Ronnie and Nancy_ Their Path to the White House - Bob Colacello [38]
Dutch did not get off to a good start at WOC, where his staff job involved “many hours of playing phonograph records, interspersed with the reading of commercials,” as well as announcing the news, weather, and sports scores, from early morning until the midnight sign-off: “This is station WOC, owned and operated by the Palmer School of Chiropractic, the Chiropractic Fountainhead, Davenport, Iowa, where the West begins Iowa: 1933–1937
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and in the state where the tall corn grows.” Advertisers complained about the novice announcer’s wooden readings, and after he neglected to plug the sponsor of a romantic organ music program, Runge Mortuary, he was fired. “It was the end of the world,” Reagan recalled feeling. Fortunately, his replacement, a local schoolteacher, demanded a contract, and, as Reagan put it, “WOC was not in the habit of giving contracts.” The teacher quit, and Reagan was rehired temporarily until a new replacement could be found. “I was mad, didn’t give a damn,” he recalled, and so he read his next commercial “freely, easily and with a pretty good punch. There was no more talk of a replacement.”23
Advertising was gospel at WOC, which was run by “Colonel” B. J.
Palmer, the son of D. D. Palmer, the mesmerist turned chiropractor who had founded the Palmer School at the turn of the century and the radio station in 1922.24 One of the Colonel’s favorite mottoes was “Early to bed, early to rise; Work like hell—and advertise.” Another was “Only mints can make money without advertising.”25 He was also fond of proclaiming, in lectures on salesmanship he gave throughout the Midwest, “Get the big idea and all else follows,” “Sell yourself in all your business approaches,” and
“Smile your voice!” The Palmers lived in a mansion next to the school; their
“world famous collection of spines” was housed on the third floor. The small garden between the buildings was called “A Little Bit O’ Heaven.”26 Reagan leaves B. J. Palmer out of his books, probably because he considered him too weird: he had a full beard and long flowing hair, which he washed once a year; he slept with his head pointed toward the North Pole; and his late Saint Bernard, Big Ben, which had been stuffed, was kept under the piano.27
Nonetheless, one can’t help but think that the Colonel’s assortment of peppy slogans, which were hung in the hallways of the school and radio station, had their effect on the future actor and politician.
Two years before Reagan went to WOC, Palmer had bought WHO, a larger station affiliated with NBC, in Des Moines, the state capital. He spent close to $250,000 upgrading its technical capabilities, making it one of only fifteen stations in the country with a 50,000-watt transmitter.
WHO’s 532-foot antenna tower was the tallest structure in Iowa, and its broadcasts could be heard throughout the Midwest.28 In April 1933, MacArthur sent Dutch to Des Moines to broadcast the Drake Relays, a major national amateur track event held annually at Drake College. (Like Eureka, Drake was a Disciples of Christ institution, but eight times larger.)29
The following month MacArthur was transferred to WHO, and he took 6 4
Ronnie and Nancy: Their Path to the White House Dutch with him as chief sports announcer. MacArthur would become the younger man’s Iowa mentor, following in the line of Reverend Cleaver and Sid Altschuler. According to Reagan, MacArthur had come to America from Scotland with the celebrated Harry Lauder’s vaudeville troupe; he eventually found his way to the Palmer School of Chiropractic, where he sought relief from his crippling arthritis, and was taken on as one of WOC’s first announcers. (His strong Highland burr became his on-air trademark.) By the time Reagan met him, he was walking with two canes, and would soon be on crutches.30
At WHO, Dutch’s salary was doubled to $200 a month; a year