Harry
S. Truman
Harry
S. Truman was born in Lamar, Missouri on May 8, 1884,
the son of John Anderson Truman and Martha Ellen (Young)
Truman. The family, which soon included another boy,
Vivian, and a girl, Mary Jane moved several times
during Truman's childhood and youth - first, in 1887,
to a farm near Grandview, then, in 1890, to Independence,
and finally, in 1902, to Kansas City. Young Harry
attended public schools in Independence, graduating
from high school in 1901. After leaving school, he
worked briefly as a timekeeper for a railroad construction
contractor, then as a clerk in two Kansas City banks.
In 1906 he returned to Grandview to help his father
run the family farm. He continued working as a farmer
for more than ten years.
From
1905 to 1911, Truman served in the Missouri National
Guard. At the outbreak of World War I, he helped organize
the 2nd Regiment of Missouri Field Artillery, which
was quickly called into Federal service as the 129th
Field Artillery and sent to France. Truman was promoted
to Captain and given command of the regiment's Battery
D. He and his unit saw action in the Vosges, Saint
Mihiel and Meuse-Argonne campaigns. Truman joined
the reserves after the war, rising eventually to the
rank of colonel. He sought to return to active duty
at the outbreak of World War II, but Army Chief of
Staff General George C. Marshall declined his offer
to serve.
On
June 28, 1919, Truman married Bess Wallace, whom he
had known since childhood. Their only child, Mary
Margaret, was born on February 17, 1924. From 1919
to 1922 he ran a men's clothing store in Kansas City
with his wartime friend, Eddie Jacobson. The store
failed in the postwar recession. Truman narrowly avoided
bankruptcy, and through determination and over many
years he paid off his share of the store's debts.
Truman
was elected in 1922, to be one of three judges of
the Jackson County Court. Judge Truman whose duties
were in fact administrative rather than judicial,
built a reputation for honesty and efficiency in the
management of county affairs. He was defeated for
reelection in 1924, but won election as presiding
judge in the Jackson County Court in 1926. He won
reelection in 1930.
In
1934, Truman was elected to the United States Senate.
He had significant roles in the passage into law of
the Civil Aeronautics Act of 1938 and the Transportation
Act of 1940. After being reelected in 1940, Truman
gained national prominence as chairman of the Senate
Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense
Program. This committee, which came to be called the
Truman Committee, sought with considerable success
to ensure that defense contractors delivered to the
nation quality goods at fair prices.
In
July 1944, Truman was nominated to run for Vice President
with President Franklin D. Roosevelt. On January 20,
1945, he took the vice-presidential oath, and after
President Roosevelt's unexpected death only eighty-two
days later on April 12, 1945, he was sworn in as the
nations' thirty-third President.
Truman later called his first year as President a
"year of decisions." He oversaw during his
first two months in office the ending of the war in
Europe. He participated in a conference at Potsdam,
Germany, governing defeated Germany, and to lay some
groundwork for the final stage of the war against
Japan. Truman approved the dropping of two bombs on
Japan on August 6 and 9, 1945. Japan surrendered on
August 14, and American forces of occupation began
to land by the end of the month. This first year of
Truman's presidency also saw the founding of the United
Nations and the development of an increasingly strained
and confrontational relationship with the Soviet Union.
Truman's
presidency was marked throughout by important foreign
policy initiatives. Central to almost everything Truman
undertook in his foreign policy was the desire to
prevent the expansion of the influence of the Soviet
Union. The Truman Doctrine was an enunciation of American
willingness to provide military aid to countries resisting
communist insurgencies. The Marshall Plan sought to
revive the economies of the nations of Europe in the
hope that communism would not thrive in the midst
of prosperity. The North Atlantic Treaty Organization
built a military barrier confronting the Soviet-dominated
part of Europe. The one time during his presidency
when a communist nation invaded a non-communist one
-- when North Korea invaded South Korea in June 1950
-- Truman responded by waging undeclared war.
In his domestic policies, Truman sought to accomplish
the difficult transition from a war to a peace economy
without plunging the nation into recession, and he
hoped to extend New Deal social programs to include
more government protection and services and to reach
more people. He was successful in achieving a healthy
peacetime economy, but only a few of his social program
proposals became law. The Congress, which was much
more Republican in its membership during his presidency
than it had been during Franklin Roosevelt's, did
not usually share Truman's desire to build on the
legacy of the New Deal.
The Truman administration went considerably beyond
the New Deal in the area of civil rights. Although,
the conservative Congress thwarted Truman's desire
to achieve significant civil rights legislation, he
was able to use his powers as President to achieve
some important changes. He issued executive orders
desegregating the armed forces and forbidding racial
discrimination in Federal employment. He also established
a Committee on Civil Rights and encouraged the Justice
Department to argue before the Supreme Court on behalf
of plaintiffs fighting against segregation.
In
1948, Truman won reelection. His defeat had been widely
expected and often predicted, but Truman's energy
in undertaking his campaign and his willingness to
confront issues won a plurality of the electorate
for him. His famous "Whistlestop" campaign
tour through the country has passed into political
folklore, as has the photograph of the beaming Truman
holding up the newspaper whose headline proclaimed,
"Dewey Defeats Truman."
Truman
left the presidency and retired to Independence in
January 1953. For the nearly two decades of his life
remaining to him, he delighted in being "Mr.
Citizen," as he called himself in a book of memoirs.
He spent his days reading, writing, lecturing and
taking long brisk walks. He took particular satisfaction
in founding and supporting his Library, which made
his papers available to scholars, and which opened
its doors to everyone who wished to have a glimpse
of his remarkable life and career.
Harry
S. Truman died on December 26, 1972. Bess Truman died
on October 18, 1982. They are buried side by side
in the Library's courtyard.
