Sold – “Give em’ Hell Harry” Says Do What Is Right and Let Your Opponents

Kansas City boss Tom Pendergast held enormous sway in Missouri in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Elections were fixed to keep political friends in power, and in return, companies owned by Pendergast (like Ready-Mixed Concrete) and those of his supporters, were awarded state government contracts. Harry Truman was elected U.S. Senator with Pendergast’s help, and though not controlled by Pendergast, Truman was friendly to him. Lloyd Stark sought Pendergast’s support in the 1936 gubernatorial contest and was elected. Taking office in 1937, he was pressed by Pendergast’s minions for contracts to the degree that he rebelled. He broke with Pendergast in the summer of 1937 and launched numerous investigations of his activities. People active in Missouri politics were forced to take sides betweem Governor Stark and Boss Tom. As 1937 unfolded, Truman and Stark had a falling out over this.

Jess Rogers was the head of the Missouri Voter’s Association and likely benefited from Pendergast’s patronage to secure the post. Judge Frank Monroe was an early supporter of Truman’s and remained quite close to him. William M. Kirby was a Missouri civil servant and a friend of Truman from their military service together. Paul A. Porter was an attorney who spent most of his life in Washington. He had obviously angered Truman, and this brought out Harry’s bluntist aspect.

I wrote Lloyd and told him to do what was right to let Porter go to hell.

Typed Letter Signed on his “United States Senate/ Committee on Interstate Commerce” letterhead, Washington, August 10, 1937 to Kirby. “You can expect Jess Rogers to get up on his high horse and show how important he is. He owes his appointment to our political friends just the same as you would have if you had been a member of the Commission. I think you are mistaken about Frank Monroe. He wrote me about the matter when it happened and said that Porter did not have any sense or judgment but he thought it would work out all right. I wrote Lloyd and told him to do what was right to let Porter go to hell.” This is the first time we have seen Truman make this direct statement in a letter.

This is a theme Truman clearly believed in because he used it again in March 1948, when although he favored the partition of Palestine and recognition of the State of Israel, the State Department opposed overtly the move. He took control of the issue, writing about his diplomats, “I think the proper thing to do, and the thing I have been doing, is to do what I think is right and let them all go to hell.”

Truman’s political rivalry with Stark grew fierce. In 1940, Stark ran against him for the Senate and came within a hair’s breadth of winning. As for Porter, FDR appointed him chairman of the Federal Communications Commission in 1944. He and Truman apparently patched up their differences, as when President Truman declared the Truman Doctrine in 1947 to aid Greece and Turkey, he named Porter Chief of the American Economic Mission to Greece.