"Well, Colleen, I can assure you that as President, I will strongly support schools like the Manchester School for Technology. I have for many years because I know how important schools like this are. At this very moment, students in this school may be learning how to wire an office building, or work the machinery that runs our automobiles, or fix the bugs that crash our computers. Every day, students at this school are discovering talents and strengths they never knew they had.
And that is because this school has great leadership. I want to especially thank the Principal. Karen White has led this school in an exemplary fashion, and I know she's worked closely with Governor Lynch to design the plans that will enable the school to be renovated and grow even stronger in the future. I really applaud your leadership, Karen. Because you can't look at the Manchester School of Technology without realizing that it didn't happen by accident. It was built by the people of this state who, even 25 years ago, understood that to compete in today's economy, young people need the skills for today's jobs. That's what we've always done here in America: When our economy changes, we don't panic or give up or wring our hands -- we simply change with it. That's what has happened here at MST. I really applaud you for doing that, because we have to look for examples like this to figure out what we need to do more broadly across our nation.
Now we've done this before. We did the same thing back at the turn of the 20th century. Back then, the American economy was dominated by large corporate monopolies. Corruption was far too common and good government far too rare. Women couldn't vote, and the minimum wage, well, that wasn't heard of and worker rights were completely unimagined. Back then, America was a country filled with haves and have nots -- and not enough people in between.
In response to these excesses, the progressive movement was born. Throughout the late 1800s and early 1900s, the progressives busted trusts and fought for safe working conditions and fair wages. They created the national park system, and replaced a government rife with cronyism with a merit-based civil service. They understood, as the great progressive President Teddy Roosevelt once said, that "The welfare of each of us is dependent fundamentally upon the welfare of all of us."
Well, today, at the beginning of the 21st century, I think it's time we remembered those lessons. For the first time in history, we have a truly global economy. Workers today think nothing of holding teleconferences with colleagues on three continents at once or e-mailing business partners across the globe. Companies also think nothing of shipping our jobs -- even entire factories -- overseas. Today, competition no longer stops at the water's edge. In fact, for many of our companies, that's where it starts. For example, New Hampshire provides $2 billion worth of exports to 140 countries a year.
At the same time, technology is playing an increasingly important role. It's really revolutionizing how we live and work. We're seeing U.S. telemarketing jobs done in remote locations far, far from our shores. Manufacturing requires fewer jobs as machines replace people both here in America and around the world. In part because India and China have begun to harness the power of technology, they are on their way to becoming economic super powers.
I'm confident we have the discipline, the determination and the drive that we will not be the first generation in American history to leave our country worse off than when we found it. But we will continue, as every generation has before, to create much that is worthy to be remembered. We will restore fairness and responsibility to our economy, rebuild our middle class and rise to the challenges of this new global century." - From Hillary Clinton's Speach. See the entire speech at http://www.hillaryclinton.com/news/speech/view/?id=1839
