OPINION:
In the mid-to-late 1950s, the U.S. was confronted by many divisive political issues. Among other matters, the accusations of Sen. Joe McCarthy roiled our public life. The first rumblings of the Civil Rights Movement prompted deep divisions. There was one cause, however, that tended to generate consensus: dislike and disdain of former President Harry Truman.
I can remember as a child listening to adult conversations in which Truman’s name would be mentioned. Invariably, any reference to Truman would result in invective. No one, it seemed, had anything good to say about the man who had occupied the White House for nearly two terms.
The complaints about Truman focused extensively on his character. There was general agreement that Truman had not been sufficiently intelligent or sophisticated to serve as our chief executive. This perspective was strengthened by both by his pedestrian background and by his comportment during his tenure. In particular, Truman suffered from comparisons with his predecessors and, most notably, the aristocratic Franklin Roosevelt.
Stories about Truman’s vulgarity and lack of dignity abound. One of those stories reminds us of Truman’s use of off-color language at a time when this was considered off-limits for a public personality. It is said that one day, Bess Truman, the first lady, was entertaining a group of women in the White House garden. The president came out to greet the ladies and spoke to them. When he left, one of the ladies turned to Mrs. Truman and asked her if she might try to persuade the president to stop using the word “manure.” She responded: “If only you knew how long it has taken me to get him to use that word.”
For a more public demonstration of his coarse behavior, it is only necessary to watch a newsreel of the acceptance speech given by Adlai Stevenson at the 1952 Democratic National Convention. As the Illinois governor is speaking, it is possible to observe Truman sitting directly behind the speaker and next to several other politicians. Throughout much of Stevenson’s remarks, Truman can be seen speaking animatedly with those seated near him, paying absolutely no attention to Stevenson. His overt lack of interest in his designated successor was flagrant and, frankly, terribly disrespectful.
Of course, Truman’s policies were dramatic and disruptive and, frequently, contrary to popular opinion and even to the positions of his party. His decision to drop the atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki remains controversial to this day, but it is recognized as a courageous one. His choice to desegregate our military was deemed audacious at the time and met with ferocious objection from the Southern members of Truman’s Democratic Party. He confronted labor unions despite their alliance to his party, and he fired the very popular Gen. Douglas MacArthur even though the move was considered unwarranted and even unpatriotic by much of the American public.
In 1948, the State Department was unalterably opposed to any move to recognize the newly declared state of Israel. These officials predicted that the entire Arab world would rise up against the United States and disrupt our energy supply lines. Truman, whose mother-in-law was so antisemitic that she would not even allow Truman’s longtime Jewish business partner into her house, disregarded them and made the United States the first country to recognize Israel.
Truman was not especially generous. He had not been successful in business, and he was not shy about trying to improve his financial situation. I remember a story told to me by my former law partner, who was a nephew of Tom “Boss” Pendergast, the Kansas City pol who promoted Truman’s political career. While my colleague was in law school at the University of Missouri — Kansas City, his classmates asked him to call upon the former president believing that he was in the best position to persuade Truman to address the students. After my colleague had been admitted to Truman’s office and had made his request, Truman responded with just one phrase: “Fifteen hundred dollars.” He made it clear that unless the students were prepared to pay to see him, he was not interested. (They couldn’t pay, and Truman did not appear.)
The passage of time, however, has been very kind to Harry Truman. Those who despised him are long gone, and the current assessment is that the plain-spoken man from Missouri was one of our greatest presidents. The attributes that those who reviled Truman in the years immediately following his presidency found so repulsive have become positives. Even the contrast with the sophisticated and polished Franklin Roosevelt has given Truman ever-increasing standing.
Our own era has had and may again have a president who is considered vile and vulgar by many of his contemporaries, just as Harry Truman was viewed by so many of his compatriots after the end of his terms. Donald Trump is intensely disliked by a large number of Americans, so much so that dislike for him has become a kind of mental condition, the so-called Trump Derangement Syndrome. To many, he is irredeemably uncouth and repulsive.
As our media and political class pass very harsh judgments on Donald Trump, it might be advisable to remember the wise words of Edward Gibbon in his epic, “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.” Gibbon wrote: “A people elated by pride, or soured by discontent, is seldom qualified to form a just estimate of their actual situation.”
Lowering emotions in making judgments of our political figures seems highly advisable. In fact, it is possible that the best cure for Trump Derangement Syndrome and the visceral hatred of Donald Trump could be the passage of time, just as it has been for Harry Truman.
• Gerard Leval is a partner in the Washington office of a national law firm. His book, “Lobbying for Equality: Jacques Godard and the Struggle for Jewish Civil Rights During the French Revolution,” was published by HUC Press in 2022.
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