 Good morning everyone. I wasn't very enthusiastic. Good morning everyone. Thank you. Today is the first in a series of leadership forums we are developing for all of you. The forums are designed to stress the value of what we do every single day. Public service. I'm extremely proud of each and every one of you. The dedicated and hard-working staff of the City of Portland. Each of you contribute to making Portland the great city that it is today. There are many times though when being a public servant can seem thankless or undervalued. And that is why I think it is important to take just a few moments of our busy schedules to listen to one of our greatest public servants on why our work matters and why we need to remain committed to our mission. There is no one that represents public service more than former United States Senator George Mitchell. I asked Senator Mitchell to join us today to speak about the value of our work and he was very kind to accept the invitation. I first met Senator Mitchell when I was a member of the coaching staff of the Boston Celtics. Senator Mitchell was very good friends with my former boss Red Hourback and he would often join Red in his office for Chinese food prior to main day games in Boston. Later I would see Senator Mitchell at the White House when he would come to brief President Clinton on his vitally important work to bring a lasting peace to Northern Ireland. Senator Mitchell has always been my role model for what a great public servant should be intelligent with a tremendous integrity and commitment to the public good. Senator Mitchell was born in Waterville the son of immigrants. He graduated from Waterville High School. He earned his bachelor's degree from Bowdoin and later went on and received his law degree from Georgetown Law School. In high school he was the sports editor, attended Boy State and served in the Student Senate. His public career continued as US Attorney and US District Court Judge for Maine. In 1980 he was appointed to the US Senate to complete the term of then-Senator and Maine legend Edmund Muskie who resigned to become the Secretary of State. He was elected to two full terms in the Senate in 1982 and 1988. From 1989 until 1995 he served as the Senate majority leader one of the most important positions in all of Washington. After retiring from the Senate he went back to practicing law but that wasn't just enough for Senator Mitchell. He had to do a lot more. He became a member of the Board of the Walt Disney Corporation and I'm not sure if you had a lot to do with the further Mickey Mouse and all the other things. And then he later became the Chairman of the Board of the Disney Corporation. While his work in the Senate was extremely important to our nation's history perhaps his greatest professional accomplishment was as an international diplomat. In 1995 President Clinton appointed Senator Mitchell as a special envoy to Northern Ireland where he negotiated a peace agreement which was signed on Good Friday in 1998. This monumental accomplishment ended a decades old conflict that cost many lives and divided an entire country. In 2006 again being the great public servant that he is Major League Baseball Commissioner Bud Selig asked Senator Mitchell to investigate the widespread use of performance enhancing drugs by ball players. His report was instrumental in baseball's ongoing efforts to curb the use of steroids during play. And then President Obama asked him to serve our nation once again as a special envoy to help bring peace to the Middle East. Senator Mitchell has been has received many many awards but he did receive the highest civilian award any person can receive in our country the Presidential Medal of Freedom. And he was nominated for a Nobel Peace Prize after negotiating the Northern Ireland Good Friday peace agreements. An award by the way I truly believe he should have received. Perhaps though his proudest accomplishment is founding the Mitchell Institute which awards a scholarship to a main high school senior from every public high school in the state. As a result since 1995 they have awarded more than 2,500 scholarships totaling more than 13 million for main students. I'm delighted that Senator Mitchell accepted the invitation to speak to all of us today. His story is inspiring to say the least and it is my hope that all of us will leave here today even more committed to our mission of making sure that Portland continues to be a great place to live to work and to play. Senator Mitchell thank you for being here today. We are honored that you took time out of your busy schedule to talk with us. Colleagues Senator Mitchell. Thank you. Well thank you all very much for being here this morning for your very warm reception. Thank you John for that overly generous introduction. I speak often this is the first of three speeches I'll make today and so I've heard myself talk so much that for me the introduction is the highlight of the program and I have to say John that was really a very nice introduction. It's a risky thing especially for one's mental health to hear nice things said about you because you may begin to believe them if you hear them often enough. So I like to begin with a story about introductions and an occasion on which I was brought back down to earth. I spent five years working on the peace process in Northern Ireland and after an agreement was reached I returned to Maine and I wrote a book about my experience in Northern Ireland. When the book was published I traveled around the United States to events promoting sales of the book speaking to various groups. I received many invitations and in the process I learned the interesting fact that in the United States there are more Irish American organizations than there are Irish Americans and just about every one of them invited me to come I couldn't go to all but I went to many and as I traveled the country speaking to these Irish American groups they're developed among them an informal competition as to who could give the longest most fantastic frequently quite ridiculous introductions of me. The proper reaction of course would have been for me to show some humility to ask them to keep it short. I had an improper reaction I loved it. I encouraged them. I scolded them when they left something out. In Chicago it was a memorable event a guy get up and he spent 30 minutes introducing me reading a long list of everything I'd done in my life many of which I would not aware until I heard him read them off and when he finished I scolded him because he left out the fact that my senior in Waterville High School I received the science award. Well by the time I got to the last stop it was in Greenwich Connecticut the Greenwich Irish American Club. I was overly impressed with myself and I had a hard time squeezing my head through the front door but I did and the first person I encountered when I got into the room was an elderly woman who rushed up to me very nervous and excited shook my hand very hard and then she said I don't live anywhere near here I drove three and a half hours just to come here to tell you what a great man I think you are I'm so grateful for all you've done in the world she then reeled off a whole bunch of things that I'd done and she said and finally to ask you please would you autograph my poster and she handed me a poster with a picture on it and a pen I looked at it I said I'd be very happy to sign your poster but I think there's something I should tell you she said what is it I said I'm not Henry Kissinger poster was a big picture of Kissinger she said you're not she said well who are you anyway and when I told her she said well that's just terrible she said I drove three and a half hours to meet a great man named Kissinger and all I've got is a nobody like you I said well I'm sorry you feel so bad I wish there's something I could do to make you feel better and she thought from when she said well there is when I asked her what it was she leaned forward I lean forward very forwards touching and in a very conspiratorial whisper she said nobody will ever know the difference she said would you mind signing Henry Kissinger's name to my poster so I did and it's hanging in her living room wall today in eastern Connecticut a daily reminder to me that I do bring to mind every day to enjoy but not take too seriously these kind words that John has spoken about me well I want to say to the mayor to the council to the to John and to all of the employees of the city of Portland it's really a great honor for me personally and a great pleasure for me to be here I lived in this area for most of my adult life I owned a home in Falmouth I owned a home at South Portland I owned a home here in Portland over the course that time moving around from place to place lived in Stroudwater for several years and so I regard this really along with Waterville as my true home I do have a home now in Maine up on Mount Desert Island where my family and I spend summers and holidays and I like to come back to Maine as much as I can first of course because most of my family still lives in Maine and most of my friends are here but also as a reminder of how fortunate I have been in my life and I'd like to begin by talking to you not as city employees but as Americans it's inevitable in political campaigns that there's a lot of discussion and a good bit of it is negative and while we do have serious problems in our country I believe that the United States remains the most free the most open the most just society in all of human history imperfect as are all human beings and all human institutions but I think the greatness of America lies in our willingness individually and collectively as a society to debate to discuss issues to acknowledge error where it has existed and there has been much error in our society and to try to right the wrongs of the past and if you look at American history it is really a long and never-ending redefinition of what it means to be a citizen of a free society of how we perceive individual rights human rights and equal rights and in my judgment it's been a continual progress some steps backward many misjudgments along the way many people injured and hurt in the process we revere our Constitution and rightly so the Constitution establishes the principles along with the Declaration of Independence upon which our society is based and are largely responsible for the ability of the people of this country to grow and prosper as we have but the 45 men who gathered in Philadelphia in the summer of 1787 to write the Constitution although they were in a sense political geniuses most of them while educated and visionary they also were products of the era in which they lived shaped by the educations and the customs of their society and so in our Constitution we specifically condone slavery the Constitution stated that any African American counted for three-fifths of a vote less than fully human it took 75 years and the bloodiest war in our history by far the Civil War to establish the principle that the right to vote would not be limited to adult white men who own property it was expanded at least theoretically to all members of our society but not women it took another half century for the right to vote to be extended to women it seems incredible to us now hard to believe that was ever the case but in fact it was a long difficult and very bitter political struggle for women to achieve the right to vote in our society true the true desegregation of our country did not end until more than a hundred years after the Civil War as we as a society condoned many participated in the erection of legal barriers to those who had ostensibly been freed in the Civil War indeed it was not until 1965 when the Voting Rights Act was passed that millions of African Americans could for the first time enjoy and employ the most basic right in a democratic society the right to vote it was not until 1990 when I was Senate Majority Leader that we enacted the Americans with Disabilities Act granting to those persons in our society who suffered from disabilities for the first time the right to live fully free independent and complete lives not withstanding their disability making them equal in the eyes of the law and of their fellow citizens and the struggle continues today in terms of gender and other factors and so while there were many struggles there was much death and destruction and there were many people whose lives were shattered our society is better today than it ever has been in the past far more open far more diverse far more willing to accept people each individual as a human being worthy of dignity and respect until they prove otherwise and so I had kids late in life I have a two teenage kids have an older daughter living in South Portland but I tell my teenage kids that they should not be deterred or discouraged by all the negative talk and the prospects of the future I believe that they will lead lives in a better society in a more open diverse free of country than I've had the opportunity to live in although I've been very fortunate and I personally believe in the American dream because I've lived it then the last I feel that while our country has progressed in all the respects that I've described in one important area I feel our country has not made sufficient progress and that is in meeting the aspiration of opportunity for all of our citizens my parents were very poor my mother was an immigrant she could not read or write you spent 50 years working the night shift in textile mills my father was the orphan son of Irish immigrants he had no education and he worked as a janitor at Kobe College in Waterville but because of their efforts because of the openness of American society and because of many helping hands that I received along the way from people whose only motive was to help this kid get ahead I was able to get an education and to become the majority leader of the United States Senate I started my scholarship fund that John mentioned in the introduction after I entered the Senate and traveled around the state and visited every single high school in Maine I spoke at the graduation of every high school in Maine at least once took me about 14 years to do it because they all graduate on just a couple of weekends and in the course of that I met thousands and thousands of young Maine students and I saw in many of their eyes and heard in many of their voices the same feelings that I had experienced when I graduated from Waterville High School insecurity uncertainty about the future lack of self-esteem and so I started the scholarship program with the goal and the intention of make it possible for every child in Maine every single one who has the talent and the willingness to work and wants to go to college but can't do so for financial reasons to be able to do so I knew then and I know now 20 years later that we won't be able to achieve that goal with mathematical certainty we won't reach every such child in Maine but if we commit to it and we work hard for it every day of our lives we'll do a lot of good in striving for that goal and my point is it's very important to aim high in life even if you don't reach the final goal you'll do a lot of good along the way if the objective is a good one and I don't think there is anything more fulfilling in life than the opportunity for public service I served in many public capacities and I also have been engaged in private business for a long time and while we all need and want to earn income to support ourselves and our families I tell the students that I speak to at graduations that they'll want and succeed many of them in acquiring wealth some of them will acquire fame and when they do they'll realize that there's more to life than the acquisition of money things and titles real fulfillment in life comes I believe from engaging in a cause larger than one self-interest for serving others for helping others to achieve the benefits that we ourselves have been fortunate to receive as Americans in our great and free and open society I thank all of you for the work you're doing in behalf of the people of Portland and this whole area although your employees of Portland you obviously know that you serve people in a very wide area who come in and out of Portland every day I recognize that it's a job and you earn income and that is appropriate and necessary but you're also doing something that has a public good to it and that several of you who are involved in the parks several in education several in public works and all of you those and all the others are engaged in activities that do provide not only good service to people but an example of what it means to live in a free open and democratic society I hear all the time when I travel around the world I speak often in Asia and Europe people concerned about the possibility of the decline of the United States I tell them that I believe that the United States is in fact and will be for as far into the future as people can see the dominant world power that brings with it benefits it brings with it responsibilities just as our being citizens of this society brings with it benefits and responsibilities and I always like to note to the detractors of the United States as just a tiny example of the extent to which we are the most influential nation we have 6% of the world's population and yet 9 of the top 10 business brands in the world are American 15 of the world's top 20 universities are American 91% of all online searches and 99% of all smart phones in the world operate on American made operating systems it's a those are just tiny little known facts but part of them part of a much larger fabric and I can say to you that people around the world look up to the United States I spoke in Europe recently and a fellow get up and made in the question-answer period made a statement in the guise of a question which was very hostile to the United States and he took pleasure in reading to me a recent report that suggested that by the year 2060 China's gross domestic product will be equal to that of the United States in response I said to him well first even if that happens they have four times as many people which means that on a per capita basis the United States will still be four times as large as China in gross domestic product if I don't think it's going to happen but secondly I asked in this question I said one of the greatest problems that we face in the United States is the fact that tens in my judgment hundreds of millions of people around the world want to come to America among the most difficult issues we confront is that of immigration how do we deal with the fact that so many people want to come here that we can't possibly accept them all and I asked that man this question when is the last time you read or heard about anyone risking their life to break into China now China is a great country a long history tremendously energetic and entrepreneurial people and they have done remarkably well at lifting several hundred million people out of poverty and into a growing middle class something we should applaud and actually benefit from but the reality is given their totalitarian form of government people there want to leave and there's nobody want to commit in fact I did some research on it and found that the only examples I could find of anyone trying to get into China were two men North Koreans who broke broke out of a concentration camp and the only way out of the country was to swim across the river into China those are the only two and we have to confront the reality that millions upon millions of people want to come here I want to say a few just a few words about that we are a nation of immigrants everybody in America literally everybody came from somewhere else including the Native Americans they just happened to come 15,000 years earlier when they crossed what is now the Bering Strait it was then a land bridge into Alaska and gradually spread over all of North and South America the Europeans began coming about 500 years ago and from the very beginning the British the Dutch the French and the Spanish competed with the Native Americans for control of what we now know as North America and from the very beginning there was exclusion there was demonization of the other there was hostility and there was conflict everybody here has heard the words Wall Street what is what do they mean what does it come from well Wall Street is a very small street just above the southern tip of Manhattan and it was where the Dutch first settled and established what they called New Amsterdam they were worried about hostile neighbors and so on this small street they built a wall and that marked the northern border of their community of New Amsterdam the wall was not to keep out the Native Americans as most people believe it was to keep out the English who had settled in what we now call New England and who threatened to overrun the Dutch as they ultimately did and so now it's called New York not New Amsterdam and for hundreds 150 years the struggle for control of North America occurred and what is now Maine was a major battleground between the British settlers to the south and the French settlers to the north after we became a country we had only we had less than three million people most Americans forget the fact that about a third of the colonists were opposed to the revolution and favored remaining part of the United Kingdom so actually they had a steep population decline after the United States was created by many of those who left the new country to return to England or to go to what is now Canada or other parts of this hemisphere and so we needed people we opened the doors to people from around the world and for the first 100 years of our existence anyone could come and many did from many parts of the world the first exclusion of immigrants occurred in 1880 angered by the presence in the United States of many Chinese laborers who had been brought to America to work on the transcontinental railroad the Congress passed a law nowadays members of Congress have developed a skill at naming bills in a with fancy titles that often bear no relationship to what's in the bill sometimes it's a very opposite of what's in the bill but back then they were more blunt so they passed a law called the Chinese Exclusion Act pretty direct and it kept people of Chinese heritage out of the United States in 1906 San Francisco was devastated by a major earthquake and the city fathers the equivalent of these counselors here today desperate to figure out how to continue educating their children because many of the schools were destroyed decided to reduce the school population and so they passed an ordinance that prohibited any child of Japanese ancestry even those born in the United States from entering public schools in San Francisco the Ku Klux Klan is best known for its violent activity toward African-Americans in the south in the late 19th century but it actually reached its peak in America of popularity and acceptance in the 1920s in the north based not on anti-African rhetoric but on enormous hostility to Catholics and Jews and we all know Irish there are plenty of them here with the subject of ferocious discrimination in Maine and around the country and the sign became famous Irish need not apply and in main papers and magazines and and all across the east cartoons were published which depicted Irish as subhumans every Italian felt the sting of the demonization of the group that because a few were criminals mafia members all of them were deemed criminals and bad and no one felt the sting of discrimination more than Jews who were excluded from clubs buildings all manner of social activity until fairly recently in our society including right here in Portland so there's nothing new about this but the great story is that in every instance the newcomers coming in got their hands on the bottom rung of the ladder and they lifted themselves up and on their shoulders their children lifted themselves up last night I spoke at an event honoring former governor Brennan whose parents were Irish immigrants laborers and on their shoulders he lifted himself up and became governor of this state a member of Congress so hostility demonization guilt by association it's not new we experienced it throughout our history but we've always emerged better stronger more diverse and in the end a more prosperous society the three most successful business enterprises in the United States and arguably in the world today our Apple Amazon and Google Apple was created by Steve Jobs whose father was born in Syria Amazon was created by Jeff Bezos whose adopted father was born in Cuba Google was founded in part by Sergey Brin who himself was born in Russia so I ask all Americans and I ask you to think about two rhetorical questions would we be a better country if they had not been let in and secondly what are the chances that if Steve Jobs had lived his life in Syria he would have created Apple or Jeff Bezos in Havana or Sergei Brin in Russia genius knows no boundary no language no ethnicity it can exist wherever there are human beings but history tells us the history of our great country that that is more likely to flourish whether it's freedom opportunity for all equal rights and equal justice for all where people can rise on the basis of their talent their willingness to work their willingness to take risk and create great new enterprises that change the lives of all of the members of society and they literally have changed our lives every person in this room has a cell phone every person now engages in a ritual unknown to human beings for the thousands of years of human beings have been on this earth the first thing you do in the morning is you check to see if you got any emails and the last thing you do at night before you go to bed is to check and see if you got any emails then I don't want to tell the mayor in the council how many times a staff checks during the day but there's got to be plenty of them so I'll conclude this by saying that I'm very grateful to John for having me here he's a he's a good friend I I met him through red owl back red was a very famous coach of the Boston Celtics one of the most interesting and competitive men I ever met in my life it didn't surprise me that he was the greatest winning coach of all time because red had to win at everything that he ever engaged in I used to play tennis with him a man-o-man it was you'd think we were at Wimbledon or the US Open playing he fought for every point didn't didn't hit the ball very hard but he was cagey and wily and a wonderful guy and we became we became close friends at the end and he was really a model of inspiration for me as I'm sure he was for John and many others I wanted to come when John asked me I was really delighted and pleased to do it to be able to say these words to you an expression of gratitude you probably don't get much many expressions of gratitude people complain a lot that's for sure when you're in public service but in the end I think most people know that the people who engage in the tasks that you do are there both to serve them and to earn income for your families and I urge you to keep doing what you're doing to continue to treat the people you deal with the public with respect and to regard every person however humble they may be whatever their background may be with the same degree of respect and warmth and hospitality that you've treated me here today thank you all very much good luck have a great year thank you very much John I have a few more minutes and John has asked if I would take a couple questions so if anyone has a question I'll be happy to try to answer it if anyone would like to make a speech of your own I'll be happy to hear that too this is your chance to get a microphone here and tell the city council there's a thing or two but yes way in the back speak up Jim I'll take that as a rhetorical question like the ones that I asked there anyone else have a question of any kind yes go ahead mayor it is of course a famous statement made by President Reagan and his first inaugural that government is not the solution government is the problem I think even the president would acknowledge that he was making a shorthand suggestion about the failings of government and did not favor the complete abolition of government as the literal as the words literally would suggest there's much debate in our country about the proper role of government and the limits of government activity but I think if you look at it step back and look at it in a broader perspective you would see that the debate is largely on the margins that is to say we have understood that there has to be government in order to organize and live in any civilized society to have to be rules that are accepted by all or most of the people by which people will live and the reality is that I think of it as two concentric circles fairly large but close to each other and the debate is at the margins people say well all government is bad well of course we know that's literally not true there have been many remarkable things and most of us accept much of government red lights are a form of government stop signs lines in the middle of the road the law that says you have to get a license to perform brain surgery there are literally thousands of aspects of daily life that we accept as the only way people can live in a normal society and they do restrict individual liberty but I mean the line in the road restricts my right to drive on the left side of the road nobody would say well we should have balanced that we want complete freedom so the question really is at the margins where did the benefits stop and where do the restrictions on individual liberty begin to infringe on our Constitution rights one Supreme Court justice described it colorfully in these words he said my right to swing my arm ends where your nose begins and it made the point effectively that if you want to get the highest possible degree of individual liberty you must by definition impose some restraints on the individual liberty of every member of society lasted intrude on the liberty of others and so my own view is that there have been mistakes made on both sides of the issue there clearly have been excesses in some degree of government intrusion in activity there clearly have been areas as we've learned over time where government action was necessary we have by far the most successful capitalist society in all of human history and I would argue some would not agree that our form of capitalism was greatly enhanced by the enactment of the security exchange laws which introduced into the system of capitalism requirements of transparency fairness tried to eliminate deceit and wrongdoing and in fact it's been a great boom even though it did impose limitations on the extent to which people could act in certain ways we we all benefit from some degree of environmental regulation when senator muskie first wrote the foundation of our environment laws the clean water and clean air racks 85 percent of all of the waters in America were polluted and unfit for human use in any form every major river in Maine stunk to the high heavens when I was a kid my parents were very poor we lived literally on the banks of the Kennebec River you if you stepped off our back porch you fell into the river and it was a slum it was inhabited entirely by immigrant factory workers who couldn't find any place else to live and the river was covered with scum smelled to the high heavens and everyone's goal in life was to move away from the river now it's the opposite the Kennebec River today is clean used for human habitation so there are many areas where collective activity is only possible through government just think of the what has happened in Maine since the turnpike was constructed well no individual has an incentive to build a highway between Portland up between York and Holden we can only do that collectively through the government although almost all individuals benefit from that activity it's been a great boon of commerce and increased activity and mobility by our citizens so there are some things only government can do there are some things government should not do and in between we have this ongoing political struggle about what is the proper role of government I'm a Democrat I believe strongly that there is much that government can do to break down barriers of discrimination to open doors of opportunity for all to prohibit types of activity which are unfair and unjust 100 years ago nine year old boys worked in coal mines in Pennsylvania 10 year old girls worked in textile mills throughout New England including here in Maine we put Congress enacted child labor laws which prohibited child labor and believe it or not the opponents of the law argued and the Supreme Court of the time agreed that the child labor laws were unconstitutional because they infringed upon the child's right to negotiate with the factory owner well of course that's all changed now nine year old boys and 10 year old girls are in school where they belong no rational person would today argue that we should abolish the child labor laws so that children can have the freedom to go work in textile mills and coal mines prior to the Social Security Law one out of 100 Americans one percent had any provision or savings at all for retirement 99% did not in my hometown of Waterville just over the last hill out of town we had what was called the poor farm it was a warehouse of death where people on retirement went to live out the last years of their lives in poverty and misery and mostly with a complete loss of self-respect no rational person today would stand up and say that's a mistake let's abolish it in fact those who oppose Social Security now proclaim this is another bit of titling we want to save it well they want to save it by destroying it but they don't say we want to destroy it I mentioned earlier the disabilities the disabilities law how what a horrific circumstance people lived in with disabilities who most of our nation's history completely lacking in any sense of self-esteem or self-respect so there's a lot of things that government can do right now but at the end of the second world war four percent of Americans had college educations the breakthrough came when Franklin Roosevelt proposed and Congress enacted the GI Bill of Rights which said to the millions of American men who'd fought in the war a grateful nation wants to help you improve in life and so we're going to help you get a college education today 30% have them nobody would argue that's that was a mistake or a bad thing to do so it's in the margins where is it too much and there are examples of too much or erroneous or mistaken or poorly implemented government action but on the whole I think most Americans are practical and pragmatic accept the reality that we have to have some degree of governance to have the most full expression of freedom and opportunity and the government can be a force for good where necessary but we all believe also that it should refrain from acting in those areas where it is not suited to act and that's another source of controversy one of the political problems Ethan is that we're all kind of on both sides of the issue I mean those who are most opposed to government in the abstract are most in favor of government regulation in the areas that they deem important like abortion and I'll give one example my very first day in the Senate first day I was appointed I went to a hearing on a committee that was just me and the chairman it's on the banking committee and the first witness was a representative of the American Banker Association there were two bills under consideration he testified in opposition to the bill and he gave a very emotional pretty standard statement of the evils of government and how we don't want more federal government activity and it's kind of a sort of a prelude to what Reagan later said and we went to the second bill the second bill provided that the federal government enact a national usury law that is a federal government take over the subject of interest rates which had previously been entirely a state controlled issue and the American Bankers Association this guy took a strong position in favor of that legislation so when he finished I said I said well I said you know you you read made this statement on the first bill now you made this statement I said these are directly contradictory I said do you understand that oh yes he said I understand that I so what's your explanation he said well the first bill was theory this is reality so our positions all of us judge based on self-interest and what we think is important and we are for or against government action depending upon what we perceive to be its effect on us overall I think that we've achieved a relative equilibrium in our society and that the debate is on the margins and will continue to be has been for the very beginning of our country Lincoln the first American president was the most aggressive exponent of big government that you could have he's you know it only forced the south to stay in the country he built the railroads he established the college land grants and Thomas Jefferson spent most of his life writing against the evils of government and especially too much executive power in one person and then when he got to be president he had a chance to make the Louisiana purchase to buy what is all now the Western United States from France from from the podium for seven million dollars and he ignored Congress he ignored everything he previously said about the subject he reversed himself and he made the Louisiana purchase who's to say he was wrong it it's a circumstance dependent on how you feel and what you believe and I think it's kind of a healthy thing for our society that the debate continues hopefully within the bounds of reason and civil discourse thank you all very much great to be here