by Bob Spitz
Dutch never spoke about Jack’s alcoholism, certainly not to Margaret. It was a family secret, always something he dreaded dealing with. But at some point, Jack had gone on a bender and she heard about it. “Somebody,” Dutch said, “had given her a very vivid account of his behavior.” Dutch tried to explain that his father’s drinking was a sickness beyond his control. He used all of Nelle’s logic and sensitivity to describe Jack’s longtime weakness, which only seemed to upset Margaret more. It didn’t make any sense to her, no matter how Dutch put a spin on it. She wanted no part of it, and he could feel her distancing herself from him.
This pall over Mugs and Dutch’s relationship caused him no small degree of heartache. Margaret meant the world to him; he’d convinced himself she would eventually be his wife. “I thought I was going to lose her,” he admitted. He was so shaken by her resistance that he vowed “to disown” Jack if Mugs broke things off with him.
There is no record of how the two resolved the conflict, but it seems reasonable to believe that her father, the hardest of hard-core temperance advocates, might have helped his daughter come to terms with her boyfriend and his family. For all his fixed beliefs, Ben Cleaver was a reasonable man. He was extremely fond of Dutch, offering him advice and guidance that would influence Ronald Reagan for the rest of his life, regarding tolerance, pacifism, charity, and the brotherhood of man. To be sure, they had their disagreements—Reverend Cleaver was irreconcilable when it came to dancing and stood firmly opposed to movies being shown on Sundays—but on matters of faith and morality the two men formed a great bond. Helen Cleaver, Margaret’s sister, thought that Ben Cleaver was as close to a father figure as Dutch ever had. He stepped in on matters of spiritual growth where Jack was either inadequate or unavailable. Jack wasn’t big on fatherly advice; he had little to say about preparing for the future. Expressing needs and emotions wasn’t part of his makeup. All that was left to Ben Cleaver. The importance of going to college was often a topic of discussion. He even taught Dutch how to drive. More than likely, he counseled Margaret that Jack and Dutch should be judged separately, as individuals, that she recognize Dutch’s higher, nobler ideals, that his spiritual values were beyond reproach.
If Mugs still had any doubts, they were expunged during the final two years of high school.
Throughout 1927 and 1928, Dutch and Mugs were inseparable. They were the leaders of their class, the golden couple. For the Indian Ritual at the Junior and Senior Powwow—a vaunted dinner-dance at the Colonial Inn in Grand Detour—they starred as Heap Big Chief and Cloud Shadows. They anchored their high school’s Dramatic Society soirée, with Dutch as its president, and appeared opposite each other in a number of productions: Walter Hackett’s adventure yarn Captain Applejack, in which Dutch played both a pirate and the pirate’s aristocratic descendant; The Pipe of Peace; and Philip Barry’s urbane comedy You and I. They spearheaded myriad programs for the church’s Christian Endeavor Society, singing, delivering recitations, giving readings, writing skits. They attended the senior banquet together, the football banquet, the prom. Mugs was secretary of the Girl’s Hi-Y, Dutch vice president of the Boy’s. Dutch was elected president of the student body, while Mugs was senior class president. And they worked hand in hand on the high school yearbook, The Dixonian, which Dutch, as art director, designed as if it were a series of filmstrips.
Friends laid even money that a Cleaver-Reagan wedding was inevitable after graduation in 1928. High school sweethearts with as much going for them as Dutch and Mugs often married early in Dixon. But with his senior year well under way, Dutch was too busy to think that far ahead. With all his extracurricular activities, including team sports and church, there was plenty of work to keep up with at school. Dutch was a talented writer, and he was encouraged by his most influential teacher, Bernard Frazer, who was not only the principal but also taught literature, English, and social studies, and served as the drama coach in his spare time. “Everybody was a little scared of him,” Esther Haack admits. But Dutch liked Frazer best of all his teachers, and it was in English IV he was most inspired, though he wasn’t much when it came to spelling and grammar. Frazer overlooked those shortcomings and encouraged him to concentrate instead on the more creative aspects of writing. That gave Dutch the leeway to stretch a bit with essays, to tap into his imagination and sense of humor.
It was as if a valve had been opened and words began to flow. Dutch Reagan had the storyteller’s gift. He wrote with energy and fervor; on sheet after sheet of lined notebook paper, he sketched out lifelike yarns in a strong, legible, streamlined hand. In a very early essay entitled Nov. 11 1918, he envisioned a troop of soldiers “of the 77th” camped out in a machine-gun nest reminiscing in “an amiable free for all” about things that fascinated Dutch: the supernatural, football, women, and religion. Yale Comes Through retooled one of Dutch’s beloved Frank Merriwell adventures in which two college seniors foil a plot to empty canisters of poisonous gas into the ventilation system of the U.S. Treasury building. The writing, for the most part, was lively and artfully evoked, except for the occasional purple prose, such as: “My heart suddenly cross-blocked my liver, and my adam’s apple drop-kicked a tonsil.”
Bernard Frazer urged him on, steering him to narrative forms such as essay and opinion. Under the heading “School Spirit,” Dutch wrote, “Service is the only road to loyalty, for ‘As ye sow, so shall ye reap.’ That is why the freshman who goes out for football, who stands up and takes his turn, makes a good student. After he has been battered and bruised for two years, he has had a love and loyalty born in him that is as true as the temper of a fine steel blade.”
Writing—the process of organizing his thoughts in a coherent form—became a crucial resource in Dutch’s development. Years later, colleagues in every phase of his life would recall the radio announcer, the president of the Screen Actors Guild, the governor of California, and the president of the United States immersed in his own private world with just a yellow tablet and fountain pen, undisturbed by his surroundings, writing umpteen drafts of speeches, radio broadcasts, and letters in longhand, even at times when others were hired to do his bidding.
He also loved acting. Nelle had ignited that fire in Dutch, but his enthusiasm was more secular than hers. He relied on Bernard Frazer to fan the flames of this exciting new passion for him. Frazer formed an after-school drama club, emphasizing the motivation of character—the “why, why, why,” as he put it. To heighten student interest, he ditched the fusty old melodramas that were standard high school fodder, instead staging plays based on recent Broadway hits. Being onstage felt right to Dutch. He became relaxed and uninhibited. He found it comfortable “to get under the skin” of a character, easy to be someone else for a while. And he was a quick study. “Ronald was good,” Frazer said. “He fit into almost any kind of role you put him into. Wisecracking, hat-over-the-ear, cigarette-in-the-mouth reporter—he could do that as well as any sentimental scenes.” The knack evolved into a craft. “He never forgot his lines or his actions. When he got on the stage, he was the character.”
Dutch talked incessantly about acting and movies, with an idea of perhaps pursuing that calling when he graduated from high school. Movies continued to captivate him. He never missed an opportunity to take in a new feature, and his excitement only built in 1927 upon the news that soon audiences would be able to actually hear the actors speak. In the meantime, he was content to mimic the radio.
Radio came to Dixon in 1923. Dutch claimed he got an early taste of radio magic one Sunday afternoon when a local character named Howard Hall tuned in to KDKA—the country’s first commercially licensed station, broadcasting from East Pittsburgh in Pennsylvania—on a homemade crystal set he’d cobbled together on his porch. “We walked all around, and he had this aerial and had to have headphones to hear, trying to see if he could bring something in. And down by the river it was coming,” Dutch recalled. “‘This is KDKA of the Westinghouse and Manufacturing C
ompany. . . .’” Pittsburgh—halfway across the country! Everyone passed around headphones to hear the faint strains of an orchestra playing. “Well, I tell you that was as big a miracle as anything that could ever possibly occur. We were all agog.” With patience, he learned, you might even pull in an inning or two of a Pittsburgh Pirates baseball game.
By 1926, the radio phenomenon had swept the country. More reliable tube sets replaced crystals, and in Dixon, you could hear clear nightly broadcasts from any of the top Chicago stations—WGN, WMAQ, or WLS. The Reagans didn’t have a radio; it was a luxury they couldn’t afford. But whenever possible, at a friend’s or neighbor’s, Dutch listened to Cubs games and shows such as Amos ’n’ Andy, which were all the rage. He and his friend Gladys Shippert would tune in to WOC from Davenport, Iowa, which struck a series of chimes to mark the break between programs. Dutch would imitate them incessantly. “To hear the chimes from WOC,” Gladys recalled, “we sometimes had to put a pillow over Ronald’s face to keep him quiet for a little while.”
Dutch’s potential seemed enormous. He was handsome, unnaturally so, and a local hero to boot, with the class valedictorian on his arm, a winning personality, a clear grasp of right and wrong, and a deep, abiding faith. “Life is one grand sweet song, so start the music” read the tagline under Dutch’s yearbook picture (while misidentifying him as Donald Reagan). But shortly before graduation the melody hit a sour note.
The April 3, 1928, edition of the Dixon Evening Telegraph announced that Jack Reagan “severed his connection with the partnership operating the Fashion Boot Shop,” a polite gloss on the reality that he’d been fired yet again. Dutch always maintained that the shoe store was an early casualty of the Depression and that Jack had gone down with the ship, so to speak. But the newspaper article clearly stated that “the business has enjoyed a thriving growth” since opening its doors in 1920 and that H. C. Pitney “will continue to conduct the store.”
The Reagans, who were poor, now became poorer precisely at the time Dutch was focusing on college. His goal was slipping further from his grasp. There was no money for it. Moon had known that a year earlier, when he defied his mother’s wishes and scrapped college for a good-paying job—$125 a month working at the Medusa Portland Cement Company, a local institution that employed hundreds of Dixon men. Going to college was a waste of time, he told Dutch.
A waste of time. Moon’s cynicism cut him to the bone. College wasn’t just a dream for Dutch, it was a way out of his disadvantaged background. A guy like Moon might flourish in a traditional work situation. He had a way about him that would be easily suited to a blue-collar job and the camaraderie that went with working with guys’ guys. He had an attractive blend of his father’s cheeky bonhomie and his mother’s vanity. But Dutch had loftier ambitions. He wanted to make more of a mark in the world.
Jack was no help. He wasn’t working, but he was busy—busy canvassing for the Democrat Al Smith in the upcoming 1928 presidential election. Nelle was distracted as well. In addition to her ongoing civic missions, she had taken to writing inspirational poetry, reams of epic verse, which was regularly published in the local newspaper, and she had taken on the presidency of the school PTA.
One can only imagine Dutch’s feelings as his girlfriend prepared to live out the dream he had once planned on for himself. She was following both her older sisters to Eureka College, a small Disciples church–affiliated institution about sixty miles to the west. The school had taken on “an almost mystical allure” for Dutch because his boyhood idol, Garland Waggoner, had been a standout football player there. Helping Mugs pack provided some distraction but little comfort.
He volunteered to drive Mugs to Eureka a few days before the semester began. At the beginning of September 1928, they piled her belongings into her father’s car and set off from Dixon, taking the scenic road along Route 52 that followed the railroad tracks to Peru and cut through seamless miles of lush farmland. He must have considered the possibility that once he and Margaret said their goodbyes he might lose her as well. They had assured each other that nothing would change, and perhaps they both believed it. But Dutch couldn’t have been optimistic. He’d be returning to Dixon without a job, without much money, without prospects. What kind of a future could he expect?
All that was rattling around as they turned into East College Avenue, the main artery that ran through Eureka’s campus. Dutch took one look at the picture-postcard quad and was thunderstruck. “It was even lovelier than I’d imagined it would be,” he recalled. The tableau said college: five ivy-covered Georgian brick buildings surrounded by acres of rolling hills. Fresh-faced young students were meandering along the paths that connected the classrooms to the few outlying dorms.
It was a beautiful, crisp day, and Dutch stood by the car, open-mouthed, taking it all in, as Margaret began to unload her luggage. The school that was rightfully his, the girl that was rightfully his, the future that was rightfully his . . . all right in front of him.
He made up his mind at that instant: he was never going back. He would simply have to find a way.
CHAPTER SIX
“LIVING THE GOSPEL”
“Eureka! I have found it!”
—ARCHIMEDES
There was no limit to Ronald Reagan’s Eureka moment. He had hit the mother lode, as far as he was concerned—a gorgeous campus, a school whose intimate size seemed poised to embrace him, a legacy of church and sports, and Margaret Cleaver. He knew it from the outset when he staked his claim.
Eureka’s heritage appealed both to Dutch’s deep-rooted faith and his liberal principles. The school was chartered on February 6, 1855, Dutch’s birthday, by a band of abolitionists determined to combine the pursuit of higher education with their spiritual values. Its precepts were scholarly but tethered to the Christian Church, whose congregants received generous grants to study for the ministry. The Bible was the essential textbook, Christian doctrine its academic bedrock. “Religious values shall be found in all courses of study,” its catalog stated. “The development of religious attitudes . . . is essential.”
Faith—but coupled with a streak of progressive Christianity that placed great emphasis on social reform. The first generation that established Eureka College opposed slavery on a moral and intellectual level. Their sons formed Company G of the 17th Illinois Volunteer Infantry on a spring day in April 1861 beneath a Dutch elm—henceforth the Recruiting Elm—in the middle of campus and fought in the Civil War. The second generation championed the women’s suffrage movement. And their offspring, a generation before Dutch enrolled, struck out to effect social change. “Living the gospel,” they called it. Social gospel. To be true Christians meant doing something about the problems that were here and now.
Living the gospel. It was already in Dutch’s blood. Nelle had raised him to practice his faith by striving to alleviate poverty, denouncing segregation, welcoming immigrants, elevating abysmal labor conditions, and opposing war. Eureka College’s activism no doubt would have seemed familiar and right to the young man. Alva Wilmot Taylor, who taught at Eureka in the first decade of the twentieth century, produced students who went on to establish the Southern Tenant Farmers Union and organize black and white sharecroppers in the delta of Arkansas. In 1915, the college sponsored a chapel service featuring Irwin St. John Tucker, who spoke on behalf of the Intercollegiate Socialist Society; at the end of his talk nearly a third of the campus signed up to start its own chapter. Pastor Fred Helfer, the campus’s spiritual mentor, was a robust Christian Socialist. Eureka was a hotbed of progressive activism.
Dutch was desperate to enroll. Grades weren’t an issue. All that was required was a high school diploma. The stumbling block was money. Standing in the registration line, he did a quick calculation: tuition was $180, room and board another $270, plus a $5 enrollment fee. He had a grand total of $400 in his savings account from his lifeguarding proceeds—not enough to cover basic costs. Another $35 was need
ed for meals, books, and unforeseen expenses. He’d never make it.
The registrar sent him into the dean’s office to plead his case. Dutch wasn’t alone. Many hopeful freshmen came from poor rural families and struggled to raise even the meager Eureka tuition. A college education was their only hope of improving their futures and avoiding a life of physical labor. But it meant receiving outside aid, often charity. Eureka’s own finances teetered on collapse. Enrollment had shrunk to 187 students. The college was in constant debt, with barely enough money to meet its payroll, often paying its bills with produce from a farm that functioned as its endowment. Faculty often had to brave long dry stretches before salaries were paid.
Samuel Glen Harrod, who was in charge of admissions, was a three-hundred-pound bear of a man but was a notoriously soft touch. Time and again, he scraped together whatever spare resources he could muster to help disadvantaged students fund an education. This year, however, was unusually fraught. Many more students were squeezed financially. The Great Crash was a year away, but farms across the Midwest were in the grip of an economic malaise, and their sons and daughters descended on Sam Harrod’s office in greater numbers, soliciting aid.
Dutch knew he had to argue his worth. He sat down and talked to Dean Harrod about his background in Dixon—teaching Sunday school, saving lives at Lowell Park, living the gospel. Reverend Cleaver, a formidable influence, was offered as a reference. Dutch knew the college had a football team—though not a very good one—and offered his services. He dropped the name of their last notable star, fullback Garland Waggoner, his personal hero, and mentioned that he’d like to follow in his cleats. Harrod must have been impressed, because he immediately sent Dutch to speak with Ralph McKinzie, Eureka’s football coach and campus legend.