The following is an email forwarded to me by a reader, with the winsome hope that we can find a modern day Harry Truman. What are your thoughts?
Harry Truman was a different kind of President. He probably made as many, or more important decisions regarding our nation’s history as any of the other 42 Presidents preceding him. However, a measure of his greatness may rest on what he did after he left the White House.
The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence Missouri . His wife had inherited the house from her mother and father and other than their years in the White House, they lived their entire lives there.
When he retired from office in 1952, his income was a U.S. Army pension reported to have been $13,507.72 a year. Congress, noting that he was paying for his stamps and personally licking them, granted him an ‘allowance’ and, later, a retroactive pension of $25,000 per year.
After President Eisenhower was inaugurated, Harry and Bess drove home to Missouri by themselves. There was no Secret Service following them.
When offered corporate positions at large salaries, he declined, stating, “You don’t want me. You want the office of the President, and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale.”
Even later, on May 6, 1971, when Congress was preparing to award him the Medal of Honor on his 87th birthday, he refused to accept it, writing, “I don’t consider that I have done anything which should be the reason for any award, Congressional or otherwise.”
As president he paid for all of his own travel expenses and food.
Modern politicians have found a new level of success in cashing in on the Presidency, resulting in untold wealth. Today, many in Congress also have found a way to become quite wealthy while enjoying the fruits of their offices. Political offices are now for sale. (sic. Illinois )
Good old Harry Truman was correct when he observed, “My choices in life were either to be a piano player in a whore house or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference!”
I say dig him up and clone him!!
I’m reminded of the endless parties and fetes thrown for a certain, local Good Ol’ Boy and “volunteer” after he was bitch-slapped by the Idaho Attorney General. The mettle of our local “heroes” certainly is much different from the stuff Truman was made of.
Comment by Dan — June 4, 2010 @ 7:48 am
Remember the saying, “Give ’em hell Harry”? President Truman lived in a time when moral turpitude and ethics were the norm. Now, our lawmakers are bought and paid for. The White House has been sold countless times. And two infamous inhabitants turned it into…well, Harry could have played piano there as per his first choice of professions.
Todays political motto, morals, ethics, “we don’t need no stinkin'” morals or ethics.
Pity…
Comment by rochereau — June 4, 2010 @ 8:41 am
Time to dig up some dirt on Truman. After all he was a democrat. (Just kidding!)
Comment by Gary Ingram — June 4, 2010 @ 10:40 am
Do you really think Harry would recognize his party today? Or even the GOP?
Comment by Dan — June 4, 2010 @ 11:20 am
I’m sure he was not perfect, Gary, but his ethics seem more intact than many/most politicians today. My recollection of the Truman biography I read several years ago is that he was very unexpected as President. He was content to be a Senator but was chosen to be FDR’s third term VP, at the last minute, in a backroom confab of Democrat power players during their convention. Not the situation you’d think would produce a man of strong integrity.
When FDR died and Truman became President, he was ridiculed relentlessly in the press because he was undereducated, having never attended college, and wasn’t a good speech maker. But he had a good dose of common sense and knew who he was and wasn’t trying to be anyone else. He had to campaign hard to win re-election, so he speaking ability improved dramatically. (I always hoped George W’s would improve but it never did)
So here was Truman, a high school grad, failed small businessman (selling men’s clothing), who ended up making some of the most important decisions in our nation’s history. Though he was certainly not without shortcomings, he served the country well and knew how to leave gracefully. I think George W. has done well in that regard too.
Comment by mary — June 4, 2010 @ 12:29 pm
There are not ethics anymore because ‘they’ are all a bunch of drunks.
Things are so bad that the State Department doesn’t see a problem getting drunk on our dime and at the same time we are billing soldiers for leaving their gear in the field after they get shot up.
God only knows what bigger messes they make with the hangover they get the next day. Hillary and Obama snicker together at their state dinner, “Who cares if his leg has been shot off, if he doesn’t get that gear off the field, he is going to pay because Jack Daniels says so!”
Harry Truman probably never saw this coming.
Comment by Stebbijo — June 4, 2010 @ 4:39 pm
Harry S as a paragon of clean politics? ROTFLMAO!
He was a Pendergast machine FDR partisan. Sorry, no sale.
Comment by Pariah — June 4, 2010 @ 7:20 pm
Come on, Pariah, no one is saying he was the “paragon of clean politics”. I clearly admitted he was recruited by the Democrat’s machine. But he still exhibited 100 times more personal and political integrity in many (not all) of his choices than we’re seeing today. Would you agree with that statement?
Comment by mary — June 4, 2010 @ 8:08 pm
Well, he did drop the big one on the Japs. The ‘Buck Stops Here’ was his slogan.
Comment by Gary Ingram — June 4, 2010 @ 8:17 pm
Everything is relative. Political machine wonk, FDR crony, went by the wayside when he was President and in his retired life. What he did then and later, were his true legacy.
Nobody is perfect Pariah, but I would be genuinely interested in who and what you actually do admire.
Comment by rochereau — June 5, 2010 @ 7:54 am
I thought you might enjoy an excerpt from “A Patriot’s History of the United States”:
Harry Truman was then a Democrat President with a new Republican Congress, which turned out to be a much better balance for the country. Are we there yet?
Comment by mary — June 5, 2010 @ 11:32 am
I put little faith in politicians. None in national level politicians. Harry S was a vote stealing, machine pol. Par for the course. His attacks on civilian cities with nukes was criminal, imho. He had many options that did not involve incinerating thousands of innocent women, children and cripples. He chose the expedient rather than the moral course.
Comment by Pariah — June 6, 2010 @ 6:21 am
The atom bomb was a necessary evil. The only remaining choice would have been to invade Japan. The fatality estimate on an invasion was more than a million deaths. Invasion would have been preceeded by carpet bombing. America did not initiate this war with Japan. (Roosevelt desperately need a war for his failing economy. However, he wanted his war in Europe.) I fail to see how more young American deaths (that could be, and were, avoided) would be an immoral choice.
Japan had many civilian prisoners that were held in appalling conditions. They died from disease, malnutrition and were executed for infractions. Allied POW’s were tortured, used as slave labor,executed for no reason, often in the most horrendous manner. One infamous camp commandant would eat the liver of executed allied airmen. The Japanese murdered the civilian populations (including a multitude of women and children) of countries they occupied. Have you ever heard of the rape of Nanking. Japan brought the A-bomb on themselves. Dropping that bomb was a momentous decision…and I applaud the moral fiber it took to make that decision.
Pariah, your arguments just don’t stand up to scrutiny.
Comment by rochereau — June 6, 2010 @ 8:45 am
I agree with you, Rochereau. Pariah, what options do you believe were better?
Comment by mary — June 6, 2010 @ 9:50 am
” The only remaining choice would have been to invade Japan. ”
False.
See http://members.peak.org/~danneng/decision/usnews.html for Dr. Szilard’s (very informed) opinions on the subject.
Comment by Pariah — June 6, 2010 @ 10:56 am
Someone asked for political types I admire – two locals, both now gone that I admired are Ron Rankin and Helen Chenoweth. Living politicians in Idaho that I admire are Phil Batt and Dan Eismann.
Comment by Pariah — June 6, 2010 @ 11:00 am
Did you like Rankin before he was elected and fought for lower taxes, or while he was elected and raised taxes?
Comment by Dan — June 7, 2010 @ 8:21 am
It was passing strange to watch Ranking get seduced by the very people he railed at for so long. Ditto to watch Newt try and subvert Helen.
I do note that no one has taken Dr. Szilard on regards the options the corrupt Harry S ignored before he incinerated women and children in gross violation of both the Laws of War and common human decency.
Comment by Pariah — June 7, 2010 @ 8:27 pm
“Everything is relative.”
In a liberal fantasy land, maybe. In the real world, there are absolute truths.
Truth one, Truman was a vote stealing, ballot box stuffing, Southern machine Democrat pol.
Truth two, he had options at the end of WWII, he chose one of them that was immoral, unAmerican and that helped start the Cold War.
Truth three, power corrupts. Always has, always will.
Put not they faith in princes. Good advice then, good advice now.
Comment by Pariah — June 7, 2010 @ 8:30 pm
Ah pariah, you remind me of that marvelous saying, “don’t confuse me with facts, my mind is made up”.
You asked me for a meaning of extremism. One classic example follows.
extremism = pariah
Comment by rochereau — June 8, 2010 @ 7:46 am
So nothing of substance, eh? Just an ad hominem attack in place of rational thought. Sad. Me, I agree with Dr. Szilard.
Comment by Pariah — June 8, 2010 @ 2:35 pm