This page was last updated on July 5, 2004.

Reagan wasn't that great; Lonzie Cox, Jr.; Beaver County Times; June 27, 2004.  I am not related to Mr. Cox.

I responded with a letter entitled (by the Times) Reagan critique doesn't fly published on July 5, 2004.  The letter as I submitted it is below.

In his letter “Reagan wasn’t that great” (June 27), Lonzie Cox, Jr., repeats flawed Democrat talking points.

President Reagan, himself a former union president, fired striking air traffic controllers because they reneged on the no-strike clause of the PATCO contract.  Congress made strikes like this a crime in 1955.  Thus, striking controllers broke both their word and the law.

Regarding Mr. Cox’s steel industry claim, blaming President Reagan for steel’s collapse is like blaming an emergency room doctor for the death of a DOA patient.

Mr. Cox called Reagan a racist partly because of his Neshoba County Fair “states’ rights” speech.  For the record, Reagan didn’t announce his “presidential run” in this speech as Mr. Cox claimed.  Reagan accepted the GOP nomination nearly three weeks earlier in Detroit.

It’s true some persons looking for racism consider states’ rights as code for segregation.  History shows Reagan meant states’ rights.  Mr. Cox didn’t mention Reagan spoke two days later before the Urban League, a predominantly black civil rights organization, and paid a hospital visit to its president, Vernon Jordan.

Mr. Cox claimed the Reagan administration was “especially brutal” if you were black.  The following were among the points cited in a recent column by black syndicated columnist Larry Elder.¹

• From 1982 to 1989, adult and teenager unemployment decreased over twice as fast for blacks as it did for whites.
• During the 1980s, household income increased by 84% for blacks, 68% for whites.
• During the 1980s, the number of black-owned businesses increased 38%, nearly three times the overall increase of 14%.  Black-owned business revenue more than doubled to nearly $20 billion.

Elder concluded his column by writing, “If this is ‘torture,’ more, please – and a side of fries.”

If Reagan was a racist, he wasn’t very good at it.

1. Did Ronald Reagan 'torture' blacks?; Larry Elder; Townhall.com; June 17, 2004.

© 2004 Robert W. Cox, all rights reserved.