The Roots of Ronald Reagan's Ambition

A novel he read as a boy set him on a life-long course.

By JOHN FUND
THE WALL STREET JOURNAL
http://online.wsj.com/home-page
FEBRUARY 8, 2011

Simi Valley, Calif. - Ronald Reagan's status as a mythic figure was demonstrated on Sunday as 1,500 guests gathered at the Reagan Presidential Library to celebrate what would have been his 100th birthday. Liberals have come to accept his strengths and even acknowledge some of his accomplishments, while conservatives have raised even higher his pedestal. Yet unanswered questions about the Gipper linger.

His son, Ron Reagan, notes that even though his father was on public display his entire adult life, for "even those of us who were closest to him, [there was a] hidden 10% that remains a considerable mystery." One mystery: How could a boy who spent much of his youth alone, was picked on by bullies, and was so nearsighted that he was chosen last for playground games, acquire the ambition to run for president four times?

There are tangible clues. One is that Reagan consciously set out to become a hero at an early age. "I'm a sucker for hero worship," he wrote in his 1990 autobiography "An American Life." Heroism was a recurring theme of his presidential speeches, from his first inaugural to his 1984 State of the Union address in which he celebrated "unsung American heroes who may not have realized their dreams themselves but who then reinvest those dreams in their children."

When Reagan was 11, his mother gave him an inspirational novel called "That Printer of Udell's," the story of a young man who combines a belief in "practical Christianity" with Horatio Alger-like grit. Reagan biographer Edmund Morris noted in a 1999 interview in the American Enterprise magazine that the novel's central character, Dick Falkner, is "a tall, good-looking, genial young man who wears brown suits and has the gift of platform speaking and comes to a Midwestern town just like Dixon, Illinois, and figures out a workfare program to solve the city's social problems. He marries this girl who looks at him adoringly with big wide eyes through all his speeches, and eventually he goes off with her to represent that shining city in Washington, D.C."

Years later, Reagan was uncharacteristically revealing about himself in a 1984 letter to the daughter-in-law of Harold Bell Wright, the author of "That Printer of Udell's." He noted that all of his boyhood reading "left an abiding belief in the triumph of good over evil," but he singled out Wright's work for having "an impact I shall always remember. After reading it and thinking about it for a few days, I went to my mother and told her I wanted to declare my faith and be baptized. . . . I found a role model in that traveling printer whom Harold Bell Wright had brought to life. He set me on a course I've tried to follow even unto this day. I shall always be grateful."

Mr. Morris says reading that book marked the moment "when Reagan's moral sense developed." Peter Hannaford, a longtime Reagan aide, told me on Sunday that "Reagan profoundly empathized with the fact that, like him, Dick Falkner also had an alcoholic father and yet overcame poverty and adversity."

So Ronald Reagan willed himself to take on the qualities that would allow him to become the hero he wanted to be. By the age of 21, the shy, nearsighted boy had become a lifeguard who was credited with saving 77 lives. As an adult he had an unstoppable ambition—his aide Martin Anderson called him a "warmly ruthless man" in pursuit of his goals.

That also could explain why he was sometimes distant from even his children and certainly his associates. He was consumed by a pursuit of greatness for himself and his country.

For Ronald Reagan, the heroes he admired and the hero he aspired to become demonstrated what individuals in a free society like America were capable of achieving. The essence of Ronald Reagan's personal American Dream was that the next generation should always strive to be better than the previous one. There's no mystery about that part of Ronald Reagan's legacy.

Mr. Fund is a columnist for WSJ.com.

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