I HAVE BEEN INSPIRED BY SINANN'S POST ON THE MARSHALL PLAN TO POST SOMETHING ABOUT THE MAN WHO WAS PRESIDENT AT THAT TIME.
The Thirty - Third President of the United States.. 1945 -- 1953
1884 (May 8) Born in Lamar, Missouri.
1890 - 1901 Attended public school in Independence, Missouri.
1906 - 1917 Farmed near Grandview, Missouri.
1917 - 1919 Commanded an artillery battery in World War 1, rose to rank of major.
1919 (June 28) Married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace.
1919 - 1922 Partner in men's clothing store in Kansas City.
1923 - 1924 County judge of Jackson County.
1927 - 1934 Presiding judge of Jackson County.
1935 - 1945 U.S. senator from Missouri.
1945 Vice President of the United States.
1972 (Dec. 26 ) Died in Kansas City, Missouri.
The first President to take office in the midst of a war, Harry S. Truman said at the time that he felt 'like the moon, and the stars and all the planets had fallen on me." The nation and the world wondered if he was a big enough man to fill Roosevelt's shoes. His background and even his appearance were unpromising. He was the first President in fifty years without a college education. He spoke the language of a Missouri dirt farmer and World War 1 artilleryman, both of which he had been. Instead of looking like a statesman, he looked like a bank clerk or haberdasher, both of which he also had been. And, worst of all, everyone knew that for more than twenty years he had been a lieutenant of Tom Pendergast, one of the most corrupt political bosses in the country.
What most people didn't know was that he was an unswervingly honest man who knew his own mind and one of the most knowledgeable students of history ever to enter the White House. He understood the powers of the President, and he knew why some men had been strong Chief Executives and others had been weak ones.
He ordered the atomic bomb dropperd because he was sure it would save American lives and end World War 11 quickly. It did not bother him in later years that intellectuals questioned whether one man should have made such an awesome decision. He knew he had been right.
When World War 11 had been won, Truman helped shift the nation smoothly from a war footing to a peacetime economy, the first time in its history that the United States did not suffer a depression as an aftermath of war. Despite opposition by isolationists who felt the United States should bring home all its troops and forget the problems of the war torn countries, Truman upheld America's newly won responsibilities as the worlds most powerful nation. He brought to fruition Wilson's dream of bringing the United States into a world peace-keeping organization, the United Nations. He helped rebuild Europe. And he launched a gigantic foreign-aid program in which the United States underwrote the cost of helping underprivileged nations improve themselves.
When communist Russia and communist China challenged America in the cold war, Truman held them back with the stubbornness of a Missouri mule. To prevent the Russians from overrunning Europe, he helped organize the North Atlantic Treaty organization with troops of the United States and Western Europe under a unified command. On the other side of the world, when communist troops invaded South Korea, Truman instantly dispatched American armed forces to repel the aggressors.
Despite his accopmplishments on the world scene, Truman had made so many enemies at home among New Dealers, southern Democrats, conservative Republicans, and Liberal intellectuals, that when he ran for a second term in 1948 everyone expected him to be defeated. But the common people trusted Truman, ignored the political prophets, and gave him a substantial victory.
" I wasn't one of the great Presidents," Truman said after leaving the White House, " but I had a good time trying to be one, I can tell you that." Winston Churchill went much further, declaring to Truman: " You, more than any other man, have saved Western civilization."
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