Bess Truman Page 13

  I was eighteen months old at this point.

  In this series of letters, the big issue became whether Mrs. Truman should bob her hair. Women all over America had been going through agonies and quarrels with husbands and boyfriends over this question for several years. The men seemed, in general, to resist it. To them, bobbed hair apparently suggested flappers, free love, and all sorts of other terrible things, such as bathtub gin. Major Truman was among the resisters, mainly, it would seem, because he wanted Bess to go on looking exactly like the woman he had taken to Port Huron.

  Bess launched a propaganda campaign to change his mind. She told him that Ethel and Nellie Noland, old-maid school teachers now, had done it and “looked perfectly fine.” Bess said she was “crazier than ever to get mine off” and wanted to know why her husband would not agree “enthusiastically,” She maintained that her hair grew so fast, she could soon put it up again if it looked “very badly.”

  “Please!” she pleaded. “I’m much more conspicuous having long hair than I will be with it short.”

  Major Truman stood his ground. Apparently, distance not only makes the heart grow fonder, it also encourages husbands to be stubborn. In the next letter, Bess returned to the assault. “When may I do it? I never wanted to do anything as badly in my life. Come on, be a sport. Ask all the married men in camp about their wives’ heads & I’ll bet anything I have there isn’t one under sixty who has long hair.”

  I was dismayed to see I was a mere footnote to this raging debate. “Your daughter seems well but is powerfully cross.”

  In the next letter, the strategy shifted. There was a variety of family news, a bit more data on my dotty eighteen-month-old antics, and then a postscript. “What about the hair cut?”

  Major Truman capitulated. “If you want your hair bobbed so badly, go on and get it done. I want you to be happy regardless of what I think about it. I am very sure you’ll be just as beautiful with it off and I’ll not say anything to make you sorry for doing it. I can still see you as the finest on earth so go and have it done.”

  “That was a dear letter you wrote me about bobbing my hair,” Bess replied. “It almost put a crimp in my wanting to do it. But if you knew the utter discomfort of all this pile on top of my head and the time I waste every day getting it there, you would insist on me cutting it. I most sincerely hope you’ll never feel otherwise than you said you do in that letter - for life would be a dreary outlook if you ever ceased to feel just that way.”

  Still, Bess hesitated. The hair stayed on until Major Truman returned from Fort Riley and personally reassured Bess of his approval of the shearing. On the night before he came home, Bess wrote: “Lots and lots of love and please keep on loving me as hard as ever. You know I just feel as if a large part of me has been gone for the last few days.”

  Back in Independence, Harry Truman resumed his whirlwind schedule as combined automobile-club manager and banker. He piled these two careers on top of going to law school at night in Kansas City. This move was one Bess had suggested in 1923, when he was eastern judge. Her Aunt Myra’s husband, Boulware Wallace, was one of the more successful lawyers in Missouri, and Bess saw no reason why her husband could not do as well. But in 1925, after two years of combining school and a grueling work schedule, he gave up. He told Bess that his boys from Battery D would not let him study. They invaded the law school library to ask for advice and help on getting jobs. Some of them probably did, but this was an oblique way of telling her that he had had a taste of being a political man and liked it.

  The Battery D boys were not the only ones who turned to Harry Truman as a leader. He was in constant demand as a speaker at local political meetings. With an office in Kansas City, he was in close contact with major political changes taking place there. In the spring of 1926, a good-government group proposed a new city charter, providing for a city manager and a city council of nine aldermen. They thought they were going to get rid of Tom Pendergast and Joe Shannon, but the amateurs were stunned to discover that Boss Tom emerged with even more political power. He elected a majority of the aldermen and appointed his own city manager.

  The new charter ended the warfare between the Goats and the Rabbits. Joe Shannon and his followers accepted Tom Pendergast as the leader of Kansas City and Jackson County. Harry Truman went to see Tom’s brother, Mike, who was the leader of the eastern half of the county and told him he wanted to run for county collector. This was the best job in the county. The collector got a percentage of the taxes he took in, and his annual income was around $25,000. It was a good example of how big Harry Truman was thinking in those days.

  Unfortunately, a Democrat with more seniority had claim to the collector’s job. But the Pendergasts offered to back Harry Truman for presiding judge of the county court. The salary was modest - $6,000 a year - but there was a real chance to build a political reputation in this controversial position. After talking to Bess, they decided he should accept the offer. It was an important decision, and they both knew it. Harry Truman was now forty-two years old. He was getting past the time when a man can switch careers.

  There was no opposition in the Democratic primary - proof of Pendergast hegemony - and Harry Truman felt free to go off to reserve officers’ training camp in the summer of 1926. Again, he and Bess exchanged daily letters, giving us a look at what she was thinking and feeling about him and her daughter and other matters.

  She alternated salutations in these letters between “My dear” and “Honey” and “Dear Husband.” Again and again, she closed with “All my love” or “Loads of love.” She missed him acutely. “Today didn’t seem to have any beginning or any end,” she wrote, early in the first week. “That letter helped a lot.” On the other hand, when a letter failed to come, the tone could be acerbic. “I came mighty near not writing this - as I didn’t get a letter today,” she wrote, later in the first week. “Thought I’d give you a dose of your own medicine.”

  In these letters, I am a year older and have mastered the art of making a lovable nuisance of myself. My dialogue is still not scintillating, except to my parents and relatives. I kept asking where my Daddy had gone, and Bess finally gave me an elaborate explanation of the role of the army reserve in the nation’s defense. A graduate of West Point might have had trouble digesting it. Only one fact stuck in my small brain: at lunch, I mournfully announced: “My Daddy gone two weeks.” The next morning, even this intelligence had vanished. I awoke and asked, “Where is Daddy?” In her letter reporting this exchange, Bess added: “She is chattering just as hard as she can right now. She didn’t wake up [from my nap] until 5:15 so I guess I’m in for a long session.”

  She also reported that she gave me “a small paddling for taking her nighty off.” This was my first - but not my last - encounter with Mother as a disciplinarian. As an older sister who had spent a lot of time making unruly brothers obey orders, her first instinct was to reach for the hairbrush when I misbehaved.

  These letters also reveal Bess’ sharp eye for human foibles (besides mine) and how well she knew the men with whom her husband was serving. “I am greatly relieved about your morals,” she wrote in another letter. “I am very sure if they are in Mr. Lee’s keeping, [J. M. Lee was a fellow politician and major in the reserve.] they are safe. He couldn’t lead you into temptation if it were staring him straight in his face. Has marriage made him any different? Any more human and like other people?”

  In another letter, she told Harry that “Arthur’s stenog called up this morning and wanted your address so I guess you’ll find out soon what it was he had on his mind (?)” All by itself, that question mark demolished Arthur.

  Bess remained keenly aware of her husband’s political role. She forwarded him a letter from a Masonic Lodge, remarking that she was “afraid it might be something that should be attended to at once.” In another letter, she called a politician named Buck (Eugene I. Purcell) “as instructed” and reported that “he would see Mr. T. J. [Pendergast] tomorrow sure if he was i
n town.” But there are also glimpses of her dislike for the political way of life. The next day, she told Harry she had been invited by a friend to go to a dinner for Senator James Reed. “I was really sorry not to go, so didn’t have to fib for once. But I couldn’t leave the child.”

  These negative feelings did not alter her fundamental political loyalty. She was furious when she went down to the post office to mail one of her letters and found it locked. “I had to put your letter in the outside box this afternoon,” she wrote. “If it doesn’t get there tomorrow, I’ll surely be peeved. Whoever heard of a P.O. being closed up so tight you couldn’t even get inside to mail a letter? Another example of bum management under this Republican regime.”

  She could also get a laugh out of politics. The Kansas City Star seldom missed a chance to blast the Democrats. A local politician who had recently been worked over sued the paper for $3 million. Bess found this amusing. “If his standing and reputation are worth 3 what are yours worth?” she asked, apparently suggesting that this might be a way to get out of debt.

  Once there was an interesting flashback to the Bess Wallace that Harry Truman scarcely knew, the upper-class girl who spent her weekends playing tennis and horseback riding at the Salisbury farm. Harry remarked that Spencer Salisbury and another expert horseman had been selected to represent the unit in a jumping competition. “Fancy Spencer being chosen for his excellent riding,” Bess remarked, “when he dislikes it so. I remember tho’ that he used to just look like part of the horse and I guess the knack of it must still stick.”

  In these letters, there is also the appearance of what would become a long running worry about Harry Truman’s health. Before he left for camp, he had suffered a series of severe headaches. He had had a few of these in the past when he overworked, but these were so persistent and frequent, Bess became alarmed. “Have the head-aches quit?” she asked in one of her early 1926 letters. “I surely hope so.” But that summer, she had a more immediate worry. Lieutenant Colonel Truman (he had just been promoted) was showing an alarming interest in army aviation. “Please promise me you won’t go up with any of those aviators, half baked or otherwise,” she wrote.

  In one of his letters, Harry remarked that there were a lot of politicians in camp, and they were having a great time “trying to get our campaign funds out of the poker game.” Bess did not show the slightest hostility to what would soon become her husband’s favorite recreation. “Bet on you, finding the politicians in the outfit,” she replied. “Has your own campaign fund been augmented to any extent? Or depleted? Eh?” She clearly suspected the latter.

  These letters also give us a picture of Mother’s day to day life in what might as well be called the Wallace compound on North Delaware Street. She and Natalie and Frank and George and May were constantly together, shopping, going for drives in the country in a new Dodge that all of them seemed to use interchangeably, although I gather it belonged to the Trumans. Scarcely a letter goes by without a comment about Natalie and Frank or George and May taking me on an outing. Once George and May took me golfing with hilarious results. I toddled around the practice tee, picking up everyone’s golf balls and refused to stop until they gave me a club and ball of my own.

  In a domestic crisis, however, it was Bess who took charge. Her mother came down with intestinal flu, and the maid failed to show up. Madge Wallace was being visited by her old friend, Bessie Andrews, who was, Bess remarked to Harry, “worse than no help at all.” Bess had to take charge of the kitchen and the nursing, and in this letter, I shrank to a footnote again. “M. is sound asleep and I will be soon.”

  At the end of these two weeks of separation, a small political crisis gave Bess a chance to demonstrate just how astute she could be in regard to her husband’s career. Remember Harry Truman was the unopposed Democratic nominee for presiding judge of Jackson County in the upcoming primary. A local attorney named J. Allen Prewitt, a political outsider, asked him to be on a committee he was putting together for the visit of a St. Louis candidate for the U.S. Senate, Henry B. Hawes. “I’m afraid Mr. Hawes won’t get very far under his patronage,” Bess remarked.

  She promptly checked with Tom Pendergast through an intermediary and was told that “Mr. Pendergast considered it best for you to keep out of all fights.” (St. Louis politicians were never popular in Jackson County.) Bess coolly telephoned Mr. Prewitt and told him Lieutenant Colonel Truman would not be home for another week - a lie - so he could give him no help on his committee. “He said he wanted your moral support more than anything else and I felt like telling him he needed it,” Bess reported to Harry.

  On August 3, 1926, forty-two-year-old Harry Truman won the Democratic nomination for presiding judge and swept to victory in November, leading a tremendous Democratic comeback in Jackson County. Bess Truman had become a professional politician’s wife.

  The day after the votes rolled in, dozens of congratulatory telephone calls followed them. Harry Truman was far from Independence, organizing an offshoot of the Kansas City Automobile Club, The National Old Trails Association. Its goal was to encourage auto travel by persuading local officials to set up historic markers and build tourist facilities. Bess pursued him with complaints. She did not seem able to accept his absence as easily as she tolerated his two weeks’ summertime army reserve duty.

  Bess reported that Sunday was “poky” without her husband. She had wanted to go to a reception for Queen Marie of Rumania, who visited Kansas City during a world tour. Her majesty was the guest of honor at a musical extravaganza staged on November 5 to raise money to pay for the city’s memorial to the dead of World War I. Bess and Harry had been invited. She declared herself unable to go without him.

  Harry had wanted her to come with him on the Old Trails organizing trip. “You sure ought to be along. We’d have the time of our lives,” he wrote from Great Bend, Kansas. “I’ve got a trip all arranged to California for next fall if you want to take it.”

  That suggestion was allowed to pass without comment. Instead, there were more complaints about missing the queen and about the deluge of telephone calls from jobseekers. “I am ashamed now that I didn’t stay home and fight the job hunters and take you to see the Queen,” Harry wrote. “I’m afraid I’m not as thoughtful of your pleasure as I ought to be.”

  She had succeeded in making him feel guilty. Although I think I have made it clear that I love both my parents, I must confess to a certain prejudice in favor of my father as I read these letters. The man was only trying to make a living for himself and his family. I suspect it was his honesty that got him into trouble. Much as he loved his wife and daughter, Harry Truman also liked to get out and see the rest of the country. He poured out his fascination for places such as Dodge City and the characters he met there and elsewhere along the route: “I met Ham Bell, who was mayor of South Dodge at the same time Bat Masterson was mayor of North Dodge. One lies south of the R.R. and the other north of it. They tell me the Hon. Ham was not so pious in those days as he is now. He’s a pillar of the Methodist Church and places a bouquet on the altar every Sunday now but they tell it on him that in days gone by, when he ran a dance hall in the part of the city of which he was the presiding officer, he was pitched bodily over into his part of town by the invincible Mr. Masterson when he came across the track to meet some ladies from Wichita who were going to work for him. It seems that inhabitants of the two sections were supposed to stay in their own bailiwicks and if they ventured into strange territory, they did so at their own bodily risk. It seems that Mr. Bell thought he could get over to the train and back without attracting attention, but a long scar on his face shows that he failed. . . .”

  Bess did not find such pieces of living history as interesting as her husband. More to the point, he was enjoying himself too much - while he was several hundred miles away from her.

  It did not seem to matter that he had urged her to come with him. “The child” was her excuse to stay home now, although her two sisters-in-law were ready and
willing to substitute for her, and Madge Wallace was in the big house with her and quite healthy, except for a sciatic hip. (Mary Paxton had remarked in 1922 when Madge was sixty that she was the youngest looking woman for her age that she had ever seen.) Madge, of course, was always eager to encourage this reluctance to leave home with her subtle manifestations of need for her “dear little girl.”

  Although Harry Truman was still paying off the debts he had acquired when the haberdashery failed, he was now making enough money to build a house. He even had a bank of his own to give him a mortgage. But the subject seems to have become moot. On the contrary, Bess seemed to want him to become part of the Wallace enclave in the indissoluble, all-inclusive way that Natalie Ott, Frank Wallace’s wife, and May Southern, George Wallace’s wife, had joined the family.

  One day around this time, May noticed her sister-in-law Natalie passing her house and asked in her cheerful way where she was going. “To Kansas City,” said tiny, frowning Natalie. “But I’m not going to get the streetcar at the corner because if I do, Mother Wallace is going to come out of the house and ask me where I’m going. I’m not planning to do anything wrong. I just want to go someplace without telling her about it!”

  Madge Gates Wallace still was largely a recluse who seldom left 219 North Delaware Street except to visit her sister Maud in Platte City and her sister Myra in Kansas City. Inevitably, her family had become her only interest in life, and she devoted almost every waking hour to worrying and fretting over them. Separation from them invariably produced anxiety. Whenever they left the house, she still had to know where they were going and what they were planning to do.