Riches of Rags (Ronald Reagan)

Historian Robert Dallek noted that Ronald Reagan, America's fortieth president, was "brilliant at creating a kind of rapport with the country; appealing to its better angels, to the native optimism which is so much a part of our culture and tradition."

But Reagan's optimism didn't come easy. He grew up amid circumstances so poor that years later, while visiting his birthplace, he visibly recoiled. One winter during the Great Depression, he recalled a Christmas Eve "where my father opened what he thought was a Christmas greeting from his boss. Instead, it was the blue slip telling him he no longer had a job. The memory of him sitting there holding that slip of paper and then saying in a half whisper, 'That's quite a Christmas present,' it will stay with me as long as I live."(1)

True to form, Reagan looked past the pain, finding instead a happiness in the simple pleasures of life. He called his hometown "one of those rare Huck Finn, Tom Sawyer places. There were woods and mysteries, life and death among the small creatures, hunting and fishing. Those were the days when I learned the real riches of rags."(2)

(1)Excerpt from Reagan's "To Restore America" speech, delivered March 31, 1976.

(2)WGBH Educational Foundation, Reagan (Presidents Collection Home Video, 1998)