I recently had the pleasure of seeing the new Unforgiven of Western films: a remake of the 1957 Delmer Daves classic, 3:10 to Yuma. It is set in the post-Civil War rural west, where Dan Evans, a poor rancher, is indebted to a local railroad owner. While herding cattle, Evans and his sons happen upon a robbery undertaken by the notorious Ben Wade. Following an encounter with Wade, Evans finds and tells the bounty hunter the likely destination of Ben Wade and his gang. After finding Wade in a saloon, they arrest him and decide to put him on a train leaving from the town of Contention for a sentencing in Yuma. At first, Evans’ only reason for going along is to earn some money, but despite this, Evans has a certain sense of duty––to his family, to his land, and to himself––which perhaps developed from within the ol’ Western code.

As Evans was about to leave his home and begin the trek to Contention, he bids farewell to his wife and sons. Alice, his wife, demands that he tell her why he needs to go on this treacherous journey. Evans says firmly and without hesitation, “Because someone has to have the decency to bring this man to justice.”

I was struck by Evans’ home-grown courage, determination, and Western decency. I thought: who could be considered our modern-day Evans? It just so happened that I was in the middle of reading The Judge: William P. Clark, Ronald Reagan’s Top Hand by Paul Kengor and Patricia Clark Doerner. Judge Bill Clark, too, had been raised in the ol’ Western culture, in Ventura County, California. He was taught the importance of faith, hard work, duty, and the rule of law. Like Evans, Clark is a reserved, yet forceful Ranchero. Clark’s upbringing in the rustic, decent West helped form his character: “The solitude, the quiet and the natural surroundings gave Clark time to think, to pray, to develop an interior life.”

In high school, Clark was like a sponge for knowledge. He attended an Augustinian preparatory school in the Ojai Valley and “received solid religious formation” where the Augustinian fathers “taught the doctrines of the faith, as well as the social teachings of the Church.” Clark’s study of papal encyclicals, especially Divini Redemptoris “left a deep impression on the young man.” Clark’s heart was stirred after reading Pope Pius XI’s sharp condemnations of communism and his call on Catholics to “prevent its spread.” He entered an Augustinian seminary after high school, but left no more than a year later believing that “he could fight communist oppression better as a layman.” Indeed he could––and did.

Clark’s fight against communism would be changed forever after meeting Ronald Reagan. In fact, Clark notes that had he never met Reagan, he would have been a “cow town lawyer” and a rancher “like the other Clarks.” Thankfully, Providence interceded and Clark began his forty year relationship with Ronald Reagan as his county campaign chairman for Governor. Reagan, now Governor, made Clark his Chief of Staff and later elevated him to the California Supreme Court.

When Reagan was elected president, he called on Clark to accompany him to Washington. Reagan “wanted people on his team who did not want to be in Washington, who had to be cajoled into the job.” The conservative idea of “citizen-politician,” Kengor and Doerner explain, dates back to a Roman statesman Cincinnatus, who leaves his farm for a time, but then “happily returns home where he continues his duties to faith, family, and community. As far as Reagan was concerned, Bill Clark embodied this ideal of the public servant.” Clark, who would rather be working on his ranch, now was Deputy Secretary of State. Clark’s black snake-skin-boots were now walking the same halls with all the silver buckled loafers. Clark was the archetypal anti-Washingtonian, now working for change in Washington.

Washington needed a change. As Reagan often succinctly put it, the malaise Jimmy Carter spoke of “was not with the people, but with Washington.” What’s more, the Soviet Union was “enemy number one.” As National Security Advisor, it was up to Bill Clark to “create the foreign policy of the United States.” Groundbreaking National Security Decision Directives were developed, especially NSDD-32, one which sought to “prevail” in the Cold War. In a controversial speech, Clark concisely described the new strategy of the United States: “We must force our principal adversary, the Soviet Union, to bear the brunt of its economic shortcomings.” NSDD-75 is another important directive, as it “aimed at liberating Eastern and Central Europe from Soviet domination.” Clark also played a “pivotal role” in establishing diplomatic ties with the Vatican, especially considering the multiple meetings Clark had with the Pontiff and his staff, exchanging intelligence concerning the underground movement in Poland.

Writers in the Soviet propaganda paper Pravda virulently condemned the new strategy. Clark was pleased, to say the least.

Although Reagan gave Clark the “steering wheel” to his foreign policy, their relationship was more than simply between a President and a national security advisor. As detailed in The Judge, Clark had an exceptional relationship with Ronald Reagan. Clark and Reagan prayed together. They were especially “fond of a prayer that both felt typified their role in regard to communist peoples and nations.” The prayer is the Universal Peace Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi: “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is doubt, faith; where there is darkness, light…” These verses of prayer helped solidify their crusade against communism.

Back in Yuma, Dan Evans and the other bounty hunters eventually make it, with Ben Wade, to Contention. They wait with Wade in a local hotel before escorting him to the train station. Before that could happen, Wade’s gang invade Contention and offer the townspeople $200 for each bounty hunter killed. The local sheriff is called on for help, but once he realizes that his men are outnumbered, he leaves the hotel saying to Evans, “Sorry Mister, I’m not gonna die here today.” As soon as the Sheriff and his men walk out the front door of the hotel with their arms raised in surrender, Wade’s gang shoots them all with indifference. Clark did not raise his arms in surrender to communism. Perhaps, the fate of the Sherriff might well had been the fate of democracy had it not been for Clark’s ol’ Western determination to challenge the evil embodied in the likes of Wade’s gang.

As Dan Evans was about to make the dangerous escort of Ben Wade to the station, he looked to his son and confidently told him: “You just remember that your old man walked Ben Wade to that station when nobody else would.” Resembling Yuma’s Dan Evans, Judge William P. Clark, Jr. made sure communism caught its 3:10 train headed for the ash heap of history.

Nicholas G. Hahn III is the President of the DePaul Conservative Alliance and a student of Political Science and Catholic Studies at DePaul University in Chicago, Illinois. Nicholas is a Phillips Foundation Ronald Reagan College Leaders Scholar and has been named among the 2006–2007 Top Ten Campus Conservative Activists by Young America’s Foundation. He is a regular columnist and editorial board member of The Chicago Daily Observer