THE WHITE HOUSE

Office of the Press Secretary
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For Immediate Release

June 11, 2004

REMARKS BY THE PRESIDENT

IN EULOGY

AT NATIONAL FUNERAL SERVICE FOR

FORMER PRESIDENT RONALD WILSON REAGAN

The National Cathedral

Washington, D.C.

12:09 P.M. EDT

THE PRESIDENT: 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 ten 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.

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 Nell 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 a 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 happened 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, D.C., 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 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 reward 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 as 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 ties 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.)

Sure, 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 a head and snap of a 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 to 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 his parting gone forever.

May God bless Ronald Reagan, and the country he loved.

END

12:26 P.M. EDT