The Camas Hot Springs Exchange

HARRY S. TRUMAN
33rd PRESIDENT OF U. S.

Never before had an American President died in wartime. Abraham Lincoln fell under Assassin Booth's bullet just five days after the surrender of General Lee's army at Appomattox in 1865. Woodrow Wilson lived to see victory over Germany in World War I, but he fought a losing battle for the League of Nations and died early in 1924, a defeated leader.

Many historians believe Lincoln's greatness might have been dimmed in the conflicts over reconstruction that followed the War Between the States, just as Wilson's prestige was lost in the conflict over the league that followed World War I.

Thus Franklin Roosevelt, dying at the height of his career just as victory was to be achieved over Germany, seemed likely to live in history as a great man.

As the American people from Main Street to Riverside Drive mourned the death of Franklin Roosevelt, their prayers went up for his successor, Harry S. Truman.

For on the shoulders of this slight, gray, 60-year-old Missourian had been laid a responsibility such as no American President had ever borne.

What the consequences of the President's death would be to the United States and the world, time alone would tell.

But as Americans recovered from their first shock at the news, they quickly determined two things. The war must be prosecuted to as speedy and victorious a finish as possible. Lasting peace must be established.

And so, regardless of party or of past political differences, the people have rallied behind Mr. Truman.

The new President faces the immediate task of directing American participation in the United Nations' blueprints for a permanent world organization. He likewise faces the responsibility of establishing working relations with other members of the Big Three, so that the personal cooperation which existed between Franklin D. Roosevelt, Josef Stalin and Winston Churchill in leading the Allies toward victory

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PRESIDENT TRUMAN
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may be maintained in helping win the peace. He faces the long-range job of guiding the nation to postwar economic prosperity once Nazi Germany and Japan are finally defeated.

Known as a plain, modest man who has not dramatized himself personally, President Truman nevertheless has demonstrated on many occasions that he can be a leader of force and determination. His work as chairman of the Truman committee in the U. S. senate investigating the conduct of the war is cited as an example of this. And his conduct of the Vice Presidency has shown that he can work successfully with political leaders of both parties in getting needed measures passed and in reconciling opposing points of view.

The 33rd President was born in Lamar, Mo., May 8, 1884, although the home of the family for four generations had been on a farm near Independence, Mo.

Served in World War I.

When World War I broke out, Truman became captain of Battery D in the field artillery of the 35th Division and saw action at St. Mihiel and in the Meuse-Argonne offensive.

Back in Independence, Truman and a war buddy opened a haberdashery business. He married his boyhood sweetheart, Bess Wallace, and they have one daughter, Mary Margaret.

Truman later turned to politics for a career, which started with his election as County Judge of Jackson county, Mo. In 1926 he became the presiding judge of Jackson county, with the endorsement of Tom Pendergast, political boss of Kansas City. He studied law at night and supervised the construction of a great highway system.