Word Celebrity Blog

I was 12 years old when President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died. It was on Thursday, April 12, 1945. I heard the news on the radio of one of my customers on my newspaper route. I sat down on the street curb and cried. I felt as if God had died.

I resented Harry Truman as president and followed his presidency carefully in order to justify my feelings. In doing so, I discovered that he stood for and was attempting to do those things that I was learning about in school. My feeling about him did a complete about face.

I grew up in a Republican family and town. When President was running for election in 1948, I told my parents that President Truman was going to win, no matter what the Newspapers were saying. They dismissed what I said. They did not believe that a juvenile could understand politics.

When President Truman left the White House in 1953, his approval rating was at 22%. Today, American Historians rate Harry Truman as the 5th greatest President of the United States. As an avid student of United States History  and Politics, I sincerely believe that Harry S Truman was the greatest President that my country ever had.

I will be posting some of President Truman's most important speeches as well as some of his quotations and facts about his life in hope that it will help you to better understand him.

President Truman was not a perfect man, but, who is. He was the man that this country needed at those trying times.

( I do not place a period after  the letter S in his name. The S is not an abbreviation of any word)


33rd President of the United States (1945-1953)
When President Franklin Delano Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, Vice-President Harry S Truman was sworn in as President of the United States.

Born: May 8, 1884, Lamar, Missouri

Nickname: "Give ’Em Hell Harry"

Religion: Protestant (Baptist Church)

Marriage: June 28, 1919, to Elizabeth "Bess" Virginia Wallace (1885-1982)

Children: Mary Margaret (1924-2008)

Career: Soldier, Farmer, Businessman, Public Official

Political Party: Democrat

Writings: Memoirs (2 vols., 1955-56)

Died: December 26, 1972, Kansas City, Missouri

Buried: Independence, Missouri

Political Life in Brief: Harry S Truman became President of the United States with the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt on April 12, 1945. During his nearly eight years in office, Harry Truman confronted hostility in his own party as well as the Republican Party, and enormous challenges in both foreign and domestic affairs. Truman’s policies abroad, and especially toward the Soviet Union in the emerging Cold War, would become staples of American foreign policy for generations.


"The basis for our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul. I don't think we can emphasize that enough these days. If we don't have a proper founded moral background, we will finally end up with a government, which does not believe in rights for anybody except the state."

"We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are."

"All my life, whenever it comes time to make a decision, I make it and forget about it."

"The only thing new in the world is the history you don't know".

"The nation's labor force is its most productive asset."

"It is time that all Americans realized that the place of labor is side by side with the businessman and with the farmer, and not one degree lower."

"It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job, it's a depression when you lose your own."

"The good word 'politics,' which really means the science of government, has been abused in our time, and has been given a definition meaning dishonest management to win an election for a party or a candidate.' The use of the latter definition by newspapers and those who like to turn their noses up at everyday people has obscured the real meaning of the word politics.' A politician is a man who is interested in good government.... I would risk my reputation and my fortune with a professional politician sooner than I would with the banker or the businessman or the publisher of a daily paper! More young men and young women should fit themselves for politics and government."

"whenever you put a man on the Supreme Court, he ceases to be your friend."

"Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don't ever apolgize for anything."

"Secrecy and a free, democratic government don't mix."

"When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship."

"We should resolve now that the health of this nation is a national concern; that financial barriers in the way of attaining health shall be removed; that the health of all it's citizens deserves the help of all the nation."

"We must build a new world, a far better world - one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected."

"Richard Nixon is a no good , lying bastard. He can lie out of both sides of his mouth at the same time, and if he ever caught himself telling the truth, he'd lie just to keep his hand in."

"You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don't believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can't possibly foresee now."

"Always be sincere, even if you don't mean it."

"Most of the problems a president has to face have their roots in the past."

"Men make history , and not the other way around.  In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still.  Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better."

"We don't propose, like some people, to meet todays problems by saying that they don't exist, and tomorrow's problems by wishing that tomorrow wouldn't come."

"It is futile to seek safety beyond geographical barriers.  Real security will be found only in the law and in justice."


"When Kansas and Colorado have a quarrel over the water in the Arkansas River, they don't call out the National Guard in each state and declare war over it. They bring a suit in the Supreme Court of the United States and abide by the decision.  There isn't a reason in the world why we can't do that internationally." - April 1945/

"I wonder how far Moses would have gone if he'd taken a poll in Egypt? What would Jesus Christ have preached if he'd had taken a poll in Israel? Where would the Reformation have gone if Martin Luther had taken a poll? It isn't polls or public opinion of the moment that counts.  It is right and wrong and leadership -- men with fortitude and honesty, and a belief in the right that makes epochs in the history of the world". - 1945

"There is at least one defense against the atomic bomb. That defence lies in our mastering this science of human relationships all over the world. It is the defense of tolerance and of understanding, of intelligence and thoughtfulness." - May 11, 1946

"The seeds of totalitarian regimes are nurtured by misery and want.  They spread and grow in the evil soil of proverty and strife. They reach their full growth when the hope of a people for a better life has died. We must keep hope alive." March 12, 1947

"Our allies are the millions who hunger and thirst after righteousness". - June 7, 1947

"America was not built on fear.  America was built on courage, on imagination and unbeatable determination to do the job at hand." - January 8, 1947

1948 Campaign

"In most of my campaigns, I find it is best not to mention my opponent by name because, by doing so, it just gives him a chance to get into the headlines." - 1948

"It isn't important who is ahead at one time or another in either an election or horse race. It's the horse that comes in first at the finish line that counts". - 1948

"I never would have agreed to the formulation of the Central Intelligence Agency back in forty-seven, if I had known it would become the American Gestapo." - 1948

"It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit." - 1948 Campaign

"I never sit on a fence. I am either on one side or another." - October 30, 1948

"Intense feeling too often obscures the truth." - October 19, 1948

"You know that being an American is more than a matter of where you or your parents came from. It is a belief that all men are created free and equal and that everyone deserves an even break.  It is a respect for the dignity of men and women without reguard to race, creed, or color.  That is our creed." - October, 26, 1948

"Racial and religious oppression - big business domination - inflation - these forces must be stopped and driven back while there is yet time." - October 25, 1948.


"We have this America not because we are of a particular faith, not because our ancestors sailed from a particular foreign port.  We have our America because of our common aspiration to remain free and our determined purpose to achieve for ourselves, and for our children, a more abundant life in keeping with our highest ideals." - December 15, 1950

"It is not the martinets that make an army work; it's the morale that the leaders put into the men that makes an army work." - October 24, 1950

"About the meanest thing you can say about a man is that he means well." - May 10, 1950

"We must remember that the test of our religious principles lies not just in what we say, not only in our prayers, not even in living blameless lives - but in what we do for others"  - October 28, 1951.

"Now listen to this one.  This malicious propaganda has gone so far that on the Fourth of  July, over in Madison, Wisconsin, people were afraid to say that they believed in the Declaration of Independence.  A hundred and twelve people were asked to sign a petition that contained nothing except quotations from the Declaration of Independence and the Bill of Rights.  One hundred and eleven of those people refused to sign that paper -- many of them because they were afraid that it was some kind of subversive document and  that they would lose their jobs or be called Communist. Can you imagine finding 111 people in the capital of Wisconsin that didn't know what the Declaration of Independence and Bill of Rights provided?   I can't imagine it." - July 29, 1951

"To me, party platforms are contracts with the people." - Harry S. Truman  Memoirs, 1955

"I never gave them hell, I just tell the truth and they think it's hell." - 1956

"It's a lot better to have a strong national defense than a balanced budget." - February 17, 1957

"A person who is fundamentally honest doesn't need a code of ethics. The Ten Commandments and the Sermon on the Mount are all the ethical codes anybody needs." - July 10, 1958

"I don't like bipartisans. Whenever a fellow tells me he's bipartisan, I know that he's going to vote against me." January 21, 1962


The Atomic Bomb

"Having found the bomb we have used it.  We have used it against those who attacked us without warning at Pearl Harbor, against those who have starved and beaten and executed American prisoners of war, against those who have abandoned all pretense of obeying international laws of warfare.  We have used it in order to shorten the agony of war, in order to save the lives of thousands and thousands of young Americans.  We will continue to use it until we completely destroy Japan's power to make war.  Only a Japanese surrender will stop us."

"When you have to deal with a beast, you have to treat him as a beast. It is most regrettable but, nevertheless true."

"We have offered to surrender the most powerful thing we have under our control, if the world will come in and set up a control of that weapon which will prevent its use for the destruction of mankind." - April 6, 1949


"Millions of our citizens do not now have a full measure of opportunity to achieve and to enjoy good health. Millions do not now have protection or security against the economic effects of sickness. And the time has now arrived for action to help them attain that opportunity and to help them get that protection."

"If we don't have the proper fundamental moral background, we will finally wind up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody."


The Cold War

"I Suppose that history will remember my term in office as the years when the Cold War began to overshadow our lives.  I have hardly a day in office that has not been dominated by this all-embracing struggle. And always in the background there has been the atomic bomb.  But when history says that my term of office saw the begining of the Cold War, it will also say that in those eight years we have set the course that can win it."

"The Soviet Union does not have to attack the United States to secure domination of the world. It can achieve its ends by isolating us and swallowing up all our allies."


The President's Job Description

"The buck stops here."

"All the president is, is a glorified public relations man who spends his time flattering, kissing, and kicking people to get them to do what they are supposed to do anyway."

"Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here."


Republicans by Harry S Truman

"The Republicans believe that the power of government should be used first of all to help the rich and the privileged in the country. With them, property, wealth, comes first. The Democrats believe that the power of government should be used to give the common man more protection and a chance to make a living. With us, the people come first." - "A Government as Good As Its People" page 163.

"When even one American - who has done nothing wrong - is forced by fear to shut his mind and close his mouth, then all of Americans are in peril."

Republicans approve of the American farmer, but they are willing to help him go broke.

They stand four-square for the American home - but not for housing.

They are strong for labor - but they are stronger for restricting labor's rights.

They favor minimum wage - the smaller the minimum wage the better.

They endorse educational opportunity for all - but they won't spend money for teachers or for schools.


They think modern medical care and hospitals are fine - for people who can afford them.


They consider electrical power a great blessing - but only when the private power companies get their rake-off.

They think American standard of living is a fine thing - so long as it doesn't spread to all the people.
 
And they admire of Government of the United States so much that they would like to buy it.