear that we will continue to act in a sure fashion as long every bit they continue to act in a helpful manner. If and when they don't - at offset pull your punches. If they persist, pull the plug.
Information technology's even so trust - but verify.
Information technology's all the same play - but cutting the cards.
It's still scout closely - and don't be afraid to see what you come across.
I've been asked if I have whatsoever regrets. Well, I do.
The deficit is ane. I've been talking a keen deal near that lately, but tonight isn't for arguments, and I'thou 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 fabricated and alphabetic character you lot wrote demanding action. Much to Be Done
Well, activity is still needed. If we're to cease the job, of Reagan'southward Regiments, we'll have to become the Bush-league Brigades. Soon he'll be the primary, and he'll need you every bit as much equally 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.
Just oddly enough information technology starts with one of the things I'm proudest of in the past 8 years; the resurgence of national pride that I chosen "the new patriotism." This national feeling is good, merely it won't count for much, and it won't last unless information technology'south grounded in thoughtfulness and cognition.
An informed patriotism is what we desire. 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 then years of historic period grew up in a dissimilar America. We were taught, very directly, what information technology ways to exist an American, and nosotros absorbed nearly in the air a love of country and an appreciation of its institutions. If you didn't go these things from your family y'all got them from the neighborhood, from the father downward the street who fought in Korea or the family unit who lost someone at Anzio. Or y'all could get a sense of patriotism from schoolhouse. And if all else failed, you could get a sense of patriotism from the popular culture. The movies celebrated autonomous values and implicitly reinforced the thought that America was special. TV was similar that, too, through the mid-Sixties. Alee, to the Nineties
Only now we're virtually to enter the Nineties, and some things take inverse. Younger parents aren't certain that an unambivalent appreciation of America is the right thing to teach modernistic children. And equally for those who create the popular civilization, well-grounded patriotism is no longer the style.
Our spirit is dorsum, but we haven't reinstitutionalized it. We've got to do a better job of getting across that America is liberty - liberty of spoken communication, freedom of religion, liberty of enterprise - and freedom is special and rare. It's fragile; it needs protection.
We've got to teach history based non on what'south in fashion only what's important: Why the pilgrims came hither, who Jimmy Doolittle was, and what those 30 seconds over Tokyo meant. Yous know, four years ago, on the 40th anniversary of D-24-hour interval. I read a letter from a young woman writing to her late father, who'd fought on Omaha Embankment. Her name was Lisa Zanatta Henn, and she said, we volition e'er recollect, nosotros will never forget what the boys of Normandy did. Well, let'south help her keep her discussion.
If we forget what we did, we won't know who we are. I am warning of an eradication of that - of the American memory that could upshot, ultimately, in an erosion of the American spirit.
Allow's start with some basics - more attention to American history and a greater emphasis of borough ritual. And permit me offer lesson No. 1 about America : All bully change in America begins at the dinner table. So tomorrow nighttime in the kitchen I hope the talking begins. And children, if your parents haven't been teaching you lot what it means to be an American - allow 'em know and nail 'em on it. That would be a very American matter to practise.
And that's about all I have to say this evening. Except for one affair.
The past few days when I've been at that window upstairs, I've idea a bit of the shining "metropolis 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 on Pilgrim - an early on "Freedom Man." He journeyed hither on what today nosotros'd phone call a little wooden boat, and, similar the other pilgrims, he was looking for a home that would exist free.
I've spoken of the shining metropolis all my political life, just 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 complimentary ports that hummed with commerce and creativity, and if in that location had to be city walls, the walls had doors, and the doors were open up to anyone with the will and the heart to get here.
That's how I saw it, and meet it all the same. How Stands the Urban center?
And how stands the urban center on this wintertime night? More prosperous, more secure and happier than information technology was viii years agone. But more than that: after 200 years, ii centuries, she nonetheless stands stiff and true on the granite ridge, and her glow has held steady no matter what tempest.
And she's withal a beacon, yet 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 metropolis streets," a final give-and-take to the men and women of the Reagan Revolution - the men and women across America who for viii years did the work that brought America back:
My friends, nosotros did it. Nosotros weren't just mark time, we fabricated a difference. We fabricated the city stronger - we fabricated the city freer - and we left her in practiced hands.
All in all, peachy. Not bad at all.
And and then, goodbye.
God anoint y'all. And God bless the United States of America.
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/1989/01/12/news/transcript-of-reagan-s-farewell-address-to-american-people.html
0 Response to "Ronald Reagan Make America Great Again Ronald Reagan Make America Great Again Speech Transcript"
Post a Comment