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Harry S. Truman was the thirty-third president of the United States of America. He was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri, and died on December 26, 1972, in Kansas City, Missouri. His middle initial, S, does not begin a middle name because of a family disagreement over whether his middle name should be “Solomon” or “Shipp(e).” Truman’s family moved to Independence, Missouri, in 1890. After graduating from high school in 1901, Truman worked at several clerical jobs and in 1905 joined the Missouri National Guard. He worked at his family’s farm from 1906 until 1916.
During World War I, Truman served as an artillery captain in France. Truman was respected by his troops for his bravery in combat and leadership ability. After he returned to Missouri, Truman married Elizabeth “Bess” Wallace. Truman and an army friend, Edward Jacobson, opened a haberdashery in Kansas City. It was a popular place for veterans to socialize, but the business suffered during the 1921-1922 recession and went bankrupt.
James Pendergast, a veteran of Truman’s artillery unit, persuaded his uncle, machine boss Tom Pendergast, to ask Truman to run for a seat on the county “court,” actually a public works commission. With the support of the Pendergast machine, Truman was elected as a Democrat to the Jackson County court in 1922, 1926, and 1930. Despite his affiliation with the Pendergast machine, Truman earned a reputation for honesty and efficiency, especially in the construction of new roads and a new courthouse. He accepted Tom Pendergast’s offer to run for the U.S. Senate and was elected in 1934.
Upon his arrival in the Senate in 1935, Truman was initially dismissed by his colleagues as the “Senator from Pendergast” because of his association with the notorious political machine. Truman was frustrated and disappointed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s apparent indifference and occasional hostility toward him. While generally supporting New Deal legislation, Truman also backed Roosevelt’s failed, controversial “court-packing” bill, higher defense spending, military aid to Great Britain, and military conscription before the United States entered World War II. At Truman’s suggestion, the Senate created a special committee to investigate waste, fraud, and mismanagement in defense contracts and appointed Truman as its chairman. The Truman Committee saved $11 billion in defense spending and made Truman a respected national political figure.
By 1944 a growing number of Democratic politicians and campaign contributors wanted Roosevelt to replace Vice President Henry A. Wallace with Truman as his running mate in the 1944 presidential election. Truman reluctantly accepted Roosevelt’s offer to be his running mate. During and after the 1944 election, Truman was concerned that the ailing Roosevelt rarely consulted him and did not confer with him about major war policies and postwar plans. Truman’s brief vice presidency ended with Roosevelt’s death on April 12, 1945.
Truman’s Presidency
Truman’s first few months as president were a whirlwind of major world events and presidential decisions. Germany surrendered on May 7, 1945. From July 17 until August 2, Truman conferred with Winston Churchill and Joseph Stalin in Potsdam to determine the postwar occupation of Germany and the trial arrangements for Nazi war criminals. One week later, Truman ordered the dropping of atomic bombs on Japan. Japan formally surrendered on September 2. On September 8, Truman ordered American troops to be stationed in South Korea.
During his first year as president, Truman also confronted labor disputes, inflation, and public demands for a more rapid demobilization of troops and reconversion to a civilian economy. Truman became known for his blunt rhetoric and unequivocal decision-making style, epitomized by the catchphrases “The Buck Stops Here” and “Give ‘em Hell.” Nonetheless, Truman’s declining public approval ratings and the public perception of his inferiority to Roosevelt helped the Republicans to win control of Congress in 1946.
With regard to foreign and defense policies, Truman had a fairly productive and effective relationship with the Republican-controlled 80th Congress. Truman and Congress enacted the Marshall Plan for the economic reconstruction of Western Europe and a similar plan for Japan, sent military and economic aid for the Greek and Turkish governments fighting communist aggression, reorganized the Department of Defense, and established the foundation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) for the collective security of Western Europe.
In the area of domestic policy, however, Truman often had disagreements with Republicans and conservative Southern Democrats in Congress. In 1947 the Taft-Hartley Act, which reduced the legal powers and privileges of labor unions, became law over Truman’s veto. Southern Democrats and some Republicans rejected Truman’s civil rights legislation for African Americans.
Most Republicans in Congress disagreed with Truman on tax, housing, price control, and agricultural issues.
Truman’s campaign in the 1948 presidential election repeatedly denounced the “do-nothing Republican 80th Congress” on domestic issues and implicitly linked it to Governor Thomas E. Dewey of New York, the moderately liberal Republican presidential nominee. Friendly crowds encouraged Truman to “give ‘em hell.” Meanwhile, the Democratic Party splintered further. The most anti-civil rights Southern Democrats supported Governor J. Strom Thurmond of South Carolina as the presidential nominee of the States Rights Democrats, or “Dixiecrat” party. Anti-cold war liberals and leftists supported the Progressive Party’s presidential nominee, Henry A. Wallace.
With a comfortable lead in public opinion polls, Dewey avoided sounding antagonistic toward Truman and addressing specific issues that might reveal his differences with more conservative Republicans in Congress. Major newspapers and magazines predicted Dewey’s victory and speculated on his future policies and cabinet appointments. The Chicago Tribunes top headline on Election Day famously announced, “Dewey Defeats Truman.” Nonetheless, Truman won an upset victory. The Democrats also won control of Congress.
In his 1949 message to Congress, Truman proposed what he called “a Fair Deal for all Americans.” His major policy proposals included civil rights, national health insurance, and repeal of the Taft-Hartley Act. Except for the Housing Act of 1949, Congress rejected all of the major Fair Deal legislation.
Republicans charged that the Truman and Roosevelt administrations had failed or refused to uncover and prevent communist influence on American foreign and defense policies; in response, Truman created loyalty review boards to find communists in the federal government, especially the state department. The Truman administration’s reputation was also tarnished by congressional and media investigations of corruption on the part of some officials. These issues were overshadowed, however, by the communist takeover of mainland China in 1949, the Soviet detonation of an atomic bomb, and the outbreak of the Korean War in 1950.
Truman secured a decision from the United Nations (UN) authorizing the United States and other UN members to support South Korea. He appointed General Douglas MacArthur commander of the American and other UN forces in Korea. After MacArthur publicly defied Truman’s strategy of limiting the war to Korea and avoiding a war with China, Truman removed MacArthur from command. Truman’s removal of MacArthur and the ensuing stalemate in the Korean War proved to be unpopular. Truman spent the remainder of his presidency defending his policies in Korea and supporting the Democratic presidential campaign of Illinois governor Adlai Stevenson in 1952.
After Republican presidential nominee Dwight D. Eisenhower easily defeated Stevenson, Truman spent the early years of his retirement supervising his presidential library in Independence, Missouri, and writing his memoirs. On December 26, 1972, Truman died of complications from pneumonia in a Kansas City hospital. During his retirement and after his death, Truman’s historical reputation steadily improved, especially for his integrity and major foreign policy decisions.
Bibliography:
- McCoy, Donald R. 1984. The Presidency of Harry S. Truman. Lawrence: University Press of Kansas.
- McCullough, David. 1992. Truman. New York: Simon and Schuster.
- Savage, Sean J. 1997. Truman and the Democratic Party. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky.
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