HARRY S TRUMAN 
U.S. President ( in office: 1945-1953) in a radio address to delegates in 1945 at the opening session of the United Nations conference in San Francisco said:
“We must build a new world, a far better world—one in which the eternal dignity of man is respected.”
If the past is indeed prologue then let us speculate, shall we? What would Mr. Truman advise Mr. Obama in looking out on the uncertainty of the future with a keen eye on the past? Amid the rapidly rising sea-change within the country, throughout the hemisphere and around the world, President Truman could only say what he is on record for having said before:
GIVE 'EM HELL, HARRY!
  “I never did give anybody hell. I just told the truth and they thought it was hell.”
 “Washington is a very easy city for you to forget where you came from and why you got there in the first place.” “The White House is the finest prison in the world.” “If you can't stand the heat, get out of the kitchen.”
  “The difficulty with businessmen entering politics, after they've had a successful business career, is that they want to start at the top.” “A man who is not interested in politics is not doing his patriotic duty toward maintaining the constitution of the United States.” “A politician is a man who understands government and it takes a politician to run a government.” “A statesman is a politician who's been dead 10 or 15 years.” “I always considered statesmen to be more expendable than soldiers.”
  “There is nothing new in the world except the history you do not know.” “Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.” “A leader has to lead otherwise he has no business in politics.” “My definition of a leader ... is a man who can persuade people to do what they don’t want to do, or do what they’re too lazy to do, and like it.” “A leader in the Democratic Party is a boss, in the Republican Party he is a leader.”
  “Study men, not historians.” “Most of the problems a President has to face have their roots in the past.” “Men make history, and not the other way around. In periods where there is no leadership, society stands still. Progress occurs when courageous, skillful leaders seize the opportunity to change things for the better.” “We must have strong minds, ready to accept facts as they are.”
  “Justice remains the greatest power on earth. To that tremendous power alone will we submit.” “All my life I have fought against prejudice and intolerance.” “I don't believe in anti-anything. A man has to have a program; you have to be for something. Otherwise, you will never get anywhere.” “It is amazing what you can accomplish if you do not care who gets the credit.” “Always do right — it will gratify some people, and astonish the rest.”
  “Secrecy and a free, democratic government don’t mix.” “The responsibility of the great states is to serve and not to dominate the world.” “I would rather have peace in the world than be President.” “Democracy is based on the conviction that man has the moral and intellectual capacity, as well as the inalienable right, to govern himself with reason and justice.” “The human animal cannot be trusted for anything good except en masse. The combined thought and action of the whole people of any race, creed or nationality, will always point in the right direction.” “I have found that the best way to give advice to your children is to find out what they want, and then advise them to do it.”
“When you have an efficient government, you have a dictatorship.”
  “It's a recession when your neighbor loses his job; it's a depression when you lose your own.” “Give me a one-handed economist! All my economists say, 'on one hand ... on the other.'” “You can always amend a big plan, but you can never expand a little one. I don't believe in little plans. I believe in plans big enough to meet a situation which we can't possibly foresee now.”
  “My choice early in life was either to be a piano-player in a whorehouse or a politician. And to tell the truth, there’s hardly any difference.” “No one who has not had the responsibility can really understand what it is like to be President, not even his closest aides or members of his immediate family. There is no end to the chain of responsibility that binds him, and he is never allowed to forget that he is President.” “I sit here all day trying to persuade people to do the things they ought to have the sense to do without my persuading them. That's all the powers of the President amount to.”
  “A President cannot always be popular.” “How far would have Moses gone if he had taken a poll in Egypt?” “A President either is constantly on top of events or, if he hesitates, events will soon be on top of him. I never felt that I could let up for a single moment.” “Any man who has had the job I've had and didn't have a sense of humor wouldn't still be here.” Well, I wouldn't say I was in the 'great' class, but I had a great time while I was trying to be great.” “Some of the presidents were great and some of them weren't. I can say that, because I wasn't one of the great presidents, but I had a good time trying to be one, I can tell you that.” “I have tried my best to give the nation everything I had in me. There are probably a million people who could have done the job better than I did it, but I had the job and I always quote an epitaph on a tombstone in a cemetery in Tombstone, Arizona: 'Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnedest.'”
 “I studied the lives of great men and famous women, and I found that the men and women who got to the top were those who did the jobs they had in hand, with everything they had of energy and enthusiasm.” “Being too good is apt to be uninteresting.” “Everybody has the right to express what he thinks. That, of course, lets the crackpots in. But if you cannot tell a crackpot when you see one, then you ought to be taken in.”
Frederick@dreamerchant.com
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