"Plain Mr. Truman"

When Harry Truman arrived at Washington's Union Station to leave for Independence six hours after the inauguration he was greeted by a cheering crowd so heavy that he had trouble getting to his train. ("Make way for the President," boomed the public address system.) When the strains of Auld Lang Syne had died away, Harry Truman made his farewell to Washington. "In all my political career I have never had anything like this," said he. "I'll never forget it if I live to be a hundred, and that's just what I expect to do."

"We Love You." On the way to Independence the ex-President took his first crack at being "plain Mr. Truman." Leaving the presidential car Ferdinand Magellan, which Ike had lent him for the occasion, Truman strolled through the train. He popped his head in at the door of a Pullman compartment and seemed delighted when the couple inside failed to recognize him immediately. Said he: "Things are getting back to normal when that happens." Pushing on into a coach car, he told reporters: "This is the first time I have been in a coach in eight years, and in the future I am going to ride in coaches. You see more people. It's more democratic and more comfortable."

Wherever the train stopped, there were warm, affectionate crowds. At Jefferson City, Mo., a woman admonished Truman in crisp, motherly tones: "Put your hat on. We don't want you to catch cold." But the reception Harry Truman was eagerly looking forward to was the one at Independence. Said he: "I guess they'll put the big pot inside the little pot and break both of them."

Sure enough, when the Ferdinand Magellan rolled into Independence, a crowd of 8,500 jammed the little red brick Missouri Pacific station and the surrounding streets. The Eagles were there in snappy red & blue capes, the Ararat Shriners sported their fezzes, and the boys from Captain Truman's old Battery D wore red arm bands. Cried Harry Truman: "It's magnificent. We're back home now for good . . . After I get finished with the job Mrs. Truman has for me--unpacking--I'll be open for dinner engagements. I may be hungry--I don't have a job." From the crowd came shouts of "We love you, Harry."

"I Ordered It." Next day Harry Truman went over to his new offices in Kansas City's Federal Reserve Building to deal with his correspondence. Reporters who still followed him demanded a press conference and asked how it was that Major John Eisenhower had been recalled from Korea. Ike had asked him the same thing on Inauguration Day, said Harry Truman with a grin. John himself had not wanted to leave the front, Truman went on, but "I told Mark Clark to send him home so he could be at the inauguration, and if anyone wanted to raise hell about it, he could say I ordered it."

Concerning his plans for the future Truman remained noncommittal. Last week he turned down at least two jobs paying $100,000 a year or more because he didn't want to cheapen the presidency by trading on his name. "I think Herbert Hoover has handled himself perfectly," said Harry. Closest to his heart was his plan to establish a Truman memorial library and research center on the family farm in Grandview, but that would have to wait until the Truman Library Fund had raised $1,500,000--a goal it was still far from reaching. Later in the day, Harry & friends strolled around the farm at In dependence, and he marked out where he thought the library buildings ought to be.

The Harry S. Trumans seemed to be readjusting quickly to the existence of private citizens. At 7 one morning last week, Bess Truman stuck her head out the front door, hesitated, then started looking for her morning Kansas City Times. "They always throw it where you can't find it," said the former First Lady as she poked about in the shrubbery.

In Washington Alben Barkley announced that he was going to work for the National Broadcasting Co. as a television commentator. His program, a Sunday evening discussion of current topics called Meet the Veep, will be nonpartisan, said Barkley, and he will not have a sponsor unless he can find one in keeping with the dignity of his former office. "This won't be the limit of my activities for the next few years," warned the 75-year-old ex-Vice President.

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