Early Reagan

by Anne Edwards

  Since even this was inadequate, the week of August 22 was designated Rooster Week and local farmers were asked to donate old fowls for canning. “The ridding of old roosters from flocks,” the Telegraph stated, “has long been preached by the University of Illinois College of Agriculture and it is thought that the farmer will thus render himself a service as well as help the poor in this locality.” In Dixon, no one looked down on his neighbor’s plight; he reached out a helping hand wherever he could. Because pride made Dixon regard Relief with a tinge of disgrace, its citizens rose up, joined hands and worked together to keep their own off the rolls, making its history during the Depression somewhat singular. Distance from a large metropolis and slow growth with few outsiders were partly responsible for this reaction, as was the Iower-middle-class economic equality of most of its population.

  Dixon’s only truly affluent resident, Charles (“Chuck”) Walgreen, the cut-rate drug multimillionaire, had a charismatic personality and knew how to use it to his best advantage. Myrtle Walgreen remembered that in the early years of their married life, her husband used to say to her, “Myrtle, when we get $20,000 in the bank we’re going to get a place in the country.” By 1928 he had accumulated this amount and a great deal more and had bought Hazelwood, which was situated on the Rock River just outside the town of Dixon.

  The Walgreens had weekended in the log cabin they had reconstructed for several years before building on a new main house in the spring of 1932. Planned first as “just a long low cottage,” it quickly developed into a grand estate complete with “a game room with pool and billiard tables and a wine cellar sunk into the ground… a downstairs room—120 feet by 40 feet—with its front wall almost completely made of windows and a stone fireplace scaled to roast a whole ox.” Hazelwood also had a swimming pool, stables, and a long underground tunnel that linked “the log cabin [turned into one guest house] and the squash court in the basement of the [reconverted] barn guest house.”

  To the people in Dixon, Hazelwood was “the castle on the hill.” Except for workmen, delivery people and clergymen (Mrs. Walgreen believed in supporting local churches), townsfolk seldom were invited there. No one found it incongruous that a mansion of this order should be constructed in a town that had poor people dividing their own meager rations to share with those less fortunate. Hazelwood gave Dixonites a feeling of importance—a powerful and rich man had chosen their town for his country home. And, they had a grand estate to talk about. More than that, the rebuilding of Hazelwood and the large parties held there brought much needed work and employment to Dixon. It also brought rich and famous people. Millionaire Phillip K. Wrigley arrived with his family and five palomino horses when spending a weekend at Hazelwood. As they passed through town, people on the street stopped to ask if they were a circus.*

  The sudden emergence of Hazelwood as a glittering social center was a beacon of hope to Dixon’s young men who could not find the most menial jobs. Walgreen had not started from great wealth. His presence bolstered the popular version of the great American dream that, with hard work and proper connections, anything was possible. Dutch shared this philosophy. He later said, “I was trying to reassure myself that I had prospects too.” Over the years he had become a fixture among the families who regularly vacationed at Lowell Park. His hope was that through one of the summer people who came from larger cities, he might get an introduction that could lead to a good job. Dutch had taught the two daughters of Sid and Helen Altschuler from Kansas City (Mrs. Altschuler was a Dixon girl) to swim and Sid, a successful businessman, had taken a shine to the young man. One day, as they sat on the bank of Rock River watching the Altschuler girls try out their new expertise, Sid asked him what he thought he wanted to do when the summer was over. “There it was—the question for which I had no answer,” he later said. “All I could do was say, I don’t know.’“ Altschuler gave him a few days to think about it, promising to help if he knew anyone in the field he chose.

  A few days later, when he met Altschuler again by the river, Dutch announced that what he wanted was a job in radio, broadcasting sports events in Chicago. He claimed he really wanted to tell Altschuler that he wished to be an actor, but “this was a time and place where announcing you wanted to be an actor resulted in a sympathetic committee calling on your parents to suggest a suitable institution.” Although Dixon had been hometown to one silent-screen actor, Douglas MacLean, and, of course, Louella Parsons, a career as a performer in either New York or Hollywood seemed too far distant ever to reach, and no other cities could be counted on to pay an actor a salary, or even the promise of one. But Chicago was the Midwest’s center of radio.

  Altschuler shook his head with great sadness when he made this proclamation. “Well, you’ve picked a line in which I have no connections,” he admitted.

  Dutch was far from discouraged. The very fact that he had hit upon a career that he knew he would like and be good in bolstered his optimism. For the rest of the summer he would launch into “a rapid-fire routine of ‘Here they come out of the huddle up to the line of scrimmage, a hike to the left, the ball is snapped,’“ whenever the opportunity arose. He sold ice cream cones for the Graybills when he was not acting as a lifeguard, and this speech was delivered along with every scoop.

  On a humid, sweaty night in July, Franklin Delano Roosevelt won the Democratic nomination for president. The next morning, the Democratic nominee, his wife, Eleanor, and two of their sons flew from their home in Hyde Park, New York, to Chicago. To the rousing strains of “Happy Days Are Here Again,” the Democrats hailed their new leader. Standing erect with the help of his sons, Roosevelt proclaimed to the delegates who had just nominated him, “A new deal for the American people,” a phrase that became immediately popular because it expressed the country’s need for “somebody to do something now.” John Nance Garner was voted vice-presidential candidate. (“The Vice-Presidency,” he said in his Texas drawl to Senator Sam Rayburn, “isn’t worth a quart of warm piss.”)

  For the rest of the summer, Jack was caught up in Roosevelt’s campaign, the chief topic of conversation at home. This was to be the first presidential election in which either Dutch or Moon was to vote. Dutch cast his ballot for Roosevelt, “… because I was a child of the Depression, a Democrat by upbringing and very emotionally involved. Remember his platform? It was all for states’ rights, and it also promised to reduce the size of the Federal Government and cut the budget by 25%.” (Thirty-five years later, Reagan was to say, “I’m still in favor of that.”) But Jack’s job, to get out the Democratic vote in Dixon, was not easy. The town feared change would bring upheaval and even worse conditions, and the majority appeared to be solid Hooverites. The Dixon Evening Telegraph came out for Hoover. On the same front page was a cartoon drawing of workers carrying their lunch pails home for the last time from the Reynolds Wire Company, which had finally had to shut its doors.

  “A job, any job, seemed like the ultimate success,” Reagan recalled. As Labor Day approached, Lowell Park prepared to close. Through one of his volunteer workers, Jack learned that there was a job opening in the sporting-goods department of Montgomery Ward that paid $12.50 a week. Dutch rushed down to the chain’s small Dixon store for an interview along with several dozen other applicants. The next day, competition had narrowed to one other fellow, George Joyce, and himself. Joyce had played basketball with Dutch at South Dixon High and the two knew each other quite well. By the end of the day the decision was made and Joyce was hired.* The disappointment prompted Dutch to take immediate action.

  He would leave with Moon the next morning for Eureka, see Margaret and then hitchhike to Chicago where one of his old TEKE buddies had gone on to study medicine, and with whom he knew he could at least bunk for a night or two. His plan was to get an appointment at NBC and talk them into hiring him as a sportscaster. Margaret was about to start teaching in a small high school near Eureka. Parting was difficult, perhaps more so for Margaret than for Dutch. A realist, Margaret did not have hig
h hopes that Dutch would be successful in his quest. What he sought seemed impossible to her. How could he think he had a chance in a field where he was totally inexperienced and had no connections? And when he failed—then what? Dutch did not have these doubts and at the TEKE House he boasted to old friends, “If I’m not making five thousand a year when I’m five years out of college, I’ll consider these four years here wasted.” He went off, thumb lifted high and defiantly on the main road to Chicago. Luck was with him. The first ride he got took him all the way.

  He had remembered very little about Chicago, which as a small child had seemed to be contained in the few blocks between the Reagan apartment and the Fair Store. The twenties had thrust Chicago forward as “the world’s wickedest city” because of its murders and massacres, the police corruption, Black Hand feuds, bootleggers and Al Capone. But by 1932, the city’s evil reputation had been overshadowed by the bitter times that were ushered in with the Depression. Gangster blood no longer flowed through its mean, hard streets (or, at least, not quite so often). The Democratic Convention being held there had helped Chi-cagoans regain a measure of civic pride, increased by the new buildings going up for the Century of Progress Exhibition planned for the following year. The city looked forward to the future with great optimism. Nonetheless, in the elite apartment houses snug to the shores of Lake Michigan, numberless naked windows of empty rooms faced the serene blue waters. Lines leading into soup kitchens were now longer than those to movie theaters offering, for the price of a quarter, four hours of continuous film entertainment and free dishes to lucky ticket-stub holders. Instead of cash, city workers were being given scrip that promised payment at some future date. Few shopkeepers accepted this paper, others turned their backs on old customers. Dutch was not going to find the competition for a job any easier in Chicago than he had in Dixon.

  He arrived in the city late on a sweltering Tuesday afternoon in September and went straight to the towering offices of NBC only to be told that the program director interviewed on Thursdays.

  Early Wednesday morning, he presented himself at the CBS offices in the Wrigley Building but was unable to get past the receptionist. Out on the street again, he walked from one radio station to another because he was “afraid of the damn buses—as a matter of fact, the city itself scared the bejesus out of me. Everybody seemed to know where they were going and what they were doing and I could get lost just looking for a men’s room.” By the end of the day he had not obtained even one interview. Thursday morning he returned to NBC. The receptionist informed him that the program director was seeing no one that day. Dutch’s disappointment was apparent. The young woman advised him to stay away from the big cities, to try a small town with a small station, that would be more willing to give a newcomer a chance. He thanked her and started back on the hundred-mile journey home.

  This time “rides were short with waits between.” The heat had broken into a steady warm rain. The last thirty-mile stretch, he caught a ride with “a fellow who told me, somewhat unnecessarily, he’d been trapping skunks.”

  At home, Jack offered him encouragement and the old Oldsmobile to scout radio stations in sizable surrounding towns. Dutch bought ten gallons of gas and started out early the next Monday morning for a one-day swing, heading first for the farthest point, Davenport, Iowa, which was seventy-five miles west of Dixon. He arrived at radio station WOC, Davenport, “where the West begins, in the state where the tall corn grows,” to be told by the station manager and top announcer, Peter MacArthur, that WOC had been advertising for a month for an announcer. Ninety-four applicants had auditioned and a good man had been hired. MacArthur, a vaudeville and music-hall veteran, spoke with a highland burr and walked on two canes, a victim of crippling arthritis. He had come to station WOC by a quirk of fate. The call letters stood for World of Chiropractic and the station occupied space on the top floor of the Palmer School of Chiropractic Medicine, where MacArthur had come in pain and final desperation, orthopedic doctors and prescribed medicine having been unable to relieve him. No surcease from pain was to come from the school either (he still could not use his canes until he was lifted out of a chair first), but he had made his voice the most familiar in Davenport, where he remained to work for the station.

  As Dutch turned away, he grumbled, “How does anyone get a chance as a sports announcer if you can’t even get a job in a radio station?” MacArthur’s interest perked, but Dutch was already on his way down the narrow, dingy corridor to the elevator. About the same time as it arrived, there was a “thumping and cursing in the hallway,” and Dutch was sharply rapped on the shin by a cane. “No so fast, ye big bastard,” the Scotsman barked, “didn’t ye hear me callin’ ye?” The door of the elevator opened and closed. “Do ye perhaps know football?”

  Dutch told him about his high school and college background, embellishing his accomplishments a little.

  “Do ye think ye could tell me about a game and make me see it?”

  Dutch quickly said he was sure he could do that. They slowly made their way down another hall and into a studio soundproofed with heavy blue velvet drapes. MacArthur pointed to a red light and told him to start announcing a game into the mike on the table as soon as the red light went on. Then he left. Dutch “was all alone in an acre of blue velvet.” The Scotsman had not told him how long he was to talk. He came to a quick decision. The previous autumn, Eureka had played Western State University. At the end of the third quarter Eureka trailed six to nothing.

  The red light flicked on. Dutch leaned in close to the microphone. “We are going into the fourth quarter now. A chill wind is blowing in through the end of the stadium,” he began, and then re-created the last twenty minutes of play in a voice of growing excitement, much in the way he had “broadcast” games in the locker room or when selling cones at Lowell Park. When he was done, MacArthur threw open the door. “Ye did great, ye big S.O.B.!” Reagan claimed he said.

  MacArthur did not offer him a steady job, but instead, “five dollars and bus fare” to broadcast a game from Iowa City a week from that coming Saturday. If he did well with that one, he could announce games on three successive Saturdays. Jack told everyone he could about Dutch’s radio debut, and many of the Reagans’ friends listened in the day of his first broadcast. The prearranged plan was that Dutch would share the coverage and the between-quarters commentary with another, more experienced, radio man whom he immediately thought of as his competitor. The man was glib, but his knowledge of football was not equal to Dutch’s. With bolstered confidence, Dutch let loose all the expertise he could. At the end of the third quarter, MacArthur scrawled a message on yellow paper that was handed to the other man in the booth. “Let the Kid finish the game,” it read. After the broadcast, MacArthur told him he was hired at ten dollars a game and bus fare for the next three. It meant traveling back and forth to Iowa City every Saturday and the pay was not exactly a royal sum, but it was employment and Dutch Reagan could now say he was a sportscaster.

  Dutch cast his vote for Roosevelt at the polling booth at South Central School, which he had attended as a youngster. The Democratic nominee had spent the autumn campaigning with vigor. “It’s a wonder there isn’t more resentment, more radicalism in this country, when people are treated like that,” Roosevelt had said after the horrifying incidents of veterans being gassed and clubbed during the Bonus Marchers episode in July. On the campaign trail, he promised both public works and a cut in government spending. His inimitable nasal New York voice cut through all classes. What he said made great sense—jobs had to be created. The American farmer, worker and family could not be abandoned. He was a symbol of strength despite (or perhaps because of) his wheelchair. Crowds cheered when he was helped to his feet, as though through his courage they might find their own. America needed a savior. The stage had been set and Roosevelt wheeled onto it a smiling, confident hero, the right man for the time. Money and power had not overcome his need for a wheelchair. But a strong character and a steely sense of sur
vival had enabled him to rise above his own disability. People felt touched by his words. Perhaps there was something evangelistic about his appeal, but if so, the impression was not of his doing.

  While Roosevelt put forth plans for government-sponsored aid to American farmers and small businessmen and to the thousands who daily stood for hours in bread lines, Hoover “set his face like flint against the American government’s giving one cent to starving Americans.” While audiences cheered Roosevelt on his campaign journeys, Hoover was given a reception “that had been afforded no previous American President—not even Lincoln in Richmond in the last days of the Civil War; as the President’s train was pulling into Detroit, the men on it heard a hoarse rhythmic chant rising from thousands of throats; for a moment they had hopes of an enthusiastic reception—and then they made out the words of the chant: ‘Hang Hoover! Hang Hoover!’“ All across the campaign trail grim men and women shouted and shook their fists at his dark shadow concealed behind the glass windows of his limousine. The president’s car, along with the Secret Service men guarding their chief, was pelted with eggs and tomatoes.

  The country, and the Midwest in particular, was in a state of simmering rebellion that flared up frighteningly during the month preceding the November election. Robert A. Caro reports that “in Iowa, a mob of farmers, flourishing a rope, threatened to hang a lawyer who was about to foreclose on a farm. In Kansas, the body of a lawyer who had just completed foreclosure proceedings was found lying in a field. In Nebraska, the leaders of two hundred thousand debt-ridden farmers announced that if they did not get help from the legislature, they would march on the statehouse and raze it brick by brick. A judge who had signed mortgage foreclosures was dragged from his bench by black-shirted vigilantes, blindfolded, driven to a lonely crossroads, stripped and beaten.” The country was in chaos, public authority was being flouted and fear spread dark and murky across the land.