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 The Real Reagan
Think you know what made him tick? His letters may surprise you |
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E-mail your letter to the editor
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| On a Messy Room and the Limits of Government |
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Andy Smith, a seventh-grader in Irmo, S.C., wrote the President in
1984, "Today my mother declared my bedroom a disaster area. I would
like to request federal funds to hire a crew to clean up my room." |
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Dear Andy:
I'm sorry to be so late in answering your letter but as you know I've
been in China . . .
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 . . .
Sincerely,
Ronald Reagan
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