Ronald Reagan and the Commencement Address “We need you. We need your youth. We need your strength. We need your idealism to help us make right that which is wrong.” ~Ronald Reagan, Notre Dame University, 1981 American presidents are lured by the opportunities provided by the bully pulpit. Graduation ceremonies have become the ultimate forum to inspire, to inform and of course, to enlighten. During his years in Washington, D.C., President Reagan delivered 12 commencement addresses, filled with serious ideas and strong principles, following in the tradition of the men who came before him. We’ll take a brief look at not only his presidential addresses, but a few important ones which preceded life on Pennsylvania Avenue. For these historic addresses, he relied upon his tried-­‐and-­‐true formula for delivering a meaningful speech: •
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“I prefer short sentences; don’t use a word with two syllables if a one-­‐syllable word will do; If you can, use an example; Talk directly and personally to them; Start with a joke or story to catch the audience’s attention; Then tell them what you are going to tell them; 1 •
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Then tell them; Then tell them what you just told them.” The White House 1981-­‐1989 His premiere commencement address as President took place at Notre Dame University in May 1981, his first speech outside Washington, D.C. after the assassination attempt, in which he developed an emotional resonance with his audience. Politically, he stayed on point, clearly defining his stance on the future of the Soviet Union and his belief that a society which represses freedom to worship will fail. The power of his words was evident when he said, “The West will not contain communism; it will transcend communism. It won't bother to dismiss or denounce it; it will dismiss it as some bizarre chapter in human history whose last pages are even now being written.” To read the entire text of this speech, click here: “You're no longer observers. You'll be called upon to make decisions and express your views on global events, because those events will affect your lives.” ~Ronald Reagan, Eureka College, 1982 One year later, at Eureka College in 1982, he joked, “Now, it just isn't true that I only came back this time to clean out my gym locker,” but got down to business when he asked tough questions, “How should we deal with the Soviet Union in the years ahead? What framework should guide our conduct and our policies toward it? And what can we realistically expect from a world power of such deep fears, hostilities, and external ambitions?” In this same speech, he proffered a memorable plan when he said, “Peace is not the absence of conflict, but the ability to cope with conflict by peaceful means. I believe we can cope. I believe that the West can fashion a realistic, durable policy that will protect our interests and keep the peace, not just for this generation but for your children and your grandchildren. ….I believe such a policy consists of five points: military balance, economic security, regional stability, arms reductions, and dialog.” To read the entire text of this speech, click here: By 1984, at the Air Force Academy Commencement Exercises, the President’s tone was futuristic. Hopeful. Imaginative. “We've only seen the beginning of what a free and courageous people can do. …Your generation stands on the verge of greater advances than humankind has ever known. America's future will be determined by your dreams and your visions. And nowhere is this more true than America's next frontier -­‐-­‐ the vast frontier of space.” When he concluded, he took this important opportunity to ground his ideas in principle: “If I could leave you with one final thought, it would be to remind you again: The measure of America's future safety, progress, and greatness depends on how well you hold fast to our most precious values -­‐-­‐ values that embody the culmination of 5,000 years of Western civilization. Let your determination to make this world better and safer override all other considerations. “ By May, 1985, the process of rebuilding our American military was well underway. President Reagan’s address at the United States Naval Academy’s graduation reflected his resolve and his pride at America’s new strength: “Today as throughout our history, it is strength not weakness, resolve not vacillation that will keep the peace. It's about time that those who place their faith in wishful thinking and good intentions get the word.” 2 And he continued with a summary of exactly how our strength had improved, “…we now have 532 battle force ships in commission. In 1984 alone, the Navy took delivery of 25 ships. We currently have 102 battle force ships under construction or conversion in 21 shipyards. By the end of the decade, we'll realize our goal of a 600-­‐ship Navy, which will include 15 deployable aircraft carriers. And we've taken the steps necessary to make certain that our ships are in fighting trim and able to accomplish their mission. We've moved forward to ferret out waste and inefficiency.” Yet, he didn’t miss an opportunity to wind up with words resting on principle. “Whether we remain at peace, whether we remain free, will depend on you -­‐-­‐ on your character, your decisions, your leadership.” To read the complete text, click here: By 1987, he had two meetings with Gorbachev and as far as he was concerned, there was light at the end of the tunnel. He accepted the invitation to speak at Tuskegee University where he began by celebrating freedom. “In a free society...the individual makes the ultimate decision as to the direction of his or her life. This freedom is one of the greatest sources of strength from which this or any country can draw, a wellspring of hope that can be seen in the optimism of free people. And looking at your faces today, one cannot but have confidence in you and in our country's future. Your generation of Americans will usher the world into a new era of freedom and progress, a time when our technology and our creativity will carry us beyond anything that we can now imagine.” To read more, click here: Before the White House Our records show that as early as 1952, Ronald Reagan was on the commencement speaker circuit. Specifically, it was in the summer of ‘52 that he gave a speech called "America the Beautiful," at William Woods College in Fulton, Missouri, the same town where Winston Churchill had warned that a Soviet “iron curtain” was descending across Europe. The text has some truly lovely passages and while Reagan was still a Democrat at the time, there are hints in this speech as to his subsequent evolvement. 3 He told the graduates that America is “less of a place than an idea.” It is an idea, he said, that resided deep in the souls of men. He continued by saying, “I, in my own mind, have thought of America as a place in the divine scheme of things that was set aside as a promised land…. I believe that God in shedding his grace on this country has always in this divine scheme of things kept an eye on our land and guided it as a promised land.” It shows how Ronald Reagan saw America, its place in the world and in history. To read the entire text of this speech, click here: Five years later, at his Alma Mater, Eureka College, on June 7, 1957, he announced his goal for strategic arms reduction, words that echoed again in 1976 at the Republican National Convention, “…a hundred years from now will our children’s children learn in their schoolrooms that ... an atomic weapon was detonated for the first time on a Pacific Island?” He continued, “Today we find ourselves involved in another struggle this time called a cold war,” he said. “This cold war between great sovereign nations isn’t really a new struggle at all. It is the oldest struggle of human kind, as old as man himself. This is a simple struggle between those of us who believe that man has the dignity and sacred right and the ability to choose and shape his own destiny and those who do not so believe. This irreconcilable conflict is between those who believe in the sanctity of individual freedom and those who believe in the supremacy of the state.” “This democracy of ours which sometimes we’ve treated so lightly, is more than ever a comfortable cloak, so let us not tear it asunder, for no man knows once it is destroyed where or when he will find its protective warmth again.” Ronald Reagan continued delivering memorable commencement addresses-­‐ at Azusa Pacific University, May 5, 1975, at Mt. St. Mary's College, June 9, 1973, and at Marlborough College (Los Angeles) June 6, 1974. As Governor of California, he was the first to deliver an address at Cal-­‐Poly on June 15, 1974 where, for 67 years, no California Governor had ever accepted their invitation to speak…until Ronald Reagan. The President of Cal Poly, Robert Kennedy, was surprised by the Governor’s ability to communicate. He wrote, “A loyal democrat, I thought Reagan, a former motion picture actor, would always recite from memory speeches prepared by professional writers. His actions that day changed my mind; I almost became a Republican. While we sat next to each other on the platform waiting our turn to speak, we heard from about a dozen other people. I had written a speech, and I had practiced it for days. Reagan, on the other hand, reached inside his coat, pulled out some 5-­‐by-­‐7 cards, and a pen. While we sat, I watched as he scribbled notes on those blank cards. When he spoke, he only glanced at those cards. That’s when I changed my mind about his speaking ability and intellect. His remarks were well received by the largest audience I had ever seen in the gymnasium. I remember well one piece of advice for educators: “A college’s obligation is to teach, not indoctrinate.” Other historic American Commencement Speeches: •
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In 1932, President Herbert Hoover gave just one graduation address, speaking to students at Howard University in Washington, D.C., in 1932. Hoover had sharply increased appropriations for the university and told its students, “It is vital in a democracy that the public opinion upon which it rests shall be an informed and educated opinion.” By late spring in 1940, FDR had received impassioned pleas from the French minister to intervene after Italy had declared war on France. "On this tenth day of June, 1940," FDR said in a commencement address before his son's law school graduating class at the University of Virginia, "the hand that held the dagger has struck it 4 •
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into the back of its neighbor." The draft for this speech came from the State Department; Roosevelt inserted the sentence that so dramatically described Italy's infamy. On June 22, France capitulated and the Battle of Britain began. While Winston Churchill was clearly not an American president, he used a graduation opportunity at an American university, Westminster College, to voice one of his most important and signature expressions in his lifetime. In 1946, he told graduates at Westminster College that “an iron curtain has descended across the continent” of Europe. George C. Marshall introduced the Marshall Plan in 1947 at Harvard University’s graduation to which President Truman said, “This measure is America’s answer to the challenge facing the free world.” President John F. Kennedy used his commencement speech at American University in 1963 to announce a nuclear test-­‐ban treaty with the Soviet Union. He told the students, “Our problems are manmade—therefore, they can be solved by man. And man can be as big as he wants. No problem of human destiny is beyond human beings. Man’s reason and spirit have often solved the seemingly unsolvable—and we believe they can do it again.” President Lyndon B. Johnson, who gave 17 commencement speeches, revealed in 1964 his plans for “the Great Society” in an address at the University of Michigan where he said, “For in your time we have the opportunity to move not only toward the rich society and the powerful society, but upward to the Great Society.” After LBJ, the speeches then dwindled back to five or six until President Ronald Reagan, who delivered a dozen. Both President George H.W. Bush and his son President George W. Bush gave 23. Commencement Address Trivia •
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The nation's military academies have been the most popular backdrops for presidential addresses. The Naval Academy boasts 11. President Obama will soon boost that number to 12 graduation addresses. The U.S. Military Academy in West Point, N.Y., has had 10, the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado has had eight, and the U.S. Coast Guard Academy in Connecticut has had seven. After military academies, the most popular place for presidential commencement addresses is at the Capitol Page School in Washington, D.C., where teenagers from across the country come to serve as congressional pages. Beyond the capital, the school that can claim the most presidential graduation speeches is the University of Notre Dame, which has had five. Howard University, Yale University and Oklahoma State University have all had three. 5