Harry S Truman on Principles & Values

Former Presidents Act provides $250,000 per year for life

[Until recently], former presidents tended to recede from public and commercial life. The irony is that back in 1958, President Eisenhower and Congress felt so bad for Truman that they passed the Former Presidents Act, which authorized a lifetime pension that today pays former presidents $250,000 a year and gives them a budget for staff and the like. The money-making activities of former presidents surged after we started taking care of them.

1945: transition to presidency included no military

Fair Deal: alleviate social and economic injustice

The Fair Deal fared little better. Harry Truman's program was a far-reaching attempt to alleviate social and economic injustices in a nation which, rich though it was, had left most of its citizens unprotected against the ravages of old age and unemployment; a nation in which an inexcusably high percentage of the population was still ill fed, ill clothed, and ill housed; a nation which denied to millions of citizens, those whose skin was black, the most fundamental rights of citizens. In the new 1948 election campaign, the new Democratic majority in Congress and a rising public outcry against Jim Crow gave liberals confidence that the long-awaited day of social justice was at last at hand. It wasn't.

1952: Officially created National Day of Prayer

As president, I can't pass the buck to anyone

"It is my duty, as president of the US, to make the decisions, because I can't pass the buck to anybody; and if I can get all the facts, I have found that the decision I make as a result of the facts are satisfactory to everybody."

"You can get all the facts and you make up your mind."

"I've always tried to get all the information I could on every job I ever had. So nobody could put anything over on me."

"As president, I always insisted on as complete a picture as possible before making a decision, and I did not want fuzzy statements that concealed differences of opinion."

In 1917, Bess accepted one of Harry's many proposals

In 1917, Bess accepted one of Harry's many proposals of marriage. He was 34, she 33. When Truman enlisted in the Army, the two postponed their wedding. "I didn't think it was right to get married and maybe come home a cripple and have the most beautiful and sweetest girl in the world tied down," he explained.

On FDR's death: if you ever pray, pray for me now

"Is there anything I can do?" stammered Truman.

"Is there anything WE can do for YOU?" Mrs. Roosevelt responded. "For you are the one in trouble now."

After taking the oath of office and meeting briefly with cabinet members, Truman wrote in his diary, "Went to bed, went to sleep, and did not worry any more."

At the White House, President Truman had his first meeting with reporters. "Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now," he told them. "I don't know whether you fellows ever had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me yesterday what had happened, I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me."

"Good luck, Mr. President," one reporter said.

"I wish you didn't have to call me that," responded Truman.

I just told the truth and they thought it was hell

"I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell."

Jesus rejected despots in both Church and State

"I've an idea if Jesus were here his sympathies would be with the thieves and not with the Pharisees who crowned him with gold and jewels.

"The only crown he ever wore was one of thorns placed there by emissaries of the Roman emperor and Jewish priesthood. He came to help the lowly and the down trodden. But since Constantine the Great he has been taken over by the Despots of both Church and State."

1950: Assassination attempt killed one bodyguard

The basic source of our national strength is spiritual

The basic source of our strength is spiritual. For we are a people with a faith. We believe in the dignity of man. We believe that he was created in the image of the Father of us all.

We do not believe that men exist merely to strengthen the state or to be cogs in the economic machine. We do believe that governments are created to serve the people and that economic systems exist to minister to their wants.

The faith of our people has particular meaning at this time in history because of the unsettled and changing state of the world.

We must devote ourselves to finding answers to these anxieties and aspirations. We seek answers which will embody the moral and spiritual elements of tolerance, unselfishness, and brotherhood upon which true freedom and opportunity must rest.