Default select option in struts 1 behaves pretty strange. As user159088 mentioned "value" parameter is responsible for setting default value. But it works only for hardcode:
<html:select name="myForm" property="formField.enabled" title="Enabled" styleId="enabled" value="false">
<html:option value="true">true</html:option>
<html:option value="false">false</html:option>
</html:select>
Code snippet above works good - false value selected by default. But "formField.enabled" in value parameter doesn't work:
<html:select name="myForm" property="formField.enabled" title="Enabled" styleId="enabled" value="formField.enabled">
<html:option value="true">true</html:option>
<html:option value="false">false</html:option>
</html:select>
Removing value parameter works good in this case - struts check value from property parameter and select this value by default.