Harry S Truman is the most recent American president not to have graduated from college, although he did study law for a short period. He is also one of the most literate presidents, especially with respect to history, as he was a lifetime constant reader, who had his own way with words.
His reading led to his writing skills as seen in the three volumes of memoirs he wrote after his presidency. Granted, he had the end of the World War II and the postwar settlement as topics, but his composition skills with words were excellent. As with his spoken words, he tended to be direct, blunt some may say, but he explained his role in history as he saw it, devoid of flowery prose and excuses.
Astute readers might notice that I deliberately did not place a period after his middle initial. He maintained that the “S” stood for the first names of his two grandfathers, Solomon and Shipp, and that as neither name had been selected by his parents, “S” was his entire middle name, representing both grandfathers, and thus it should not be followed by a period.
Truman also was among the most smartly dressed chief executives, perhaps a reflection of his earlier career in the haberdashery business with his friend, Eddie Jacobson. Their business failed, but their friendship endured. Jacobson was Jewish and was an influential figure in Truman’s decision to recognize the new state of Israel in 1948.
Throughout Truman’s time in the Senate and vice presidency, he and his wife, Bess, and daughter, Margaret, continued to live in a modest apartment on Connecticut Avenue in Northwest Washington. At that time, housing was not provided for the vice president.
After less than three months into his fourth term, President Franklin Roosevelt died, and Truman became president. Immediately after Truman took the oath of office, Secretary of War Henry L. Stimson asked to speak with him to tell him about the development of the atomic bomb then in progress, as Roosevelt had not confided that information to him. Four months later, Truman gave the order for the bombs to be dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
For time away, the Trumans liked to vacation at Key West, Florida, and they especially enjoyed cruising down the Potomac River on the Williamsburg, the presidential yacht. While in Washington, each morning, dressed in business attire, Truman went on his “constitutional,” a walk for exercise around Lafayette Square, accompanied by a couple of Secret Service agents.
For a major portion of his presidency, Truman lived at Blair House as The White House was being reconstructed. In that effort, most of the original fabric of the building was destroyed and replaced with new structural elements, thus today The White House basically is a 1940s building inside 200-year-old stone walls. The project was completed in time for the Trumans to return to living there before his term ended.
The presidency did not change either of the Trumans. Each year, in February, the Daughters of the American Revolution sponsored the National Capital Flower Show at the National Guard Armory, and the First Family attended the event for the president to cut the ribbon opening it for the public. In 1952, the last year of his presidency, after the president general of the D.A.R. had introduced him, in his responding remarks, President Truman referred to himself as an “old Missouri farm boy” and went on to comment about how much manure it had taken to grow all those flowers.
Given that it was February, obviously the plants all had come from hothouses. After the speech, the president general quietly asked Mrs. Truman if she could not get him to say “fertilizer” instead of manure. Mrs. Truman replied, “Good heavens no. It took me 20 years to get him to say ‘manure.’”
Indeed, those were simpler days.
