Over the past few days, more than one hundred thousand Americans have stood in line in California for 12 hours or more to pay their respects to President Ronald Reagan. This great show of respect and affection will be repeated during the coming days here in Washington. This overwhelming outpouring cannot be explained by merely citing the traits for which he was so well known: his likeability, his wit and optimism, his courage when attacked by a would-be assassin's bullet or, at the end, a devastating disease, or even his skills as a "Great Communicator." Americans are standing in line because of Ronald Reagan's ideas, and the convictions and principles that gave those ideas their power. The God-given right to freedom, responsibility for one's own actions, and charity toward others: the very ideas that are the foundation of this great nation were the foundation of Ronald Reagan's character. He became President at a time when the world had begun to question the strength of that foundation. It was a time when freedom, balanced by personal responsibility and justified by charity, was in danger of becoming just one of many ways human society could be organized. Rather than appease or accommodate communism, he confronted it and exposed its moral bankruptcy. He emboldened freedom-loving people everywhere - those behind the Iron Curtain and those in danger of being enveloped in it -- and gave them faith and strength. He believed, as he said in his first Inaugural Address that, "No weapon in the arsenals of the world is so formidable as the will and moral courage of free men and women." And he was right. He became President at a time when America had begun to question its place in the world and the values upon which this nation was built. He opened the gate of the American spirit. He tore down the wall of doubt. Ronald Reagan was a great communicator because Ronald Reagan had something great to communicate. He was the right man for his time; now he belongs to the ages. He will be missed, but his ideas will always be with us.