Transcript: Chapter 07

NARRATOR: In 1932, when Harry went with Pendergast to the Democratic Convention in Chicago, he saw Franklin Roosevelt for the first time.

FDR: Give me your help in this crusade to restore America to its own people.

NARRATOR: In accepting his party's nomination, the fifty-one year old Roosevelt achieved a lifelong ambition.

Harry S. Truman was 48, unknown outside of Missouri. Now for the first time, he began to reveal his own ambitions. He let it be known that he wanted to run for Governor, or Congress. But Pendergast had other candidates in mind. Then, in 1934, when Pendergast was looking for a new senator, some of the boss's aides recommended Harry.

"Do you mean to tell me," Pendergast bellowed "you actually believe that Harry Truman can be elected to the United States Senate?"

After three other men turned him down, Pendergast settled for Harry Truman and backed him in the Missouri primary. Truman's opponents called him Pendergast's bellhop. The election turned on Kansas City, where Pendergast made certain that Truman got all but 11,000 of its 148,000 votes.

KEN HECHLER: Pendergast actually stuffed the ballot boxes with illegal votes and people that weren't registered.

NARRATOR: The new United States senator from Missouri was 50 years old -- and had never been to Washington for more than a few days.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: So off he goes to Washington and Tom Pendergast's parting words to the new senator from Missouri are, "Keep your mouth shut and answer your mail." And he arrives in Washington with a shadow over him, a cloud over him as the "Senator from Pendergast." And there are certain senators who won't even speak to him because he has such a stigma attached to him.

NARRATOR: Harry, Bess and Margaret settled into the nation's capital, moving into an inexpensive, four-room apartment. But Bess wasn't happy there. She lasted just five months before she returned to Independence. Her mother wanted her home.

She and Margaret shuttled back and forth to Washington, where the Trumans rented one small apartment after another. Throughout Harry's years in the Senate, Bess spent much of her time in Independence, leaving Senator Truman heartsick and lonely.

Dear Bess, I've been wandering around like a lost soul this morning. ... It's a wrench to be without you. I never missed you so much before ...

Dear Bess, Your card was a lifesaver this morning. I never in my life spent such a lonesome night.

Dear Bess, Your letter came on the second mail so everything is all right...

Dear Bess, Your letter was in the first mail

Dear Bess, I do wish you'd let me hear at least every other day.

Dear Bess, Dreamed about you last night. Thought we were going through a flood together. We got through without disaster. The weather has been fine.

Dear Bess, It was good to hear your voice last night, but not half as good as really seeing and talking to you --

Dear Bess, I was so lonesome last night ... even if my combination of words makes you sick sometimes...

Dear Bess, Happy Birthday! ... If your dress doesn't fit you, send it back and we'll get a larger one.

Dear Bess, You don't know how much I appreciated the letter that came in the morning's mail. I was so devilishly homesick ... I could see you standing out there in the yard watching me drive away and I don't think you kissed me goodbye ...

NARRATOR: It would be years before Senator Truman gained enough confidence to work himself out from under Pendergast's shadow.

"He came in," a friend remembered, "with a real inferiority complex."

"I was as timid," Truman later wrote "as a country boy arriving on the campus of a great university."

With America caught in the grips of the Depression -- Truman fell in line with Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal programs. He called Roosevelt "the greatest of the greats."

But Roosevelt himself had no use for the junior senator from Missouri. It took five months before the White House summoned Truman for a 15-minute meeting. After just seven minutes, Truman was shown the door.

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: Roosevelt would have nothing to do with him. Roosevelt really gave him the back of his hand. People on the White House staff gave him the back of their hands. He couldn't get appointments. He wasn't somebody that they took very seriously.

NARRATOR: Truman sat for months in the Senate Chamber without making a single speech. He was known as "Go-along, get-along Harry."

DAVID MCCULLOUGH: He has to prove to the people in the Senate, that he's somebody to be taken seriously, that he's a hard worker and that he's honest and that he's going to do the job. And he gave it everything he had. He would work longer days, harder days than anybody. He was in there before anybody showed up. He was assigned to committees and he would show up when nobody else would show up for dreary committee sessions and dreary committee hearings, very often the only one there listening to hours and hours of deadly testimony about deadly subjects, but he was going to do the job. He was going to learn the business. And, as time went by, in a matter of about three or four years, they began to realize what kind of a fellow they had on their hands.

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