Remarks to the Students and Faculty of Archbishop Carroll and A... https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/documents/remarks-the-student...

school, and I always had a dream that one

day the President of the United States might
come visit our school. Of course, every time
we invited him, President Washington said he
was busy. [Laughter]

By the way, a certain friend of mine has a

message she wanted me to send you. Please,
for your families, for your friends, for your
country, and for yourselves: Just say no to
drugs and alcohol.

Cardinal Hickey, Bishop Corrada, Father

O'Malley, Sister Marcella Scully, Secretary
Cavazos, and Dan Curtain—just before I
came out here, my good friend Cardinal
Hickey took me to view the altar before which
Archbishop Carroll celebrated Mass. I was
deeply honored that Cardinal Hickey gave me
the opportunity to see where that great
American man of God worshiped.

America's first bishop was a scholar, a

patriot, a good shepherd in our nation's
founding years. Saint Thomas Aquinas once
wrote about qualities that marked the
character of Archbishop Carroll. "Three
things," he said, "are necessary for the
salvation of man: to know what he ought to
believe, to know what he ought to desire, and
to know what he ought to do." I have come
here today as a temporal leader, a man
concerned with the affairs of state and the
course of the country. And yet I have come to
tell you, my young friends, that in all my
years of public life, I have found that what
Aquinas tells us is necessary for the salvation
of man is also necessary for the strength and
happiness of nations.

Now, we're in the middle of an election

campaign, and everything I say is likely to be
taken as political. But then, even if I don't talk
about where I stand, it's sort of like the story
of a CIA agent who was sent to contact
another agent in Ireland. He didn't know the
other agent, but he was told that his name
was Murphy and that to establish their
contact he was to say, "It's a beautiful day
today, but it will be a greater day tomorrow."
So, he made his way to this tiny town by the

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sea and walked into the local pub and said to

the bartender, "I'm looking for a man named
Murphy." And the bartender said, "Well, if it's
Murphy that bootmaker you want, he's
across the street on the second floor. If it's
Murphy the farmer, he's just a mile down the
road and on the left-hand side. And then my
name is Murphy." And the agent said, "Well,
it's a beautiful day today and it'll be a better
day tomorrow." "Ah," said the bartender, "it's
Murphy the spy you want." [Laughter]

So, you know where I stand even if I don't say

so. But I hope you won't mind if, for the most
part, I set aside the election. What I have to
say to you today has to do not with the day-
to-day politics but with the enduring truths
that mold men and women and move
nations; truths like faith, hope, and love. And,
as Paul tells us, "The greatest of these is
love."

I've found there are two kinds of people in

this world: those absorbed in themselves and
those who give love—love to their families, to
their friends, to their communities, to their
country, and to God. Yes, we show love in
many ways: by saying we love, of course, and
by putting our arms around someone, but
even more, by how we live, by our courtesy,
by our integrity, by studying and preparing
for the future, and by service to humanity.
Add it all up, and you'd say: by our values.

Some in our age are inclined to say, "Well,

that's okay, but not very important. So, what
else is new?" But this is important, and in
many ways, it's also new. The American
political philosopher James Q. Wilson has
written that the most important change that
he has seen since the mid-sixties in scholarly
thinking about how to make our country
better is the new understanding, as he put it:
"Public interest depends on private virtue."

And to take just one area—education-

Catholic schools across America are showing
that private virtue and public interest do
indeed live together. Yes, you have two of the
best schools in this city, and you're some of
the best students in this city. And what's true

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of you—how you stand out—is also true of

the students of Catholic schools in most
cities. Isn't that because you're not only
learning the ABC's but also about right and
wrong, good and evil, and the nature of God's
love?

Your prayers, your dress code, your religious

studies, your service to your community-all
go hand in hand with your academic
achievement. The public interest in your
education depends on the private virtues
you're learning, or as Aquinas might have
said, it depends on you acquiring the
elements of personal salvation.

Now, I don't want you to think I'm just talking

here. I've heard a lot about your
accomplishments. And I couldn't help
remembering something General George C.
Marshall said when he was asked why he was
so certain that we would win the Second
World War. And General Marshall said, "We
have a secret weapon: the best blankety-
blank kids in the world." And when I was told
about all you do, I thought America still has a
secret weapon. And it's still the best blankety-
blank kids in the world.

It amazes me that while you're exploring the

mysteries of God's love and all that goes with
it and showing how this exploration goes
hand in hand with getting a good education,
others around our nation deny the public
importance of the private virtues that you are
mastering. If you can believe it, not long ago
one State chapter of a national activist
organization said that for public schools to
teach the idea that fidelity in marriage is a
traditional American value would be
unconstitutional since, as they said, these
values are rooted in religion.

Well, God's love shows most strongly, of

course, in the greatest gift of all: the gift of
life. And here, as you know, there is great
resistance to any talk about values. Recently,
those who call themselves pro-choice have
taken to discussing children who might be
born deformed. Perhaps it would be better,
they say, to spare the infant the struggle of

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life. I can't help thinking of Christy Nolan,

who earlier this year, received one of the
world's most coveted literary awards. Why
Christy Nolan? Well, you see, there were
complications at his birth, and he almost
died. And there were some who suggested
that he should be allowed to. But doctors
saved him, only in the process he was left
totally paralyzed. He cannot walk, talk, or
control his limbs. He writes using what he
calls a unicorn stick attached to his forehead,
pecking out his words on a typewriter, a page
a day. In his message accepting the award,
Christy Nolan wrote, in that manner,
"Imagine what I would have missed if the
doctors had not revived me on that
September day long ago." Well, imagine what
so many, denied the right to life, have
missed. Imagine what we've all missed for
their absence. Think of the cost to all of us
because of the denial in public life of this
most basic of values. I can't help wondering if
those who call themselves pro-choice have
ever stopped to think that the fetus, the
unborn child, never has a choice.

In no area is the importance of private virtue

to the public interest clearer than in another
area: the area of drug abuse. When we came
into office 8 years ago, we found a drug
epidemic that few in the Government
seemed to care much about. We started
arresting and sending to jail drug dealers and
drug kingpins in larger and larger numbers.
In the last 8 years, Federal narcotics
convictions have more than doubled, and we
have seized tons of cocaine and tens of
thousands of tons of marijuana. And there's
other good news, too. After much prodding,
pushing, and bludgeoning from us, a
reluctant Congress is expected to pass a
tough, new drug bill in the next few days. It
would give our law enforcement officers new
and better tools for helping them protect us
all. And, to help protect the lives of the
innocent, it would provide for the death
penalty for those who commit murder in the
course of a drug-related crime. I hope this
means our liberal congressional friends are
dropping their nostalgia for the do-your-own-
thing-in-your- own-time-baby sixties and are

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joining us whole-heartedly in this fight

against drugs.

But important as all this government activity

has been, for my money the turning point in
the fight against illegal drugs came when a
certain little lady opened her heart and spoke
with a mother's love to America's young
people. Her message was simple: Have the
courage of the values that God placed in your
soul. I've told this story before. Nancy was in
Oakland, California, some time back speaking
in a schoolroom, and a little girl stood up and
said, "But what do we do when someone
offers us drugs?" And Nancy said, "Just say
no." Today there are over 12,000 Just Say No
clubs in schools across the country. You
know something? While the number of drug
users soared during the 4 years before we
took office, it's dropping now. And earlier this
year we got the best news of all: High school
students are saying no to drugs, including
cocaine, as never before.

But what Nancy has been saying to so many

young people is what the priests, the nuns,
and the teachers say to you each day: that
you must have values to guide your lives. Too
often values aren't taught, or can't be taught,
in our public schools. But they are taught
here. And may I say, because you're here,
each of you is greatly privileged. But with
each gift goes an obligation, and yours is to
act as examples to your friends who aren't as
fortunate to go to these schools and who
may be tempted by those who would lead
them astray.

I know that your parents all make great

sacrifices so that you can come here. It's a
measure of their love for you. For years I've
been urging Congress to recognize the public
interest in your education and to allow your
parents to support your education either
through tuition tax credits or vouchers. We
need a Congress that shares and supports
the values of the American people. We hear
the cry, "But what values do you mean?" Well,
that's easy, just for starters: Love thy
neighbor as thyself.

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In this past Lenten season, the Holy Father

invited Cardinal Hickey to give the yearly
retreat for him and his household-an honor
never before accorded to an American priest
or bishop. In his meditations, the Cardinal
said, "To obey God, the author of our
freedom, is to respect our freedom." And he
added, "In the logic of the Gospel, harmony
with God's will is the true definition of
history."

So, this is my message to you, as a secular

leader, but also as a man standing in humility
before God: to seek what the Cardinal calls
true freedom, to reach for what Aquinas
called the necessities of salvation. For if you
do, if these lessons become part of the
instruction you carry with you when you end
your studies here, America will be stronger;
the world will be better; and there will be no
limits to what, in this sweet land of liberty,
you can do with your lives.

Let me just, if I can, say a few words on my

own about this nation of ours. You know, I
received a letter. We're quite unique. I
received a letter from a man one day. He
pointed out something I had never thought
of. He said, "You can go to live in France; you
cannot become a Frenchman. You can go to
live in Germany or Spain, and you cannot
become a German or a Spaniard." And he
went on, naming Japan, China, and other
countries. But he said, "Anyone from any
corner of the world can come to America and
become an American." And this country is the
only one you can say has that peculiar
melding of people together, revealing as no
other area ever has, that we are all the sons
and daughters of God.

You know, I don't say this very often, and

sometimes people may call it mysticism. But I
have always believed that there was some
divine power and plan that placed this great
continent between the two great oceans to
be found only by people who had that extra
love of freedom and that courage within their
hearts to uproot themselves from their
native land; leave, many times, family and
friends; but to come here and to create this

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nation that we have created for ourselves

here. I have to believe that that is true, just as
I believe that Lincoln spoke the truth I've
learned in these 8 years as never before
when he said, "I could not perform the
functions of this office for 15 minutes if I did
not know that I could call upon one who is
stronger and wiser than all others." Thank
you all. God bless you all.

Note: The President spoke at 10:56 a.m. in the

gymnasium of Archbishop Carroll High School.
He was introduced by James Cardinal Hickey,
Archbishop of Washington, DC. In his opening
remarks, the President referred to Bishop Alvaro
Corrada, Auxiliary Bishop of Washington; Father
John P. O'Malley, principal of Archbishop Carroll
High School; Sister Marcella Scully, principal of
All Saints High School; Secretary of Education
Lauro F. Cavazos; and Daniel F. Curtain,
secretary of Catholic education for the
Archdiocese of Washington, DC.

Ronald Reagan, Remarks to the Students and

Faculty of Archbishop Carroll and All Saints
High Schools Online by Gerhard Peters and
John T. Woolley, The American Presidency
Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu
/node/253605

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