Evening star., 1944-08-04

IIitO Tic UdCk.
ground the bet A -
ter. Frank r. Kent.
Certainly, the journalistic gentle-
men who have been trying to make
Senator Truman out man Of real
presidential size have found them
selves frustrated, no matter which
way they turned. From no source
have they gotten any real help
least of all from Senator Truman.
Their first handicap is that the
candidate, who should know him
self better than any one else, very
gravely doubts mis- own qualifica-
tions and Is obviously aware that
he is being terribly overpi aised.
Personally Honest.
Another obstacle is Senator Tru-
mans political background, which,
personally honest though he is, is
concededly shameful. Another is
his record in the Senate which is
utterly devoid of originality or in
dependence. Still another is the
failure of the Truman Committee
record to measure up to the ex-
travagant eulogies that have been
draped around it.
Finally, there is the more or less
trivial matter of having kept his
wife on the Senate payroll at 81 500
a year almost from the start of his
service
Far from fitting into the picture
nf do Can ov,I o, o,,t-
standing statesman, these things all
attest to the fact that Senator
Truman Is a rather lightweight
politician who has always followed
his local party bosses, stuck close
by the administration and never
found himself in conflict with the
White House wishes.
If he had not been that kind of
a man in Missouri Tom Pendergast,
the criminally indicted and con-
victed Kansas City boss. would
never have made him Senator and
If he had not been that kind of a
Senator he would not have been
chairman of the Truman Commit
tee and certainly Mr.. Roosevelt
would not have made him his run
ming mate.
Concerning Mr.. Truman per-
sonally, it can be said that he is
man of impeccable character
whose consciousness of his own
limitations made him genuinely re-
luctant to become a candidate for
the vice presidential nomination
and who did so only when the Or
ders came to him from the poll
ticians he recognizes as bosses.
The news magazine, Time, de-
scribed him as almost in a panic
when he realized he was going to
be named. With tears in his eyes,
1t said, he protested his unfitness
for the presidential Office to which
he easily may succeed should Mr.
Roosevelt be reelected
AS to his background, the record
shows that after his little haber-
dashery business went broke, Pen
dergast gave him his first small
political job; that later, Pendergast
handpicked him for the Senate;
that after Pendergast had been
exposed as criminal corruptionist
Mr.. Truman made an impassioned
defense of him in the Senate.
An attempt is now being made
to wipe all this out by superlative
praise of the Truman Committee,
. which, it is claimed, saved vast
sums of money and performed great
war services. No impartial review
sustains this contention, though it
is the only one which gave the
Truman nomination the least de-
gree of reasonableness.
The truth is that, while the COM
nittee made some serviceable criti-
cisms of the war management, Of
fered some sound suggestions and
did some good work, the criticisms
had all been made before and the
suggestions were of things, such as
the single-headed production board
which had become inevitable.
Eulogized President.
The significant thing is that only
indirectly did the committee ever
attach the slightest blame to the
President, who was obviously the
man responsible. 1t, never directly
declared that he personally had
erred In any direction on any occa.
sion.
On the contrary, Mr.. Truman,
personally, went so far out of his
way to eulogize the Roosevelt man.
agement as to bring a protest from
the minority members. The basic
fact is that the Truman Commit
tee from the start always had White
House support and nothing 1t ever
said or did was really unacceptable
to Mr.. Roosevelt.
Perhaps 1t is not very important
that the Senator put-and has kept
Mrs. Truman on the public paw
roll. Always when such things are
disclosed the claim is that the paw
roll relative is so efficient as to be
indispensable. Perhaps that is true
of Mrs. Truman. Nevertheless, the
fact remains that there used to be