 Well, I learned once in public speaking never open your remarks with an apology, but when you're five or six minutes late, more than that, then I think you owe an apology. But I have found out in this job that along about 9.30 in the morning I begin to be getting behind as the meetings go on and it keeps piling up. But I thank you very much for your patience and welcome to the White House. I know the parents who here today are a pretty proud bunch, and well, well, you should be. The young people, you were selected to be pages because of your academic excellence, your leadership and civic responsibility. You've just completed a very special time in your lives, a time many other young Americans would give their eye teeth for. You've been seen up close how government works and gets things done, and sometimes how it has trouble getting things done. Most of you were sitting right in the House and Senate floors during some of the most historic debates in this century. You heard the nation's leaders pass landmark legislation on taxes and spending, forge new policies on nuclear arms reduction in Central America. Those debates and others that you heard will go down in history books as some of the most momentous of our times, and you were right there. I realize, of course, that your lives haven't been entirely weighed down by matters of state. For example, you may think I haven't heard about the cafeteria food fights, or the pages caught sleeping in the cloakroom, or the one who winged a congressman with a rubber band. I have, and if you get short of rubber bands, let me know. Of course, I'm still trying to find out who cut us off that time we were calling a congressman over there, but no matter, all sins are forgotten and forgiven. I've heard excellent reports on all of you, and I'm proud to have this chance to thank you and to congratulate you for a job well done, especially here in the presence of some of the lawmakers that you've served. You have the world before you now. You can shape your lives in any way that you choose. Many graduates have chosen to make a career of government. For example, our White House usher, Nelson Pierce, is a graduate of the Page School as are several members of the Congress. But whatever you do from this experience, you'll have a better understanding of the vast freedoms you enjoy, and the enlightened vision our founding fathers displayed in placing limitations on government in a society such as ours. Explain to all you meet how this land is one of the few places left on earth where men and women can realize their full God-given potential, where you can fly as high and as far as your own ability and effort will take you. And of course, with these blessings comes a sacred trust for each of you, the responsibility to preserve and improve our system of government so that your children will enjoy the same benefits. I have said many times, and I'll keep repeating, freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. Any time that a single generation fails to preserve it and pass it on, that's the end of it. This country will depend on hard-working, responsible people like you in the years ahead, whatever you decide to do in life. You will discover that the greatest unsung heroes are those men and women who get up in the morning, send their children off to school, go to work, pay the bills, and volunteer for good causes. It doesn't matter if you become a congressman or a construction worker, an astronaut or an accountant. Those are the qualities you must have to be a good citizen. Judging from your performance here, I know that each of you will continue to make the grade. So I congratulate you on your graduation. Wish you good luck in the future and know that our hopes and prayers are with you. And that noise outside tells me that if I don't want to be late in Mississippi, I'm about through here and do to get out there and get in that helicopter and go there. You do? Yes, I do. Well, all right. On behalf of the graduating class of the United States Capitol Page School, we'd like to present this button, one of our graduation buttons, to you and hope that you wear it and think of us all the time and thank you for letting us come here today and meeting with you. Well, thank you very much. Thank you. Welcome. Thank you. Now, the press always masses out there for a takeoff in the helicopter. And they're going to try to yell at me and ask me, and so forth, what is that button that you're wearing? And I'm just going to tantalize them and walk right on by and let them guess. Well, I thank you. And again, congratulations. God bless all of you for what you're doing and thank you for being here. And now I better run for it. Thank you all very much.