George H.W. Bush: “May 8, 1992 Let me just say I'm very pleased that the Governor's with us and Senator Seymour's with us. And really, what…”

“May 8, 1992 Let me just say I'm very pleased that the Governor's with us and Senator Seymour's with us. And really, what we did is to want to come over here and, one, see where some of the action stemmed from, but mainly to thank the firefighters and the patrolmen for a heroic job well done. You know, at a time like this you think of your faith, and you remember that the Bible talked about, ``Blessed are the peacemakers.'' Well, I must say, when I think of the firefighters and the highway patrol, I think of what you have done and, frankly, do all the time in keeping the peace and restoring the peace. You certainly have the gratitude, you may not know it, but you have the gratitude of people all across this country. I wanted to just recite a fact or two that you all know but the rest of the country might not. There were almost 6,000 fires responded to, nearly 12,000 arrests, thousands of buildings saved along with untold lives. That, I would say, is just one of the legacies of your work. And there was another one: You showed that people that would wantonly destroy, wantonly terrorize, wantonly kill their fellow citizens were not going to prevail. What you did took a good deal of courage, whether it was the patrol, whether it was the firefighters. I salute you for that, the country salutes you for that. And I think your very presence restored a sense of civility to an otherwise outrageous situation.…”