[great people] 'give ‘em hell' harry
I’m possibly going to lose half the Americans checking this site before I even begin this. That’s appropriate, given the pugnacious subject of this piece – Harry S [without the period] Truman.
Those of you on that side of the pond – you’ve had some fine leaders; you’ve had some poor ones too but you’ve also had some whom I believe do not yet occupy their rightful place in American hearts and should – they really should.
By far the most interesting chief executives, in my eyes, were Old Hickory, Andy Johnson, Harry S Truman and Dwight Eisenhower and that’s because they stood up for what they believed.
Jackson was a colossus, because he was the last man who stood foursquare and tried to crush the Monster through its mouthpiece, Nicholas Biddle; Johnson was wrongfully vilified at the most difficult of times for the nation and probably did well to govern it at all. Was there ever a beat up like those impeachment proceedings? Eisenhower will be touched on at a later date.
Which leaves the last of the four. A battler, an unfashionable dirt farmer, lacking in the graces, in the shadow of a four time presidential great. I suggest that he represents, more nearly than any other president, the qualities America should be proud of. He showed that Adlai Stevenson’s aside was correct – that if you play your cards right - you can become president.
It was a nasty time in history – desperately unfashionable, the Cold War just round the corner and McCarthy in full flight. Truman faced crisis after crisis and never baulked once. Is that not a leader? In his wartime experiences, this sums the man up for me:
Truman, thrown by his horse, had been nearly crushed when the horse fell on him. Out from under, seeing the others all running, he just stood there, locked in place, and called them back using every form of profanity he'd ever heard.
And back they came.
This was no Douglas MacArthur, strutting the edge of a trench to inspire the troops. This was a man who carried extra eyeglasses in every pocket because without glasses he was nearly blind.
He had memorized the eye chart in order to get into the Army. And there he was in the sudden hell of artillery shells exploding all around, shouting, shaming his men back to do what they were supposed to do.
Here are just some of the reasons I believe he should be regarded as one of the greats:
1. An unlikely leader
No President, it was said, could have been more poorly prepared than Harry S. Truman for the immense burdens of leadership that were thrust upon him in April of 1945. He was lightly regarded by the men around Franklin D. Roosevelt, and there had been little time, and even less inclination, during his brief vice presidency to initiate him into the highest policy - making circles of the Administration.
2. An underrated man
Harry Truman was, in fact, an easy man to underestimate. In speech and manner, the 60 - year - old Missourian was as simple and artless as his small - town upbringing might suggest. He had never attended college, though he had a wide knowledge of American history.
As a young man he had tried his hand at farming, with modest success, then at business, with no success at all. At last, deciding on a political career at the age of 37, Truman had entered public office under the banner of a notoriously corrupt political machine.
3. Surprising political courage
But though Truman was a Democratic Party regular and loyal to a fault, he proved himself to be strong - minded, diligent and as personally honest as his sponsors were venal. And when he arrived in the US Senate in 1935, he demonstrated both an unexpected breadth of vision and a steely resolve to act on the issues as he saw them.
During his first year in Washington, Truman supported Roosevelt's initiative for a law binding the United States to the rulings of the World Court at The Hague-an unpopular cause in a Congress hostile to any international ties. From 1939 onward, he backed the President's controversial efforts to aid countries fighting Germany and Japan.
And in 1940, he confounded his border - state constituency by making equality for black Americans an issue in an uphill race for reelection.
4. Momentous decisions
Truman was dismayed when fate declared him President; he genuinely had no ambitions for the job. Almost immediately, he was called upon to make momentous decisions, and none more difficult than whether or not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.
To Truman, the course was clear; he made the decision swiftly, aware that although hundreds of thousands of lives might be lost, millions more would be saved by putting an immediate end to the War.
Harry S apparently initiated the "period" controversy himself in 1962 when, perhaps in jest, he told newspapermen that the period should be omitted. In explanation he said that the "S" did not stand for any name but was a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. He was later heard to say that the use of the period dated after 1962 as well as before.
Some Truman quotes:
The buck stops here.
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don't ever apologize for anything.
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast.
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Finally, Harry S, quoted by Time, June 9, 1975, summed up his view of life thus:
I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: 'Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.' I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have - when he gives everything that is in him to do the job he has before him. That is all you can ask of him and that is what I have tried to do.
Those of you on that side of the pond – you’ve had some fine leaders; you’ve had some poor ones too but you’ve also had some whom I believe do not yet occupy their rightful place in American hearts and should – they really should.
By far the most interesting chief executives, in my eyes, were Old Hickory, Andy Johnson, Harry S Truman and Dwight Eisenhower and that’s because they stood up for what they believed.
Jackson was a colossus, because he was the last man who stood foursquare and tried to crush the Monster through its mouthpiece, Nicholas Biddle; Johnson was wrongfully vilified at the most difficult of times for the nation and probably did well to govern it at all. Was there ever a beat up like those impeachment proceedings? Eisenhower will be touched on at a later date.
Which leaves the last of the four. A battler, an unfashionable dirt farmer, lacking in the graces, in the shadow of a four time presidential great. I suggest that he represents, more nearly than any other president, the qualities America should be proud of. He showed that Adlai Stevenson’s aside was correct – that if you play your cards right - you can become president.
It was a nasty time in history – desperately unfashionable, the Cold War just round the corner and McCarthy in full flight. Truman faced crisis after crisis and never baulked once. Is that not a leader? In his wartime experiences, this sums the man up for me:
Truman, thrown by his horse, had been nearly crushed when the horse fell on him. Out from under, seeing the others all running, he just stood there, locked in place, and called them back using every form of profanity he'd ever heard.
And back they came.
This was no Douglas MacArthur, strutting the edge of a trench to inspire the troops. This was a man who carried extra eyeglasses in every pocket because without glasses he was nearly blind.
He had memorized the eye chart in order to get into the Army. And there he was in the sudden hell of artillery shells exploding all around, shouting, shaming his men back to do what they were supposed to do.
Here are just some of the reasons I believe he should be regarded as one of the greats:
1. An unlikely leader
No President, it was said, could have been more poorly prepared than Harry S. Truman for the immense burdens of leadership that were thrust upon him in April of 1945. He was lightly regarded by the men around Franklin D. Roosevelt, and there had been little time, and even less inclination, during his brief vice presidency to initiate him into the highest policy - making circles of the Administration.
2. An underrated man
Harry Truman was, in fact, an easy man to underestimate. In speech and manner, the 60 - year - old Missourian was as simple and artless as his small - town upbringing might suggest. He had never attended college, though he had a wide knowledge of American history.
As a young man he had tried his hand at farming, with modest success, then at business, with no success at all. At last, deciding on a political career at the age of 37, Truman had entered public office under the banner of a notoriously corrupt political machine.
3. Surprising political courage
But though Truman was a Democratic Party regular and loyal to a fault, he proved himself to be strong - minded, diligent and as personally honest as his sponsors were venal. And when he arrived in the US Senate in 1935, he demonstrated both an unexpected breadth of vision and a steely resolve to act on the issues as he saw them.
During his first year in Washington, Truman supported Roosevelt's initiative for a law binding the United States to the rulings of the World Court at The Hague-an unpopular cause in a Congress hostile to any international ties. From 1939 onward, he backed the President's controversial efforts to aid countries fighting Germany and Japan.
And in 1940, he confounded his border - state constituency by making equality for black Americans an issue in an uphill race for reelection.
4. Momentous decisions
Truman was dismayed when fate declared him President; he genuinely had no ambitions for the job. Almost immediately, he was called upon to make momentous decisions, and none more difficult than whether or not to drop the atomic bomb on Japan.
To Truman, the course was clear; he made the decision swiftly, aware that although hundreds of thousands of lives might be lost, millions more would be saved by putting an immediate end to the War.
Harry S apparently initiated the "period" controversy himself in 1962 when, perhaps in jest, he told newspapermen that the period should be omitted. In explanation he said that the "S" did not stand for any name but was a compromise between the names of his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young. He was later heard to say that the use of the period dated after 1962 as well as before.
Some Truman quotes:
The buck stops here.
If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.
Carry the battle to them. Don't let them bring it to you. Put them on the defensive. And don't ever apologize for anything.
I have found the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want and then advise them to do it.
If you cannot convince them, confuse them.
It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.
Take a two-mile walk every morning before breakfast.
Once a government is committed to the principle of silencing the voice of opposition, it has only one way to go, and that is down the path of increasingly repressive measures, until it becomes a source of terror to all its citizens and creates a country where everyone lives in fear.
I never did give them hell. I just told the truth, and they thought it was hell.
It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose yours.
Whenever you have an efficient government you have a dictatorship.
Finally, Harry S, quoted by Time, June 9, 1975, summed up his view of life thus:
I always remember an epitaph which is in the cemetery at Tombstone, Arizona. It says: 'Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.' I think that is the greatest epitaph a man can have - when he gives everything that is in him to do the job he has before him. That is all you can ask of him and that is what I have tried to do.
posted by James Higham @ 15:31
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