In this display, I noticed a consistent feature - Rockwell continually portrayed the positive aspects of the contemporary culture. As the covers chronicle the years of the Great Depression, we see ordinary people vividly displayed - but pessimism and suffering are never the dominant theme. Even the covers during World War II mix patriotism and pathos realistically, but they never depress the viewer.

These paintings reminded me of one of Ronald Reagan's great strengths. President Reagan always projected a positive, optimistic image - and he, like Rockwell, did this with a populist flair that made everyone feel he was just like them. Neither man seemed to have an elitist cell anywhere in his brain.

Whether in painters, politicians, entrepreneurs, scientists or others, this is real leadership. It is the art of drawing out the very best in the human spirit from each person - the art of mobilizing the best in men. This done, the concerted actions of most men, as individuals or as a nation, take care of themselves. There is always a positive road forward or, in the case of misadventure, a usable road back. The trick is to recognize those roads regardless of often confusing circumstances.

While human beings can be motivated - for short periods of time - by playing to their baser instincts of fear, greed, and envy, demagogues who do this are generally failures who ultimately become merely unsightly litter along the highways of recorded history. It is those who bring out the best in us - not those who control us by our faults - who deserve recognition as prime builders of our civilization.

Thomas Edison was a great leader - not because he held positions of leadership, not because he had no faults, not because he was an orator - but simply because of the example he set in his work. Within those generations were John D. Rockefeller, Andrew Carnegie, and Henry Ford - each of whom accomplished specific things, but whose greater contribution to America may well have been the examples they set as to what could be done.

When men first set foot on the moon, it was not just current technologists who put them there. It was the examples set within Ameri-can society by its past generations of great entrepreneurs, inventors, engineers, and scientists that instilled the individuals and the country with the leadership by example that made them believe they really could go to the moon. John F. Kennedy deserves credit for mobilizing resources and setting a goal, but he could never have convinced Americans that they could go to the moon - regardless of his great skills of oratory. One cannot convince people of such things by lecturing to them. They were convinced - by example - by Edison, Rockefeller, Carnegie, Ford, and thousands of other individuals whoseaccomplishmentssetexamplesfortheirpeersanddescendants.

Today free men are seemingly beset on all sides by unproductive demagogues who are controlling our government and many of our people by fear, greed, and envy. These sorts of leeches have, however, always been with us. The enviros will pass. The antitechnolo-gists will pass. And those who feed upon the worst in human nature -the William Clintons and Albert Gores - will also pass. They accomplish nothing and inspire no one. Their examples are negative and unenduring. They may delay our trips to Mars; they may impede our technological revolutions in health care and longevity; and they may postpone our future in which the currency of technological progress -energy - becomes, like bandwidth on the Internet, so inexpensive that supplies are essentially infinite and effectively free - but our civilization will eventually leave them behind. We will pass them - smiling like Ronald Reagan, living as portrayed by Norman Rockwell, innovating like Thomas Edison, and refusing all goals except the great ones as did our most magnificent entrepreneurs and industrialists.