June 28, 1919. . . meanwhile, other things were also going on. . .

This entry will oddly appear just slightly before the extremely long one on the Versailles Treaty, but as it deals with the other things going on that day, it's here first.

On this day, Harry S. Truman, recently discharged artillery officer of the Missouri National Guard, married Elizabeth "Bess" Wallace.

The couple had known each other since their teens and in fact Harry Truman had proposed to her eight years prior, only to receive a rejection.

At that time he was working on his father's farm.  Undeterred, he determined to ask he again but not before he was making more income than a farmer generally did, keeping in mind that this was an era in which farmers had economic parity with the American middle class.  He started several businesses and then went off to serve as an officer in the Great War.  At the time of his marriage he was established in a haberdashery store with a partner in Kansas City, but went failed during the Recession of 1921.

Truman thereafter entered politics, becoming a County Court Judge in Kansas City, Missouri. That position suffers from a confusion of terms, as that position is more akin to a County Commissioner in most states than a court position. While he suffered a defeat early on he returned shortly thereafter to politics and in 1933 he was appointed the director of the Federal Re-employment program in Missouri, an appointment which reflected machine politics as it was an arrangement between the Democratic Pendergast Machine of Missouri and the Roosevelt Administration.

In 1934 he was elected to the Senate from Missouri even thought Pendergast opposed his entering the race at first.  In the primary he managed to overcome better placed Democratic candidates to secure the nomination and then defeated the Republican incumbent.  He rose quickly and became Roosevelt's third Vice President in 1944.

Truman was an exceptional man, but he was also the last American President who really reflected the average American.  He was never wealthy and he was the last American President who didn't hold a college degree.  He wasn't a lawyer and he had suffered business failure.  If he was ambitious, he was ambitious in a middle America middle class sort of way.  An argument can be made that he is the President who most closely reflected the average Americans of the era in which he was elected, with there being, at most, only a couple of others who can claim that status.

In Washington D. C. the automobile manufacturer's association held a parade.