Opinion of Harry S Truman

[TDAS04]

The 33rd POTUS.

[OSR stands with Israel]

Massive FF as he was :

1. Genuinely A Good Person who put what he thought was right over political expediency. See his record on civil rights for example

2. The Marshall Plan rebuilt Western Europe and also was able to turn West Germany, into a successful democracy as well

3. He put in place the policies needed to contain the spread of communism which was absolutely needed

[The world will shine with light in our nightmare]

I learned last week that Truman, contrary to myth, was not in financial straits during his post-presidency. In fact, he left office wealthier than he was before.

Not my most favorite president, but he did a lot of good things and he beat Strom Thurmond and the segregationist faction of the Democratic Party.

[President Johnson]

Massive FF.

A down-to-earth man and straight shooter who got a lot right, especially in post-war foreign policy (Marshall plan and containment in particular). Unfortunately, he was less successful domestically due to conservative opposition while generally fighting for the right things.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Give 'Em Hell, Harry!

FF. An underrated president that doesn't get the recognition that he deserves.

[President Johnson]

Give 'Em Hell, Harry!

FF. An underrated president that doesn't get the recognition that he deserves.

Why underrated? He's frequently ranked in the Top range of presidents. Always in the Top 10, sometimes even Top 5. I don't think he's underrated in our times, compared to when he left office.

[Alben Barkley]

My favorite president of all-time. Maybe not the "greatest," given that he's got FDR and Lincoln to contend with, but my FAVORITE in that he's the one I admire the most for the whole package.

[Alben Barkley]

Give 'Em Hell, Harry!

FF. An underrated president that doesn't get the recognition that he deserves.

Why underrated? He's frequently ranked in the Top range of presidents. Always in the Top 10, sometimes even Top 5. I don't think he's underrated in our times, compared to when he left office.

All true but I think a lot of average Americans don't know much about him, so I can see him as "underrated" in that regard even if not by scholars.

[President Punxsutawney Phil]

FF

[KaiserDave]

Very, very interesting guy, he had guts that's for sure. You couldn't fault him for lack of guts. And his speeches? So much fun. The 1948 campaign is a real adventure. He's a real fountain of wisdom. I'll direct everybody to this quote. For context, the Klan came after him and his Jewish business partner in Missouri for hiring Catholics, Blacks, and Jews in their shop. They threatened to kill Truman. This is what he said.

“I understand that some of you have threatened to kill me. Well if you want take your lives in your hands, let’s have a go at it right now! Telling me I can’t hire a Catholic or a Negro or a Jew is undiluted bull—t, cause I’m going to hire anyone I damn well please. Those jobs are for all the people, not just a few hooded bastards like you — Shame on you.” (And there's a lie out there that he was in the Klan, ridiculous!)


As for his actions as President? It's a lot. He set the precedent for 20th century American Cold War policy, for better or worse. On the plus side, the Marshall Plan, financial aide to Turkey, and the Berlin airlift, I believe all represented really strong, correct, decisive decision-making. On the other side, the American enabling of the White Terror in Greece was morally vacuous. Supporting regimes, no matter how authoritarian to defeat communism was a blackhole that the United States fell into for the entire Cold War. That said it's far from Truman's fault. Einsehower was elected on transitioning from containment to rollback, and while he ended up not pursuing rollback as aggressively as he said, he was far more aggressive with subterfuge and anti-democratic sabotage than Truman ever was or wanted to be.

As for domestic policies? Truman also showed moxie when he vetoed Taft-Hartley, reinvigorating his 48 campaign despite bipartisan pressure to sign it. Truman's visionary domestic program was often frustrated by the Conservative Coalition. Some measures passed, like our nation's first nationwide school lunch programs, which is a big plus. But the centerpiece of the Fair Deal, national health insurance, was successfully blocked. We'd be better off if his agenda was implemented. On Civil Rights, Truman ignored conventional wisdom that Democrats needed the Solid South to win and told the racist Dixiecrats to kick rocks. He desegregated the military and called for a civil rights bill. He won in 1948 anyway with the Dixiecrats peeling several states off him. In 1944 the Dixiecrats thought they had their man when the devoutly pro civil rights Henry Wallace was booted from the ticket for an unreconstructed Democrat from Missouri. They ended up hating and fearing Truman far more than New York yankee Franklin Roosevelt.

From what I've read he was genuinely concerned by American racism, despite possessing certain prejudices himself, time-typical racism and anti-semitism. People often cite Truman's highly antisemitic journal entries, though experts on Truman describe how he would often write angry screeds into his diaries as an emotional released, he could be prone to irrational bouts or fits. In any case he did possess some prejudice. Bess Truman was also antisemitic (from what I've read). But even then, Truman provided invaluable to the support to the State of Israel at its inception when they faced the threat of a second genocide, when many people wanted him to be more cautious. In his personal dealings, for what it's worth, as you can see in the quote at the top, Truman was a friend of many Jews and black people, and of course, he accomplished the most for civil rights in this country since Benjamin Harrison, or probably, Ulysses S. Grant.

Then there is the war. Truman was right to demand unconditional surrender from Imperial Japan and Nazi Germany. He showed resolve and courage when the nation needed it with the death of Roosevelt. Then there is the bomb. Personally I'm not really sure what my views on it are, but I'm inclined to blame Truman to a certain degree for the horrors of the atomic blasts against civilian populations. It was very plainly evil, that said, all war is an extremely evil act. It is a question of necessity to judge actions in war, and I'm not sure. For at least Nagasaki, I am fairly confident it was not necessary. That said, it is really hard to judge that situation, and we may not know everything.

Fascinating figure, who I'm inclined to call an FF, and a favorite figure of mine, maybe just because of how he talked.

[Alben Barkley]

Very, very interesting guy, he had guts that's for sure. You couldn't fault him for lack of guts. And his speeches? So much fun. The 1948 campaign is a real adventure. He's a real fountain of wisdom. I'll direct everybody to this quote. For context, the Klan came after him and his Jewish business partner in Missouri for hiring Catholics, Blacks, and Jews in their shop. They threatened to kill Truman. This is what he said.

“I understand that some of you have threatened to kill me. Well if you want take your lives in your hands, let’s have a go at it right now! Telling me I can’t hire a Catholic or a Negro or a Jew is undiluted bull—t, cause I’m going to hire anyone I damn well please. Those jobs are for all the people, not just a few hooded bastards like you — Shame on you.”

Holy based!

I didn't know about that one!

Just when I thought I couldn't admire Truman any more.

As for the rest of your thoughts, well I am unequivocally in support of his decision to use the bomb. I wasn't as a bleeding heart teenager, but am now as an adult who has studied the issue exhaustively. I don't think there were any better options on the table, realistically. In the end he saved more lives on balance, American, Japanese, and Soviet alike.

And sure he expressed some private prejudices in writing, but as you say it was hardly atypical for the time, and certainly not the place, he was raised in. Indeed it's quite something that he was as opposed to prejudice as he was given those circumstances. He also could be a fiercely emotional guy in general, famously writing a threatening letter as president to a critic who blasted his daughter's stage performance.

Overall I see him as one of the most HUMAN presidents by far, one of the most relatable. The guy was a literal dirt farmer who was never even "supposed" to be president, after all, so I guess that's not too surprising. And the last one to never finish college. Yet one of the greatest ever. His story certainly is one of the greatest ever, too. I just know they could make an amazing award-winning series about his life based on David McCullough's biography of him. His 1948 campaign was the best of all-time, so the story of that alone could be an amazing series.

[KaiserDave]

There should be a movie on the 1948 campaign. Like, a really good movie or TV show with A-list actors and a huge budget. I would pay to see that.

[TML]

He delivered some words of wisdom regarding Democratic candidates running as quasi-Republicans as well as the use of the term “socialism” to describe anything Republicans don’t like. Today’s Democratic Party (especially the establishment) really needs to heed those words of wisdom if they want to win more seats and/or hold on to as many of their existing seats as possible.

[Alben Barkley]

He delivered some words of wisdom regarding Democratic candidates running as quasi-Republicans as well as the use of the term “socialism” to describe anything Republicans don’t like. Today’s Democratic Party (especially the establishment) really needs to heed those words of wisdom if they want to win more seats and/or hold on to as many of their existing seats as possible.

He also was furiously anti-communist, fended off a challenge from the Bernie Sanders of the day (Henry Wallace), and was an extremely pragmatic party man who cared far more about winning than ideology.

What he said about Republicans using "socialism" as a boogeyman for everything was spot-on but said nothing about Truman's own views. The point was not that he was a socialist or embraced the term, but rather that the Republicans were foolish and misusing the term. I have zero doubt he would be very much in "the establishment" of the Democratic Party today, as he was in his own time.

[ηєω ƒяσηтιєя]

Why underrated? He's frequently ranked in the Top range of presidents. Always in the Top 10, sometimes even Top 5. I don't think he's underrated in our times, compared to when he left office.

Yeah, but not among the American public. A lot of Americans nowadays either don't know who Truman is or if they do, they know him as "the President that nuked Japan!" - and that's it.

[MarkD]

Truman appointed four people to the Supreme Court: Chief Justice Fred Vinson, Associate Justice Harold Burton, Associate Justice Tom Clark, and Associate Justice Sherman Minton. None of the four were memorable or impressive members of the Court. They were some of the most bland and boring Justices the Court has ever had. Ideologically, as judges, they all were moderate. None of the opinions they wrote were important to the Court's developing jurisprudence, or have been very often quoted.

Reading their biographies (in The Supreme Court Justices; Illustrated Biographies, 1789-1993, published in 1993 by The Supreme Court Historical Society), the only thing I see that I consider to be commendable about any of the four of them is in Sherman Minton's biography: "Although some may have expected Minton to vote with the liberal bloc," i.e., liberal Justices such as Hugo Black and William O. Douglas, "because of his voting record as a [US] senator, his experience in the 1930s when the Supreme Court struck down New Deal legislation he had helped draft in Congress gave him a dim view of judicial activism. He thought the Court should be deferential toward decisions made by the executive and legislative branches, and his view of precedent meant that he was disinclined to stray from past Court decisions." It is pretty rare for a politically liberal person to believe in and to exercise judicial restraint. But again, Minton never wrote any memorable opinions about why and when he exercised judicial restraint.

Simply put, Harry Truman appointed four mediocrities to the Supreme Court. HP (although not much worse than most presidents, considering Supreme Court appointments).

[Amenhotep Bakari-Sellers]

FF he was the First non DIXIECRAT WC Prez all his Appointment to SCOTUS AFFIRMATIVE BROWN THOMAS C CLARK, SHERMAN, BURTON

However if Vinson lived it would of went the other way Stanley F Reed was the swing vote but that didn't happen, Vinson was still a DIXIECRAT CJ

But, it would of came back up again and overturned

[Sir Mohamed]

Major FF, both as POTUS and person. For sure belongs in the Top 5 of American presidents.

[Aurelius]

Massive FF. Dropping the bomb was the correct decision. This is a really good analysis of the decision and circumstances.

[Elcaspar]

FF. Even if i would have personally preferred Henry Wallace to become President.