[Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents Volume 40, Number 25 (Monday, June 21, 2004)]
[Pages 1057-1060]
[Online from the Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]

<R04>
Eulogy at the National Funeral Service for President Ronald Reagan

June 11, 2004

    Mrs. Reagan, Patti, Michael, and Ron; members of the Reagan family; 
distinguished guests, including our Presidents and First Ladies; 
Reverend Danforth; fellow citizens:
    We lost Ronald Reagan only days ago, but we have missed him for a 
long time. We have missed his kindly presence, that reassuring voice, 
and the happy ending we had wished for him. It has been 10 years since 
he said his own farewell, yet it is still very sad and hard to let him 
go. Ronald Reagan belongs to the ages now, but we preferred it when he 
belonged to us.

[[Page 1058]]

    In a life of good fortune, he valued above all the gracious gift of 
his wife, Nancy. During his career, Ronald Reagan passed through a 
thousand crowded places, but there was only one person, he said, who 
could make him lonely by just leaving the room.
    America honors you, Nancy, for the loyalty and love you gave this 
man on a wonderful journey and to that journey's end. Today our whole 
Nation grieves with you and your family.
    When the sun sets tonight off the coast of California and we lay to 
rest our 40th President, a great American story will close. The second 
son of Nelle and Jack Reagan first knew the world as a place of open 
plains, quiet streets, gas-lit rooms, and carriages drawn by horse. If 
you could go back to the Dixon, Illinois, of 1922, you'd find a boy of 
11 reading adventure stories at the public library or running with his 
brother, Neil, along Rock River and coming home to a little house on 
Hennepin Avenue. That town was the kind of place you remember where you 
prayed side by side with your neighbors, and if things were going wrong 
for them, you prayed for them and knew they'd pray for you if things 
went wrong for you.
    The Reagan family would see its share of hardship, struggle, and 
uncertainty. And out of that circumstance came a young man of 
steadiness, calm, and a cheerful confidence that life would bring good 
things. The qualities all of us have seen in Ronald Reagan were first 
spotted 70 and 80 years ago. As the lifeguard in Lowell Park, he was the 
protector keeping an eye out for trouble. As a sports announcer on the 
radio, he was the friendly voice that made you see the game as he did. 
As an actor, he was the handsome, all-American good guy, which in his 
case required knowing his lines--and being himself.
    Along the way, certain convictions were formed and fixed in the man. 
Ronald Reagan believed that everything happens for a reason and that we 
should strive to know and do the will of God. He believed that the 
gentleman always does the kindest thing. He believed that people were 
basically good and had the right to be free. He believed that bigotry 
and prejudice were the worst things a person could be guilty of. He 
believed in the Golden Rule and in the power of prayer. He believed that 
America was not just a place in the world but the hope of the world.
    And he believed in taking a break now and then, because, as he said, 
``There's nothing better for the inside of a man than the outside of a 
horse.''
    Ronald Reagan spent decades in the film industry and in politics, 
fields known on occasion to change a man--but not this man. From Dixon 
to Des Moines to Hollywood to Sacramento to Washington, DC, all who met 
him remembered the same sincere, honest, upright fellow. Ronald Reagan's 
deepest beliefs never had much to do with fashion or convenience. His 
convictions were always politely stated, affably argued, and as firm and 
straight as the columns of this cathedral.
    There came a point in Ronald Reagan's film career when people 
started seeing a future beyond the movies. The actor Robert Cummings 
recalled one occasion. ``I was sitting around the set with all these 
people, and we were listening to Ronnie, quite absorbed. I said, `Ron, 
have you ever considered someday becoming President?' He said, 
`President of what?' `President of the United States,' I said. And he 
said, `What's the matter, don't you like my acting either?' '' 
[Laughter]
    The clarity and intensity of Ronald Reagan's convictions led to 
speaking engagements around the country and a new following he did not 
seek or expect. He often began his speeches by saying, ``I'm going to 
talk about controversial things.'' And then he spoke of communist rulers 
as slavemasters, of a Government in Washington that had far overstepped 
its proper limits, of a time for choosing that was drawing near. In the 
space of a few years, he took ideas and principles that were mainly 
found in journals and books and turned them into a broad, hopeful 
movement ready to govern.
    As soon as Ronald Reagan became California's Governor, observers saw 
a star in the West, tanned, well-tailored, in command, and on his way. 
In the 1960s, his friend Bill Buckley wrote, ``Reagan is indisputably a 
part of America, and he may become a part of American history.''
    Ronald Reagan's moment arrived in 1980. He came out ahead of some 
very good men, including one from Plains and one from

[[Page 1059]]

Houston. What followed was one of the decisive decades of the century, 
as the convictions that shaped the President began to shape the times.
    He came to office with great hopes for America and more than hopes. 
Like the President he had revered and once saw in person, Franklin 
Roosevelt, Ronald Reagan matched an optimistic temperament with bold, 
persistent action. President Reagan was optimistic about the great 
promise of economic reform, and he acted to restore the rewards and 
spirit of enterprise. He was optimistic that a strong America could 
advance the peace, and he acted to build the strength that mission 
required. He was optimistic that liberty would thrive wherever it was 
planted, and he acted to defend liberty wherever it was threatened.
    And Ronald Reagan believed in the power of truth in the conduct of 
world affairs. When he saw evil camped across the horizon, he called 
that evil by its name. There were no doubters in the prisons and gulags 
where dissidents spread the news, tapping to each other in code what the 
American President had dared to say. There were no doubters in the 
shipyards and churches and secret labor meetings where brave men and 
women began to hear the creaking and rumbling of a collapsing empire. 
And there were no doubters among those who swung hammers at the hated 
wall that the first and hardest blow had been struck by President Ronald 
Reagan.
    The ideology he opposed throughout his political life insisted that 
history was moved by impersonal tides and unalterable fates. Ronald 
Reagan believed instead in the courage and triumph of free men, and we 
believe it all the more because we saw that courage in him.
    As he showed what a President should be, he also showed us what a 
man should be. Ronald Reagan carried himself, even in the most powerful 
office, with a decency and attention to small kindnesses that also 
defined a good life. He was a courtly, gentle, and considerate man, 
never known to slight or embarrass others.
    Many people across the country cherish letters he wrote in his own 
hand to family members on important occasions, to old friends dealing 
with sickness and loss, to strangers with questions about his days in 
Hollywood. A boy once wrote to him requesting Federal assistance to help 
clean up his bedroom. [Laughter] The President replied that, 
``Unfortunately, funds are dangerously low.'' [Laughter] He continued, 
``I'm sure your mother was fully justified in proclaiming your room a 
disaster. Therefore, you are in an excellent position to launch another 
volunteer program in our Nation. Congratulations.'' [Laughter]
    See, our 40th President wore his title lightly, and it fit like a 
white Stetson. In the end, through his belief in our country and his 
love for our country, he became an enduring symbol of our country. We 
think of his steady stride, that tilt of the head and snap of the 
salute, the big-screen smile, and the glint in his Irish eyes when a 
story came to mind.
    We think of a man advancing in years with the sweetness and 
sincerity of a Scout saying the Pledge. We think of that grave 
expression that sometimes came over his face, the seriousness of a man 
angered by injustice and frightened by nothing. We know, as he always 
said, that America's best days are ahead of us, but with Ronald Reagan's 
passing, some very fine days are behind us, and that is worth our tears.
    Americans saw death approach Ronald Reagan twice, in a moment of 
violence and then in the years of departing light. He met both with 
courage and grace. In these trials, he showed how a man so enchanted by 
life can be at peace with life's end.
    And where does that strength come from? Where is that courage 
learned? It is the faith of a boy who read the Bible with his mom. It is 
the faith of a man lying in an operating room who prayed for the one who 
shot him before he prayed for himself. It is the faith of a man with a 
fearful illness who waited on the Lord to call him home.
    Now death has done all that death can do. And as Ronald Wilson 
Reagan goes his way, we are left with the joyful hope he shared. In his 
last years, he saw through a glass darkly. Now he sees his Savior face 
to face.
    And we look for that fine day when we will see him again, all 
weariness gone, clear of mind, strong and sure and smiling again, and 
the sorrow of this parting gone forever.

[[Page 1060]]

    May God bless Ronald Reagan and the country he loved.

Note: The President spoke at 12:09 p.m. at the National Cathedral. In 
his remarks, he referred to Episcopal minister and former Senator John 
C. Danforth of Missouri.