Harry’s 135th Birthday

Harry Truman was born this day 135 years ago in 1884 in Lamar, Missouri. As a five year-old, I remember listening to the radio with my parents in Kansas City on the evening of the 1948 election to get the latest on the presidential election and to learn whether or not our local boy president was able to pull out a victory. For several years I thought all presidents came from Kansas City.

The Truman home in Independence, Missouri was probably a 20 minute drive from our house and not too far away from one of my aunts who also lived in Independence. So on an occasional lazy summer week-end my dad would drive us over to the Truman home just to take a look. Slowly passing by to see if we could get a glimpse of the president, himself. Never did. Truman was Kansas City’s only true celebrity and people treated him like one.

When I was eleven or twelve years old, my family attended a summer performance at Kansas City’s outdoor Starlight Theatre. There was a buzz in the crowd that Truman was in attendance. During intermission I found my way over to where there was a knot of people, guessing they were surrounding the former president. When I reached his row, I stretched out my arm and extended my hand while saying, “Mr. President I want to shake your hand.” And then we shook. That’s all I can remember of my brush with greatness.

In my junior year in college, the former president spoke at William Jewell to the student body. He was getting up in years so he wasn’t as sharp as he once was. Sitting toward to back of the chapel/auditorium I recall during the Q & A session that at the end of every answer he made, he would end with a clipped: “…and that’s the way it was.”

As a member of congress I enthusiastically served on the board of trustees of the Harry S. Truman Scholarship Foundation. Created and funded by congress, the foundation provides scholarships to college students to fund their graduate education with the commitment of applying it to a career in public service. Today, there are several current members of congress, a host of local officials and many who are in the non-profit world who were Truman Scholars.

Dennis Lambert, my friend and former chief of staff, lead a successful effort to have the Truman Foundation hold an annual one week retreat of new scholars at William Jewell. It continues to this day.

In our small way, Dennis and I have closed the circle with our local statesman. If only we had a Truman in the White House today.