Today marks the birthday of the 33rd President of the United States, Harry S. Truman. Born May 8, 1884, Truman was the only U.S. President from the Show Me State. He served two terms, from 1945 to 1953.
His middle initial, “S,” does not stand for a middle name. It honors both his grandfathers, Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon Young, which was a common practice in that era.
Truman was elected vice president as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944. He assumed the presidency after Roosevelt’s death in April 1945.
In the 1948 presidential election, Truman ran against the Republican Governor of New York, Thomas Dewey. Truman won Missouri with 58.11 percent of the popular vote. Dewey carried Gasconade County with over 70 percent of the vote, while Maries, Osage, and Franklin County sided with the incumbent.
Earlier this year, the Scenic Regional Library in Owensville offered the public a small book on Truman, “Harry Truman’s Excellent Adventure, The True Story of a Great American Road Trip,” at no charge.
The 238-page book, written in 2009 by Matthew Algeo, follows Truman and his wife, Bess, as they travel to Washington, D.C., New York City, and back home to Independence.
Truman hoped to do this incognito. At that time, ex-presidents did not have secret service agents as constant companions, nor did they have the national media watching them with a microscope.
So, in June 1953, six months after the inauguration of his successor, Truman packed up his brand new 1953 Chrysler New Yorker and did something no other president, past or present, has ever accomplished —he took a road trip. Of the car, Truman said, “It has so many gadgets on it I’ll have to go to engineering school to handle it.” One amenity the Chrysler didn’t have was air conditioning. They could have used it. The temperature for most of the drive was 100.
Algeo covers every stop — restaurant and hotel — the Trumans made on their route in great detail. He then visits the same locations himself — when possible — and interviews those who are still living. Algeo also offers his readers insights into the rise of the motel industry in America, the nation’s highway system, the history of the Waldorf-Astoria (one of Truman’s many stops), and much more.
On the trip, Truman had his photo taken with President Eisenhower’s vice president, Richard M. Nixon.
In New York City, the Trumans enjoyed dinner at the famous 21 Club. After being seated, the maître d’ had to think fast when Governor Dewey arrived. Dewey’s table was on a different floor, and they permissibly never knew their rivals were in-house.
Truman joins Ulysses S. Grant for being pulled over by the police. Grant was arrested in 1872 for speeding on a street in Washington D.C. as he drove a two-horse carriage. Bess watched her husband, who was known to have a lead foot. But the former President was not pulled over for speeding.
Driving the speed limit in the left lane of the Pennsylvania Turnpike on July 5, 1953, with a row of cars following him, a state trooper pulled Truman over for not allowing the other cars to go around.
After 19 days and 2,500 miles, the Trumans returned to their home in Independence.
Truman was the last President to retire from public service without a pension for being President. He also retired to the same humble two-and-a-half-story Victorian home in which he and Bess had lived since their marriage 34 years earlier. That was the only home they ever owned.
Some other interesting tidbits of information about Truman:
• He was a skilled pianist, rising at five o’clock every morning to practice from age seven until age 15.
• He worked for a short time in the mailroom of the Kansas City Star.
• He is the only U.S. president since William McKinley who did not have a college degree.
• He was the first U.S. President to give a speech on television.
• He was the first U.S. President to travel underwater in a submarine.
Whether you vote Democrat or Republican in national politics, this book gives a beautiful insight into the life of America’s last citizen-president and Americana in the late 1950s.
