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HARRY S. TRUMAN Autograph Letter Signed on Federal Reserve Bank Stationery

Currency:USD Category:Collectibles Start Price:3,000.00 USD Estimated At:3,500.00 - 4,000.00 USD
HARRY S. TRUMAN Autograph Letter Signed on Federal Reserve Bank Stationery
Autographs
Harry S. Truman Orchestrates the 1956 Democratic Convention Superb Political Content Autograph Letter
HARRY S. TRUMAN (1884-1972). Thirty-Third President of the United States, who Authorized Dropping of the First Atomic Bomb on Japan to End World War II.
August 29, 1956-Dated, Autograph Letter Signed, "Harry," 1 page (front and back), measuring 7.25" x 10.5", Choice Extremely Fine. Written upon personalized "Federal Reserve Bank Building" letterhead stationery, from "Kansas City, Missouri," to Dean Acheson. Written two weeks after the 1956 Democratic Convention in Chicago, which nominated Adlai Stevenson (and just one week after the Republican Convention, which nominated Eisenhower for a second term) Harry Truman takes credit for bringing the Chicago Convention to a successful conclusion. The quality of this Letter and superb rich penmanship upon clean, bright paper add to its historic Political content importance, and overall eye appeal. Here, Harry Truman writes, in full:

"Dear Dean: - As usual you "set me up" if you understand a Missouri bowling term. I talked to Averell [Harriman] for a half hour - at his expense! - wrote Sam Rosenman and it looks as if things are moving in the right direction. When I arrived in Chicago things were dead, no life, no nothing. I decided to wake them up. It worked. We obtained a platform that is the best we've had, forced the candidate to endorse the New Deal and I'm sure he'll get around to the Fair Deal and you and me before he's finished on Nov. 5th, Monday before election. You are right as can be about Al Smith. If he'd known some history and results of what happens to bad losers he'd been in a better position to help Franklin. I am going to do all I can to help win the election. How I wish I were ten years younger! But I ain't so there. The professors of political science want me to talk to them in Washington on Sept. 7th and I may do it if you think I can do any good toward teaching the next generation what they have and what to do to keep it. Just got stuck with a speech to the Political Science Association in Washington Sept. 7, 1956. You know I can't say "No" so it is understood. We'll see you then. My best to Alice - the boss joins me & to you. -- Sincerely, - (Signed) Harry".

Immediately after returning home from his European trip (visiting France, Italy, Austria, Belgium, the Netherlands and England), Truman threw himself into election-year politics. Publicly, Truman endorsed New York governor Averell Harriman - NOT Adlai Stevenson, whom, Truman charged at a Chicago press conference in August, lacked " ... the kind of fighting spirit we need to win". According to Russell Baker of the N. Y Times, Truman had the Democratic Party "chewing its fingernails down to the cuticle today and he loved every second of it. While the party's other demi-gods fretted and stewed and guessed, Mr. Truman was as exhilarated as a small boy given free run of a circus."

Truman's support of Harriman was to no avail. Stevenson was easily renominated as the Presidential candidate on the first ballot. Truman heartily endorsed the party's candidate and campaigned on his behalf. At the convention's conclusion, however, though he confides to Acheson that he feels the Democrats have obtained the best possible platform they could have, Truman's sarcastic tone reveals his true feelings about Stevenson's chances on election day. As in 1952, Truman feared that Stevenson would lead the Democrats to defeat a second time. (Truman may still have been silently kicking himself for having handed the election to the Republicans and Eisenhower by refusing to run in 1952). Unlike fellow democrat Al Smith in 1928, whose bitterness and resentment after losing the election to Hoover resulted in his lack of support of Franklin D. Roosevelt four years later, the enthusiastic Truman writes that he is going to do all he can to help win the election. (As it turns out, F.D.R. didn't really need Smith's support to defeat Hoover; he defeated him in a landslide. (Obviously, Truman knew this, and his comment greatly reflects the continuing admiration and respect Truman had for the man who selected him as his running mate in 1944). In Acheson's included typed letter to Truman, he mentions Al Smith, calling him "the most pathetic figure of the New Deal ... a magnificent figure eaten away by the leprosy of resentment and bitterness."

This lot also includes (1) TLS and (2) carbon copies of Mr. Acheson's instigating correspondence congratulating Truman on his performance at the Democratic convention.