Harry S. Truman photo

Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks in Missouri.

June 09, 1950

[1.] COLUMBIA, MISSOURI (Upon receiving an honorary degree at the University of Missouri, 11:05 a.m.)

President Middlebush and friends:

I appreciate the honor which has been conferred upon me more than I can tell you.

There is not much a man can say after a citation such as the one the doctor just read. I sincerely wish that I deserved every word of it and could qualify for what the citation says.

All I do is try, and there is only one ambition that I have--I never was an ambitious man, and am not now--but I do have one: and that is to attain peace in the world, a lasting peace that will be for the welfare of the whole world and all the people in that world.

The address which I delivered at the university this morning is one of a series on that theme and that subject. We have but one foreign policy--one foreign policy of the United States--and that is the support of the United Nations and the attainment of world peace on a lasting basis.

Thank you, gentlemen.

[2.] MEXICO, MISSOURI (Rear platform, 3:35 p.m.)

Mr. Mayor, Governor Smith, Senator Allison, and ladies and gentlemen:

This certainly is a treat. I did not anticipate that we would have the opportunity to stop on this nonpolitical trip to Columbia, but I am glad we found it possible to stop in this city.

This district has produced some very great men. You have a Congressman from this district, Clarence Cannon, who is the Chairman of the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives. He has the most powerful job in the Congress except the Chairmanship of the Ways and Means Committee. He passes on all the appropriations for the operation of the Government of the United States. He is an able, distinguished, and efficient Congressman, and I sincerely hope you will return him--and I believe you will.

In times past, you had another great Congressman from this district, Champ Clark, who was Speaker of the House of Representatives and almost became President of the United States. Champ Clark was a great advocate of education. He was anxious to see the young people of this country attain and obtain all of the things possible for them to obtain, which he himself found out as a teacher. His sympathies were always with education in this country.

Now, back in times past, it has been said that people were wasting money on education, that the country was going socialistic. You would think that that came out of the Chicago Tribune, today, but it didn't. That was published in 1830, when we were trying to get a free public school system for the children of this country.

Now, there is nobody in the country who wants the Federal Government to control the schools. Nobody wants that done. All we want to do is to be helpful in producing a school system that will meet the demands of our day.

I was in Columbia at the graduation exercises over there--some 2,000 students received diplomas today--becoming citizens to go to work in the economy of this great Nation of ours. I want to see this coming crop of young people--and a lot of you are here before me today--have access to the best educational facilities that they can possibly have. And I am trying to get the Federal Government interested in providing help for that purpose.

We would not have had a road in the United States, or an international highway, had it not been for the fact that we were willing to coordinate the highway systems of the United States under a road system. If we can build roads, why can't we build for the head as well as for the feet and wheels ?

I think we can do it, and I am going to fight for it until we do get it done.

I want to say to you people here in Mexico that I have always felt at home here. I have been in this town many and many a time for various reasons. I have made four campaigns, two primary campaigns, and two regular campaigns for the Senate of the United States, and I never missed this city on a single occasion.

I like saddle horses--which we sometimes used--bluegrass seed, and firebrick. And it is nice to be back here again in the headquarters where all of those things are located.

I sincerely hope that it will be my privilege sometime to come back here, as I used to do in times past, when I won't cause so much commotion, and when I can see all my friends and shake hands with as many people as it is possible for me to do.

It is certainly grand of you to come out here today. I have with me on the the Governor of the great State of Missouri--a Democratic Governor, if you please. I have with me a candidate for United States Senator from Missouri--a Democratic candidate, if you please, who will represent Missouri as it ought to be represented in the Congress of the United States. And I hope-I sincerely hope--that you people will do your 'part towards seeing that Emery Allison comes to the Senate of the United States this fall in the November election.

Thank you very much for this wonderful demonstration, and this wonderful turnout.

Note: In the course of his remarks on June 9 the President referred to Dr. Frederick A. Middlebush, president of the University of Missouri, Herbert Morris, Acting Mayor of Mexico, Forrest Smith, Governor of Missouri, and Emery W. Allison, president pro tempore of the Missouri State Senate. For the President's commencement address see Item 159.

Harry S Truman, Rear Platform and Other Informal Remarks in Missouri. Online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/230768

Filed Under

Categories

Location

Missouri

Simple Search of Our Archives