Harry Truman Page 15

  It is hard to estimate the political situation in Missouri just now, since Lloyd’s ambitions seem to be like the gentle dew that falls from heaven and covers everything high or low. He is the first man in the history of the United States who has ever tried to run for President and Vice President, Secretary of the Navy, Secretary of War, Governor General of the Philippines, Ambassador to England and United States Senator all at one and the same time.

  At the same time that he is running for these offices, Lloyd is apparently trying to control the Missouri delegation and name the whole state ticket. It is rumored that he is also an accepted candidate for both the College of Heralds and the Archbishopric of Canterbury. I understand, too, that he is receiving favorable mention as Akhund of Swat and Emir of Afghanistan.

  The story of Lloyd Stark is a classic study of a man overreaching himself. His almost boundless ambition and arrogant style had already split the Democratic Party in Missouri down the middle. This fact was dramatized by the holding of two separate Jackson Day dinners - one attended by anti-Stark Democrats, the other by pro-Stark people. My father persuaded Senator Tom Connally to speak on his behalf at the anti-Stark dinner, which was held in Springfield under the sponsorship of the Green County Democratic Committee. Governor Stark did not attend, claiming a conflict in his schedule. When one of his associates rose to say a few words on his behalf, the 700 guests at the dinner booed him so vociferously that the chairman of the dinner finally had to pound his gavel on the lectern and beg for order.

  My father was pleased by this news, of course. He wrote to John Snyder that Senator Connally “said enough nice things about me to elect me (if it had been left to that crowd!). The booing of Stark was a rather unanimous affair.”

  The realization that Senator Truman had some support in Missouri - or at the very least Governor Stark had some enemies - created near hysteria among the St. Louis Post-Dispatch editorial writers. A few days after the Jackson Day dinner, they wrote an editorial captioned HARRY S. TRUMAN-STOOGE OF BOSS PENDERGAST: “The whelps of Boss Pendergast, Harry Truman and Bennett Clark, hissed and booed the speaker who rose to deliver the greetings of Governor Stark. . . . Truman was one of the toasts of the Springfield dinner. He is the stooge whom Boss Pendergast lifted from obscurity and placed in the United States Senate. He is the stooge who paid off his debt to Pendergast in the most abject way. He is the stooge who tried to prevent the reappointment of the fearless prosecutor, the United States Attorney Milligan, because Milligan was sending Truman’s pals to the penitentiary. Well, Truman is through in Missouri. He may as well fold up and accept a nice lucrative Federal post if he can get it - and if he does get it, it’s a travesty of democracy.”

  Governor Stark’s Jackson Day dinner, meanwhile, turned into a political disaster. The governor of Arkansas, who had agreed to be the principal speaker, abruptly reneged. When Stark tried frantically to persuade some prominent New Deal official to come out from Washington, Dad and Bennett Clark, working together for once, blocked that move. The governor was reduced to importing a wealthy Kansas cattleman to be the speaker of the evening. This was, indeed, desperation. Importing a Kansan to address Missouri Democrats made about as much sense politically as inviting Sitting Bull to address a reunion of the 7th Cavalry Regiment.

  Three months later, Governor Stark made another mistake in political judgment. Both he and my father were invited to speak at a Jefferson Day banquet in Kirksville, Missouri. The dinner was supposed to promote party unity, and all the speakers were urged to limit their remarks to lavish praise of Thomas Jefferson and Franklin D. Roosevelt. Lloyd Stark was the first speaker. To everyone’s astonishment and outrage, he proceeded to make a searing political speech, blasting the many Missouri Democrats who did not support a third term for FDR, extolling the achievements of his own administration, and declaring himself practically elected as senator from Missouri. My father threw aside the speech he had prepared, calling for party unity, and gave Governor Stark the tongue-lashing he deserved. A considerable number of powerful Missouri Democrats left Kirksville that night professing profound disgust for Governor Stark.

  The next round in the mounting struggle was the Missouri State Democratic Convention on April 15. My father wisely remained on the sidelines, while Senator Clark and Governor Stark met head-on in the battle for the control of the delegation. It was really no contest. When Stark’s name was mentioned on the convention floor, he got nothing but boos, and if Bennett Clark had had his way, the governor would not even have been elected a delegate at large to the national convention. My father, with that instinct for playing a peacemaker’s role, persuaded his fellow Democrats to give the discomfited Stark at least that much recognition. But the rest of the delegation was firmly in Bennett Clark’s camp, and the senior senator was named chairman.

  As my father tartly reminded several of his supporters in Missouri, however, it was not enough to rejoice over these rebuffs to Stark. Something had to be done about getting people to vote for Truman. While carrying his full workload in Congress, Dad struggled to put together an organization. He sent his secretaries, Vic Messall and Millie Dryden, back to Missouri to be the mainstays. But money remained the tormenting problem. Nobody was willing to bet any real cash on Truman. My father still could not even find a finance chairman. He finally persuaded his old army friend Harry Vaughan to take the job. Wryly Vaughan recalls, “I had a bank balance of three dollars and a quarter.”

  Millie Dryden, looking back on those hectic days, said, “Many times we had so little money, we ran out of stamps.” The few paid employees worked for practically nothing. One young man frequently ran out of gas and had to hitchhike back to the office. “I remember,” Millie said, “he lived out south someplace and it was downhill most of the way to where he lived and he used to try to coast as far as he could in order to save his gas because he was making such a small salary.” As one time, the treasury sank so low the last few dollars were invested in mailing an appeal to numbers of people asking them to send in a dollar. Two hundred dollars came in, and this was reinvested in another mailing, which raised even more money. But Dad finally had to borrow $3,000 on his life insurance to meet the office payroll and other “must” expenses.

  Meanwhile, Stark, with his family millions behind him, was buying up radio time and spending lavish amounts of money on newspaper advertising.

  Calmly, methodically, refusing to panic, my father went ahead with the most important task - organizing his campaign. John Snyder, who was present at the first organization meeting, was so impressed by the firmness and clarity with which Dad stated his principles, he copied them down verbatim. He was kind enough to show me his record of exactly what Dad said at this meeting:

  The Senator will not engage in personalities and asks his friends to do the same. Avoid mentioning the Senator’s opponents in any way.

  Avoid getting into controversial issues. Stick to Truman - his record as judge, as a senator, as a military man.

  While others discuss issues not involved in the primary, each worker will carefully avoid getting into those traps.

  The press is a function of our free institutions. If they are wrong in their attitude, try to make them see the true light, but under no circumstances attack them.

  Political parties are essential to our republic, our nation and we must not attack them. What we’re doing is to show by our actions what we think our party is destined to do. Provide the basic laws for a more abundant life and the happiness and security of our people. Those are the conditions under which I am going to run and those are the conditions I want each of my adherents and co-workers to observe with the greatest of zeal.

  In Washington, my father did his utmost to get some help from the Roosevelt Administration. He went to see Harold Ickes, Secretary of the Interior, who had numerous employees in Missouri and was highly regarded by farmers and others in the rural parts of the state. Ickes coldly informed him he supported Governor Stark. Over at the White House, Dad did his best to
get through to the President and warn him Stark was wrecking the Democratic Party in the state of Missouri. He told him enough about Stark’s political style to lower considerably the warmth of the President’s letters to the governor.

  By April 1940, FDR was telling my father that personally he would like to see him reelected. The President said he would see what he could do about persuading Stark to abandon the race. Charles Edison had recently resigned as Secretary of the Navy, and a few days after this April meeting between Dad and FDR, Stark called at the White House, and the President reportedly offered him Edison’s job. But Stark refused and later issued a statement denying the offer had been made. All told, the net result of this tough inside politicking was not too encouraging for my father. But he could console himself that he had eliminated the possibility of a Roosevelt endorsement for Stark.

  Back in Missouri, Truman supporters from Jackson County were working out another political maneuver. Several of Dad’s good friends, such as Tom Evans, owner of Radio Station KCMO, went to Maurice Milligan and urged that gentleman to enter the race. They pointed out that Governor Stark was taking all the credit for putting Tom Pendergast in jail, when the real work had been done by Milligan and his assistants and the other federal investigators. Milligan already resented Stark’s grab for all the glory, and when he saw some of Harry Truman’s best friends urging him to run, he decided the senator was only going to make a token race. Why shouldn’t the real slayer of the Pendergast dragon become senator? Milligan asked himself. So, to Dad’s great but carefully restrained glee, Milligan entered the race on March 28.

  In Washington, my father turned his attention to another source of potential help - labor. Reminding union chiefs of the support he had given their cause in his Senate votes, he asked them to come to his aid now. Multimillionaire Stark had shown himself no great friend of the laboring man while governor. Toward the end of May, Dad’s call for help received an enormously heartwarming response. Twenty-one railroad brotherhoods informed him they were ready to “go down the line for Truman.” They had 50,000 members in Missouri. Through their intercession, other Missouri labor groups pledged the support of 150,000 more workers.

  But it was the railroad men who provided crucial assistance. Truman-for-Senator Clubs were set up in railroad stations throughout Missouri. Even more important was the chance they gave my father to reply to the smears and slanders being printed about him in most of the state’s newspapers. The brotherhoods created a special edition of their weekly newspaper, Labor. It was crammed with endorsements from labor leaders and other influential Missourians. The chaplain of the Missouri American Legion, Reverend Father M. F. Wogan, endorsed Senator Truman. Frank J. Murphy, secretary-treasurer of the state Federation of Labor, rated him “100 percent perfect” on social and labor questions during his Senate years. President William Green of the AFL applauded Senator Truman’s “very favorable record.” Dr. William T. Tompkins, president of the National Colored Democratic Association, was listed as general chairman of the Negro Division of the Truman Campaign Committee. He was a Kansas City man, incidentally, and a personal friend.

  Most impressive, however, was the gallery of senators who contributed long enthusiastic statements in praise of my father. Alben Barkley of Kentucky, Robert F. Wagner of New York, James F. Byrnes of South Carolina were on the front page, and on inner pages were Burton K. Wheeler of Montana, Kenneth McKellar of Tennessee, Pat Harrison of Mississippi, Elmer Thomas of Oklahoma, Robert Reynolds of North Carolina, Tom Connally of Texas, and Vic Donahey of Ohio. Included in these names were some of the New Deal’s best-known spokesmen in the Senate. Anyone reading this list would certainly get the impression the Roosevelt Administration was backing Harry S. Truman. Lloyd Stark must have shuddered when 500,000 copies of this special edition poured into Missouri. Around the same time, the Labor Tribune of St. Louis was blasting the governor for ignoring the needs of Missouri’s workingmen.

  My father was only starting to go to work on Governor Stark. On June 15, at Sedalia, in the center of the state, he kicked off his campaign with a superbly organized rally. Senator Lewis Schwellenbach of Washington was on hand to tell Missourians what his fellow senators thought of their friend Harry S. Truman. On the platform were representatives of Missouri’s Democratic Party from all parts of the state. Mamma Truman had a front row seat, sizing up politicians with her usual unerring eye. The little courthouse was decorated with huge pictures of Senator Truman and the candidate of the St. Louis Democrats for governor, Larry McDaniel. I sat on the platform with Mother. At sixteen, I was able to feel for the first time the essential excitement of American politics - the struggle to reach those people “out there” with ideas and emotions that will put them on your side.

  The crowd was big, over 4,000, and very friendly. This was all the more impressive because the day before, Paris had surrendered to the Germans, and most people in Missouri, and in the rest of the country, were glued to their radios, listening to the greatest crisis of the century.

  My father’s talk that day sounded all the themes he was to underscore throughout his campaign. He pointed to what the Roosevelt Administration had achieved for the laboring man; he talked about the defense program, for which he had voted and fought in the Senate. Events were now proving it to be vital to the nation’s salvation. Above all, he talked about the Democratic Party’s efforts to achieve equal opportunity for all Americans. By this, he made it clear, he also meant black Americans: “I believe in the brotherhood of man, not merely the brotherhood of white men but the brotherhood of all men before the law. . . . In giving the Negro the rights which are theirs we are only acting in accord with our ideals of a true democracy. . . . The majority of our Negro people find but cold comfort in shanties and tenements. Surely, as free men, they are entitled to something better than this. . . . It is our duty to see that the Negroes in our locality have increased opportunities to exercise their privilege as free men.”

  With these words, my father was saying what he truly believed. In his years as county judge, he had done his utmost to place a fair proportion of black men on the public works payroll. This appeal to black voters also exploited a large chink in Governor Stark’s armor. In October 1939, the United Negro Democrats of Missouri had condemned the governor and refused to back him for United States senator. They accused him of wholesale dismissal of blacks from public office and castigated his support of a bill in the Missouri Legislature, which purported to create separate but equal graduate school and professional facilities at Lincoln University. In reality, the bill was a crude attempt to subvert a U.S. Supreme Court decision which declared the state was denying blacks their constitutional rights by refusing them admission to the law school and other graduate schools at the University of Missouri. There were 250,000 black voters in Missouri, and it was soon evident they too were going down the line for Harry Truman.

  Much has been made by many of my father’s biographers of a cartoon published by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch portraying two big trucks, one labeled “Stark for Senator,” the other labeled “Milligan for Senator,” meeting head on. Scurrying between their wheels was a tiny little truck labeled “Truman for Senator.” The caption read, “No place for a kiddie car.” Actually, the cartoon is only one more proof that newspaper editors (with certain exceptions) are poor political prophets. By now Milligan was far behind, a poor third in the race. The Truman campaign was building momentum every day. Stark was still in the lead, but my father was confident he was going to win - every bit as confident as he would be in 1948.

  Just as in 1948, he based his confidence on a shrewd assessment not only of his own resources and his determination to get the facts to the public, but also on the deficiencies and weaknesses of his opponent. He knew, for instance, that a sizable number of people disliked Lloyd Stark’s arrogance. When the governor approached his car, he demanded a military salute from his chauffeur. Whenever he appeared in public, a staff of uniformed Missouri state colonels made him look like a
dictator. My father also knew, from his inside contacts with Missouri Democrats, that the governor, the supposed reformer of the state, was “putting the lug” (to use Missouri terminology) on state employees to contribute to his campaign fund. He had done this during the 1938 fight to elect his candidate to the State Supreme Court, and it had caused intense resentment throughout the state. Everyone making more than $60 a month had to kick in 5 percent of his annual salary.

  My father reported these facts to his good friend Senator Guy M. Gillette, chairman of the Senate committee to investigate senatorial campaigns. On June 20, 1940, Senator Gillette released a report of his investigation. It was a Sunday punch to Lloyd Stark’s reformer image. “There is abundance of evidence to prove that many employees were indirectly coerced into contributing, although they may not be in sympathy with the candidacy of Governor Stark for the U.S. Senate,” Senator Gillette said. He later issued a detailed report, citing the names of the governor’s assistants who did the arm-twisting, and statements of employees who said they had contributed against their wills.

  In the middle of July, everyone interrupted the primary campaign to journey to Chicago for the Democratic National Convention. Here Lloyd Stark made another blunder - as Dad expected that he would. With FDR quickly nominated for a third term, the only office in contention was the vice presidency. Although Stark had declared only a few days before the convention that there was “nothing to this talk about my being a candidate for vice president,” he could not resist making a try for the job. He sent bushels of his family’s Delicious apples (to this day I don’t like them - Mcintosh taste better) to dozens of influential delegates, opened a headquarters, and organized a demonstration on the floor of the convention, waving “Roosevelt and Stark” banners. Then came word from on high that the President’s choice was Henry A. Wallace. A chastened Stark hastily withdrew, but not before Bennett Clark sank a barb into his posterior. “A man can’t withdraw from a race he was never in,” Senator Clark gibed. To complete the governor’s humiliation, Senator Clark ordered the Missouri delegation to vote for Speaker of the House William B. Bankhead for vice president.