The Buck Stops Here, or Does It?

President Harry S Truman had a little sign on his desk which said: "The Buck Stops Here!"

In his farewell address, he explained its meaning for anyone who didn't get it: "The President -- whoever he is -- has to decide. He can't pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That's his job:"

When I was in second grade in 1948, Sister Mary Margaret passed out a ballot.

We could vote for either Gov. Dewey or President Truman.The president got only two of 30 votes. One was mine. When President Truman won reelection, I felt a whole lot smarter than the Chicago Tribune. Its Nov. 3, 1948 banner headline, proclaimed: "Dewey Defeats Truman!"

But President Truman wasn't always right.

As a young man in 1922, he flirted with the Ku Klux Klan (although he never was initiated, and never attended a meeting). He also expressed anti-Jewish sentiments in his diary.

His 1946 proposal to draft coal miners into the army to end their strike, would cost him the labor vote today and his 1952 order to his secretary of commerce to seize control of the nation's steel mills, meant to insure a steady supply of steel to the armed forces fighting the Korean War, shocked many Americans. including a majority of the United States Supreme Court, which held that absent Congressional authorization, that the president -- though he was Commander in Chief -- lacked Constitutional power to nationalize an industry -- even in time of war.

Mr. Truman became an "accidental president" when FDR died in April of 1945.

From the day that Harry Truman took office, he came face to face with the "buck."

He had a choice.

He could either "pass the buck," or grapple with it. And whether you approve or disapprove of his decisions, he had the guts to do what he thought was right for America.

Barely four months after he took office, he was faced with the biggest decision any president had ever been forced to make. America had the atom bomb. Should he order it to be dropped on Japan? He did. On Aug. 6, 1945, 140,000 died in Hiroshima. On Aug. 9, 80,000 more were killed in Nagasaki. Japan surrendered on Aug. 14, 1945.

Mr. Truman knew the devastation the bombs would cause, but he also knew that if America tried to invade the Japanese home island that there would be as many as a million American casualties. Many have condemned President Truman for dropping the bombs. But Mr. Truman never backed down.

"I knew what I was doing when I stopped the war ... I have no regrets and, under the same circumstances, I would do it again."

Eleanor Roosevelt later said that President Truman had "made the only decision he could." The bomb's use was necessary "to avoid tremendous sacrifice of American lives."

But that was only one of Mr. Truman's momentous decisions.

When The Soviet Union threatened to gobble up Greece and Turkey, and perhaps all of war-torn Europe, President Truman announced what has been called the Truman Doctrine: "the policy of the United States to support free people who (were) resisting attempted subjugation by armed minorities or by outside pressures." The Truman Doctrine changed America's foreign policy toward the Soviet Union from detente to active containment.

Then to give teeth to his policy, Mr. Truman encouraged the U.S. Senate to approve the NATO treaty which said, "The Parties of NATO agreed that an armed attack against one or more of them in Europe or North America shall be considered an attack against them all."

When economic chaos in postwar era portended a communist takeover of the European democracies, President Truman authorized implementation of the Marshall Plan.

When Russia tried to cut off Berlin from the West, President Truman ordered th the Berlin Airlift to break the Berlin Blockade, even though he could not be sure that Russia would not respond with military action.

In an effort to avoid further wars, President Truman backed the formation of the United Nations.

When Hubert Humphrey demanded a strong civil rights plank in the 1948 Democratic platform, Harry Truman embraced it, notwithstanding the fact that Strom Thurmond would bolt the convention, split the Democratic Party and run as a "Dixiecrat."

Then putting his "money were his mouth was," Harry Truman two weeks later, issued Executive Order 9981, which racially integrated the U.S. Armed Services -- knowing this would cost him the support of many in his party.

And then, overcoming his youthful anti-Semitic attitudes, Harry S. Truman, notwithstanding dire warnings of a potential Arab backlash, which might result in loss of access to Middle East oil, recognized the state of Israel in May of 1948 -- 11 minutes after Israel declared itself a nation!

And of course, when General Douglas MacArthur, one of America's greatest heroes, forgot who was commander-in-chief, Harry S Truman fired him, knowing that his decision would be wildly unpopular.

So why do I call myself the "last Truman Democrat?" Because Harry Truman had the guts to try to put the good of the country above partisan politics.

Were he president today, there'd be no sign on his desk saying, "The Buck Stopped with George Bush."




Posted Online: Aug. 04, 2011, 10:35 am - Quad-Cities Online

by John Donald O'Shea

Copyright 2011, John Donald O'Shea