Clinton Lauds Working Americans in Labor Day Address

President Clinton paid a Labor Day tribute to working Americans on Saturday, asking them to rally around his Administration in the work of making the nation better for all.

What is needed, Clinton said in a weekly radio address delivered in a gym filled with residents of Martha’s Vineyard, is a government that neither tries to do everything itself nor does nothing.

Rather, government should form partnerships with people, communities and business because “when we pull together for the common good, we are unstoppable.”

The gymnasium at Tisbury Elementary School had the air of a town meeting. This is a heavily Democratic island and the 400 or so people inside were invited--many in response to calls or letters they had sent welcoming the Clintons to their vacation.

The President took credit for sparking the economy, improving trade and creating 4.5 million jobs so far in his Administration.

But he cautioned that “our work won’t be done until all Americans enjoy the dignity of work.”

“That can only be done by taking a new direction--not a government that says we can do it alone and certainly not a government that sits on the sidelines, but one that works in partnership with business and our individual working men and women and families.”

The President plans to interrupt his vacation Monday to mark Labor Day at the Bath Iron Works in Portland, Me., the state’s largest employer and a company Clinton believes exemplifies private and government partnership.

In a jab at previous Republican administrations, he said: “The friends of the failed policies of the past, the people who raised taxes on the middle class, lowered them on the wealthy, reduced investment in our people and exploded the deficit--they predicted this economic strategy would fail.”

Michigan Gov. John Engler jabbed back, contending in the Republican radio response that Clinton is hampering job growth by ignoring the working class, raising their taxes and increasing the bureaucracy.

After the address, Clinton tried to shake every hand in the room before driving to Edgartown, Mass. There, he and First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton visited a bookstore.

The First Lady joined a browser looking at a White House picture book while her husband concentrated on mysteries, emerging less than 20 minutes later with a heavy shopping bag.

“Make us quit,” Hillary Clinton demanded of the delighted cashier.