February 10, 2015
Presidents’ Day, the federal holiday occurring next week, has me thinking about Harry Truman. He was not a man to mince words or decisions. He also was not one to dwell on holidays dedicated to leaders like him. In fact, Presidents’ Day was actually Uniform Monday Holiday Act during his life. By the mid-1980s, this holiday evolved into its present designation.
Truman didn’t spend a lot of time on self-reflection. He didn’t have the luxury. The 33rd U.S. president faced historic challenges, assuming the presidency during World War II and leaving while the Korean War was still being fought.
Yet he understood the gravity of his job. He kept a letter in his desk drawer in the White House. It was from William Banning of Canaan, Connecticut, and some say Truman carried the letter with him until his last days.
“Mr. Truman, As you have been directly responsible for the loss of our son’s life in Korea, you might just as well keep this emblem on display in your trophy room, as a memory of one of your historic deeds. Our major regret at this time is that your daughter was not there to receive the same treatment as our son received in Korea.
Signed, William Banning”
Mr. Banning included in the envelope his dead son’s purple heart.
The letter is displayed at the Harry S. Truman Library and Museum. I know. I saw it when visiting the museum in Independence, Missouri. I love history, especially presidential history. I hope to visit all presidential museums, but I have a way to go. Meanwhile, I’ve read a lifetime’s worth of presidential biographies and autobiographies. Here’s what I’ve learned:
A president’s job is difficult. And that’s on a good day. The job requires vision, diplomacy, leadership, compromise, decisiveness, engagement, depth and wisdom. And we are lucky when the leader of the free world possesses the rare, coveted quality of intuitiveness to know when to leverage these skills. Kind of like the Serenity Prayer — “the courage to change the things which should be changed and the wisdom to distinguish the one from the other.”
Serenity is seldom realized when sitting in the Oval Office.
We’ve had presidents who have managed this job better than others. Lincoln, yes; Buchanan, not so much. This begs the question: How do you really measure the effectiveness of a president?
The POTUS litmus test includes indicators such as leading successful foreign, domestic and economic policy, underscored by the incessant and unpleasant ability to raise hundreds of millions of dollars just to get into office and hundreds of millions more to stay. Fundraising is the modern pre-requisite to the White House.
And there’s so much hype about legacy, even before a president has left office. But in this hyper-social media age, the president’s actions have been minimized into 140 characters or a two-minute clip on a news show (emphasis on “show”).
Each year when this holiday rolls around, I find myself in a bit of a history-geek funk. A small number of Americans can cite the official role of our president. This mirrors voter apathy, too. Maybe the real question is how do we get more people interested and engaged in our nation’s governance?
The presidency has far-reaching implications.
William Banning knew this. So did Harry Truman, who said, “The only thing new in the world is the history you do not know.”
Sadly, this official holiday serves as a reminder of how many of us know so very little about this office and those who have held it.
President’s Day would be a good time to start learning.
