[Congressional Record Volume 150, Number 79 (Tuesday, June 8, 2004)]
[House]
[Pages H3787-H3788]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       REMEMBERING RONALD REAGAN

  Mr. DREIER. Mr. Speaker, not 24 hours after Ronald Reagan had passed 
away, I had the opportunity to talk to a great American, Ronald 
Reagan's Secretary of State, George P. Shultz. He already by Sunday 
afternoon had penned a statement, which was so moving that I asked him 
if I could share it with my colleagues. Secretary Shultz agreed, so I 
would like to do that at this point, Mr. Speaker.
  He entitles this ``Remembering Ronald Reagan.'' It reads as follows:
  ``We have lost Ronald Reagan, but his ideas remain with us, as vital 
as ever. We can remember the gifts he gave us, his advocacy of freedom, 
his contributions to our security, his belief in America and his 
restoration of our belief in ourselves.
  ``When he took office as Governor of California, Ronald Reagan took 
responsibility for a state that was in rocky shape; when he left 
office, California was golden again. When Ronald Reagan took office as 
the President of the United States, the country was adrift, inflation 
was out of control, the economy was in the doldrums, and the Cold War 
was as cold as it had ever been. When he left office inflation was 
under control, the economy was expanding, the Cold War was all over but 
the shouting, and America once again stood tall.
  ``Ronald Reagan brought so much to this country. He started with 
carefully thought-out ideas and he put them to work effectively. He had 
a strong and constructive agenda, much of it labeled impossible and 
unattainable in the early years of his presidency. He challenged the 
conventional wisdom: On arms control, on the possibility of movement 
toward freedom in the communist-dominated world, on the need to stand 
up to Iran in the Persian Gulf, on the superiority of market and 
enterprise-based economies. The world learned when Ronald Reagan faced 
down the air traffic controllers in 1981 that he could dig in and fight 
to win. The world learned in Grenada that he would use military force 
if needed. He did not accept that extensive political opposition doomed 
an attractive idea. He would fight resolutely for an idea, believing 
that, if it was valid, he could persuade the American people to support 
it. He changed the national and international agenda on issue after 
issue. He was an optimist; he spoke the vocabulary of opportunity. He 
had a vision of what he stood for and what we aspire to as a nation.
  ``Ronald Reagan had and could express a clear and simple view of a 
complex world. Every Sunday, he brought acorns down from Camp David to 
feed the squirrels outside the Oval Office. The squirrels at the White 
House hadn't had it so good since Ike cleared the area to put in a 
putting green. His most endearing aspect was his fundamental decency. 
He appealed to people's best hopes, not their fears; to their 
confidence, rather than their doubts.
  ``Ronald Reagan was a doer, a pragmatist, a man who enjoyed hard 
physical tasks, as in the ranch work he loved to do. But that brush 
clearing and fence fixing was a symbol, too; he wanted to be doing it 
himself because from the land came not only strength and clarity, but a 
vision, the vision of the West and the endless horizon. The American 
people liked Ronald Reagan and reelected him in one of the biggest 
landslides in history because he trusted them and he conveyed to them 
that they need not be bound, tied down by class or race, or childhood 
misfortune, or poverty, or bureaucracy. They, the people, could make 
something of themselves; indeed, they could remake themselves 
endlessly.
  ``But beneath this pragmatic attitude lay a bedrock of principle and 
purpose with which I was proud to be associated. He believed in being 
strong enough to defend our interests, but he viewed that strength as a 
means, not an end in itself. Ronald Reagan had confidence in himself 
and in his ideas and was ready to negotiate from the strength so 
evident by the mid-1980s.
  ``He was a fervent anti-communist who could comprehend and believe 
that people everywhere would choose to throw off the communist system 
if they ever had the chance. And he worked hard to give them that 
chance. He favored open trade because he had confidence in the ability 
of Americans to compete, and he had confidence that

[[Page H3788]]

an integrated world economy would benefit America. He stuck to his 
agenda.
  ``The points he made, however consummate the delivery, were 
unmistakably real in his mind and heart, an American creed: Defend your 
country, value your family, make something of yourself, tell government 
to get off your back, tell the tyrants to watch their step. Ronald 
Reagan conveyed simple truths that were especially welcome because 
`nowadays everything seems so complicated.' What he said ran deep and 
wide among the people.
  ``Reagan as president was a Republican, a conservative, a man of the 
right. But these labels will mislead historians who do not see beyond 
them, for Americans could see some of Ronald Reagan in themselves. You 
couldn't figure him out like a fact, because to Reagan, the main fact 
was a vision. He came from the heartland of the country, where people 
could be down-to-earth, yet feel the sky is the limit, not ashamed of 
or cynical about the American dream.
  ``Not far from Ronald Reagan's small town of Dixon, Illinois, is Jane 
Addams' small town of Cedarville; not far from Cedarville is Ulysses 
Grant's small town of Galena. And not far from Galena is Carl 
Sandburg's Galesburg. Reagan had something of them all: His heart going 
out to the people; his will ready to fight for the country; his voice 
able to move the nation. And, as Carl Sandburg wrote it, `The republic 
is a dream. Nothing happens unless first a dream.' ''

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