Bill Clinton: “New York City September 26, 1994 Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, distinguished delegates. First, let me…”

“New York City September 26, 1994 Mr. President, Mr. Secretary-General, distinguished delegates. First, let me congratulate you, Mr. President, on your election as President of the 49th General Assembly. The American people look forward to working with you to celebrate the United Nations 50th anniversary. We meet today in a time of great hope and change. The end of the cold war, the explosion of technology and trade and enterprise have given people the world over new opportunities to live up to their dreams and their God-given potential. This is an age of hope. Yet, in this new world, we face a contest as old as history, a struggle between freedom and tyranny, between tolerance and bigotry, between knowledge and ignorance, between openness and isolation. It is a fight between those who would build free societies governed by laws and those who would impose their will by force. Our struggle today, in a world more high-tech, more fast-moving, more chaotically diverse than ever, is the age-old fight between hope and fear. Three times in this century, from the trenches of the Sommes to the island of Iwo Jima to the shattered wall of Berlin, the forces of hope were victorious. But the victors of World War I squandered their triumph when they turned inward, bringing on a global depression and allowing fascism to rise and reigniting global war. After World War II, the Allies learned the lessons of the past.…”