The conservative icon, the only native Illinoisan to become president, died June 5. He was 93.
Reagan, who was plagued by Alzheimer’s disease in his final years, energized the country with his
man-of-the-people image and love-of-country message.
U.S. House Speaker J. Dennis Hastert, whose district covers the region of Illinois where Reagan was born and raised, said it was there that Reagan “learned the common sense values and virtues that helped him reshape not only our nation, but also the world.
“When I first ran for public office in 1980, for the Illinois legislature, Ronald Reagan was running for
president. Back then, people didn’t have a lot of faith in America,’’ Hastert said on the U.S. House floor. “What made him so special was his willingness to step forward and remind us what made America ‘The Shining City on the Hill.’ He restored our faith in America, and made us proud to be Americans again.”
To conservatives, Reagan is the preeminent role model, the man whose efforts led to the end of the Cold War and deconstruction of the Berlin Wall, brought America out
of financial despair and took it to a renewed sense of patriotism. To liberals, the 40th president, who cut spending for public services while boosting military expenditures, is the symbol of the age of declining
governmental social supports.
Reagan also addressed the cuts he believed would be necessary to bring the country out of recession, which slowly began to occur in his administration.
In his first inaugural address, Reagan said, “If we look to the answer as to why, for so many years, we achieved so much, prospered as no other people on Earth, it was because here, in this land, we unleashed the energy and individual genius of man to a greater extent than has ever been done before. Freedom and the dignity of the individual have been more available and assured here than in any other place on Earth.’’
Thousands stood outdoors overnight waiting for a bus to transport them to the Reagan Presidential Library in
California to view his casket before
he was taken to Washington, D.C., where the public had an additional opportunity to pay their respects. June 11, the day of he was entombed near the Reagan library, was designated a day of national mourning.
Illinoisans paid their respects at Reagan’s alma mater, Eureka College, which has the largest Reagan museum outside of his library, at his birthplace in Tampico and at his boyhood home in Dixon, where he saved lives as a guard at a local pool and served as high school student body president, starred in plays and competed on football, basketball and track teams.
Gov. Rod Blagojevich renamed a stretch of I-88 from Sterling to the Quad Cities the Ronald Reagan Memorial Highway. “Now, when people drive on I-88, they’ll remember Ronald Reagan and everything he
did for our country,” Blagojevich stated in a printed release. “They’ll remember his strength and convictions. They’ll remember the way he restored our belief in the American dream.”
The interstate passes Dixon, where Reagan lived from adolescence until age 21. He went on to a successful acting career during which he served as president of the Screen Actors Guild, making him the only president who had headed a union. In 1948, he supported Harry Truman for president, then backed Dwight Eisenhower, revealing his shifting party loyalty. He supported Nixon in 1960, formally switching to the Republican Party in 1962.
He was elected governor of California in 1966 and was sworn in for the first of two terms as president in 1981. He won a landslide victory over incumbent Jimmy Carter with the platform, “a new consensus with all those across the land who share a community of values embodied in these words: family, work, neighborhood, peace, and freedom.”
Illinois Issues July/August, 2004
