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By Root 314 0

commuted the death sentence of a Puerto Rican nationalist who had attempted to assassinate him in 1950. But Truman was also sensitive to charges that he was “soft on communism.” He had conspicuously avoided commenting on the Rosenberg case all along, and he had no desire to get mixed up in it at this late date in his presidency. So, this time at least, Harry Truman passed the buck. Rather feebly, he claimed the file was simply too thick to read before he vacated the White House. He left it up to his successor to determine the fate of the Rosenbergs. Dwight Eisenhower would announce his decision that afternoon. Without his intervention, the Rosenbergs would be dead by sundown—in deference to their faith, the executions had been scheduled to take place before the beginning of the Jewish Sabbath.

Around eleven-thirty, the Trumans reached Monroe City, Missouri, where they picked up Highway 36 and continued east toward Hannibal. This stretch of 36 is still a two-lane road—but not for long. The Missouri Department of Transportation is currently expanding the highway. Around the town of Ely, about halfway between Monroe City and Hannibal, I encountered backhoes, bulldozers, and graders readying the earth for three layers of macadam.

When the hundred-million-dollar project is finished, Highway 36 will be a four-lane road all the way across the state, from St. Joseph to Hannibal—the first four-lane, east–west highway in northern Missouri. It will draw vehicles from Interstate 70, which connects St. Louis and Kansas City, and undoubtedly change the character of this part of the state, as national chains move in to take advantage of the increased traffic. Critics decry such “progress,” but Harry Truman would love it. In fact, if he saw this road being built today, he’d pull over and watch, because roads were in his blood.

His father, John Truman, was a part-time road overseer, responsible for maintaining the roads in the southern part of Washington Township, Missouri. It was while attempting to move a large boulder from a road one day that John Truman suffered the hernia that ultimately ended his life.

While serving in France during World War I, Harry Truman was deeply impressed by that country’s roads. “The French know how to build roads and also how to keep them up,” he wrote in a letter to Bess. “They are just like a billiard table.”

In 1922, Truman made road improvements the central theme of his first campaign for Jackson County judge. He won, and oversaw the most ambitious road-building program ever undertaken in the county. His approach was “hands on.” He personally inspected roads and bridges in the county, and studied various building techniques. He even became a member of the American Road Builders Association. His knowledge deeply impressed Tom Veatch, who oversaw road construction in the county. “He was unusually well informed on the whole subject,” remembered Veatch. “He was a ‘road scholar'—not a ‘Rhodes scholar,’ but a ‘road scholar.’ He really knew roads.”

The roads were built on time and under budget.

In 1926, Truman became the president of the National Old Trails Road Association, a group that promoted the construction of a transcontinental road from Baltimore to Los Angeles, mainly along the route of historic trails, including the National Road and the Santa Fe Trail. Two years later, the group decided to erect identical statues honoring pioneer women in each of the twelve states through which the hypothetical road passed. It was a project close to Truman’s heart. Both his grandmothers had made the arduous trek from Kentucky to western Missouri in the 1840s. Said Truman of the female pioneers, “They were just as brave or braver than their men because, in many cases, they went with sad hearts and trembling bodies. They went, however, and endured every hardship that befalls a pioneer.” Known as the “Madonna of the Trail,” each statue stood ten feet tall and weighed five tons. It depicted a bonneted woman holding a baby in her left arm and a rifle in her right hand, a child clinging to her skirt. Truman traveled