President Trump says that the Democrats have been out to get him from the start and that no president in history has ever had to go through such harassment.
I will concede that it probably seems that way to someone like Trump or many of those in the media who have been echoing those thoughts, people whose knowledge of history is probably limited to their Twitter history, but that is not the case.
In some cases, Harry S. Truman did nearly the same things Trump has done, though with considerably different motivation.
In both 1948 and 1951, President Truman ordered that all subpoenas to federal departments from the
Senate Investigating Committee that was looking into the infiltration of Communists into federal government positions be rejected.
Both times, impeachment proceedings were threatened by House Republicans and recommended by Senate GOP members.
On August 8, 1948, Sen. Homer Ferguson, R-Michigan, the Investigating Committee chairman, advocated a "showdown" with the president, saying, "Presidential arrogance is becoming intolerable."
Though it never reached the stage of drawing up articles of impeachment, the threats were being made and the action contemplated by Congress.
In 1950, after Sen. Joseph McCarthy, R-Wisconsin, claimed, without any evidence, there were more than 200 Communists in the State Department, Truman again issued a blanket denial to respond to subpoenas from Sen. Millard Tydings' Investigating Committee.
The attempt in 1950 was for the committee to gain access to confidential loyalty files, files which Truman had pledged would not be turned over, a condition that had been promised to the governmental employees who signed them.
Truman's order extended to subpoenas that had been issued to Secretary of State Dean Acheson, Attorney General J. Howard McGrath and Civil Service Commission Chairman Harvey B. Mitchell.
Truman, responding through his press secretary and not through a weaponized Twitter account said he was standing on constitutional grounds and that the executive branch did not have to surrender its files or documents to a coordinate branch (Congress). He never used the phrase witch hunt, though considering what Sen. McCarthy unleashed upon the U. S., it would have been far more appropriate in this instance.
The final major impeachment threat against President Truman came after he relieved General Douglas MacArthur of his duties, something that he did in person and by traveling overseas to meet him. Truman accepted the responsibility of his office and did not deal with MacArthur's dismissal in a telegram of less than 280 characters.
The firing of MacArthur, who was a popular military leader and was being touted as a potential rival of Truman's for the 1952 presidential nomination, drove a dagger through President Truman's approval ratings and immediately brought a round of cries for impeachment.
From the April 12, 1951 New York Times:
The Republican leaders of Congress raised the threat today that they might try to impeach President Truman for breaking General of the Army Douglas MacArthur as supreme commander of the Allied powers in the Pacific.
Similarly to the way things have developed during the Trump impeachment saga, all of the Democrats rallied around President Truman, even the southern Democrats who had been adamantly opposed to the president because of his position on civil rights issues.
Though President Truman was never impeached, the Republicans threatened it throughout his presidency.
One difference between the Trump presidency and the Truman presidency did not have to suffer through the terrors of social media or the 24-hour news cycle.
Still, if anyone had to endure a hoax and a witch hunt, it was not the current president but President Truman.
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My book The Buck Starts Here: Harry S. Truman and the City of Lamar is available at the Lamar Democrat office, the Truman Birthplace and Barton County Chamber of Commerce in Lamar and Changing Hands Book Shoppe, Always Buying Books and the Book Guy in Joplin or in paperback and e-book at the Amazon links below.
2 comments:
Our history is ripe with men who stepped up to the plate to deal with vital issues and we have so much to thank Truman, FDR, Kennedy and Eisenhower for those decisions made with much forethought and research. Enter a new era of Trump who hires the lowest of the low for his cabinet and other posts and the man himself possesses the intelligence and knowledge of a village idiot. The man has made a mockery out of telling the truth and sets the bar so very low for children, young adults and our military that they will assume it is OK to be a sleaze. Nowhere has the office of the President been corrupted by a person in it for his ego and money. He has made millions off his name and hotels while his homeless citizens are increasing in numbers with others losing healthcare. He has lifted the oversight on our food, water and air protection to endanger even more citizens than ever before in history. So, yeah, let him off and remember that your lack of duty in the election process may doom your children and theirs to a life of problems you could not ever realize.
A trumplash is coming in November!
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