'Give 'm hell'
Louis Heren
Tumultuous Years Robert J. Donovan (Norton £13.95)
Ican think of no other American president who was savaged as much as Harry Truman. Andrew Johnson, who succeeded Abraham Lincoln, was impeached by radical Republicans who resented his con- ciliatory approach to the defeated South — he escaped conviction by one vote — but he did not suffer years of sustained hatred and calumny. Mr Donovan could not have chosen a better title for his second volume on the Truman Administration. They were tumultuous years, and I doubt that any other man would have survived better than that cocky former haberdasher from In- dependence, Missouri.
Truman made mistakes and was short- tempered. Relations were hardly improved with the Republican-dominated 80th Con- gress when he dismissed it as do-nothing and know-nothing; and throughout the 1948 presidential campaign he was greeted by supporters with delighted shouts of `Give'm hell, Harry.'
Republicans were infuriated by his Fair Deal programme, which perpetuated Roosevelt's New Deal, but hated him more for keeping them out of the White House for another four years. Twenty years in the political wilderness was too much for men who regarded themselves as the natural leaders of the nation. The assumption grew out of class and race as well as wealth, and was well expressed by Senator George Frisbie Hoar of Massachusetts at the turn of the century: 'The men who do the work of piety and charity in our churches, the men who administer our school systems, the men who own and till their own farms, the men who perform skilled labour in the shops, the soldiers, the men who went to [the Civil] war and stayed all through, the men who paid the debt and kept the curren- cy sound and saved the nation's honour, the men who saved the country in war and have made it worth living in in peace, com- monly and as a rule, by the natural law of their being, find their places in the Republican party. While the old slave-
owner and slave-driver, the saloon keeper, the ballot box stuffer, the Ku Klux Klan, the criminal class of the great cities, the men who cannot read or write, commonly and as a rule, by the natural law of their being, find their congenial place in the Democratic party.'
The arrogance was very much in evidence 50 years later, and the assumed moral superiority did not prevent them from tacit- ly supporting Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon. They encouraged the House Un- American Activities Committee and other anti-intellectual and demagogic forces which exploited the Cold War and the fear of communism.
Bi-partisan foreign policy survived as far as Europe was concerned, largely because
of Arthur Vandenberg, the Republican senator from Michigan; but after Chiang Kai-shek's defeat, the party and the China Lobby accused Roosevelt and Truman of selling China down the river. They also claimed that Britain was a running dog of the Chinese communists. The feud between the armed forces at a time when western Europe was quaking after the communist takeover in Czechoslovakia was also ag- gravated by Republican spite. Truman must have felt vulnerable, but the worst was to come in Korea. General Douglas Mac- Arthur was guilty of the ultimate disloyalty when he tried to conspire with Republican politicians and attack China.
It was high drama. On the one hand was Truman, a man who had never aspired to rule and whose legitimacy had been under constant attack; on the other a popinjay of a general who nevertheless was the darling of the mob as well as Republican leaders. It was also Truman's finest hour, and he proved once again the Jacksonian theory that any shrewd and decent man, catapulted into power, can run a democracy. He dismissed MacArthur; or, to use his own language, he fired the son- of-a-bitch.
The political western world, still devasted by war and utterly dependent upon the United States for protection and sustenance, literally held its collective breath while the general journeyed home and spoke before a joint session of Con- gress called without reference to the Speaker. The demands for Truman's im- peachment seemed overwhelming until the country came to its senses and admitted that he had made the right decision.
A price had to be paid for all this. Truman had to give ground, and agreed to loyalty boards and having John Foster Dulles foisted upon him as a foreign policy consultant. Worse, American foreign policy became imbued with rabid anti- communist rhetoric. The consequences are still very much evident in President Reagan's statements.
Nevertheless, Truman survived to become the architect of institutions such as NATO which still maintain the peace in Europe. We should be grateful to his memory, and to Mr Donovan for recalling those tumultuous years with understanding.
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