


			   THE WHITE HOUSE

		    Office of the Press Secretary

______________________________________________________________
For Immediate Release                              April 6, 1994     

	     
		       REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
	AT FUNERAL SERVICE FOR REPRESENTATIVE WILLIAM NATCHER
	     
		       Eastwood Baptist Church
		       Bowling Green, Kentucky  
				   


3:00 P.M. EDT
	     
	     
	     THE PRESIDENT:  To the family of our friend, Bill 
Natcher; Mr. Speaker, Governor, distinguished Members of Congress. 
All those who have preceded me on the program:  Reverend Welch 
(phonetic); Reverend Bridges, thank you for that wonderful sermon; 
Mr. Orndorff (phonetic), thank you for making us laugh and for being 
so wise.  
	     
	     Mr. Speaker, thank you for proving that Reverend Bridges 
was right -- there are still noble and good people in public life in 
America.  Thank you all for making my role almost completely 
irrelevant.  There is hardly anything else left to say.  
	     
	     I think I would like to tell you two things about Bill 
Natcher from my point of view.  The country doesn't work very well in 
tough times when difficult decisions have to be made if the President 
cannot work with the Congress.  
	     
	     We faced an enormously difficult position, Bill Natcher 
and I did, when I became President and he took the reins of the 
Appropriations Committee.  Our country was drowning in debt, our 
deficit had been going up, our national debt had tripled in 12 years, 
and yet, every person who studied the issue knew that there were some 
things we needed to invest even more money in.  You heard people talk 
already today about the National Institute of Health, the need we had 
to make the changes so that our country could go into the next 
century and more Bill Natchers would have a chance to make their way 
in life.
	     
	     We had to find a way to bridle this debt and then invest 
more in education and in scientific research, and in making the 
transition from a defense to a domestic, high-technology economy.  
And all that fell on the shoulders of the Chairman of the 
Appropriations Committee. 
	     
	     I said to myself -- I didn't know Mr. Natcher when I 
became President -- I knew about him; nearly everybody in American 
politics did -- everybody's asking:  Can this young guy from Arkansas 
who has only been a governor, never been in Congress be president, 
and I'm saying:  Can a man who doesn't own a fax machine run the 
Appropriations Committee?  (Laughter.)  
	     
	     Well, let me tell you -- he came to see me one day and 
we sat alone in the Oval Office, and he almost held my hand, which is 
just about what I needed.  (Laughter.)  And he said, now, Mr. 
President -- how many of you heard him say that to you, right --
(laughter) -- now, we're going to get through this alright, and 
you're going to make some hard decisions and I'm going to help you.  
And then if we're real lucky, we'll get it through the Congress.  
(Laughter.)  And you will have to be willing to be misunderstood for 
a while, which I thought was a delicate way of putting the position I 
was in.  (Laughter.)  
	     
	     But he said, the end will bring us out alright.  And, 
sure enough, he set about doing his work.  And he worked with all of 
the members in the Congress and figured out some way or another to 
produce a budget that both brought the deficit down and spent more 
money on things that were critical to our future.  
	     
	     It was a service to the nation that those of you here in 
his home district made possible.  And it was a remarkable thing, a 
great gift that he helped to give to our country.  And it was very, 
very hard to do.  And I agree with the Speaker:  it will affect 
people's lives in ways that are even more important than the shining 
example he set by never missing a vote and by being able to be in 
such harmony with his constituents that he never had to raise money 
or spend it, or campaign or politic in ways that those of us who are 
more mortal have to do.  And I thank him for that.
	     
	     The other thing I thank him for, which may have an 
enduring benefit to the country is far more personal.  You heard the 
Speaker talk about how he was the Chairman of the Gym Committee, and 
they have this dinner every year.  And, you know, I read all about 
how I spend too much time at McDonald's, and so I'm always trying to 
watch my weight in there.  But I never wanted to offend Mr. Natcher.  
So I show up at his dinner and he takes me to be seated, and he lays 
a big steak and a baked potato, and peach cobbler there.  (Laughter.)  
And by the time he got through talking to me, I not only did not 
offend him, he had talked me into having two of everything.  
(Laughter.)  
	     
	     And he talked some more, and our relationship developed 
some more.  And then when he got terribly ill, I went out to Bethesda 
to see him, and I had the great honor of being there and presented 
him with the President's Citizens Medal.  And I pinned it on his 
pajamas and I talked to him about his life.  
	     
	     And I thought to myself:  Why is it that I am so moved 
by this man?  What is it that he has done -- not just the votes and 
the no contributions and all that -- what is it that he has done 
that, if the rest of us could do it, we could really be true to the 
founders of this country, true to the challenges of our time.  We 
could bring more harmony and a stronger sense of community to our 
people.  What is it, exactly?  
	     
	     And I think what is was is that he found a way to live 
in Washington and work in politics and still be exactly the way he 
would have been if he'd been here in Bowling Green running a hardware 
store.  And this country works well when people in Washington treat 
each other the way they would have to treat each other if they were 
living in Bowling Green.  And it doesn't work very well when 
everybody up there thinks, oh, this is a different place, and we have 
to treat each other differently, and we have to muscle each other 
around, and we have to posture rather than produce.  And we're all so 
worried because we're bound to be misunderstood, being filtered to 
250-plus million people, so that all of our positions on complicated 
issues get simplified and often distorted.
	     
	     But, somehow, Bill Natcher just had enough internal 
strength and coherence.  Maybe he was just enough old-fashioned that 
he literally was able to live every day as he would have lived if 
he'd been here all the time.  That was the beauty of his legacy.  And 
if the rest of us can remember that about him, even if we miss a few 
votes or have to go out and raise campaign contributions, if we can 
just imagine the roots that we had, the childhood friends that we 
had, who always reminded us of our foibles as well as our strengths, 
if we can remember what the church choir sounds like on Sunday, even 
on Sundays when we don't show up, and every day imagine that we were 
living where the people who sent us to Washington still live, then we 
could do something really precious for Bill Natcher.  We could do for 
the American people what he would have done had he lived another 84 
years.  
	     
	     God bless you, Mr. Natcher, and thank you.
	     

				 END3:10 P.M. EDT

						   
		

