Puffs

I mentioned earlier that I was reading a book about Harry Truman and I have now finished all 1,000 pages and greatly enjoyed the book.

I learned a number of things I did not know about the man.

In general, he was a much more of a liberal than what I knew. (Although by today’s standards, he was a conservative liberal.)

He also tried to do the “Right” thing. He often was in the minority on some programs as he fought against ‘trends’ he thought were wrong. He did not win everything, by a long shot, but he never stopped trying to do what he thought was the “Right Things” to do.

I’d like to pass along a few thoughts from the book.

The following comment was interesting (and shows what a difference there is between liberals of a century ago, and today: “Like so many things about Washington, liberals were a new experience for him and generally speaking, he didn’t care for them.”

President Trump contended there was voting fraud in 2020, and so many Democrats and media people contend there has “Never” been vote fraud in America’s elections. From the book: “The documentation amassed by Milligan and a swarm of FBI agents revealed that approximately 60,000 “ghost” votes had been cast in Kansas City in 1936. Many precincts had registrations figures exceeding the known population.”

“Voting Fraud” happens, it is just hard to prove.

I remember reading about the extravagant personal staff and amount of goods that the Obamas had during his time in the While House and how few personal staff Trump and his wife had. It was no different when Truman came into the White House after Franklin Roosevelt died. From the book: “To move Mrs. Roosevelt out had required twenty Army trucks. To move the Truman’s from the Blair House across the street had required only one.”

Often, President Truman and his wife, Bess, would have a cocktail in the evening. The White House bartender had mixed ‘fancy drinks’ on several occasions and Mrs. Truman was not happy with them and complained they were the worse drinks she ever had. The bartender poured her a double bourbon on ice and she said: “Now that’s the way we like our old-fashioned.”

At the end of WWII President Truman made the following statement: “Let us not forget that we are fighting for peace, and for the welfare of mankind. We are not fighting for conquest. There is not one piece of territory or one thing of a monetary nature that we want out of this war.”

Isn’t that saying the same things as the recently decease, Colin Powell, said: “We want only enough land to bury our fighting boys who died to help make you free.”

President Truman seemed to operate by just taking a day at a time with not enough ‘long range planning’ according to his critics. He received many ‘well-intentioned’ suggestions as how to run the nation. Just as in recent history we’re told by the liberals we need more than nine Supreme Court Justices and a “Huge” stimulus bill. Truman had a sense of humor when he came up with the following: “Perhaps we should add some new Kitchen Cabinet secretaries as well: A Secretary of Inflation to convince everyone that however high, or low, prices went, it didn’t matter; A Secretary of Reaction to abolish airplanes and restore ox carts and sailing ships; a Secretary of Columnists, to read all the columns and report to the President on how the country should be run, and a Secretary of Semantics, to supply big words as well as to tell him when to keep quiet.”

The majority of Presidents up to Truman had roots in what was considered the “prestigious” universities from the East Coast. Truman was from Missouri and had no “East Coast” educational background. On one occasion, a reporter was questioning him about his stature as being “average.”

Truman’s reply to the reporter was a question: “Well, what is wrong with being the average man?”

A O

Truman had a sense of humor we don’t hear about today from many of our political leaders. I suspect they are afraid their opponents would not understand the humor and maybe use it against them. (Not unlike the media did with President Trump.)

However, in the 1948 election, Truman used the following story:

“His opponent, Truman said, acted like a doctor whose magic cure for everything was a soothing syrup called unity. And here were American people going for the usual once-every four-year checkup.

“Say you don’t look so good!” Truman said, acting the part of the doctor.

“Well, that seems strange to me too, Doc,” he answered, as the voice of the people. “I never felt stronger, never had more money, and never had a brighter future. What is wrong with me?”

“I never discuss issues with a patient. But what you need is a major operation.”

“Will it be serious, Doc?”

“Not so very serious. It will just mean taking out the complete works and putting in a Republican administration.”

A O

I felt I learned a lot from those thousand plus pages in that book. I learned a lot about Truman I didn’t know before. I was disappointed in some of what I learned about Truman and happy about other things.

It seemed to me that Truman operated with the following in mind written by Mark Twain: “Always do right. It will please some people and astonish the rest.”

A O