The 33rd U.S. President was born MAY 8, 1884.
He was captain of a field artillery battery in France during World War I, a county judge, a U.S. Senator, and Vice-President under Franklin Roosevelt.
His name was Harry S Truman.
When Franklin D. Roosevelt died, Harry S. Truman became the 33rd President. He concluded his First Address before a Joint Session of Congress, April 16, 1945:
“Our forefathers came to our rugged shores in search of religious tolerance, political freedom and economic opportunity. For those fundamental rights, they risked their lives.
We well know today that such rights can be preserved only by constant vigilance, the eternal price of liberty!…In that way, America may well lead the world to peace and prosperity.
At this moment, I have in my heart a prayer. As I have assumed my heavy duties, I humbly pray Almighty God, in the words of King Solomon:
‘Give therefore thy servant an understanding heart to judge thy people, that I may discern between good and bad; for who is able to judge this thy so great a people?’
I ask only to be a good and faithful servant of my Lord and my people.”
To the Federal Council of Churches, March 6, 1946, President Truman said:
“We have just come though a decade in which the forces of evil in various parts of the world have been lined up in a bitter fight to banish from the face of the earth both of these ideals – religion and democracy…
The right of every human being…to worship God in his own way, the right to fix his own relationship to his fellow men and to his Creator – these again have been saved for mankind.”
Truman continued:
“Let us determine to carry on in a spirit of tolerance, and understanding for all men and for all nations – in the spirit of God and religious unity.”
In a memorandum to Winston Churchill, dated July 24, 1945, Democrat President Harry S. Truman wrote:
“The drastic restrictions imposed on the Jewish immigration by the British White Paper of May, 1939, continue to provoke passionate protest from Americans most interested in Palestine and in the Jewish problem.
They fervently urge the lifting of these restrictions which deny to Jews, who have been so cruelly uprooted by ruthless Nazi persecutions, entrance into the land which represents for so many of them their only hope of survival.”
President Truman stated to the press:
“The American view on Palestine is that we want to let as many of the Jews into Palestine as it is possible to let into that country.”
In his Memoirs-Volume Two: Years of Trial and Hope, published in 1956, Harry S. Truman recorded a note he wrote to one of his assistants:
“I surely wish God Almighty would give the Children of Israel an Isaiah, the Christians a St. Paul, and the Sons of Ishmael a peep at the Golden Rule.”
President Truman told the Attorney General’s Conference, February 15, 1950:
“The fundamental basis of this nation’s laws was given to Moses on the Mount.
The fundamental basis of our Bill of Rights comes from the teachings we get from Exodus and St. Matthew, from Isaiah and St. Paul.
I don’t think we emphasize that enough these days.
If we don’t have a proper fundamental moral background, we will finally end up with a totalitarian government which does not believe in rights for anybody except the State!”
William J. Federer is a nationally known speaker, best-selling author, and president of Amerisearch, Inc., a publishing company dedicated to researching America’s noble heritage.
To learn more visit William Federer
Featured image: President Harry S. Truman, April 1945. Photo by Chase-Statler.
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