Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip by Matthew Algeo
Authors: Matthew Algeo
Tags: United States, General, History, Biography & Autobiography, Travel, 20th Century, Essays & Travelogues, Presidents & Heads of State, Presidents, Automobile Travel
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from Kansas City who had been accused of receiving kickbacks for arranging government loans to businesses. (A Senate committee later cleared Boyle of any wrongdoing.) Meanwhile, the Truman administration was dogged by a scandal involving tax collectors accepting bribes, and the Democratic Party, which had split apart in 1948, was still not fully healed.
McKinney accepted the post, though he “had to be persuaded to take it,” Truman recalled. Although Boyle had been paid thirty-five thousand dollars annually, McKinney refused a salary, and he promised to rid the government of corrupt workers. “The only way to deal with termites is to keep a sharp watch for them and get rid of them whenever they show up,” he declared. He persuaded Truman to propose legislation making tax collectors civil service employees rather than political appointees. (Congress passed the bill.) McKinney also oversaw the party’s 1952 convention in Chicago, which was deemed a rousing success, if only because none of the delegates walked out as they had four years earlier. His reward, of course, was to get sacked by the nominee, Adlai Stevenson, who replaced McKinney after the convention with a friend and fellow Illini named Stephen Mitchell. “[Truman] always thought that Governor Stevenson made a mistake to replace him,” remembered Charles Murphy, a special counsel to the president. “And I think his view [was], that there was enough difference so if it had not happened Stevenson would have won the election.”
Harry and Bess with the McKinney family in front of the McKinney home in Indianapolis, June 20, 1953. From left: Bess, Frank McKinney, Frank McKinney Jr., Harry, Margaret McKinney, Claire McKinney.
It’s doubtful the firing of Frank McKinney cost Stevenson the election. Matthew Connelly, another Truman aide, said there wasn’t a Democrat alive who could have beaten Eisenhower in 1952. But McKinney’s work as DNC chairman clearly impressed Truman, and, despite a twenty-year difference in their ages, the two men grew quite close. They had much in common. Neither had attended college. Both were self-made, plain speaking, overachieving men from the Midwest, amateur historians who were accustomed to being underestimated.
After freshening up, the Trumans joined McKinney, his wife, Margaret, and their children, nineteen-year-old Claire and fourteen-year-old Frank Jr., at the family’s dining room table for a leisurely lunch: chilled melon balls, breast of chicken on ham, asparagus almondine, stuffed oranges, hot rolls and black currant preserves, and, for dessert, a McKinney family favorite, strawberry angel pie. Thelma Machael, the “women’s editor” of the
Indianapolis News,
reported that the Trumans “charmed the McKinneys’ daughter Claire and son Frank Jr. with their easy banter at the luncheon table, when Truman deferred to his wife as ‘the Boss.'”
“With friendly ease and professional aplomb,” Machael wrote, “the McKinneys hosted the luncheon visit in a manner as unflurried as if they were entertaining a group of their children’s friends.”
After lunch, the party retired to the porch to relax. The temperature hit one hundred degrees in Indianapolis that day, a new record for the date, but Harry Truman could stand the heat anywhere, not just in the kitchen. Dressed in a dark blue gabardine suit with a light blue shirt and polka dot bow tie, he betrayed not a hint of discomfort. Neither, for that matter, did Bess, who, Thelma Machael reported in remarkable detail, “wore a silk print jacket dress with a minute turquoise and purple design scattered over the black silk, relieved with a touch of white at the throat and mid arm.” A handful of newspaper reporters and photographers who’d caught wind of the visit were waiting out on the sidewalk. Truman, who had practically invented the modern presidential press conference, couldn’t resist inviting them up to the porch.
“Well-fed, and beaming with
McKinney accepted the post, though he “had to be persuaded to take it,” Truman recalled. Although Boyle had been paid thirty-five thousand dollars annually, McKinney refused a salary, and he promised to rid the government of corrupt workers. “The only way to deal with termites is to keep a sharp watch for them and get rid of them whenever they show up,” he declared. He persuaded Truman to propose legislation making tax collectors civil service employees rather than political appointees. (Congress passed the bill.) McKinney also oversaw the party’s 1952 convention in Chicago, which was deemed a rousing success, if only because none of the delegates walked out as they had four years earlier. His reward, of course, was to get sacked by the nominee, Adlai Stevenson, who replaced McKinney after the convention with a friend and fellow Illini named Stephen Mitchell. “[Truman] always thought that Governor Stevenson made a mistake to replace him,” remembered Charles Murphy, a special counsel to the president. “And I think his view [was], that there was enough difference so if it had not happened Stevenson would have won the election.”
Harry and Bess with the McKinney family in front of the McKinney home in Indianapolis, June 20, 1953. From left: Bess, Frank McKinney, Frank McKinney Jr., Harry, Margaret McKinney, Claire McKinney.
It’s doubtful the firing of Frank McKinney cost Stevenson the election. Matthew Connelly, another Truman aide, said there wasn’t a Democrat alive who could have beaten Eisenhower in 1952. But McKinney’s work as DNC chairman clearly impressed Truman, and, despite a twenty-year difference in their ages, the two men grew quite close. They had much in common. Neither had attended college. Both were self-made, plain speaking, overachieving men from the Midwest, amateur historians who were accustomed to being underestimated.
After freshening up, the Trumans joined McKinney, his wife, Margaret, and their children, nineteen-year-old Claire and fourteen-year-old Frank Jr., at the family’s dining room table for a leisurely lunch: chilled melon balls, breast of chicken on ham, asparagus almondine, stuffed oranges, hot rolls and black currant preserves, and, for dessert, a McKinney family favorite, strawberry angel pie. Thelma Machael, the “women’s editor” of the
Indianapolis News,
reported that the Trumans “charmed the McKinneys’ daughter Claire and son Frank Jr. with their easy banter at the luncheon table, when Truman deferred to his wife as ‘the Boss.'”
“With friendly ease and professional aplomb,” Machael wrote, “the McKinneys hosted the luncheon visit in a manner as unflurried as if they were entertaining a group of their children’s friends.”
After lunch, the party retired to the porch to relax. The temperature hit one hundred degrees in Indianapolis that day, a new record for the date, but Harry Truman could stand the heat anywhere, not just in the kitchen. Dressed in a dark blue gabardine suit with a light blue shirt and polka dot bow tie, he betrayed not a hint of discomfort. Neither, for that matter, did Bess, who, Thelma Machael reported in remarkable detail, “wore a silk print jacket dress with a minute turquoise and purple design scattered over the black silk, relieved with a touch of white at the throat and mid arm.” A handful of newspaper reporters and photographers who’d caught wind of the visit were waiting out on the sidewalk. Truman, who had practically invented the modern presidential press conference, couldn’t resist inviting them up to the porch.
“Well-fed, and beaming with
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