MISSOURI WATCH: REMEMBERING HARRY... FONDLY

During the recent, now unlamented campaign, voters heard on an almost daily basis the words, sayings and ministrations of the thirty-third President of the United States. Harry Truman's words were used to inspire the loyal and faithful by candidates of both parties, usually providing a source of amusement for members of HST's chosen affiliation. Make no mistake about it, the man from Independence was a bona fide partisan, ready to skew the enemy at the drop of a speech.

Unlike many of today's politicians, Truman was seldom friendly with Washington Republicans and never engaged in slick, secret relationships with followers of the party of Taft and Dewey. He lived his politics, both privately and publicly, and never to my knowledge, went hand in hand to offer an olive leaf to the GOP. He would rather have resigned than embrace the opposition's policies and programs, considering such dalliances both morally and politically suspect. When the present occupant of the White House, in an obvious attempt to win re-election, adopted the Republican welfare program, HST must have at least twitched in his grave.

It was always fun to hear Bob Dole quote Truman, an event that seemed as bizarre as listening to Bill Clinton quote him. Both candidates, as well as their subordinate partisans here in Missouri, were careful to pick and choose HST's pithy comments. Dole came close when he used Truman's tirade against congressional Republicans ("I don't give the opposition hell.

I just tell the truth and they think it's hell"), but he was careful not to use one that provided a bit more detail as to HST's point of reference: "The Republican Party has long been the party of the rich and the powerful, ready to exploit the less fortunate when it was to their advantage".

Bill Clinton was equally selective in letting Truman speak for him, as witness this unused gem: "Politicians who cannot be trusted to live up to their word are the worst of all public servants, ready to take advantage of common folks who still believe that the only commodity in politics is truth." It seems quaint these days to hear some candidate speak about truth, a word that has withered away due to Beltway misuse.

With the election over and the official count expected almost any day, Truman's words are seldom heard, tucked away to be trucked out when another partisan campaign is in full swing. That's a pity, because the Missourian had another characteristic that would serve the nation exceptionally well at this moment. In not one book about Harry Truman have I ever read anything about his desire, after his retirement, to restore friendships that had been tattered by partisan wars, and to make right events that might have gone wrong.

Even the more recent, highly acclaimed biographies have never made mention of this characteristic, perhaps become so many of the principals are gone, leaving behind no evidence of Truman's mark of humanity with a tell-all book of their own.

Contrast this with today's climate, when presidential friends, even those who pay for friendship from the opposite sex, begin books even before being dismissed from presidential service.

No, many of Truman's early, and best, friends would never dream of writing a book about their relationship with the President of the United States. These were personal matters one did not share with the public, seldom even with friends.

Permit me to recount one such experience.

A couple of years after Harry and Bess had returned to Independence, where they joyfully resumed the kind of schedule that fit both of them, particularly Bess, the former president occupied himself with equipping his library, correcting history and, perhaps as important as the first two, restoring friendships that had been damaged because of campaigns, perceived disloyalty or other real or imagined sins. Although he seldom wanted to discuss the matter, HST agonized over lost friends, but he did not hesitate to break the ties that bind when he believed himself in the right. He did not hesitate, for example, to brand, long before he took on the music critic of the Washington Post, a former friend and ally an "S.O.B." in a public speech delivered on the Fourth of July in a small town in Northwest Missouri.

While Truman was loyal to his constant friends (as witness his fly-in trip to Tom Pendergast's funeral while he was vice president), he wanted to end his mortal career with old friends intact. That prompted him, one spring morning, to place a telephone call to the above mentioned July Fourth target, a man who happened to be engaged at that exact moment in a daily ritual that involved, among other things, the reading of the morning newspaper. When advised by an employee that "The President wants you on the line," the man thought the messenger was simply joking. Making no haste in answering the call, the man finally picked up the phone to discover, to his amazement, that, indeed, "the President" of only a few years before, was on the line.

"I've been thinking," HST began, "that we're both getting along in years and I would like to bury the hatchet and be friends once again, before one of us passes on." The astounded callee, not unlike Mr. Truman in both size and temperament, responded, "I'd like that very much, Harry, er, Mr. President."

"No, you were right the first time. Let's make it Harry from now on," and Harry it was until one of them "passed on." Now, both are gone, and their story makes it into print for the first time since two funerals in rural Missouri over a span of more than a quarter of a century.

Perhaps this is nothing more than a small footnote to history. Or perhaps this real-life tale illustrates what is wrong with today's political process and the persons who play out their roles in this process. Or maybe it's just a story about two men who finally learned an important lesson in life.

~Jack Stapleton of Kennett is the editor of the Missouri News and Editorial Service.