Harry S. Truman (May 8, 1884 – December 26, 1972) was the 33rd President of the United States (1945–1953). As President Franklin D. Roosevelt's third vice-president and the 34th Vice President of the United States, he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945, when President Roosevelt died less than three months after beginning his fourth term. During World War I Truman served as an artillery officer, making him the only president to have seen combat in World War I (his successor Eisenhower spent the war training tank crews in Pennsylvania). After the war he became part of the political machine of Tom Pendergast and was elected a county commissioner in Missouri and eventually a United States senator. After he gained national prominence as head of the wartime Truman Committee, Truman replaced vice president Henry A. Wallace as Roosevelt's running mate in 1944. Truman faced challenge after challenge in domestic affairs. The disorderly postwar reconversion of the economy of the United States was marked by severe shortages, numerous strikes, and the passage of the Taft–Hartley Act over his veto. He confounded all predictions to win re-election in 1948, helped by his famous Whistle Stop Tour of rural America. After his re-election he was able to pass only one of the proposals in his Fair Deal program. He used executive orders to begin desegregation of the U.S. armed forces and to create loyalty checks which dismissed thousands of communist supporters from office, even though he strongly opposed mandatory loyalty oaths for governmental employees, a stance that led to charges that his administration was soft on communism. Truman's presidency was also eventful in foreign affairs, with the end of World War II and his decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan, the founding of the United Nations, the Marshall Plan to rebuild Europe, the Truman Doctrine to contain communism, the beginning of the Cold War, the creation of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, and the Korean War. Corruption in Truman's administration reached the cabinet and senior White House staff. Republicans made corruption a central issue in the 1952 campaign. Truman, whose demeanor was very different from that of the patrician Roosevelt, was a folksy, unassuming president. He popularized such phrases as "The buck stops here" and "If you can't stand the heat, you better get out of the kitchen."[1] He overcame the low expectations of many political observers who compared him unfavorably with his highly regarded predecessor. At different points in his presidency, Truman earned both the lowest public approval ratings that had ever been recorded, and the highest approval ratings to be recorded until 1991.[2][3][4] Despite negative public opinion during his term in office, popular and scholarly assessments of his presidency became more positive after his retirement from politics and the publication of his memoirs. Truman's legendary upset victory in 1948 over Thomas E. Dewey is routinely invoked by underdog presidential candidates. Most American historians consider Truman one of the greatest U.S. Presidents. Truman was born on May 8, 1884 in Lamar, Missouri, the oldest child of John Anderson Truman (1851–1914) and Martha Ellen Young Truman (1852–1947). His parents chose the name Harry after his mother's brother, Harrison Young (1846–1916), Harry's uncle.[5] His parents chose "S" as his middle name in an attempt to please both of Harry's grandfathers, Anderson Shippe Truman and Solomon Young. The initial did not actually stand for anything, since it was a common practice with Scots-Irish.[6][7] A brother, John Vivian (1886–1965), soon followed, along with sister Mary Jane Truman (1889–1978). John Truman was a farmer and livestock dealer. The family lived in Lamar until Harry was ten months old. They then moved to a farm near Harrisonville, then to Belton, and in 1887 to his grandparents' 600 acre (240 ha) farm in Grandview.[8] When Truman was six, his parents moved the family to Independence, so he could attend the Presbyterian Church Sunday School. Truman did not attend a traditional school until he was eight. As a young boy, Truman had three main interests: music, reading, and history, all encouraged by his mother. He was very close to his mother for as long as she lived, and as president solicited political as well as personal advice from her.[9] He got up at five every morning to practice the piano, and went to a local music teacher twice a week until he was fifteen.[10] Truman also read a great deal of popular history. He was a page at the 1900 Democratic National Convention at Convention Hall in Kansas City.[11] After graduating from Independence High School (now William Chrisman High School) in 1901, Truman worked as a timekeeper on the Santa Fe Railroad, sleeping in "hobo camps" near the rail lines;[12] he then worked at a series of clerical jobs. He worked briefly in the mail room of the Kansas City Star. Truman decided not to join the International Typographical Union. He returned to the Grandview farm in 1906 and stayed there until 1917 when he went into military service. The physically demanding work he put in on the Grandview farm was a formative experience. During this period he courted Bess Wallace and even proposed to her in 1911. She turned him down, and Truman said he wanted to make more money than a farmer before he proposed again. He did propose again in 1918, after coming back as a Captain from World War I, and she accepted. Truman was the only president who served after 1897 not to earn a college degree: poor eyesight prevented him from applying to West Point (his childhood dream) and financial constraints prevented him from securing a degree elsewhere.[9] He did, however, study for two years toward a law degree at the Kansas City Law School (now the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law) in the early 1920s. Later in his life, at age 60, Truman was issued an invitation to become a member of Missouri-Kansas City's Lambda Chi Alpha fraternity, which he accepted.[13] Truman enlisted in the Missouri Army National Guard in 1905, and served until 1911. With the onset of American participation in World War I, he rejoined the Guard. At his physical in 1905, his eyesight had been an unacceptable 20/50 in the right eye and 20/40 in the left.[14] Reportedly, he passed by secretly memorizing the eye chart.[15] Before going to France, he was sent to Camp Doniphan, adjacent to Fort Sill, near Lawton, Oklahoma for training. He ran the camp canteen with Edward Jacobson, who had experience in a Kansas City clothing store as a clerk. At Ft. Sill he also met Lieutenant James M. Pendergast, the nephew of Thomas Joseph (T.J.) Pendergast, a Kansas City politician. Both men would have profound influences on later events in Truman's life.[16][17][18][19] Truman was chosen to be an officer, and then battery commander in an artillery regiment in France. His unit was Battery D, 129th Field Artillery, 60th Brigade, 35th Infantry Division, known for its discipline problems.[20] During a sudden attack by the Germans in the Vosges Mountains, the battery started to disperse; Truman ordered them back into position using profanities that he had "learned while working on the Santa Fe railroad."[20] Shocked by the outburst, his men reassembled and followed him to safety. Under Captain Truman's command in France, the battery did not lose a single man.[20] On November 11, 1918 his artillery unit fired some of the last shots of World War I into German positions. The war was a transformative experience that brought out Truman's leadership qualities; he later rose to the rank of Colonel in the Army Reserves,[21] and his war record made possible his later political career in Missouri.[20] At the war's conclusion, Truman returned to Independence and married his longtime love interest, Bess Wallace, on June 28, 1919, the very day that the Treaty of Versailles was signed. The couple had one child, Mary Margaret (February 17, 1924 – January 29, 2008). A month before the wedding, banking on their success at Fort Sill and overseas, Truman and Jacobson opened a haberdashery of the same name at 104 West 12th Street in downtown Kansas City. After a few successful years, the store went bankrupt during the recession of 1921, which greatly affected the farm economy.[9] Truman blamed the fall in farm prices on the policies of the Republicans; he worked to pay off the debts until 1934, just as he was going into the U.S. Senate, when banker William T. Kemper retrieved the note during the sale of a bankrupt bank and allowed Truman to pay it off for $1,000. (At the same time Kemper made a $1,000 contribution to Truman's campaign.) Former comrades in arms and former business partners, Jacobson and Truman remained close friends for life. Decades later, Jacobson's advice to Truman on Zionism would play a critical role in the US government's decision to recognize Israel.[22] In 1922, with the help of the Kansas City Democratic machine led by boss Tom Pendergast, Truman was elected as a judge of the County Court of the eastern district of Jackson County—an administrative, not judicial, position similar to county commissioners elsewhere.[9] In 1922, Truman gave a friend $10 for an initiation fee for the Ku Klux Klan but later asked to get his money back; he was never initiated, never attended a meeting, and never claimed membership.[23][24][25] Though Truman at times expressed anger towards Jews in his diaries, his business partner and close friend Edward Jacobson was Jewish.[26][27][28] Truman's attitudes toward blacks were typical of white Missourians of his era, and were expressed in his casual use of terms like "nigger". Years later, another measure of his racial attitudes would come to the forefront: tales of the abuse, violence, and persecution suffered by many African American veterans upon their return from World War II infuriated Truman, and were a major factor in his decision to issue Executive Order 9981, in July 1948, to back civil rights initiatives and desegregate the armed forces.[29] He was not reelected in 1924, but in 1926 was elected the presiding judge for the court, and was reelected in 1930.