Reagan

by Bob Spitz

  All this talk might have served to unsettle Mugs, who as a minister’s daughter took a dim view of the bohemian lifestyle. Actors were gadabouts. They had shaky prospects for success. And Dutch already walked a fine line. “He was an indifferent student,” Mugs recalled, “although I always knew he was a leader.”

  Their dream had been to teach—Mugs instructing an elementary school class, Dutch running the phys-ed department. But somewhere along the way, for Dutch, that dream’s luster had dimmed. He’d taken a good, hard look at Coach McKinzie and “wanted more than he had.” He acknowledged, “I was afraid. . . . I might end up an athletic teacher at some small school, raising little football heroes.” Not that it would have been a bad choice—“for some people.” But it wasn’t acting.

  Dutch and Mugs could still make it work. Dutch was so certain of it that he decided to seal their relationship by “hanging” his fraternity pin on her, a gesture tantamount to an engagement, especially for a young man who couldn’t afford a ring.

  He did the deed one evening that spring in the backseat of Dean Harrod’s green Buick. Dutch and Mugs were on a double date with Harrod’s daughter, Mary Eleanor, and her boyfriend, Harry Marshall, a TKE frater. As they were returning to campus, Dutch got up his nerve. It wasn’t just the pin, but a proper marriage proposal.

  If it took Mugs by surprise, she didn’t flinch. Presumably, she had made up her mind about Dutch long before that evening. She never undertook any important decision without the approval of her parents, and she knew all along they would give it their blessing. Her father regarded Dutch like a son; from the outset, he was practically a member of their family. And she loved Dutch. Without any hesitation, she accepted his pin to cries of congratulations from the front seat.

  How the news was greeted back in Dixon by Dutch’s parents was another matter. Jack and Nelle’s marriage was a shambles. They’d long maintained separate bedrooms, and by the spring of 1930 they were living separate lives. Jack hardly spent a night at home anymore. In January, he’d gotten a job with the Red Wing Shoe Company as a traveling salesman, operating out of Springfield. It was a godsend; they were practically broke. The $260 monthly salary was more than enough to get by on. But the demands of the job kept Jack pretty much on the road, where there was unfettered access to alcohol and worse. Rumors persisted of another woman—women. And these excesses siphoned off a chunk of his paycheck before any of it found a way back home.

  By the time Dutch got home from school for the summer, his parents had moved to a new, more affordable place—not even a house, just two rooms they sublet—at 226 Lincoln Way, still on the north side of town. There were few amenities, not even a kitchen. Whatever food Nelle prepared was cooked on a bedroom hot plate, but even that was hardly put to use. Helen Kennedy, who lived in the house just behind them, remembered how her grandmother made extra portions of her own dinner so that Nelle and Jack would enjoy a hot meal once in a while. Their front door had a panel of sliding screens. “Nelle would open the top screen,” she recalled, “and we would hand the food through.”

  Dutch went back to work at Lowell Park, but instead of saving for next year’s tuition, most of his pay went to helping out at home. Dixon, like most of the Midwest, was hit hard by the Depression. The city was ravaged by unemployment, and according to an article in the Dixon Evening Telegraph, “near starvation stalked the community.” Transients begged on the streets. More than 350 families were officially destitute, with five times that number seeking relief—groceries, clothing, and coal—from the Dixon Welfare Association and the American Legion. Newman’s Garage offered bread and coffee to the jobless who queued up each morning. A Community Kitchen, supported by donations from citizens, opened a soup kitchen in a building behind the Dixon Theater. And a Paul Rader Pantry of Plenty, backed by nineteen local churches and patriotic organizations, was launched at Assembly Park, where ten huge steam-pressure cookers were used to can huge quantities of food for distribution to the needy.

  Jack and Nelle put up a good front. Friends and neighbors recalled that they were “always well dressed,” with two sons in college and a roof over their heads. All around them the devastation left its mark. Dixon was surrounded by farming country, which was reeling from years of plunging crop prices. During 1931, foreclosures hit an all-time high, with almost four thousand American families thrown off farms by the government. The John Deere Company announced the closing of six plants. The Reynolds Wire factory, a pillar of Dixon’s economic strength, was laying off one production line after another.

  Eureka College was in even worse shape, its financial situation dire. To make ends meet for the coming year, an emergency “Eureka Plan” was initiated, requiring every student to pitch in by taking over routine services at the library and cafeteria as well as helping out at the heating plant and doing heavy maintenance around the grounds. They would also have to put in time at the farm that endowed the school, which meant milking the cows and harvesting crops whose proceeds covered faculty salaries.

  Dutch pledged to do his share, and with help from a Disciples of Christ loan he was able to register for his junior year. Many of his classmates found similar ways to return, determined to continue their education despite the ongoing hardship. The first week in September 1930 the campus was buzzing with energy that signaled the start of another school year. Everyone was primed and ready to go except for one significant absence: Margaret Cleaver.

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  According to most accounts, Margaret, a straight-A student, found the coursework unchallenging and opted to take a semester or two at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. It seemed an odd choice for a gifted young woman who was also the president of her class. “If you were going to do a semester away,” says a Eureka professor, “you don’t just go down the road to U. of I.” There was Northwestern or the University of Chicago, with arguably more challenging curricula, or even nearby Drake, its religious orientation more suited to someone with Margaret’s background. And financial considerations. With three daughters in college it was difficult for the Cleavers to bear up under such an expense. Like Dutch, Margaret required that a sizable portion of her tuition be covered by a Eureka scholarship.

  Were the courses at the University of Illinois that much superior? There is a transcript in Margaret’s file at Eureka, allegedly from the University of Illinois, indicating that she took Intermediate French, Intro to Comparative Literature, American Lit., Geology 1, the History of Education, Rhetoric, and Educational Psychology—all courses that were offered at Eureka. It would seem superfluous, if profligate, to take them at the U. of I. And odd, given that her new fiancé was back at Eureka.

  In fact, she didn’t. The University of Illinois has no record of Margaret Cleaver’s ever attending the school. Its chief archivist exhausted every possible avenue in search of her records—the morgue files, the student files, and the university’s microfilm collection of transcripts—without finding any trace of her. “There is no matriculation record that she ever enrolled at the University of Illinois,” he says. “The transcript, if accurate, must originate from some other institution.” In any case, for a six-month period—from September 1930 to the spring of 1931—her whereabouts are unexplained, a period referred to by a Eureka College official as “the disappearance of Margaret.”

  Where was she if she wasn’t at the U. of I.? It is possible that during the height of the Depression the Cleavers were unable to afford the remainder of her tuition. Margaret could have been kept home in Dixon for a semester until there was enough money to resume her education. But there are other explanations. While searching for answers in Eureka’s voluminous archives, a college official speculated that “she could have gone away to have a child—or an abortion.” There was a nearby facility called the Baby Fold in Bloomington-Normal, a town halfway between Eureka and Urbana-Champaign, that was noted for “taking on and finding homes for adopted babies from sorority
girls from Northwestern and some of the smaller Illinois schools.” Was a dummy transcript placed in her Eureka file to preserve her reputation? It remains a possibility.

  Margaret’s reappearance at Eureka for the spring semester in 1931 also invites speculation. No longer was she residing with other students in the dormitory, where she had lived the first two years, but in a house a few hundred yards off campus, with her parents. In the interim marking Margaret’s “disappearance,” Ben Hill Cleaver relinquished his congregation in Dixon to become pastor of the Eureka Christian Church, a much smaller parish firmly rooted in the social gospel. The hastily arranged move created an impression that the Cleavers wanted to keep a closer grip on their daughter.

  Another clue in the mystery was a postscript on Margaret’s college transcript noting that she took General Zoology in the summer of 1932, a month after her graduation from Eureka. Had she taken this “for fun,” as a current college official speculates, or was it rather “as a make-up course and . . . condition of being allowed to [graduate] with her class”? It seems likely that if Margaret had taken a semester off she might be several credits short at the end of four years.

  Whatever the reason, Mugs returned to pursue a regular load of classes at Eureka, where she and Dutch were a couple for the remainder of their college careers.

  By his junior year, Dutch was a hugely popular student on campus, even if scholarship continued to elude him. He was a BMOC, no longer the “cocky SOB.” whose motormouth had inflamed the strike with bombast and swagger, but more of an all-around guy, whom classmates remembered for his affability and unselfishness. Image as well as charm impressed. He had a way of presenting himself that was natural but alluring: an easy smile, a silvery voice, arresting pale-blue eyes. He had lost the physical awkwardness that trailed his adolescence. He stood, solid and muscular, inching past six feet tall, with “absurdly handsome” well-set features that retained their boyishness while suggesting virility. His face had what a casting director might call “character,” dominated by a good jaw and luminous complexion. An affectation he’d adopted—smoking a Yachtsman-style pipe—lent an airbrushed intellect to an otherwise unbookish bent.

  Dutch’s grades junior year were dismal; he eked out two B-minuses to go with an array of C’s and D’s. Even so, the mediocre grades weren’t the only story. A trove of his writing exists from that period, revealing an enlightened, imaginative thinker. When he dealt with interests close to his heart—as he did in an essay entitled “This Younger Generation,” which received a worthy ninety-six (although he might have earned a perfect hundred had the professor not marked the paper “late”)—he demonstrated a breezy, unlabored style, wry and engaging commentary, and a note of authenticity. Another example—“Sweet Young Things,” about “the fair, and sometimes not so fair sex”—earned a respectable ninety (also “late”). Dutch could express himself eloquently. But he was too distracted, often too lazy, as shown on many of his compositions by the many misspellings, scratched-out phrases, and doodles, lots of doodles.

  Football loomed too large. By his junior year, Dutch figured into the starting lineup with regularity. Coach Mac didn’t mince words: “He was no star”—simple as that. He wasn’t big enough, strong enough, fast enough, or selfish enough to reach that level. But what Dutch had was spirit. He was a team player. And when pressed, Mac had to admit “he was a pretty good leader, strong in cooperation, self-discipline, self-sacrifice and determination.”

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  His senior year, one remarkable football play that involved Ronald Reagan occurred off the field. In October, the Golden Tornadoes traveled north for an away game against archrival Elmhurst College. It was a decisive point in the season. “Elmhurst hadn’t lost a game, and we hadn’t lost a game,” recalled Franklin Burghardt, the team’s center. In the minds of most players, the trip promised to be a lark. It meant an overnight stay at a hotel.

  Not this time. It didn’t turn out as planned. The Eureka team was an anomaly. It was integrated—Burghardt was one of two current black players on the squad—as early as 1921. (By comparison, the University of Illinois did not integrate its football team until 1943.) And the Midwest was a hotbed of racial prejudice. According to a Eureka student from Dutch’s class, “There were many towns in Southern Illinois where segregation was as bad as it was in the South.” In fact, many of the Golden Tornadoes were from Kewanee, where the local paper routinely printed ads that stated “Klansman, Klanswomen, Kiddies and Friends—Kome to Kiwanee Kounty,” and promoted events boasting the “Largest and Highest Fiery Cross.” Closer to Eureka, Pekin—a town that produced Everett Dirksen—had a noted Klan community well into the 1970s.

  None of this was taken into account when the team bus pulled into a hotel in downtown LaSalle, halfway between Eureka and Elmhurst. Coach McKinzie went inside to make arrangements, while the team waited on board. After what seemed like a ridiculous amount of time had passed, Dutch went into the lobby to see what the problem was. The problem was Burgie and Jim Rattan—“your two colored boys,” as the hotel manager put it. They weren’t setting foot inside. Nor, he said, would any other hotel in town take them. Everyone else—every white player—was welcome.

  Mac’s solution was for the team to sleep on the bus, but Dutch interceded. “Mac, if you do that, it will be worse for [Burgie and Jim],” he said. Instead, he suggested Coach tell the players that there wasn’t enough room in the hotel for everyone, that they’d have to split up. Dixon was only thirty miles away—if it was all right with Mac, he’d take a cab there with Burghardt and Rattan. They’d be welcome to stay overnight at his home. That way, no one would be the wiser.

  It was a noble and altogether sincere gesture—although sleeping on the bus in the hotel parking lot might have made a more provocative point. In any case, it didn’t fool Burghardt or Rattan. Burgie knew the score before Dutch ever left the bus. He’d experienced discrimination for as long as he could remember, especially throughout the Midwest. “You never knew when you were going to walk in the door of a restaurant and the man would say, ‘We can’t serve you here,’” he said. Dutch knew it, too. Even on the playing field, he acknowledged, black players “took an awful lot of abuse.”

  History never mentions whether Moon took part in the incident. The older Reagan brother seems to have disappeared from the football squad’s archives, as well as Dutch’s account of his later years at Eureka. There is little doubt that Neil Reagan remained at the college. He was an A student, an active brother in the TKE fraternity, and a tuba player in the college marching band. “On campus, he was a legendary character much like Jack,” a friend recalled. In only one instance does Dutch allude to encountering Moon at school. It had to do with a Golden Tornadoes contest in Springfield in the fall of 1931. After the game, which Eureka lost, they decided to pay a surprise visit to Jack, who had left Red Wing Shoes for a job managing a shoe store in East Springfield. It seemed like the perfect position for their father and triggered memories of his various tenures in Tampico, Galesburg, Monmouth, and Dixon. They couldn’t wait to see him in all his glory, crouched over a chorus line of customers’ feet, with his cocky smile and marvelous gift of gab. But when they arrived, instead of seeing him in the deluxe emporium Jack had described, they found him bumping around a deserted, squalid excuse for a shoe store, a “hole-in-the-wall,” as Dutch recalled it, “with garish orange paper ads plastered over the windows in front and one cheap bench.” The scene must have broken their hearts.

  This was the end of the line for Jack. He’d burned bridges at shoe stores across Illinois. He’d run out of money, out of luck. His marriage had hit a wall. Despite his pitiful circumstances, he still managed to put a good face on things. Coach McKinzie recalled how the boys brought Jack back to join the team for dinner at a dormitory where they were staying outside Springfield. You’d never have known Jack’s pitiful situation from the way he commandeered the spotlight. “A gifted story
teller,” he held court all night. By Mac’s account, “he started telling stories when they sat down and was still talking when the boys walked him down to the door.”

  Jack couldn’t talk his way around his lousy luck. In December, with the family reunited on Christmas Eve, he suffered another setback. The Reagans had downsized again—to a tiny second-floor apartment on Monroe Street, back on Dixon’s South Side. Everyone had gathered in the small parlor, the family’s grim circumstances evident in the sad attempt at Christmas cheer. There was no money for a tree. In a pinch, Nelle had arranged a few homemade decorations across part of a coffee table as a stand-in for a tree. As Dutch remembered it, “Moon and I were headed out on dates when a special delivery [letter] arrived for Jack.” A last-minute gift? He’d been holding out hope for a year-end bonus. Instead, the envelope contained a single blue sheet. “Well, that’s a hell of a Christmas present,” he said. “I’ve been laid off.”

  This new blow to the family’s fortunes made a powerful impression on Ronald Reagan at a crucial moment in his life. With graduation only six months away, his father’s latest dismissal impressed upon Dutch the need to create his own future. He was now old enough to understand the dysfunctional dynamics of the life his parents had made. His father was too unreliable to hold a job; they’d moved five times in ten years. Stronger than any lesson Dutch learned in college was the knowledge that he needed to cultivate the qualities essential to creating a rewarding life: steady personal habits and clear-eyed focus on success. Charm was fine if it was applied to getting ahead. He determined that his life couldn’t be the life that his parents led. He loved them, but Dutch needed to escape from this grinding cycle. He couldn’t spend his life eking out a bare existence, stumbling from one lame opportunity to the next. He had to forge a different future for himself, something more meaningful—and stable. After he finished his education, he couldn’t look back.