In 1984 seventh-grader Andy Smith wrote to President Ronald Reagan formally requesting federal funds to clean up the mess after his mother declared his room a disaster area. President Reagan responded to the request with the following letter:
Dear Andy:I'm sorry to be so late in answering your letter but as you know I've been in China and found your letter here upon my return.Your application for disaster relief has been duly noted but I must point out one technical problem: the authority declaring the disaster is supposed to make the request. In this case your mother.However setting that aside I'll have to point out the larger problem of available funds. This has been a year of disasters, 539 hurricanes as of May 4th and several more since, numerous floods, forest fires, drought in Texas and a number of earthquakes. What I'm getting at is that funds are dangerously low.May I make a suggestion? This administration, believing that government has done many things that could better be done by volunteers at the local level, has sponsored a Private Sector Initiative program, calling upon people to practice voluntarism in the solving of a number of local problems.Your situation appears to be a natural. I'm sure your mother was fully justified in proclaiming your room a disaster. Therefore you are in an excellent position to launch another volunteer program to go along with the more than 3,000 already underway in our nation—congratulations.Give my best regards to your mother.Sincerely,Ronald Reagan
For more letters from Ronald Reagan click here.
4 comments:
I miss him.
I had the honour, privilege and pleasure of working with the President in his first term. He was an extraordinarily fine fellow on multiple levels.
Scout
Oddly, I was NEVER a Reagan fan, thinking somewhat of him as I did the 42nd POUSA, however, I appreciated the39th and 41st, which I guess makes me a true oddball or contrarian. However this is just sweet, and I've ALWAYS appreciated when those of great power show a humility we can relate.
While my mom could certainly have made such a request, I think it great when world leaders "put on their pants one leg at a time, as the rest of us."
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Though I preferred QEII first turn down the "joke" wedding invite to Buckingham last year, only to show up. But she is more a figurehead than POUSA in this century, also more elder now than RR then, so a wisdom to say "bump it, the younger think this is important [fill in blank], but now that I'd old, wisdom says this which in my youth I might disregard is truly what matters.
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