Details
TRUMAN, Harry. Typed letter signed ("Harry") as President, to James M. Pendergast, Washington, 14 December 1948. 1 page, 4to, White House stationery FINE.
PENDERGAST PULLS A STRING: TRUMAN DISCUSSES HIS UPSET VICTORY AND A PATRONAGE REQUEST
Truman and James M. Pendergast became friends during in France during World War I, and the young Pendergast was the connection that would link Truman's fortunes with the powerful Kansas City machine run by Tom Pendergast and Michael J. Pendergast (James's uncle and father, respectively). Here the newly elected President acknowledges his old comrade's congratulations, swaps a joke or two, and alludes to a patronage request. "I am sorry I didn't get to see you on the morning of the election and I don't remember attempting to run over you on Baltimore Avenue. I went to Grandview on the morning of the election and then to Independence...You probably saw me when I was headed for Grandview. We will try to take care of the list which you sent and I am looking forward to seeing you when you get here. The Jackson County returns were most interesting and the majority was very satisfactory. The last time I was elected Presiding Judge by a majority of fifty-eight thousand so there hasn't been much falling off in how the Democrats feel in Jackson County."
Truman's association with the Pendergast family was always a shadow over his career--especially after Tom Pendergast's conviction for income tax evasion in 1940. Yet Truman remained loyal to his Missouri patrons. In 1952 he angrily complained that his connections with them "has been used by people opposed to me in an effort to discredit me. The opposition people whether in the Democratic Party in 1940 or in the sabotage press or the lying columnists or the poor old wrecked Republican Party and its present day character assassination methods have never been able to hurt me politically by slander and abuse. They never will."
PENDERGAST PULLS A STRING: TRUMAN DISCUSSES HIS UPSET VICTORY AND A PATRONAGE REQUEST
Truman and James M. Pendergast became friends during in France during World War I, and the young Pendergast was the connection that would link Truman's fortunes with the powerful Kansas City machine run by Tom Pendergast and Michael J. Pendergast (James's uncle and father, respectively). Here the newly elected President acknowledges his old comrade's congratulations, swaps a joke or two, and alludes to a patronage request. "I am sorry I didn't get to see you on the morning of the election and I don't remember attempting to run over you on Baltimore Avenue. I went to Grandview on the morning of the election and then to Independence...You probably saw me when I was headed for Grandview. We will try to take care of the list which you sent and I am looking forward to seeing you when you get here. The Jackson County returns were most interesting and the majority was very satisfactory. The last time I was elected Presiding Judge by a majority of fifty-eight thousand so there hasn't been much falling off in how the Democrats feel in Jackson County."
Truman's association with the Pendergast family was always a shadow over his career--especially after Tom Pendergast's conviction for income tax evasion in 1940. Yet Truman remained loyal to his Missouri patrons. In 1952 he angrily complained that his connections with them "has been used by people opposed to me in an effort to discredit me. The opposition people whether in the Democratic Party in 1940 or in the sabotage press or the lying columnists or the poor old wrecked Republican Party and its present day character assassination methods have never been able to hurt me politically by slander and abuse. They never will."