Overall picture: Tehachapi people failed to impress Margaret Truman
Overall picture: Tehachapi people failed to impress Margaret Truman
By: Bill Mead
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Posted by editor Mon Jul 2, 2007 11:09:56 PDT
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0 responses 0 comments A few months ago I wrote about President Harry Truman visiting Tehachapi during the 1948 election campaign. Harry's public approval ratings were in the ditch that year and he was expected to lose big in his try for a full term after completing the term of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who died soon after being elected to a fourth term in 1944.
Harry blindsided his Republican opponent, Thomas E. Dewey, by launching what was known as a whistle stop tour of the country. Harry actually rode the rails very little during that campaign but the few places where he spoke to voters from the rear platform were well-reported by a captivated press. The upshot was that Truman won the election in what has become the biggest political upset in American presidential history.
I wrote that Truman's comments to his Tehachapi audience during his brief stop here so long ago have been lost to posterity but Pat Gracey, in her usual kind fashion, has informed me that I was wrong about that. She was there, she told me, and remembers very clearly what Truman said and it wasn't much. She attributes his brevity to the fact that only about 20 people gathered at the Green Street crossing to greet Truman that day, mainly because the stop was an unscheduled one to top off water in the boilers of the steam locomotive. Pat recalls the occasion this way:
“He came out on the back of the train and no doubt thought a speech was not warranted for the handful of folk standing there so he said, very kindly, 'Hello, it is nice of you people to come here just to see the president'.
“He then introduced his family, referring to his wife Bess as his boss. He then presented their daughter, Margaret.”
“He was very handsome that day,” Pat recalls. “A blue serge suit really accented his silvery grey hair. If he thought we were a bunch of hicks he hid it with what seemed to be a genuine smile. Margaret, on the other hand, made a remark to her mother and then laughed at something in our little group. The look on her face told on her. I have never forgiven her. I won't even read her mystery novels.”
Margaret's conduct in Tehachapi must have been way out of line because Pat is notorious for not taking offense easily. Perhaps Margaret's later flop as a top-ranked concert singer took a little of her arrogance away because in later years she seems to have impressed most people with her courtesy and respect for others. Her record of public service is little known but highly impressive. I suspect Pat would like her a lot if they met today.
Pat's message not only straightened me out on what happened when Harry met Tehachapi but she went on to admit she has a tendency to hammer keyboards the way most of us from the typewriter era still tend to do with computers, which require only the lightest touch. Not long ago I confessed to committing that sort of mayhem, you may recall.
“There is nothing better to vent one's frustrations than by pounding the keys of an old Underwood, Remington or L.C. Smith typewriter,” Pat said, with what I consider great insight. “Probably the crime, delinquency, etc. rates would not be what they are today if the culprits could have expressed their shortcomings by pounding a few typewriter keys.”
Right on, I say.
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