Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure - Matthew Algeo [5]
Herbert Hoover, seated just a few feet from Truman on the dais that day, was the only other living member of the ex-presidents club. After his humiliating defeat in 1932, Hoover had lived in political isolation—until his career was resuscitated by Truman himself.
Hoover, at least, was rich. He’d made a fortune in mining before going into politics. At the time, ex-presidents received no pension, and some had died broke. Thomas Jefferson was forced to sell his beloved library to make ends meet. James Monroe was so destitute he had to move in with his daughter and her husband. Ulysses S. Grant, his life savings lost in a swindle, had just eighty dollars in the bank at one point. He was saved from penury only by selling his memoirs to Mark Twain. “They just … let them starve to death,” Truman complained of the country’s treatment of its ex-presidents soon after he left the White House.
Truth was, Harry Truman didn’t know what to do with the rest of his life. He had no specialized training, nothing more than a high school diploma. (He is the last president without a postsecondary degree.) There was speculation that he might make another run for office, perhaps as a senator or governor back in Missouri. He could even run for the White House again if he wanted to: he was the last president eligible to serve more than two terms. Theoretically, anyway, in four years he could be standing once more in the very spot where Eisenhower now stood.
One thing was certain, though: Harry Truman needed money. He wasn’t destitute, but he was far from rich, and he knew his post-presidential expenses would be considerable. He had already rented an office in Kansas City, and he would need at least two assistants just to answer the mail. Besides, he felt obligated to maintain a certain standard of living, if only to uphold the dignity of the office he had just vacated.
Yet his only income would be a pension for his service as an officer in France during World War I. That pension amounted to $111.96 a month, after taxes. Ironically, he did not receive credit for his nearly eight years as commander in chief.
Truman had come to the presidency with little personal wealth. When he took office, the salary was seventy-five thousand dollars a year, but out of that he was expected to pay all White House expenses. One year he netted just forty-two hundred dollars. In 1949 the salary was raised to a hundred thousand dollars plus fifty thousand for expenses, but this was still barely enough to cover the growing cost of running the White House, and Truman was able to save little. A few months before leaving office, Truman had met with Martin Stone, a lawyer–turned–television mogul, to discuss his post-presidential job prospects. “The president was frank that he’d be needing money when he returned to his modest home,” Stone recalled.
Finally, Eisenhower concluded his inaugural address: “The peace we seek … is nothing less than the practice and fulfillment of our whole faith among ourselves and in our dealings with others…. This is the work that awaits us all, to be done with bravery, with charity, and with prayer to Almighty God. My citizens, thank you.” The speech had lasted nineteen minutes.
A wave of applause rolled toward the dais, snapping Truman out of his reverie.
After the ceremony, the Trumans were driven to the home of Dean Acheson, Harry’s erstwhile secretary of state, for a farewell luncheon. As his driver negotiated the teeming Inauguration Day streets of Washington, the new ex-president experienced his first taste of civilian life: the long black White House limousine obeyed all traffic signals. It was the first time in nearly eight