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THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary

For Immediate Release April 12, 1993

                      REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT
                           AND FIRST LADY
                         AT EASTER EGG ROLL

The South Lawn

10:48 A.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: Good morning everybody. I want to welcome all of you here to the White House for the Easter Egg Roll and the Easter Egg Hunt. I want to say a special word of thanks to the sponsors who made this possible and say how wonderful it is for all of us here to see the children, especially for me and for Hillary.

And I want now to introduce the First Lady, who is the hostess for this event, to say a few more words about it. But let me again say how very, very grateful we are to see all of you here. This is a children's day for America at the White House, and I'm glad you're here to make it so special. Please welcome the First Lady. (Applause.)

MRS. CLINTON: Well, I'm so glad to see all of you here. And this year we've done a few things a little differently to try to make it even better for all of you.

You know, the very first Easter Egg Roll took place in 1809. Now, how many of you were here for that one? (Laughter.) Good. That was Dolly Madison who started it in 1809, and it used to be at the Capitol. And then it was moved here to the White House. And every year the Monday after Easter is when we do this.

This year we decided to do two things -- to have a lot of entertainment and activities on the Ellipse, which is over there by the Washington Monument, so that as you had to wait, you could go through the line and you could hear singing and you could see some clowns; and to keep the egg roll and the egg hunt here on the lawn so that we would be able to accommodate more of you and you'd each have a chance.

Now, I know that many of you are excited about the first egg hunt, and the President is going to blow the whistle for that in just a minute -- the egg roll, the first egg roll -- and then the egg hunt, which happens further down on the South Lawn. And for everybody who hunts, you will be able to find an egg. And let me just tell you that there have been a lot of eggs signed by a lot of very famous people who have come to Washington. But there are 100 eggs that were signed by Socks. (Laughter.) So his own little paw print is right there on the egg. And so he'll be very happy if you find his eggs as well.

We just mostly want to welcome you to this beautiful spring day here at the White House. And now we're going to go and the President's going to blow the whistle for the first egg roll. And I hope all of you have a wonderful, wonderful time.

Thank you all. (Applause.)

END10:55 A.M. EDT