Holiday at Home

Few institutions are dearer to the heart of Harry Truman than 1) the Democratic Party,.2) Missouri, 3) the Masonic Order. Last week, as a U.S. President, an ever-loyal Missourian, and a Past Grand Master of Missouri's Masonic Grand Lodge, he had an opportunity to honor all three. Boarding an Air Force Constellation in Washington, he headed back home with obvious anticipation.

He arrived in St. Louis after nightfall, went to bed early in his Sheraton Hotel suite, and got up at daylight for a fast eight-block walk in the sharp autumn air. At 7:30, clear-eyed, hungry and full of fun, he sat down to breakfast with some old Masonic friends and happily demonstrated a trick dime-store camera with a lens which shot out on the end of a spring like an escaping glass eye.

"Grand Master Harry." Refreshed and stimulated, 33rd degree Mason Harry Truman got into a well-pressed cutaway and striped trousers for the big event of the day--installing a lodge brother and onetime protege, James Bradford, as Grand Master of Missouri Masonry. Crowds gathered hurriedly as he set out to walk the block down Lindell Boulevard from the hotel to the Scottish Rite Cathedral. The President, trailed by his White House staff, doffed his silk topper right & left to well-wishers, grinned at a wag who yelled: "When are you coming over to the Knights of Columbus?"

Inside the cathedral he fell dutifully into the impressive routine of Masonic ceremonial. He entered a stuffy robing room to tie on his little lambskin apron trimmed with heavy gold fringe. He marched soberly down a corridor to the main hall, waited a full two minutes while a guide gained admittance for "Most Worshipful Past Grand Master Harry Truman." Then, as fellow Masons applauded, he walked to an altar, lit by three electric candles, to begin the induction of officers.

During the ceremony he recalled the moment, in 1940, when he himself had become Grand Master of the Missouri Grand Lodge. He said, with honest fervor: "I considered it, and still consider it, the highest honor that ever came to me."

The President departed amid more applause. But his big day was only just beginning; that afternoon he flew on to Kansas City for a testimonial dinner honoring the Democratic Party's new national chairman: curly haired, red-faced Billy Boyle, who worked his way to the top from a humble beginning as a doorbell-pushing ward heeler.

Banquet of the Century. The home folks of Kansas City were proud of Bill Boyle--none more vociferously than shrewd, elephantine Roy Roberts, Republican president of the Kansas City Star-- and they had vowed to give him the banquet of the century. By the time the President entered Kansas City's vast civic auditorium that night, they had come comfortably close to success.

Three thousand men & women in evening dress were sitting at tables on the great floor (at $15 a plate). Among them were virtually all the ranking officers of the Administration and all shades of local politicos, including Democratic Boss Charlie Binaggio, who had just been subpoenaed by a federal grand jury to tell what he knew about the revival of racketeering in Kansas City. Six thousand non-diners watched and applauded from the flag-bedecked balconies. An army of harried waiters served 3,000 tenderloin steaks without allowing more than minor peripheral cooling to set in--no mean achievement since all had come from the kitchen of the Muehlebach Hotel, three full blocks away.

As the speeches began, a wonderful, if temporary, surge of good feeling united the thousands in the hall. Bill Boyle almost wept as he stood listening to the roar of the crowd's applause. Vice President Alben Barkley was inspired to a stirring attack on Republicans. Challenging the G.O.P.'s new campaign slogan, he cried: "Will those people who see in every tree frog a roaring lion, and in every angleworm a spreading adder, please rise and tell us what is statism!"

"Not a Pipe Dream." When the President rose to make his off-the-cuff speech he had a crowd which could hardly wait to cheer. He stoutly defended the 81st Congress and the Fair Deal. "My political philosophy," he said, "is based on the Sermon on the Mount." He went on to lay down a proposition that would be heard again & again in the off-year election campaign; he hoped, he said, that the U.S. could eventually raise its income from $200 billion to $300 billion a year--enough to bring the national average to $4,000 a family. "That is not a pipe dream," said the President. The immediate job at hand, he urged, was to keep the Fair Deal program rolling. "Let's get to work and do it. If we do ... we will win with that program in 1950 . . . and in 1952!"

That brought the house down. With a sly dig at Vice President Barkley's attentions to Mrs. Carleton Hadley of St. Louis, he added: "I am exceedingly glad that he is about to become a citizen of Missouri." The following day--after a side trip to Independence--Harry Truman flew back to the White House, glowing with good spirits and leaving Missouri in a pleasant twitter of excitement over the Veep's romantic intentions.

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