Clinton Vows to Battle ‘Crisis of Spirit’ in U.S. : Crime: President invokes memory of Dr. King as he laments trends turning inner cities into war zones.

President Clinton on Saturday decried America’s “great crisis of the spirit,” making an impassioned plea for an end to the violence and misery that wrack the nation’s cities.

Speaking to a predominantly African-American crowd of 5,000, Clinton said it is his duty--and that of all citizens--to reverse the crime, violence, drug abuse and family breakdown that have turned American inner cities into war zones where children fear to go to school and 11-year-olds plan their own funerals.

The President spoke from the same pulpit where Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. delivered his final speech before being assassinated here in April, 1968.

In that immortal sermon in the cavernous Mason Temple, headquarters of the 5-million-member Church of God in Christ, King said: “And He’s allowed me to go up to the mountain. And I’ve looked over. And I’ve seen the promised land. I may not get there with you. But I want you to know tonight that we as a people will get to the promised land.”

For 30 minutes Saturday, Clinton turned away from his immediate political problem--securing passage of the controversial North American Free Trade Agreement--to what he called the “great crisis of the spirit” in America.

Invoking King’s memory, Clinton said the civil rights leader would be appalled to see what has happened to his country in the 25 years since his death.

“He would say, ‘I did not live and die to see the American family destroyed. I did not live and die to see 13-year-old boys get automatic weapons and gun down 9-year-olds just for the kick of it. I did not live and die to see young people destroy their own lives with drugs and then build fortunes destroying the lives of others. That is not what I came here to do.’ ”

Clinton continued with the imagined words of King: “ ‘I fought for freedom,’ he would say, ‘but not for the freedom of people to kill each other with reckless abandon; not for the freedom of children to have children and the fathers of the children walk away from them and abandon them as if they don’t amount to anything. I fought for people to have the right to work, but not to have whole communities and people abandoned. This is not what I lived and died for.’ ”

The President found a receptive audience in those attending the annual convocation of the Church of God in Christ, saying it is the nation’s “moral duty” to end this “public pathology” and that he is taking steps to do so.

Clinton noted that Congress is nearing passage of Administration-sponsored anti-crime legislation to limit the purchase of handguns, put 100,000 new police officers on the street and create “boot camps” for young first-time offenders.

And he asserted that the Administration’s proposals on health care, job training and education would help to address the crisis of the nation’s shattered urban centers.

Clinton linked the problem of violence to the high cost of health care in America, noting that 37,000 citizens--most of them uninsured--die of gunshot wounds each year, costing the public billions of dollars.

He asked for support for his legislative program and his efforts to restart a stalled economy. But that will not be enough to cure the nation’s ills, he said.

“I guess what I really want to say to you today, my fellow Americans, is that we can do all of this and still fail unless we meet the great crisis of the spirit that is gripping America today,” Clinton said.

The President vowed to dedicate much of his effort as President to addressing the problems of violence, poverty and the fatherless family.

Asserting that joblessness tears at the “basic fabric of society” and that the inner cities have crumbled as work has disappeared, Clinton said he would work to create economic opportunity through expanded trade--including passage of NAFTA and other market-opening efforts in Asia, Europe and Latin America.

“We cannot, I submit to you, repair the American community and restore the American family until we provide the structure, the value, the discipline and the reward that work gives,” Clinton said.

At the same time, he called for a restoration of values, structure and discipline in American life--saying that those cannot come from the White House or the Statehouse or the station house, but must come from churches and communities and families.

“Unless we deal with the ravages of crime and drugs and violence and unless we recognize that it’s due to the breakdown of the family, the community and the disappearance of jobs--and unless we say some of this cannot be done by government because we have to reach deep inside to the values, the spirit, the soul and the truth of human nature--none of the other things we seek to do will ever take us where we need to go,” the President said.