Re: Harry Truman
Harry Truman is one of my favorite presidents of all time; I am in complete agreement, Muncle, that he was the last of the 'citizen presidents.' I had occasion to meet him at a fund-raising dinner in 1964--a man with a big smile and a big, firm handshake--and I think of that meeting as one of the highlights of my life.
The expression 'The buck stops here!' originated--or at least was much used--by Truman. It was his way of saying that he was taking responsibility for whatever was going down; this would be a great lesson for contemporary politicians.
Bess Truman hated Washington, did the absolute least she could do, and didn't mince words about getting back to Independence. At one point Truman made a speech using the word 'manure,' and someone later asked Bess if there was any way she could influence him to use the more polite term 'fertilizer.' "Are you kidding," she replied, "do you have any idea how long it took me to get him to use the word 'manure'?"
Hopefully not an apocryphal story; it definitely sounds like Truman whose middle name, by the way, was S (not an initial but rather a name, just S)....
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