National Affairs: I Have the Job

Oh! the drums went bang, the cymbals clanged, and the horns they blazed away—and Harry Truman beamed & beamed. All through the bright, chill afternoon, the newly inaugurated 32nd President stood in the nippy wind as the biggest inaugural parade, in Washington’s most expensive inauguration, passed before him.

Planes roared overhead, tanks rumbled past. People packed the wooden grandstands as far as the eye could see, and lined the curbs.

Over the heads of those in front, pasteboard periscopes peered like curious Brontosauri. There were cowboys and a trick dog from California, shivering bathing beauties from Florida.

Hot & Cold. The President, in overcoat and silk hat, was sustained by a concealed, hip-high support, against which he leaned while still appearing to stand. He sipped coffee often—though he usually avoids the stuff—toasted his feet at a small electric heater installed on the floor. “It got so hot I had to pour one of those paper cups full of coffee on it to put out the fire,” Truman said later.

Only twice did the cold creep into Truman’s manner. When Georgia’s Governor “Hummon” Talmadge rode past, the President pointedly turned his back to talk to a companion. And when South Carolina’s Governor J. Strom Thurmond, the Dixiecrats’ candidate for President, doffed his hat in salute, Harry Truman stared him coldly in the eye, his mouth a thin, grim line.

Harry Truman’s every waking minute last week was filled with receptions, lunches, dinners, fireworks, balls or ceremonies. He was praised, petitioned and prayed over. He was late to bed, always up before dawn.

At the Inaugural Ball he lin gered far past midnight, watching from his box as all official Washington danced on the floor below or crowded up for a word in his ear.

At a Missouri reception, Truman introduced some thing new in presidential handshaking. He wished, he said, that everyone could go home and say he’s shaken the President’s hand. So, he instructed, everyone “hold your hands up like this” —clasping his hands like a triumphant boxer. The folks liked it fine.

New Penitents. Harry Truman was well aware that part of the enthusiasm was a belated effort by “Wednesday-morning Democrats,” to make amends for their pre-election shortcomings. He didn’t seem to mind. Addressing the Electoral College dinner he permitted himself a rare moment of gloating. He recounted slyly how he had turned on the radio around midnight on Election Day and heard the voice of H. V. Kaltenborn. Zestfully, the President mimicked the prim, ex-cathedra tones of Kaltenborn with an accuracy that suggested practice. “Mr. Kaltenborn was saying, ‘While the President is a million votes ahead in the popular vote . . . when the country vote comes in, Mr. Truman will be defeated by an overwhelming majority.’ ” His audience roared. When he woke up again at 4 o’clock, Truman went on, “Mr. Kaltenborn was saying, ‘While the President has a lead of two million votes, it is certainly necessary that this election shall go into the House of Representatives.’ … I called the Secret Service men in and I said, ‘We’d better go back to Kansas City, it looks as if I’m elected.’ ” Truman added sarcastically: “Apparently it was too bad, but it had happened.”

But Harry Truman’s most characteristic utterance of the week was made to the Democratic Finance Committee. “I am just an ordinary human being who has been lucky—or unlucky, whichever way you want to look at it,” said Truman. “And I have always said that I am sure there are a million men in the United States, no doubt, who could do the job much better than I can, or could do it. But I have the job, and I have to do it, and the rest of you have got to help me.”

By the end of the week, Harry Truman, fit as a fiddle at 64, was still going strong. With Secretary of the Treasury John Snyder, he stood in a receiving line to shake more than 900 hands, ducked behind a screen for a moment to rub his right hand with oil. The last event was the Kentucky Society ball in honor of Vice President Alben Barkley.

Then the President headed back to Blair House and bed. Said Harry Truman: “It’s been a wonderful day. But I’m glad it comes only once every four years.”

The most disgruntled men at the inauguration were Washington’s merchants and hotelmen. The crowds were the biggest ever (estimates varied from 500,000 to the official police estimate of 1,300,000), but they spent little time or money in the capital. The inaugural committee, which had appealed for rooms, had applications for only 1,600 of the 27,000 it was offered. Hotelmen grumbled that reports of expected throngs and high prices had kept people away. One restaurateur put up 700 box lunches, sold 15. A hawker carrying a sandwich board loaded with Truman buttons, pennants and kewpie dolls, snarled: “I never seen people like these. Oh, I made a few today, but it’s nuttin’ to the time and aggravation we put in.”