|
On his 38th birthday, Truman opened his campaign for the eastern judge of Jackson
County. There was a heavy turnout of boys from Battery D and some of the Pendergast
men. The applause was enormous, but Truman's speech was less than stellar. He was
so nervous that he was barely able to get the words out of his mouth that he would
run. All during the campaign Truman proved to be a sub-par speaker but none-the-less,
he won the primary. He carried by a mere 279 votes out of the 11,000 cast. With
the primary election behind him, the general election was a cakewalk in the
overwhelmingly Democratic Jackson County.
Truman would make a mistake during the election that he would later regret. The
Ku Klux Klan was a growing force in Missouri. One of Truman's friends, Edgar
Hinde, persuaded Harry to join just because it was good politics. Two of Harry's
opponents in the race already had Klan support and the race was going to be too
close to call. Truman at first rejected the idea, but was finally persuaded to
pay the $10 fee for membership.
A clan organizer wanted to talk with Truman to discuss the Klan's support for him.
It soon became clear to Truman that the clan would not support him unless he
promised to shun all Catholics when elected. Though not a Catholic himself, Truman
could in no way turn his back on Catholics. Most of the men he commanded during
the war were Irish Catholics. Truman informed the Klan organizer of that fact and
backed out on the deal and his $10 was returned. Furthermore, he said he would
appoint whomever he wanted. For someone of Truman's character, this had been a
mistake made in the heat of battle and one that he would not have made again,
given the opportunity to erase it.
Truman and the other two judges were sworn in on January 1, 1923. The presiding
judge was Henry McElroy. With Truman working alongside, they
managed to transform the way business was done in Jackson County.
Formerly all county work was issued on the spoils system. The road overseers,
less conscientious than Truman and his father had been, often did sub-par jobs
or nothing at all. Truman knew the roads and bridges of Jackson County in detail
and made sure that the work was completed and done right. Under Truman and
McElroy's leadership, the county deficit was cut in half from its $1 million dollars.
Truman and McElroy had made quite a name for themselves as public servants who truly
sought the good of the community at large.
In February of 1924 Bess Truman would give birth to their only child, Mary Margaret
Truman. She was named after Truman's sister Mary Jane and his mother-in-law
Mrs. Wallace. From the day of her birth, she was the apple of her father's eye.
Despite the great job done by Judges Truman and McElroy, when the time came for
reelection two years later, there were some serious problems. Although Truman won
the primary, one of the two major factions of the Democratic Party split off. They
joined with members of the Klan to fight Truman's reelection. After a bitter fight,
Truman lost the election and once again found himself not only out of a job
but needing money. In order to provide an income for his family, Truman started
selling memberships in the Kansas City Automobile Club. He made a commission of
about $5 on each of the 1000 new memberships he sold.
In 1926, the Pendergast machine was again pitching Harry Truman for a judgeship
in Jackson County, only this time it was for the position of presiding judge.
Harry would complete two terms as presiding judge from January of 1927 to January
of 1935.
In the position of Presiding Judge, Harry Truman had some real power. One of his
first tasks was to appoint a bipartisan board of civil engineers to report on the
condition of the roads in Jackson County. The report expounded on the many poor
conditions and that a sum of $6.5 million dollars would be needed to make the
necessary repairs. This amount far exceeded what could be paid with taxes, so
Truman proposed a bond issue. As it had never been attempted in Jackson County,
the political machinery did not believe it possible. But Truman took to the stump
and assured people that money raised would be carefully monitored and the work
would go to the lowest bidder. In the end, the bond issue passed and Truman had
the roadwork completed on time and under budget. Before leaving office, Truman
also erected several public buildings using the same technique.
In 1932 Truman had aspirations of running for governor of Missouri. When these
plans were made known to the political boss, Tom Pendergast, Truman was informed
that someone else had already been selected for that position. The following year,
Truman hoped to run for U.S. Congress but was again told by Pendergast that someone
else would be given the job. Harry Truman was concerned because he could only serve
two terms as Presiding Judge, and without the support of Tom Pendergast, his political
career looked to be over.
In May of 1934 Truman was surprised when Tom Pendergast called him in for a meeting.
Although Truman was not his first choice, Pendergast asked him to run for the U.S. Senate.
Harry accepted, ran a tough campaign and won the election. On Election Day
Truman had earned 276,850 votes while his opponents, Cochran, received 236,105 and
Milligan managed 147,614.
As was customary, not long after arriving on Capitol Hill, Truman was scheduled to
have 10 minutes with the President. Truman was so nervous at his first meeting
with Franklin Delano Roosevelt that he couldn't manage to say much and his time
was cut to only seven minutes. The farm boy from Missouri had not yet come into his own.
But Truman was diligent in his job and arrived earlier than any one else. He sat
in the back row of the Democrat-dominated Senate and absorbed as much as he could.
After four months he introduced his first piece of legislation, which was sent off
to committee and promptly killed.
Truman was assigned to the prestigious Committee on Appropriations and the
Interstate Commerce Committee. Harry Truman seldom missed any committee meeting
and read as much as he could to educate himself on committee business. Truman
listened and learned and then voted for what he thought was right. He was a New
Dealer through and through and almost never voted against legislation supported by FDR.
One exception to voting straight down the line with FDR was the occasion where
Roosevelt tried to stack the Supreme Court in his favor. The Court had declared
several of his New Deal pieces of legislation unconstitutional.
In order to keep that from happening again, FDR sought to expand the Supreme Court
from nine to fifteen members. By doing so, he could stack the Court in his favor.
FDR had announced this plan without consulting any of the Democratic leaders in
the Senate. Many members of the Senate, including Democrats, were outraged by FDR's
arrogance. A heated debate raged and the White House put heavy pressure on all of
the Democrats. A call from the White House reached Tom Pendergast to add pressure
on Truman to vote with FDR. The White House never called Truman directly, and by
going to Pendergast instead, showed that it believed that Truman was nothing but
a Pendergast puppet. Truman was outraged and insulted, and he sent his message to
the White House through his vote. In the end FDR suffered his first and worst defeat
in his handling of this issue.
Truman's run for reelection in the Senate would be his toughest race yet. The
landscape had changed drastically in Missouri since his last election. Tom Pendergast
had gone to prison for tax evasion. His political machine and everything associated
with it had been decimated.
Governor Stark, who had risen to his rank thanks to Pendergast, turned on the Big Boss.
With the aid of Federal District Attorney Maurice Milligan, they brought down Tom
Pendergast and his political machine. Pendergast was weak and sick with cancer when
he finally pleaded guilty in court. Stark, puffed up with his press and his own
self-worth, decided to run against Truman in the 1940 election.
Truman was in political trouble when he announced his intention to run for
reelection on February 3, 1940. The machine behind him was all but gone, and Stark
was running on the high tide of his press after bringing down Tom Pendergast.
Stark attacked Truman as being a man of the "machine" but Truman refused to
retaliate with a negative campaign of his own. Truman believed if he let Stark
speak enough he would talk himself right out of the election. Joining the race
later was the Federal District Attorney who was actually responsible for taking
down Pendergast: Maurice Milligan. In the early polls, Milligan followed
Stark closely while Truman lagged far behind them both. Milligan helped to play
the spoiler for Stark by taking many of his votes and leaving Truman's base untouched.
The Truman campaign was in such financial trouble that on one occasion they could
not afford a room for their candidate and he was forced to sleep in his car.
Truman managed to raise about $17,000 from the railroad unions for which he had
done so much, but other than the support from some of his friends in the Senate,
Truman would not have any big money in the campaign.
Truman was right in one respect. Stark would talk himself out of the race. In
the final weeks of the campaign Stark went to the national convention in Chicago
and announced himself [as] a candidate for the vice-presidential nomination. At
the same time, there were rumors of Stark being the next Secretary of the Navy.
In the end, the support of Truman's friends in the Senate and his own canvassing
of the state, gave him the election by a narrow margin of less than 8,000 out
of the 665,000 total votes cast.
War preparations were in full swing during his second term as Senator, and Truman
took it upon himself to do a nationwide tour to see how things were being handled.
What he discovered was large-scale squandering of federal money. Upon his return
to Washington, Truman immediately reported his findings to FDR then worked
diligently on preparing a speech to report his findings to the Senate. After
presenting his report on February 10, 1941, Truman would gain national prominence
in the Senate by proposing and then being selected chairman of the newly-formed
Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. The committee
saved the nation millions of dollars during the war effort and was known
more commonly as the Truman Committee. It was this committee work that would catapult
Truman to the vice-presidency in 1944.
|
