Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure - Matthew Algeo [62]
To Harry it was only politics, but old Herbert took it personally, and their fragile friendship shattered. It was unfortunate and sad. At the Waldorf, they were so close that if Harry had stomped on the floor, Herbert would have heard him. But both men were stubborn. There would be no rapprochement in New York.
To pundits, the image of Truman, Hoover, and MacArthur sharing the same building was irresistible. H. I. Phillips imagined the three towering figures meeting in a Waldorf elevator:
Douglas— You two boys should know each other. Herbert, this is Harry Truman, remember?
Herbert— That reminds me I must speak to the management. The tone here isn’t what it used to be. (To the General) Putting Mr. Truman up in your suite?
Douglas— Come, come, Herbert…. Watch your reputation for sagacity.
Herbert— I’m amazed to see you two boys together.
Harry and Douglas— If you’re surprised you can imagine how we feel.
Douglas— We once flew thousands of miles to contact each other, Harry. It’s a small world. Harry—How’s the fade-away business? Douglas—You should know!
At seven o’clock the next morning, June 28, Harry stepped out of the Waldorf for his morning walk. The weather was warm and muggy, but the former president was characteristically dapper in a white summer suit with a double-breasted jacket. He wore a white Panama hat with a navy blue band. A crisp handkerchief peeked perfectly out of his breast pocket. “You all didn’t get much sleep,” he cheerily said to the dozen drowsy reporters and photographers gathered to document his ambulating.
Flanked by his former White House appointments secretary Matthew Connelly and a Waldorf security guard (provided at the hotel’s insistence), Harry headed west on 50th Street to Park Avenue. He turned north onto Park to 51st Street, then turned west onto 51st. It was early on a summer Sunday morning, and midtown Manhattan was as sleepy as it ever gets, but everywhere Harry went he was recognized. At 51st and Madison, a cabbie yelled, “Hiya, Harry!” Truman waved. At 51st and Fifth, a bus driver yelled out, “Hello, Harry!” Truman waved again.
He turned south onto Fifth Avenue, passing St. Patrick’s Cathedral, where the early mass was just beginning. He stopped in front of the cathedral to shake hands with a cop who recognized him, and to chat briefly with a churchgoer he happened to bump into. Her name was Marguerite Peyton Thompson. Harry knew her. She was a member of the Democratic National Committee and had seconded his nomination at the 1948 convention in Philadelphia. “I’m just going to church,” Thompson said to Truman. “Good woman!” he replied. (Truman himself did not attend church regularly. He once wrote of his Baptist faith, “I’m a member but not a strenuous one.”)
At 44th Street, the photographers accompanying him asked Harry to stop and pose for a picture with the Empire State Building in the background. He agreed, but on one condition, a condition that endeared him to New Yorkers. “The one thing I want you to do,” he told the photographers, whose spent flashbulbs littered the sidewalk and street, “is to kick those damn bulbs to the curb.” Used flashbulbs were a scourge to motorists and pedestrians alike. The scolded photographers sheepishly complied.
From Fifth Avenue he turned east onto 43rd Street to Madison Avenue, then headed back uptown on Madison. He walked briskly as usual, and by now some in the press pack were panting.
On Madison, just north of 43rd, Matthew Connelly spotted a quarter lying heads up in the street. He picked it up and handed it to his old boss. “Here’s a little luck for you,” Connelly said. Truman took the quarter. He held it up and studied the raised image of one of his predecessors for a moment. He slipped it into his pocket. “That goes in my collection,” he said, promising never to spend it.
A few blocks later, a beefy cabbie named Marcus Straisant recognized the former president. He hastily parked his cab and rushed toward him.