“Everything that has been good in my life began here.” That’s
what Ronald Reagan said of Eureka College, his alma matter, in a
commencement address there in 1982. It was often repeated last
Friday at the Reagan Centennial year’s first academic conference,
also held at this small liberal arts college in northwestern
Illinois.
Eureka is a remarkable college. Now 157 years old, it was
founded by abolitionists of the Church of Christ (Disciples of
Christ) who held strong views about equality. It was the first
college in Illinois and only the third in the nation to admit both
men and women on an equal footing. To this day, it maintains an
association with the church, but as its literature notes, welcomes
students of all faiths.
Several times — including Ronald Reagan’s undergraduate
years — the college has been on the brink of insolvency, but was
always pulled out by its loyal alumni and friends. Under the
presidency of J. David Arnold, over the last six years the college
has put itself on a sound financial footing and has grown to nearly
800 students (it was 230 when Reagan was there). The enthusiasm of
students for their college is palpable and they are fascinated by
the accomplishments of their most famous alumnus.
As part of the Reagan Centennial there will be five or six
more academic conferences around the country this year. These will
tend to deal with “cosmic” issues of national and international
focus. This one focused on the 40th president’s roots, all of which
were in rural northwestern Illinois. Other than a few months in
Chicago when he was very young, all of Ronald Reagan’s childhood
and youth were spent in small communities in this region: Tampico,
Monmouth, Galesburg, Dixon, Eureka.
The characteristics associated with him —
self-confidence, self-reliance, optimism, modesty,
loyalty, tolerance, good humor, determination and
reverence for God—came from his forebears, his parents, teachers,
clergy, coaches, the circumstances of his youth and the environment
of the rural Middle West. The conferees examined this connection.
As Dr. Andrew Cayton of Miami University of Ohio put it, “The key
to community (in those days) was consensus, through talking with
others; to persuade through example.”
Seven of the conferees were from academia, all from
Midwestern colleges and universities.
The Weekly Standard’s Fred
Barnes was a moderator and there were six “old Reagan
hands”:
Edwin Meese, who served as chief of staff to Reagan when
he was Governor of California, then as Counselor to the President
and U.S. Attorney General; Craig Shirley, author of two seminal
books, one each on Reagan’s 1976 and 1980 presidential campaigns;
Martin and Annelise Anderson of the Hoover Institution, both of
whom served in the Reagan White House and are co-authors of
Reagan in His Own Hand, Reagan: A Life in Letters
and Reagan’s Secret War, and this writer who is currently
working on a book titled “Reagan’s Roots: The People and Places
That Shaped His Character.”
While the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library houses his
presidential and gubernatorial papers and much else having to do
with his public career, President Arnold and his Eureka College
colleagues see the school as being a potential magnet for Reagan
scholars who want to examine his beginnings and the context of
his growing-up years. Toward that end, a climax of the conference
was the announcement that a New York businessman, Mark Shenkman,
and his wife, Rosalind, are making a gift of an expanded and
upgraded archives section — to be the Ronald Reagan Research
Center — in the college’s library. Added to the unit will be a
special reading room for scholars that will contain a copy of each
of the several hundred books already written about
Reagan.
