Truman's Numbers Hit a New Low

How Truman Found Himself Facing the Lowest Approval Ratings Ever

Mar 4, 2008

President Truman, now considered by many to have been a great President, was dogged throughout his time in office by low approval ratings and tough decisions.

Harry S Truman (and no, the "S" didn't stand for anything) was considered by many (if not most) at the time of his accension to office to be an uneducated dullard, and one wholly unfit to be President of the United States. One may very easily argue that, had Truman not been offered a position as Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Vice President coming into his fourth term, he never would have become President.

Truman's Pre-President Life

He had been a relatively successful soldier during WWI, and a failed businessman after that, never having attained a college education (though he had completed two years toward a law degree). In fact, during the majority of his life before finally becoming a judge in Jackson County, Missouri, Harry S Truman worked many different jobs, but in the end, he could best be considered to be a farmer, having spent many years of his life tending to the family farm in Independence, Missouri.

Not exactly the kind of credentials capable of getting one elected, especially not against such powerhouse candidates as Thomas Dewey of New York, Robert Taft of Ohio or any number of other candidates the Republicans could have run against him.

Fortunately, Truman did show himself to be a more-than-capable politician, once he had found his way into such endeavors with the help of the local political "Boss," Tom Pendergast (who got him elected judge, then helped him win election to the U.S. Senate in 1934). His affiliation with this "organized political machine" didn't do much to help his public image, but Truman's own work superceded the relationship.

In the Senate, Truman distinguished himself mainly by his service in the Military Preparedness Comittee (soon to be known as "The Truman Comittee") which investigated wasteful spending and fraud within the U.S. military. On the strength of this service, he was selected to run as Vice President under the "Super-Incumbent," FDR.

As President

Truman's first year in the white house (after Roosevelt's death not long into his fourth term) was filled with the kinds of nation-shaping decisions that separate the weak leader from the strong. Within months the farmer from Missouri was forced into making one of the most important decisions a President has ever been forced to make – the decision to use nuclear weapons against Japan to end World War II.

Over the next seven years of Truman's reign, he would be known by his fans as a "straight talker," and a man who stuck by his convictions, no matter how unpopular that made him. To his opponents he was seen as an imbecile, a poor leader and a warmonger. His threats in 1946 and 1952 to nationalize certain labor unions in order to end strikes (the railroad and the steel workers, respectively) put him at odds with his own Democratic party, who had traditionally been friends of organized labor; and his decision to put troops on the ground in South Korea in 1950 in order to stop a North Korean invasion caused him no end of grief.

The Lowest Presidential Approval in History

After Truman fired General Douglas McArthur in 1952 for insubordination (McArthur had been publically proposing an attack on China, even though it was against the administration's policies), his approval among the American people dropped to a record low of 22% (compared to President George W. Bush's ratings, which in early 2008 hover just over thirty percent). Even the rating of President Nixon at the time of his resignation was higher (27%).

After leaving the Presidency, things began to change for the better for Truman. He wrote his own memoirs of his time in office (something previously done by only Ulysses S. Grant, whose tome was published posthumously). And at the time of his death in 1972, as the U.S. was embroiled in another war overseas and the Watergate scandal, opening up a more favorable view of history, where Truman could once again be seen as having been an honest, straight-talking President. Over the years, his posthumous approval rating has continued to creep upward, and today, one would be hard-pressed to find a ranking of the greatest U.S. Presidents that doesn't rank the man from Independence in the top ten.

Perhaps there are parallels one can draw between President Truman and current events, but that is a matter of opinion. Nevertheless, there is something truly remarkable about how Truman eventually overcame his critics.

To learn more about this remarkable President, read David McCollough's Pulitzer Prize winning biography, "Truman."

The copyright of the article Truman's Numbers Hit a New Low in Modern US History is owned by Isaac M. McPhee. Permission to republish Truman's Numbers Hit a New Low in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.