Truman

by David McCullough

When a bill was put before the state legislature in Jefferson City that would have prohibited anyone who owned a saloon from holding elective office and reporters asked what he thought of it, Alderman Jim said probably the bill was intended as a way of improving the reputation of saloonkeepers.

Once when she offered food to a tramp at the back porch and the tramp complained the coffee wasn’t hot enough, she took the cup, went inside, and promptly returned with a shotgun. He could be on his way, she said, or she would warm more than his coffee for him.

“Being too good is apt to be uninteresting,”

Or James Buchanan and Franklin Pierce deciding which was the more useless to the country.

Los Angeles, at Gilmore Stadium, with screen stars Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart, and Ronald Reagan—all ardent liberal Democrats—seated