Who was the new President, with his Missouri twang, thick glasses, and quick-step manner?
Truman had been a bank clerk, a miner, an oil well wildcatter, andfor 11 yearsa farmer. He had served as a battery captain in World War I. After the war, he opened a haberdashery shop, but it failed. Then he went into politics. After eight years as a local government official, he became a United States senator. All of these experiences developed in Truman an innate common touch, a feel for the concerns of ordinary Americans that those of FDR’s social status did not have. Truman liked the U. S. Senate and would have been content to remain there for the rest of his career. But it was not to be. In 1944, Democratic Party bossesconvinced Roosevelt would not live out a fourth termpersuaded the President to dump the too-liberal Henry Wallace as Vice President and accept the centrist, border-state Truman as FDR’s fourth-term running mate, and, in effect, the next President. The party bosses were right, and the new Vice President was soon summoned to be President.
