Remarks During a Tour of Philadelphia's Italian Market

Good morning. I feel great. I hope you feel the same way.

Let me thank everybody for the opportunity to come to this wonderful Italian Market. I have heard about it for years. I know political candidates have come here in the past, but I don't think a President of the United States has ever come down to visit all you wonderful people in the Italian Market. I thank you for your welcome. I do want to thank the students and others from St. Paul's and Mary Magdalene schools for being here.

Let me just make one or two comments that I think affect all of us as Americans. When I was very young, I was taught by my Sunday school teacher that the beauty of Joseph's coat was its many colors. The strength of America is its many colors and many nationalities, and we want to keep it that way.

I've had the privilege to visit many of our major metropolitan areas over the time that I have been President and before. We must retain the kind of neighborhoods that you and your forefathers have built in Philadelphia and Chicago and Detroit and elsewhere. Those neighborhoods--with your own shops, with your own schools, with your own churches--those are the kinds of neighborhoods that make America what it is, and I promise you we will keep them that way.

It's wonderful to be here with my good friend, John Heinz.¹ Let me say that working together with him and others, we will see that the great Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, the city of Philadelphia, and the United States will be better and better places for all of us to live in our third century of American history.

Thank you very much.

BYSTANDER. Mr. President, have you forgiven Senator Schweiker?

THE PRESIDENT. We have been good friends in the past, and we are in the future.