President Harry Truman was two hours late pulling into Union Station Sept. 30, 1948; that’s not bad considering he was nearing the end of an 8,300-mile campaign trip to the West Coast and back.
It was the first time a sitting president had come to Henderson. Jimmy Carter’s visit July 21, 1980, has been the only other time – so far. Carter also visited – before he was elected – Jan. 28, 1975, at the invitation of Dale Sights, to address the annual meeting of the Henderson Chamber of Commerce.
Other presidents who have visited before they were elected include Zachary Taylor in 1828 (who lived here most of that year), Theodore Roosevelt in 1900, Franklin Roosevelt in 1920, and Dwight Eisenhower in 1952. There have also been multiple visits by unsuccessful presidential candidates such as Democrats Horace Greeley in 1872, William Jennings Bryan in 1896, and James Cox in 1920.
The long train trek wasn’t the main reason Truman had to apologize for being late, however, according to The Gleaner of Oct. 1. The president’s special 16-car train “had been held up in Illinois by extra large crowds who ‘refused’ to let the train depart.”
Truman apologized again during his appearance later in Owensboro: “Hard-working Democrats ran me all over Southern Illinois and I lost two hours.” Part of the delay in Illinois was ascribed to an unscheduled 141-mile automobile trip around the southern end of Illinois.
Truman lived up to his nickname of “Give ‘Em Hell Harry” in the coalfields of Southern Illinois. The coal miners ate it up when he blasted the “puppet-of-big-business Republicans who used the Taft-Hartley law to hack workers’ rights” and who Truman said were trying to “nail the American consumer to the wall with spokes of greed.”
It was apparently the first time a presidential candidate had campaigned in Southern Illinois, and the crowd was boisterous in “breaking through police lines, swarming around and through the procession of cars and yelling a noisy greeting,” The Gleaner reported.
Truman’s remarks during his whistlestop here were tame compared to the speeches he gave earlier in Mount Vernon and Carbondale, Illinois.
At Union Station, he told the crowd that a Democratic victory in November would, as The Gleaner paraphrased it, “continue prosperity in the United States and continue to work for international peace and harmony.”
The one hard whack he gave the Republicans in his local speech referred to the Rural Electrification Administration. That comment probably was well received here, where Kentucky’s first rural electric cooperative began operating in 1937.
“The Democrats have always sanctioned cooperatives, but the Republicans denounced them by calling them socialistic,” Truman said. “You have a strong example of cooperative work in Henderson and Union counties. The REA supplies hundreds of homes with electricity. The Republicans think that is wrong.”
Truman spoke here only about five minutes, according to the Evansville Press, and the entire stop at Union Station was only about 10 minutes long. He was accompanied by his wife, Bess, and his daughter, Margaret, both of whom were presented baskets of flowers by local florists.
The president was introduced by state Sen. Stanley Hoffman, who was extremely brief: “Ladies and gentlemen, it is my honor to introduce to you the president of the United States, the honorable Harry S. Truman.”
Hoffman had told reporters beforehand that, “The people will come to see Mr. Truman, not me. I\’m not going to take up a lot of valuable time.”
And they came out to see him in droves. The crowd expected initially was 8,000, according to The Gleaner of Sept. 29, which noted caravans of cars from Morganfield, Dixon, Sturgis and Clay were coming, but it was listed as 10,000 in The Gleaner of Oct. 1. A manuscript history by Jack Hudgions places the number attending at 12,000.
City schools closed for the event. Superintendent H.L. Smith said in the Sept. 28 Gleaner there was no political motive behind the closure: “We believe the children will want to see Mr. Truman, not only because he is a candidate, but also because he is the president of the United States.” In the same issue Mayor Robert B. Posey asked local merchants to close at 1 p.m. for Truman’s visit.
Several local residents boarded the special train to accompany the president to Louisville. They included Hoffman, County Judge Fred Vogel, County Treasurer Lucille Farley, O.B. Springer, who headed the local Democratic party, WSON owner Hecht Lackey, Gleaner publisher Francele Armstrong, and Katherine K. Cooper, a staunch Democratic supporter.
The Gleaner of Oct. 3 carried an article by Armstrong detailing that train trip. She noted the president’s car was bulletproof – even the…
Read More: Truman first sitting president to visit Henderson