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HUMAN — tliat^d Truman/
EDWARD R Some facts in the case of the Vice-President
SCHAUFFLER Elect, reported by one who knew him when
I SAT in an army tent at Camp Pike, Arkansas, one morning in August, 1933, with Harry S. Truman, reducing the contents of a bottle of Tom Pendergast's 20'year'old whiskey. Pendergast had given it to Truman to carry to camp with him. Truman was then a reserve colonel of field artillery, I a reserve major of infantry.
As the excellent whisky began to mellow our bones and certain bcuriers, I said to Harry, "Tell me. You're a conscientious public official. How does it happen that you gang with the Pendergast organization?"
Tr\iman said: "All right, I'll tell you. I believe you can get further working inside an organization than you can shying rocks at it from the outside. Indeed, you can't get anywhere in politics around Kansas City unless you work with the machine. I know it has done a lot of wrong things. But some of us are trying to make it do better and we're not in despair yet."
Three years later Boss Pendergast pleaded guilty to a federal income tax charge and went to federal prison for a year. All the rats and weasels who had been living out of his pocket for years rushed nervously into the limelight and cried: "My Gawd, how perfectly terrible, Mr. Pendergast doing thataway! Well, you can
bet your bottom dollar I for one shall never have anything more to do with him."
Truman was by that time junior United States Senator from Missouri. He merely remarked that he'd never had much use for rats that fled from a sinking ship which had been their home for years. It was a somewhat cryptic remark and not amplified.
I have known Harry Truman for a quarter of a century, like him and respect him. He's a better than average public official. A decade ago he said there were too many counties in Missouri (there were and still are 114 of them) and that considerable money could be saved the taxpayers if some of the counties were merged. He knew what he was talking about. For several years he had been presiding judge of the Jackson County Court, in which are included Kansas City and Tnmian's home town of Independence. County judge in Missouri is county commissioner. There are three of them; they disburse county funds and have no judicial duties.
Truman was a farm and small town boy. He wanted to go to West Point, but his eyes weren't good enough. He joined the Missouri National Guard instead. When the Guard went to the Mexican Border in June, 1916, Truman went along as a bat