Lot 271

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Lot 271
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Senator Harry S. Truman, Missouri Patronage, and Re-election in 1940
Senator Harry S. Truman, Missouri Patronage, and Re-election in 1940
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Description:

Truman Harry

Senator Harry S. Truman, Missouri Patronage, and Re-election in 1940

 

HARRY S. TRUMAN. Archive of six Typed Letters Signed and two Typed Documents, January-March 1940, Washington, D.C., and St. Louis, Missouri. 12 pp., 8" x 10.5"  Very good.

 

This collection of correspondence includes letters between Senator Truman and his secretary Victor R. Messall in Washington and John W. Snyder, Manager of the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, in St. Louis, Missouri. One is signed by Truman as “Harry”; two are signed by Messall as “Vic”; and the remaining three are signed by Snyder’s initials “JWS.” An enclosed typed copy of a letter from Edward M. Jayne of Kirksville, Missouri is unsigned, as is Truman’s typed speech.

 

The correspondence largely involves queries to Snyder about specific individuals in Missouri whom Truman may wish to nominate for federal positions in the state. On January 16, 1940, Messall forwarded a letter to Snyder from Edward M. Jayne of Kirksville, recommending H. R. Mayo of Trenton for a position with the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, which was created in 1933 as part of the New Deal to restore trust in the American banking system. Messall asked Snyder for information “regarding the past record and reputation of this fellow, Mayo.” On January 20, Snyder responded that Mayo “bears an excellent reputation as to character and ability in the liquidation of assets of small banks.... He has been rather heavily involved financially in the past, and has been unable to meet some of the obligations which he had assumed.... According to the information at hand he is a conscientious hard worker. It is generally understood that he is a Democrat, although I have been unable to get positive information in this connection.”

 

The five-page speech by Senator Truman offers interesting autobiographical details about his life and was likely used in many venues during his re-election campaign of 1940. In the campaign, Truman overcame the liability of his connections to the Pendergast machine in Kansas City that had supported him since 1922.  By 1940, Tom Pendergast was in prison for voter fraud, and both Democratic and Republican opponents used the connection against Truman. After withstanding challenges from U.S. Attorney Maurice Milligan and former governor Lloyd Stark, who split the anti-Pendergast vote, in the Democratic primary, Truman narrowly defeated Republican Manvel H. Davis in the November general election.

 

Excerpts from Speech

“It is a very great honor and a very great responsibility to be elected United States Senator from a great State.”

 

“It has been a habit of mine to work as hard as I can at whatever job or position I may occupy. When I ran a farm I tried to do it better than it had been done. When the emergency of 1917 appeared I joined the Field Artillery as a Lieutenant because I’d been in the National Guard and had some knowledge of that branch of the service. I was past the draft age, was running a farm and had a defective eyesight, which required a special order for me to get into the Service, but I felt it was my duty to go.”

 

“I was discharged as a Major of Field Artillery in the Reserve Corps in May 1919, after the war was over, and went back to the farm, started an unsuccessful mercantile business, and was elected a Judge of Jackson County Court in 1922. I set out to make myself an efficient public servant for my county.”

 

“In the meantime Mr. Roosevelt had been made President in 1932 and I was asked to act in a federal capacity in the emergency set-up of the State. I was appointed Re-employment Director at a dollar a year under the Department of Labor, and organized the employment set-up in Missouri. It is still efficiently operating with almost the same personnel with which I started it.”

 

“I am sorry to have to go over all these things, but I am stating some history because some people seem to forget.”

 

“In 1934 I was elected to the Senate. I went there with a determination to do as good a job as I am capable of doing. I was assigned to the Interstate Commerce Committee, which handles all transportation matters, and to the Appropriations Committee, which passes on the budget.”

 

“I am on the sub-committee on Appropriations which handles the allotment of military funds. It became my duty, as a member of that committee, to make a complete survey of the National Defense set-up, which I have just finished.”

 

“I have been interested in a sane and reasonable national defense program for twenty-five years. I am happy to be a member of the committee which will pass on just such a plan.”

 

“I’ve never worked harder in my life than I have in the last five years to do a constructive job. I believe I’ve earned my salary. If the people of Missouri feel that they want a representative in the Senate with experience, one who believes in hard work, and one who has done and is anxious to do things for the public welfare, not only for the great state of Missouri but for the Republic as a whole, then they ought to send me back. My record as a public servant is clean from the beginning. I have made a creditable record as a Senator, and I have kept every political promise I made to the people of this state in 1934. I am not a head-line hunter, but the Senate, as well as every other governmental agency, has to have workers.”

 

 

Harry S. Truman (1884-1972), Thirty-third President of the United States. A Missouri native, Truman first won elective office in 1922, winning a judge’s seat on the Jackson County Court.  After serving several terms, Truman was elected to the U.S. Senate in 1934, and in 1940 gained national attention for his chairmanship of the Senate Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, which was eventually nicknamed “The Truman Committee.” Truman continued his political rise in 1944, when he was elected Vice-President as Franklin D. Roosevelt’s running mate. After only 82 days as Vice President, Truman was thrust into the Presidency when Roosevelt died unexpectedly. His inheritance was a world at war. Germany had surrendered, but Japan refused to give up the war. Truman, in a desperate move to avoid having to invade the Japanese mainland, ordered the deployment of two atomic bombs. They were dropped on August 6 and August 9, 1945. Japan surrendered on August 14, 1945. As President, Truman waged an undeclared war on the Soviet Union, drafting the “Truman Doctrine,” which proclaimed the United States’ willingness to provide aid to countries resisting communism. The Marshall Plan sought to strengthen the European economy in the hopes that this program, too, would prevent the spread of Soviet influence. Elected President for a full term in 1948, he also brought United States troops into the Korean War (1950-1953). In addition to his cold war activities, Truman’s administration expanded the New Deal and promoted Civil Rights initiatives.

 

John W. Snyder (1895-1985) was born in Arkansas and studied at Vanderbilt University before serving in the army during World War I. He moved to Washington in the early 1930s with a background in banking and business. He held several public and private offices including manager in the Reconstruction Finance Corporation, National Bank Receiver in the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency, Federal Loan Administrator, and Director of War Mobilization and Reconversion. In 1946, his close personal friend Harry Truman appointed Snyder as Secretary of the Treasury, a position he held until the end of Truman’s second term in January 1953. A deeply conservative businessman, he believed the post-war economy would work itself out, and he reduced the national debt while balancing the budget.

 

 

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