Harry S. Truman Quotes
Democracy alone can supply the vitalizing force to stir the peoples of the world into triumphant action, not only against their human oppressors, but also against their ancient enemies-hunger, misery, and despair.
Truman, Harry S. "Inaugural Address," 20 Jan. 1949. Public Papers of the Presidents of the United States: Harry S. Truman, 1949, U.S. Government Printing Office, 1964, p. 114.
Before America, many political thinkers believed that popular sovereignty and liberty are incompatible concepts—that the tyranny of the majority would trample liberty of all kinds of minorities: intellectuals, the wealthy, different religion, smaller religions, original thinking, cultural independence. However, Mandelbaum’s theory is that the social safety net, makes everyone wealthy to enough an extent that most will not trample others liberties for an even greater wealth. Inequality of wealth is tolerable if all have a modicum of a standard of living, but if some or many do not even have that, other’s liberties are less important than their own survival.
Harry S. Truman was an American politician who served as the 33rd President of the United States (1945–53). He served as a United States Senator from Missouri (1935–45) and briefly as Vice President (1945) before he succeeded to the presidency on April 12, 1945 upon the death of Franklin D. Roosevelt. He was president during the final months of World War II, and approved the plan to drop atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Truman was elected in his own right in 1948. He presided over an uncertain domestic scene as America sought its path after the war and tensions with the Soviet Union increased, marking the start of the Cold War.
