His father, Wilhelm, immigrated to the United States from Ensch, Germany, and the family of his mother, Johanna (née Jung), had been in the country one generation longer.
[2] In his youth, Regnery attached himself to a variety of social reform movements and was particularly devoted to the ideas of Henry George.
In the 1936 election, during a radio broadcast sponsored by the Democratic National Committee, he said: "It is my firm and honest belief that we are in the prosperous and enviable position we occupy today as a direct result of the policies which his administration put into operation to rescue the industrial and agricultural populations of our country from disaster and ruin.
"[2] He grew estranged from the New Deal in the late 1930s, objecting both to the growth of the government's role in the domestic economy and Roosevelt's internationalism that indicated the U.S. could intervene in a European military conflict.
Regnery was among the founders of the America First Committee, attending one of its organizing sessions in Chicago along with General Robert E. Wood and Alice Roosevelt Longworth.