We stopped in Independence, MO as our recent bus tour headed north to home and visited the Truman Presidential Museum. Each time I visit my watch seems to run too fast, and it's time to go again having left unseen or unstudied many artifacts and documents. My knowledge of this man's Presidency tells me that history turned on his term in office, good or bad, and I'm always left wanting to know more. Harry S (without a period) Truman was the first President I remember. He impressed upon this young mind his ability and need to stand stalwart in difficult situations.
On entering the building you see the large mural painted by Thomas Hart Benton, "Independence and the Opening of the West." A portal opens in the middle of the painting through which the museum lies beyond. His famous desk plaque stating The Buck Stops Here greets you as the first exhibit. Our guide told us the term originated with the card game of poker when a marker, a knife with a buckhorn handle was used to indicate whose turn it was to deal. If the player did not wish to deal he could pass the job on by passing the "buck." Truman said as President he couldn't pass the buck to anybody.
One exhibit hanging from the ceiling stopped me, enough so that I nudged Mary to look up. Hundreds of tiny model planes hung suspended in a flight pattern. The guide saw my interest and said they represent the nearly 600 planes that flew each day for fourteen months to supply the Berlin Air Lift. The eagle on the Presidential seal met with Truman's displeasure, so much so that he had the eagle's head turned to face the olive branches in its claws instead of the bundle of arrows. And, of course, the museum gave attention to the screw-up of the Chicago Daily Tribune's erroneous headline blaring "Dewey Defeats Truman."
Truman was the last President to retire without the perks of a pension or a security detail and lived modestly in his Independence home until his death in 1969. Time and space don't allow me to write of his decisions regarding the atom bomb, the Marshall Plan, Korea, labor, race, etc. For good or bad, his was an important Presidency.
