Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure - Matthew Algeo [4]
In 1934 the Pendergast machine helped Truman get elected to the U.S. Senate. For years he was known derisively as “the senator from Pendergast,” but he eventually distinguished himself by chairing a commission that uncovered waste in military spending.
At the 1944 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, party leaders decided to kick Vice President Henry Wallace off the ticket. They regarded Wallace, a plant geneticist who dabbled in mysticism and astrology, as far too liberal, something of a loose cannon, and, well, a little strange. Truman, who always insisted he never campaigned for the job, was chosen to replace Wallace, largely because the other contenders were either too liberal or too conservative. “I had never even seen Truman in my life before he was nominated,” remembered Democratic National Committee Chairman Edward J. Flynn. “All I knew was that no one could do Roosevelt any good, and it was a question of who would do him the least harm.” Franklin Roosevelt, who didn’t even bother to attend the convention, went along with the choice, though he complained he hardly knew the senator. Truman’s candidacy was, reporters joked, another “Missouri Compromise.” Bess Truman, who already thought the family was spending far too much time away from Independence, was not happy. After the convention, Harry, Bess, and Margaret drove home. The atmosphere inside the car, Margaret later recalled, was “close to arctic.” It was the last long drive Harry and Bess would take for many years.
A month later, Roosevelt invited Truman to the White House for lunch. Truman, who hadn’t even seen the president in a year, was shocked by his appearance. “I had no idea he was in such a feeble condition,” Truman confided to a friend. “In pouring cream in his tea, he got more cream in the saucer than he did in the cup.” In photographs taken of the two men that day, Roosevelt is hunched and haggard, with dark bags beneath his eyes. Truman is beaming, vibrant. It was hard to believe that Roosevelt was only two years older than Truman.
The Roosevelt-Truman ticket won the 1944 election in a landslide. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945. Truman had been vice president eighty-two days. Apart from cabinet meetings, he had met with Roosevelt just twice.
Truman would win the White House in his own right in 1948, famously upsetting Thomas E. Dewey and most political prognosticators.
His presidency had encompassed some of the most monumental events of the twentieth century: World War II, the founding of the United Nations, McCarthyism, Korea, the Cold War.
Sitting on that dais on that winter’s day in 1953, the summer of 1922 must have seemed like a very long time ago to Harry Truman.
Eisenhower droned on: “Freedom is pitted against slavery; lightness against the dark …”
Truman’s mind wandered still. Perhaps he pondered his uncertain future. He was sixty-eight now, but quite hale. On most mornings he still walked two miles before breakfast, at his old army pace of 120 steps per minute. And longevity was in his genes: his mother had lived to be ninety-four. (His father had died at sixty-two of complications from surgery for a hernia.) By any estimation, Harry Truman had a lot of life left.
But what to do with it? Truman, a student of history, well knew that ex-presidents often faded into obscurity, irrelevancy—or worse. There were notable exceptions, of course. After their presidential terms, John Quincy Adams was elected to the House of Representatives and William H. Taft was appointed chief justice. But, more often, an ex-president’s life was one of disappointment and disillusionment. Martin Van Buren and Theodore Roosevelt both tried to regain the presidency without