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Published: Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 / Updated: Monday, Aug. 06, 2012 11:07 AM

An honorable president

I am sure I am not the only person tired of the negative political ads coming from both sides! It would be nice if everyone played pretty, but that is only an illusion of mine.

I read a biography of a great U.S. President – Harry S. Truman. He was the 33rd president of the United States and he always managed to do the right thing. Truman was an excellent student and even though his parents did not have the finances to send him to college, he took it upon himself to read every book in the Independence, Mo., Library.

In 1934 he ran for a U.S. Senate seat and won. During World War II, Sen. Truman headed up the Truman Commission that investigated fraud in defense contracts. He was responsible for saving the government several million dollars. He remained in the senate until Franklin D. Roosevelt tapped him for his running mate for his fourth term in 1944.

When he retired from office in 1952, his income was an Army pension reported to have been only $13,507.72 a year. Congress noted that he was paying for his own stamps and personally licking them. They then granted him an allowance and later a retroactive pension of $25,000.00 per year. The only asset he had when he died was the house he lived in, which was in Independence. President Truman’s wife Bess had inherited the house from her mother and father.

In 2000, a C-Span poll ranking all U.S. presidents was conducted by 58 presidential historians and scholars. Harry Truman ranked fifth behind Abraham Lincoln, Franklin D. Roosevelt, George Washington and Theodore Roosevelt.

When offered corporate positions and large salaries, he declined, stating, “you don’t want me. You want the office of the President and that doesn’t belong to me. It belongs to the American people and it’s not for sale!”