Treasures in Reagan's Desk
When a president and his family move out of the White House, things move pretty quickly. While the old president accompanies the new president to the inauguration, one set of possessions is replaced by another - in record time. Reagan's desk in the Oval Office was emptied into a box and labeled "RR's desk" (Reagan, xiii). It wasn't seen until years later - maybe twenty years later - when the Reagan library was redecorating and folks decided to look at what was in storage. Behold. The box. This wasn't just any box, it was a hand written archive of Reagan's thoughts, quotes, anecdotes and jokes, all in Reagan's own handwriting, each written on its own card. Take a stack of cards and, if you have Reagan's skill at talking to people, you have a ready made speech. The stack of cards? Well, it came from years of speeches, some of them probably back in Hollywood, some of them from the General Electric speechifying days, and, some of them from Reagan's campaigns and offices in California and in the White House. A speech writer would make up a speech. Reagan would fix it up with a proven one liner (or maybe a bit longer) from his trove of quotes and stories and jokes.
Here are three of them:
- Greatness is measured by your kindness, your ed. & intellect. By your modesty. Your ignorance is betrayed by your suspicions & prejudices-your real caliber is measure by the consideration and thoughtfulness you have for others (Reagan, 142).
- A state which dwarfs its men in order that they may be more docile instruments in its hands-even for beneficial purposes-will find that with small men no great thing can really be accomplished (Reagan, 36).
- There are 3 kinds of lies: lies, d--m lies, & statistics (Reagan, 189).
The Reagan Foundation ended up owning the collection of cards. They've put out a book. Somehow, the cards need a better place. The book is nice. The cards are nice. They need to have a larger place in American history. My bet is that, ultimately, they will.
Reference
Reagan, Ronald. Edited by Douglas Brinkley. The Notes. Ronald Reagan's Private Collection of Stories and Wisdom. Harper. 2011.