Truman

by David McCullough

  men with their blazing torches: Paxton, Memoirs, 22.

  cows to milk: Autobiography, 30.

  “in regard to integrity”: An Illustrated Description of Independence, Missouri, ca. 1902.

  “There was conversation”: Quoted in Miller, 32.

  “No town in the west”: An Illustrated Description of Independence, Missouri.

  “Harry always wanted to know”: Amanda Hardin Palmer, Oral History, HSTL.

  “The community at large”: Independence (Missouri) Examiner, August 23, 1901.

  “Never, never give up”: Parents Magazine, March 1951.

  “In those days”: Quoted in Miller, 62.

  “Oh! Almighty and Everlasting God”: HST Diary, in Ferrell, ed., Off the Record (cited hereafter as Off the Record, 188.

  “There must have been a thousand”: Memoirs, Vol. I, 121.

  “In a little closet”: Ibid., 122.

  “the biggest thing that ever happened”: Ibid.

  “I don’t know anybody”: Noland, Oral History, HSTL.

  “He had a real feeling for history”: Quoted in Miller, 50.

  “Reading history, to me”: Memoirs, Vol. I, 119.

  “the salt of the earth”: Ibid., 118–19.

  “It cultivates every faculty”: Course of Study and Rules and Regulations of the Independence Public Schools, March 15, 1909, HSTL.

  HST composition books: Collection of James F. and Mary Ann Truman Swoyer.

  “Mothers held him up as a model”: Leviero’, “Harry Truman, Musician and Music Lover,” The New York Times Magazine, June 18, 1950.

  he genuinely adored the great classical works: Ibid.

  “all right,” John Truman said: Parents Magazine, March 1951.

  picnics every August at Lone Jack: Miller, 66–67.

  HST at 1900 Democratic National Convention: Daniels, 58.

  Caesar’s bridge: Miller, 33.

  “over a good deal”: Noland, Oral History, HSTL.

  “‘Progress’ is the cry”: The Gleam, Independence High School Annual, May 1901.

  3. The Way of the Farmer

  “I’m fine. And you?”: Quoted in Miller, Plain Speaking, 12.

  “plunged” into railroads: Ethel Noland, Oral History, HSTL.

  “He got the notion he could get rich”: Daniels, The Man of Independence, 59.

  “mud horse”: Ibid.

  Tasker Taylor tragedy: Independence Sentinel, August 23, 1902.

  “A very down-to-earth education”: Memoirs, Vol. I, 123.

  “He’s all right”: Jonathan Daniels interview notes, July 28, 1949, HSTL.

  “Are you good at figures?”: April 24, 1903, HSTL.

  “He is an exceptionally bright young man”: A D. Flintom to C. H. Moore, April 14, 1904, HSTL.

  “Trueman,” as Flintom spelled it: A. D. Flintom to C. H. Moore, July 27, 1904, HSTL.

  “never so happy as when”: Autobiography, 20.

  Wallace suicide: Jackson Examiner, June 19, 1903.

  “an attractiveness about him”: Ibid.

  “Why should such a man”: Ibid.

  wedding of Madge Gates to David Wallace: Kansas City Journal, June 15, 1883.

  “[Bessie] was walking up and down”: Mary Paxton Keeley, Oral History, HSTL.

  “Ties Collar Cuffs Pins”: HST Expenses Diary, HSTL.

  A note from “Horatio”: HST to EN, February 2, 1904, HSTL.

  A performance by Richard Mansfield: Autobiography, 22.

  “They wanted to see him grin”: Quoted in Miller, Plain Speaking, 84.

  “I was twenty-one”: Autobiography, 27.

  dress uniform episode: Ibid., 28.

  “when a bachelor”: Dahlberg, Because I Was Flesh, 1.

  Virgil Thomson, who was to become: Thomson, Virgil Thomson, 3.

  “Harry and I had only a dollar a week”: Daniels, 70.

  Trumans move back to Grandview: Steinberg, The Man from Missouri, 32.

  His friends were sure: Noland, Oral History, HSTL.

  “and woe to the loafer”: Autobiography, 36.

  “Well, if you don’t work”: Robert Wyatt, Oral History, HSTL.

  “The simple life was not always”: Stephen Slaughter, author’s interview.

  “My father told me”: Quoted in Daniels, 76.

  Yet John Truman was happier: Parents Magazine, March 1951.

  “Yes, and if you did a good job”: Gaylon Babcock, Oral History, HSTL.

  A few days later: Renshaw, “President Truman. His Missouri Neighbors Tell of His Farm Years,” The Prairie Farmer, May 12, 1945.

  Harry also kept the books: HST Account Books, HSTL.

  “The coldest day in winter”: HST to EW, May 19, 1913, Dear Bess, 125.

  “finest land you’d find”: Quoted in Miller, 89.

  “always bustling around”: The Prairie Farmer, May 12, 1945.

  “The ground was terribly hard”: Ibid.

  “He was so down-to-earth”: Pansy Perkins, Oral History, HSTL.

  “He always looked neat”: Slaughter, author’s interview.

  “Harry was a very good lodge man”: Babcock, Oral History, HSTL.

  “Frank Blair got Harry interested”: Slaughter, author’s interview.

  “Papa buys me candy”: HST to EW, April 27, 1911, Dear Bess, 30.

  “To be a good farmer in Missouri”: Vivian quoted in Parents Magazine, March 1951.

  “You know as long as”: HST to EW, October 16, 1911, Dear Bess, 52.

  “Well, I saw her”: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 32.

  “Isn’t she a caution?”: HST to EW, March 19, 1911, Dear Bess, 25.

  “I’m always rattled”: HST to EW, postmark illegible, ibid., 134.

  “Say, it sure is a grand thing”: HST to EW, February 13, 1912, ibid., 73.

  “It is necessary to sit”: HST to EW, July 8, 1912, HSTL.

  “This morning I was helping”: HST to EW, January 26, 1911, Dear Bess, 21.

  “I have been to the lot”: HST to EW, April 1, 1912, ibid., 80.

  “I’m horribly anxious for you”: HST to EW, April 8, 1912, ibid., 81.

  “You know when people can get excited”: HST to EW, March 19, 1911, ibid., 25.

  “you’ve no idea”: HST to EW, May 17, 1911, ibid., 33.

  “I am by religion”: HST to EW, February 7, 1911, ibid., 22.

  “Lent and such things”: HST to EW, March 19, 1911, ibid., 24.

  “I have been reading David Copperfield”: HST to EW, May 3, 1911, ibid., 31.

  “you know, were I an Italian”: HST to EW, June 22, 1911, ibid., 39.

  “You know that you turned me down”: HST to EW, July 12, 1911, ibid, 40.

  In August, he announced: HST to EW, August 27, 1911, ibid., 44; September 5, 1911, 45.

  “I was reading Plato’s Republic”: HST to EW, November 6, 1912, ibid., 103.

  “He had found he could get”: HST to EW, May 23, 1916, ibid., 200.

  “girl mouth”: HST to EW, November 19, 1913, ibid., 145.

  “so long as he’s honest”: HST to EW, June 22, 1911, ibid., 39.

  “Did you ever sit”: HST to EW, November 1, 1911, ibid., 57.

  “We never rated a person”: Slaughter, author’s interview.

  “Just imagine how often”: HST to EW, November 1, 1911, Dear Bess, 57.

  “hat-full of debts”: HST to EW, December 21, 1911, ibid., 64.

  two reasons for wanting to be rich: HST to EW, January 25, 1912, ibid., 69.

  “I really thought once I’d be”: HST to EW, May 23, 1911, ibid., 36.

  “I am like Mark Twain”: HST to EW, May 17, 1911, ibid., 34.

  “You know a man has to be”: HST to EW, July 12, 1911, ibid., 41.

  “who knows, maybe I’ll be”: HST to EW, May 23, 1911, ibid., 36.

  “Sucker! Sucker!”: HST to EW, October 22, 1911, ibid., 53.

  three hundred bales of hay: HST to EW, August 12, 1912, ibid., 93.

  “I have been working like Sam Hill”: HST to EW, September
30, 1913, ibid., 137.

  father in a “terrible stew”: HST to EW, postmarked November 11, 1913, HSTL.

  “Politics is all he ever advises me”: HST to EW, August 6, 1912, Dear Bess, 92.

  “I don’t think we would have traded him for anybody”: Slaughter, author’s interview.

  “I never understood”: Ibid.

  “Politics sure is the ruination”: HST to EW, postmark illegible, Dear Bess, 132.

  “I told him that was a very mild remark”: HST to EW, May 26, 1913, ibid., 126.

  He was the one person: Noland, Oral History, HSTL.

  another try in an Indian land lottery: HST to EW, September 30, 1913, Dear Bess, 138.

  “all puffed up”: HST to EW, November 4, 1913, ibid., 141–42.

  “How does it feel to be engaged to a clodhopper”: HST to EW, November 10, 1913, ibid., 143.

  “I know your last letter word for word”: HST to EW, November 19, 1913, ibid., 145.

  “Oh please send me another like it”: Ibid.

  “Mrs. Wallace wasn’t a bit in favor of Harry”: Ardis Haukenberry, author’s interview.

  “We have moved around quite a bit”: HST to EW, February 16, 1911, Dear Bess, 24.

  “Yes, it is true that Mrs. Wallace did not think”: May Wallace, author’s interview.

  mother’s operation for a hernia: HST to EW, March 20, 1914, Dear Bess, 161.

  “I hope she lives to be”: HST to EW, January 26, 1914, ibid., 157.

  Mamma gave him the money for an automobile: HST to EW, May 12, 1914, ibid., 168.

  “Harry didn’t like onions”: May Wallace, author’s interview.

  “I started for Monegaw Springs”: HST to EW, no postmark. Dear Bess,183.

  “Imagine working the roads”: HST to EW, August 8, 1914, ibid., 172.

  “If anyone asks him how he’s feeling”: HST to EW, September 28, 1914, ibid., 176.

  “good letters” helped “put that backbone into me”: HST to EW, September 17, 1914, ibid., 175.

  his father, who refused to let the nurse: HST to EW, November 1914, ibid., 178.

  “I remember the Sunday afternoon”: Slaughter, History of a Missouri Farm Family, 71.

  “I was with him”: Daniels, 74.

  “Harry and I often got up”: Parents Magazine, March 1951.

  “An Upright Citizen”: Independence Examiner, November 3, 1914.

  “I have quite a job on my hands”: HST to EW, November 1914, Dear Bess, 178.

  “quiet wheat-growing people”: Cather, One of Ours, 143.

  “gave it everything he had”: Quoted in Miller, 90.

  “I almost got done planting”: HST to EW, April 28, 1915, Dear Bess, 182.

  “It’s right unhandy to chase”: HST to EW, Grandview, 1915, ibid., 181.

  he traveled to Texas; HST to EW, February 16, 1916, ibid., 185.

  “There’s no one wants to win”: HST to EW, February 19, 1916, ibid., 187.

  “This place down here”: HST to EW, date illegible, ibid., 193.

  “I don’t suppose”: HST to EW, June 3, 1916, ibid., 201.

  “I can’t possibly lose forever”: HST to EW, April 24, 1916, ibid., 198.

  “The mine has gone by the board”: HST to EW, May 19, 1916, ibid., 199.

  He could “continue business”: HST to EW, May 23, 1916, ibid., 200.

  “It’s about 111 degrees in the shade”: HST to EW, July 30, 1916, ibid., 206.

  “Wish heavy for me to win”: HST to EW, July 28, 1916, ibid.

  “Keep wishing me luck”: HST to EW, August 4, 1916, ibid., 207.

  buying and selling oil leases: Steinberg, 39.

  “signed also by Martha E. Truman”: Ibid, 39.

  “came up every time with something else”: HST to EW, August 5, 1916, Dear Bess, 209.

  “Truman was surrounded by people, people, people”: Daniels, 81.

  “If this venture blows”: HST to EW, January 23, 1917, Dear Bess, 213.

  “In the event this country”: Daniels, 83.

  Teeter Pool discovered: Memoirs, Vol. I, 127.

  He said $11,000 at the time: Truman, Bess W. Truman, 56.

  If his part in his father’s debts: HST to EW, April 28, 1915, Dear Bess, 182.

  he was never meant for a farmer: Noland, Oral History, HSTL.

  “Riding one of these plows all day”: HST, “Autobiographical Sketch,” HSTL.

  “It takes pride to run a farm”: HST to MET and MJT, September 18, 1946, in Ferrell, ed., Off the Record, 96.

  4. Soldier

  “It is the great adventure”: HST to EW, September 15, 1918, Dear Bess, 271.

  “we got through”: Quoted in Miller, Plain Speaking, 93.

  Some people thought her the best looking: Gaylon Babcock, Oral History, HSTL.

  “It was quite a blow”: Steinberg, The Man from Missouri, 42.

  She must not tie herself: HST to EW, July 14, 1917, Dear Bess, 225.

  the reasons to go to war: HST to EW, January 18, 1918, HSTL.

  there wasn’t a German bullet: HST to EW, February 1, 1918, Dear Bess, 242.

  “Galahad after the Grail”: Autobiography, 41.

  passes eye exam: U.S. Army Medical Records, August 9, 1917, HSTL.

  On July 4, 1917, when Harry turned up: HST to EW, July 4, 1918, HSTL.

  “It was sure enough cold”: HST to EW, October 9, 1917, HSTL.

  “A tent fifty yards away”: HST to EW, October 18, 1917, Dear Bess, 231–32.

  “all the Lillian Russells”: HST to EW, September 30, 1917, ibid., 228.

  artillery terms: Lee, The Artillery Man, 326.

  “I have been squads east”: HST to EW, February 3, 1918, Dear Bess, 242.

  “I learned how to say Verdun”: HST to EW, October 27, 1918, HSTL.

  “He made us feel”: HST to EW, January 27, 1918, Dear Bess, 241.

  “one of our most effective officers”: Thomson, Virgil Thomson, 35.

  “I have a Jew in charge”: HST to EW, October 28, 1917, Dear Bess, 233.

  “Each day Harry would write a letter”: Mayerberg, “Edward Jacobson: President Truman’s Buddy,” Liberal Judaism, August 1945.

  “I guess I should be very proud”: HST to EW, February 3, 1918, Dear Bess, 242.

  “real good conversation”: HST to EW, February 23, 1918, ibid., 245–46.

  “Jacobson says he’d go”: HST to EW, November 24, 1917, ibid., 238.

  “I didn’t know how crazy”: HST to EW, January 10, 1918, ibid., 240.

  Tiernan provides whiskey: HST to EW, October 23, 1917, ibid., 232.

  “We elected Klemm”: Truman interview with Jonathan Daniels, November 12, 1949.

  “He taught me more about handling men”: Autobiography, 44.

  “You speak pretty good English”: Ted Marks, Oral History, HSTL.

  “No man can be that good”: Memoirs, Vol. I, 128.

  Berry would stalk up and down: Steinberg, 43.

  “I suppose you will have to spend”: HST to EW, March 16, 1918, HSTL.

  “I’d give anything in the world”: HST to EW, March 20, 1918, Dear Bess, 251.

  “The phone’s yours”: Memoirs, Vol. I, 129.

  “On leave in New York”: HST to EW, March 24 and March 26, 1918, Dear Bess, 252–53.

  a “Kike town”: HST to EW, March 27, 1918, ibid, 254.

  “Israelitist extraction”: HST to EN, ca. 1918, HSTL.

  “I imagine his vision”: Harry Vaughan, Oral History, HSTL.

  “There we were watching”: Autobiography, 45.

  He ached for home: HST to EW, April, 1918, Dear Bess, 256.

  arrival at Brest: Autobiography, 45.

  At the hotel in Brest: HST to EW, April 14, 1918, Dear Bess, 257.

  The whole surrounding countryside: HST to EW, April 23, 1918, ibid, 260.

  “The people generally treat us fine”: HST to EW, April 12, 1918, ibid, 259.

  “I’m for the French more and more”: HST to EW, June 27, 1918, ibid, 264.

  They also
knew how to build: HST to EW, May 19, 1918, ibid, 262.

  “They are the most sentimental people”: HST to EW, June 2, 1918, HSTL.

  “Je ne comprends pas”: HST to EW, April 17, 1918, Dear Bess, 259.

  determined to drink France dry: HST to EW, April 14, 1918, ibid, 258.

  “Wandering through dark streets”: Quoted in Freidel, Over There, p. 80.

  “Personally, I think Harry”: Edgar Hinde, Oral History, HSTL.

  “Wish I could step in”: HST to EW, April 17, 1918, Dear Bess, 259.

  the first-class coach: HST to EN, May 17, 1918, HSTL

  account of château: HST to EW, April 28, 1918, Dear Bess, 260.

  “You’d never think that a war”: HST to EN, May 1, 1918, HSTL.

  “and then the clock on the Hôtel de Ville”: HST to EW, April 28, 1918, HSTL.

  “I’ve studied more and worked harder”: HST to EW, May 26, 1918, HSTL.

  “We had a maneuver yesterday”: HST to EW, May 26, 1918, HSTL.

  Sundays at church: HST to EW, April 28, 1918, Dear Bess, 261.

  “and I’m for helping them”: HST to EW, May 5, 1918, ibid.

  discovered volumes of music: HST to EW, May 19, 1918, HSTL.

  “He had maps”: Arthur Wilson, Oral History, HSTL.

  “I just barely slipped through”: HST to EW, June 14, 1918, Dear Bess, 263.

  “old rube” from Missouri: HST to EW, June 27, 1918, ibid, 263.

  value of a university education: HST to EW, July 22, 1918, ibid, 267.

  “No I haven’t seen any girls”: HST to EW, June 27, 1918, ibid, 264.

  “I look like Siam’s King”: HST to EW, June 19, 1918, HSTL.

  “That was one of the things”: Cather, One of Ours, 319.

  “Dear Harry, May this photograph”: EW inscribed photograph, HSTL.

  “They were a pretty wild bunch”: Hinde, Oral History, HSTL.

  “a sitting duck”: Eugene Donnelly quoted in Miller, 97.

  “a stirring among the fellows”: Ibid, 96.

  “a rather short fellow”: Vere Leigh, Oral History, HSTL.

  “You could see that he was”: Edward McKim, Oral History, HSTL.

  “I could just see my hide”: Autobiography, 46.

  “Never on the front”: “Pickwick Papers,” HSTL.

  Ridge recollection: Miller, 96.

  “He was so badly scared”: “Pickwick Papers,” HSTL.

  “And then we gave Captain Truman”: Leigh, Oral History, HSTL.

  “He didn’t hesitate at all”: Ibid.

  “I didn’t come over here”: Daniels, The Man of Independence, 95.