 Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States, accompanied by Mr. C. William Verity. It's a great pleasure to welcome you to the Department of Commerce. It's been a long time since we've had a President here, and that says to us that you know as we do that Bill Verity is something special. We hope you come back often. Our 75th anniversary is next year. Maybe Bill can bring you back. Thank you for coming, sir. Thank you. Thank you. And with regard to your invitation, you mean the place is younger than I am? Well, we're here today to honor an old friend and welcome a new one. The old friend, of course, was Malcolm Baldrige. No one knows and appreciates better Max's contribution to the history of our times than you in this room. You were his colleagues for six and a half years, and the partnership between you and him was perhaps the most fruitful in the history of this department, going back even to Herbert Hoover's term here. Max had a special quality. He was direct and unassuming. He didn't stand on ceremony. He kept his eye on the big picture, but not so much that he ever took for granted those working with him. We won't see Max in the halls or in meetings anymore, but we'll remember him in our prayers. You may remember some years ago a definition of prayer that was in a movie called How Green Was My Valley. It reminded me of Max. It's when Walter Pigeon tells young Roddy McDowell, prayer is only another name for good, clean, direct thinking. When you pray, think. Think well what you're saying and make your thoughts into things that are solid. And he concluded, in that way, your prayer will have strength and that strength will become a part of your body, mind, and spirit. I wanted to come over here today to tell you that our thoughts of Max will also take a solid form in the years ahead. You see the great hall of this, one of Washington's great monumental buildings, the building in which Max did so much good work for our country. The great hall is to be renamed after Max, the Malcolm Baldrige Great Hall. Now I said we were also welcoming a new friend today, and you know who I'm talking about, your new secretary, Bill Verity. Bill has big shoes to fill and I'm confident he's just the man to fill them. You know his story, the man who successfully chartered the course of Arm Coast Steel in the 60s and 70s, the chairman of the highly successful task force on private sector initiatives, the chairman of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the president of the union that represents Arm Coast workers recently said of Bill, he's an honest person, he's strong, he listens to both sides, and then he gives you a fair decision. Well I can't think of any fairer or better endorsement than that. Bill, the Commerce Department is one of the class acts of the administration and so are you, welcome aboard. By the way, Bill, you may have heard questions over the years about whether departments run secretaries or secretaries run departments. Who's really in the driver's seat? Well it can be confusing, it reminds me of a story, in case you were wondering this is my way of sliding into a story. Many of you here work on east-west trade issues and I like to collect stories that I can verify that the Russian people tell among themselves, so I'm going to tell you this one. General Secretary Gorbachev seems that as part of the campaign to straighten things out there in his country, he had issued an order that everyone caught speeding or seen speeding should get a ticket no matter how important they might be. One morning he was out at his country home and realized that he was running late for a meeting that he had in the Kremlin and he went out to get in his car and told the driver to get in the back seat that he'd drive and he did and down the street he went and they passed two motorcycle policemen and the one of them took off after him and a little while later he came back and joined his companion, the other motorcycle officer and the fellow said, did you give him a ticket? And he said, no. Well he said, why not? Well he said, no, no, this was someone too important. Well he said we were told to give it no matter who it was that they were getting a ticket. No, he says not that, well he said who was it? Well he said, I don't know, I couldn't recognize him there but his driver is Gorbachev. Well, Bill will be in the driver's seat with some very important people and I mean all of you. I can't think of a department with a more noble purpose, one more central to the long-term welfare of our nation than this one. If it is true as I believe it is that trade and economic relations are the brick and mortar in the temple of world peace then your department is a department of peace. I know how many extraordinarily different functions are in the department. You're often compared to a business conglomerate but each of these activities whether it's predicting the weather, taking the census, compiling economic data or working on international trade each of these helps make America stronger in the world economic arena. Our trade policies of course must always be consistent with our national security interest. Today we know that the national interest of our country is directly challenged by the flow of advanced technologies and defense related know-how and materials to hostile nations. Your department under the leadership of Bill Verity must be ever vigilant in stopping this kind of harmful technology transfer to our adversaries. That's one of the challenges of the growing world economy. Not only challenges await us but opportunities. I believe that the birth of a truly global economy such as we're seeing happen now will mark the birth of a new age of peace. It's already marking a new era of opportunity. This month we'll set a record the longest peacetime economic expansion on record. I know you know what that means because I get many of the numbers from you and those that come from elsewhere you study with a microscope. In September the unemployment rate fell to the lowest level in this decade. A greater percentage of our working age population has been employed this year than ever before in our history. Personal and family income have risen steadily since our recovery began. The leading indicators are sending a message steady as she goes. As one national business magazine wrote recently business is holding to its faster growth track buoyed by the revival in factory output. Yes, even as some still talk about the deindustrialization of America manufacturing output has surged and exports have played a major part in this. Perhaps a few of you could take the fellows around the camera platform aside later and explain to them what I've been trying to help them understand for some time now. We've been seeing substantial growth in exports in recent months and our exports continue to stay well above their 1986 average. Exports have also been growing strongly in volume terms while import volumes are down. Emphasizing only the dollar value of the trade deficit misses some of these fundamentals. We've also made headway with our major trading partners through our improved economic policy coordination process. Indeed, I'm delighted that Secretary Baker has proposed reforming this process by adding a new commodity price indicator to assist us in reaching judgments about mutually consistent policies and performance. By the way, could you also remind those fellows in the back there that not only is American industry more competitive than ever but that since our recovery began we've created more jobs in America than Europe and Japan combined and that more than 10 million American jobs depend on imports, exports, or both. This is exactly the wrong time although there never is a right time for Congress to get on a protectionist binge. The trade bill is working its way through Capitol Hill and I know I speak for all of you when I say the administration will work with Congress to achieve responsible trade legislation but we will not support and I am prepared to veto anything that smacks of protectionism whether it's procedural in nature or overt. Protectionism destroys jobs. It destroys growth. It undermines the entire global economy and it undermines our own economy. I hope that Congress understands this and will produce a trade bill that you can be proud of and that I can sign. Let me add one other thing. I hope that Congress will keep in mind that a strong and growing global economy is the great hope of the world of the next century. More than any other department of the government you are helping our nation move into that economy of the century to come. You're helping to build a true temple of lasting world peace and too often your work is not sufficiently recognized. So let me leave you today with my profound thanks on behalf of the entire nation for your loyalty, your dedication and your hard work. Thank you. God bless you. Now I'd like to introduce Justice Sandra O'Connor who will swear in our new secretary C. William Verity, Justice O'Connor. Thank you. On the Bible and raise your right hand and repeat the oath after me. I see William Verity. I see William Verity. Do solemnly swear. Do solemnly swear. That I will support and defend. That I will support and defend. The Constitution of the United States. The Constitution of the United States. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. Against all enemies, foreign and domestic. That I will bear true faith. That I will bear true faith. And allegiance to the same. And allegiance to the same. That I take this obligation freely. That I take this obligation freely. Without any mental reservation. Without any mental reservation. Or purpose of evasion. Or purpose of evasion. And that I will well and faithfully discharge. And that I will well and faithfully discharge. The duties of the office. on which I am about to enter so help me God so help me God thank you mr. president for putting your trust in me you Tim for your prayers which got Peggy and me here thank you senators and particularly senator Thurman who's right in the center who brought me to confirmation and commerce must lead the charge in seeking innovative ways to reduce the trade deficit so mr. president we are ready to go to work thank you mr. president for being here it's a great honor to have you in the Commerce Department