Read Harry Truman's Excellent Adventure: The True Story of a Great American Road Trip Online
Authors: Matthew Algeo
Tags: #Presidents & Heads of State, #Presidents, #Travel, #Essays & Travelogues, #General, #United States, #Automobile Travel, #Biography & Autobiography, #20th Century, #History
Toben, Sylvester “Bud,” 50–53
Toben, Toni, 51
Tobin, Maurice J., 121
Today
(television show), 3, 156–57, 158
Tolson, Clyde, 114
traffic regulations, 82
traffic-safety programs, 82–83
train cars, presidential, 14–16, 59, 211–12
Trayser, George M., 196
Tri-Manor (motel), 67, 68
Trohan, Walter, 15, 224
Truman, Anderson Shipp, 20
Truman, Bess (Elizabeth Virginia Wallace)
air travel and, 188–89
daily routines, 23
death and burial, 226
description, 184, 185
driving restrictions imposed by, 35, 42
Eisenhower’s inauguration and, 7–9, 13–14
family home of, 20–21 as first lady, 81–82
with future husband in automobile,
27
on happy marriage secrets, 204
with husband and daughter,
8
with husband and McKinney family,
78
with husband at home,
221
with husband in automobile,
166
with husband on road trip,
43
on husband’s vice president candidacy, 10
later years, 226
marriage of, 149–50, 219
McKinney porch press conference, 81, 82
nicknames of, 8
on Secret Service protection, 223
sports, favorite, 21, 226
train ride to Missouri, 14–16
Women’s National Democratic Club tea, 121
Truman, Harrison, 88–89
Truman, Harry S.
alcohol consumption, 155–56
automobiles of, 26–30,
27, 28, 32,
40,
40,
219
book signing rituals started by, 123
at Bud’s Golden Cream,
52
Bush, George W., compared to, 230–31
character of, 28, 70–71, 95
childhood of, 54
as civil rights supporter, 44–45
on coping with mobs, 116
daily routine as ex-president, 22–24, 25
on daughter’s husband, 219
death and burial, 226
in Decatur, Illinois,
62
early political career, 9–10
education of, 11
Eisenhower’s inauguration and, 5–6, 7–9, 12–13
employment as ex-president, 23–24
on ex-president titles, 15
family of, 11, 44, 50
finances as ex-president, 3, 12, 18, 25
food preferences, 82
on French roads, 49
health and exercise routines, 10–11,
13, 22,
22–23
honorary degrees of, 218
later years, 223–25, 226
love of driving, 40–41
love of packing for trips, 39
marriage of, 149–50, 219
at Mayflower Hotel,
112
on memorials to living, 24
middle initial of, 20
in New York with cabbies,
148
on 1952 election, 206
with Nixon, R.,
127
political activities as ex-president, 218
as president, 5–6, 10, 12, 15, 224
president-to-citizen transition, 35, 217
on raising daughters, 204
reading preferences, 54
reelection rumors, 113
religion of, 147
at Reserve Officers Association convention,
135
residence of, 20–21
St. Louis post-election photographs, 211–12
train ride to Missouri, 14–16
with wife and daughter,
8
with wife and daughter in automobile,
166
with wife and McKinney family,
78
with wife at home,
221
with wife on road trip,
43
Truman, John, 49
Truman, Martha (mother), 44, 88–89, 109
Truman, Vivian, 219
Truman Corners, 220
Truman Daniel, Margaret
birth of, 20
at Eisenhower’s inauguration, 7
father’s comments about, 81, 143
at Kennedy funeral, 222
marriage of, 219
as New York resident and tour guide, 143
nicknames, 8
with parents,
8, 166
on parents’ residential plans, 121
presidential airplane flights, 188
on presidents and bonding, 225
recollections of, 33, 39, 42, 125, 223
as unofficial road trip press secretary, 91–92, 111
Women’s National Democratic Club tea, 121
Truman Speaks
(Truman, H. S.), 220
Twain, Mark, 11, 54
21 Club, 154
Tyler, John, 11
United Defense League (UDL), 46
United Nations, 159–64
Updegrove, Mark K., 228
Van Buren, Martin, 11, 198–99
Veatch, Tom, 49
Vinson, Fred, 8, 45, 117
Waldorf-Astoria, 141–42, 143–44, 145–46, 150–52
Wallace, Elizabeth Virginia.
See
Truman, Bess
Wallace, Henry, 9
Wallace, Madge Gates, 20, 149
Wal-Mart, 104–5
Ward, Howard, 100–101
Warren, Earl, 45
Washington, George, 95, 177, 224
Washington, Pennsylvania, 177–78
Washington National Airport, 175–76
Werve, Helen, 72–73 Westwood, Mike, 22, 223 Wheeling, West Virginia, 91–94 Whiskey Rebellion, 177–78
Whitehouse, Joseph, 85
Whittaker, Reed, 236
Wilcox, George, 174
Williams, Dent, 94–95
Williams, Gene, 44
Willkie, Wendell, 209
Wilson, Edith Bolling, 121
Wilson, Kemmons, 63–64
Wilson, Lowell, 193, 197
Wilson, Ora, 193, 197
Wilson, Woodrow, 19, 121, 224
Wonderful Town
(musical comedy), 154–55, 156
Woodward, Sara, 218
Woodward, Stanley, 218
World Trade Center, 213
World War II, 90, 163
Wright, Wilbur, 194
Wright-Patterson Air Force Base, 186, 190–91
Yamasaki, Minoru, 213
Year of Decisions
(Truman, H. S.), 218
Years of Trial and Hope
(Truman, H. S.), 218
Young, Solomon, 20, 86–87
Youngblood, Rosita, 96–97
Zacko, Joe, 176
Zearing, Herbert, 167
Zeckendorf, William, Sr., 161
Zerfowski, Floyd, 71–72, 73
Ziegner, Ed, 205
An Excerpt from Matthew Algeo’s New Book,
The President Is a Sick Man
O
N
F
RIDAY
, J
UNE
30, 1893, President Cleveland awoke around seven and read the morning papers over his usual breakfast of beefsteak and eggs. The headlines must have troubled him as greatly as the rough spot on the roof of his mouth. They told of more failed banks, more closed mines, more foreclosed farms, and more bankrupt businesses. Wheat prices were at an all-time low: seventy cents a bushel. Interest rates on Wall Street were at an all-time high: 74 percent. Stocks were plummeting accordingly.
But amid the tales of financial disaster in the papers that morning were stories reflecting the almost naïve optimism of what has come to be called the Gilded Age. Arctic explorer Robert Peary was on his way to Greenland for the second time. The massive engines of the navy’s newest battleship, the
Maine,
were successfully tested at the Brooklyn Navy Yard. At the World’s Fair in Chicago, final preparations were underway for the grandest Fourth of July celebration ever. And excited crowds were packing National League ballparks, eager to see the results of the new, longer distance between the pitcher’s mound and home plate: sixty feet, six inches. They rarely went home disappointed. Batting averages rose faster than interest rates.