[Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]
Notice Numbers appearing in square brackets (ex. [45]) within the transcript indicate the pagination in the original, hardcopy version of the oral history interview. RESTRICTIONS Opened November, 1982
[Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]
Oral History Interview with
July 23, 1982 by Niel M. Johnson JOHNSON: Would you tell me where you were born and when you were born, and what your parents' names were? SANDERS: I was born in Worth County, Missouri on September 10, 1893. JOHNSON: What were your parents' names? SANDERS: My father's name was Volley H. Sanders; he was raised in Worth County. My mother's name was Rose Jones; she was born in Worth County. JOHNSON: And you grew up there. Was it on a farm? SANDERS: Yes. My mother died when I was 16 months old and my Grandfather Jones and grandmother raised my brother and me. JOHNSON: Did you go to a country school or a town school? SANDERS: I went to a country school and later to a town school. JOHNSON: Was there a high school? SANDERS: Yes, that's right. JOHNSON: You went through high school? SANDERS: I went through the high school, and I went from there to Maryville College one year. My grandfather died when I was about twelve years old. He had been ill awhile. From the time he died, my brother and I lived with my grandmother for a number of years, and operated the farm that we were on. JOHNSON: Now this is the grandmother... SANDERS: Jones. JOHNSON: And that was still in Worth County? SANDERS: Worth County; the same spot, yes. JOHNSON: I see. And you went one year to Maryville. SANDERS: Yes. And I was on the farm until I got married to Bessie Stoner, who was teaching school in Parnell, Missouri at the time. We would have been married 65 years this spring. She died in February of this year. JOHNSON: What was her maiden name? SANDERS: Bessie Stoner. She was raised here at Cameron, Clinton County. JOHNSON: After you finished the year at Maryville, then what did you do? SANDERS: Oh I was farming. JOHNSON: You went back to farming. SANDERS: Yes, I was in charge of the farm, great big farm. Then I got married. I've been on this farm out here 65 years. JOHNSON: Right outside of Cameron? SANDERS: South and east. JOHNSON: South and east of Cameron a few miles. SANDERS: We've had three or four different farms. In fact, I've owned over 2,000 acres. JOHNSON: Somewhere along the line you got into politics. SANDERS: Yes, in 1934. My father had been active in politics a number of years, and he lived in St. Joe. Of course, I lived near Cameron, and I went to St. Joe and I said, "I think I'd like to take part in this primary, in this election." Truman and two other men, I forget their names, were on the Democratic ticket in the primary, and my father said, "Well, who do you think you ought to be for?" I said, "Well, I think this man Truman has got the best answers." He said, "Well, let's just be for him." He said, "I think they have a headquarters up here on Felix Street." That time was the Depression, and you had empty buildings. You had plenty of empty buildings in St. Joe then. We went up to an empty building and there was a man there who was Fred Canfil, a very close friend of Truman's. He had some political literature, and we told him we were interested in Truman. He was very appreciative and insisted that, "Now if you need any help over there, any speakers or anything, we'll send them to you." He was very gracious. I came back and went to the man who owned the paper in Cameron, and I said, "Say, I kind of spoke for us today." "What's that?" "I was saying your paper just might be for Truman." He said, "All right, let's be for him." So he immediately wrote some article appreciative of it. I was pretty active in it. I was young and active. At that time everybody was hard-up, and they had band concerts in Cameron once a week, about this time of year, August time. Farm people would come and gather on Thursday evenings. Of course, the stores stayed open as long as people were in town. So I said to the man that owned the paper -- and at that time he also was Mayor -- "Let's form a Truman committee." He said, "All right." He put it in the paper that we'd have a meeting, a Truman meeting at City Hall on a certain night. We went up to City Hall, and the jeweler here in town, Sherman Sloan, who was a good Democrat, was there, and one other man, who was a good speaker. That was about all, just the four of us there. I said, "Why, everything is all right; let's form our committee." So we made the newspaperman the president of the organization, and Sherman Sloan the treasurer. I was the vice president. Then we named a number of vice presidents. So we named a number of prominent Democrats in the community down here as vice presidents of the committee. Well, in a few days they saw their names were on the list. They were interested, and before long we had a nice meeting. From then on we had a nice organization. I said to the newspaperman, who was also Mayor, "Let's have a speaking following the band concert." So I called Canfil and said, "We're going to have a meeting tonight." That was Thursday night. "Send a speaker." Lots of people come to the band concert, they sit on the ground. Fortunately, just before the last band selection, the newspaperman said, "Tell your MC to leave the loud-speaker there, and announce that there will be a speaking following the band concert." At that point two men and their wives came into the park. One was the speaker, a man by the name of [Roger] Slaughter, a young lawyer, prominent at that time in Kansas City. Of course, he saw that gathering on the ground and he didn't know but what they had all come to hear him speak. They didn't know what kind of a meeting it was; they were ready for a speaking. He got on the bandstand and he gave them a nice talk, not particularly factional at all. They thought they heard a good speech, and he went back and told the Truman office it was the best meeting they had had. It went from there on, and fortunately, and accidentally I reckon, Truman got more votes in Clinton County than the other two men got in Clinton County. That is, he was our choice, which was unusual, because the cross faction was the elderly faction in the community. They had been handling the politics year after year, and it just broke that way. From then on Truman was elected, and that November I got acquainted with him some. Of course, we were country people, and I was raising turkeys just to give away. I took two live turkeys -- they happened to be brown turkeys -- to Kansas City. We parked in the lot behind the new City Hall and went in. Canfil then was the superintendent of the City Hall. He was Truman's friend; Truman was the County Judge, and they were in the Army together, very close friends. That was Canfil's position. Truman, of course, at that time was Senator and he was in the office in this building. I told them I had brought the turkeys, and Canfil went down and brought the turkeys up alive on the elevator to the room. He showed them to Truman and they were very happy to get them. Anything to eat then was appreciated. Canfil turned them over to the janitor and told him to clean them. From then on, for 47 years, they've had a turkey. Every turkey, I've either dressed or my family dressed. We didn't buy turkey out of a store. Truman was very gracious when he was Senator. Even in bad times then, it wasn't long until meat was rationed. I was a farmer and had a man here in the ice cream business who had a freezer. I killed a beef regularly. I said to Senator Truman, "I was working to send you some meat." Later I sent him an ice box of frozen beef. The ice cream man had dry ice in the cooler. I had a letter from Truman that said, "I guess you saved my life and another man's life." He said, "My barber was sick; I gave him a roast beef, a roast, and he got well." He was appreciative. From then on if I would ever want to ask for a job for somebody, in most every case he got it. I never asked for one for myself. That leads on up to the Vice Presidency. JOHNSON: May I take you back to 1934 again? What was it that attracted you to Harry Truman? What caused you to decide to support him in '34? SANDERS: I just read the paper. I just made a guess. JOHNSON: Had you heard about his reputation as County Judge? SANDERS: That was in the paper; I just picked him out. JOHNSON: Did Harry Truman get up here to Cameron in '34 to speak? SANDERS: He didn't come to see me. JOHNSON: Was Fred Canfil here in Cameron to... SANDERS: Oh, Fred Canfil lived all the time in Kansas City. He and Truman were in the Army together and very, very close. In fact, he was closer to Harry Truman than was Truman's brother. JOHNSON: Now this Slaughter that you mentioned, the Slaughter who gave the speech? SANDERS: He was just a prominent young lawyer in Kansas City. JOHNSON: Was he supporting Truman? SANDERS: Oh yes. JOHNSON: He was speaking out for Truman during the campaign? SANDERS: He was the one who was making the speech for Truman. But it was very clever. He didn't do anything to offend the Republicans and everybody sitting in the park thought they had a nice evening. JOHNSON: Was there just the one campaign speech that was given for Truman here in '34, or were there others? SANDERS: Oh no, there were no others. JOHNSON: Okay, the Slaughter speech was the big one. SANDERS: That's right. And of course the paper gave it coverage. JOHNSON: When did you first see Truman after that election? SANDERS: Oh, I saw him in Kansas City. He'd come back there quite often. JOHNSON: When you presented him this turkey for the first time, was that the first time that you had actually met him? SANDERS: No, I had met him earlier. That was the first time I had to visit with him. You see, he was already elected then. That wasn't in the primary. That was after the November election. I met him in the campaign, just very friendly, you know. JOHNSON: It would have been in November or December of '34 that you met him there in Kansas City and gave him the turkey? SANDERS: Oh yes. JOHNSON: He left for Washington about the end of December in '34. Was it a Thanksgiving turkey? SANDERS: Well, it was usually about Christmastime that I gave him a turkey. Anyhow he was elected Senator and then was in the office in Kansas City. JOHNSON: When did you see him again after that? What was the occasion? SANDERS: I saw him periodically along. He would come back to Kansas City, and I knew he was coming. Canfil would tell me, or maybe I'd go down there. On occasion I'd be in Kansas City and Canfil had offices there, and continued from then on. He had an office in the Courthouse, and then Roosevelt appointed Canfil United States Marshal. By that time Canfil and I had got quite well-acquainted. JOHNSON: Were you on the County Democrat Committee here? SANDERS: No, we didn't have any committee. I had just taken part in the election. JOHNSON: You didn't have any party positions so to speak here in the county? SANDERS: No. I was just a farmer-Democrat in the county. JOHNSON: What were your impressions of Fred Canfil? What kind of a person was he? SANDERS: Oh, he was a closer man to Harry Truman than anybody; that's one recommendation. He was the most powerful man in the country when Truman was President. JOHNSON: Did you ever hear any comments he made about Mr. Truman? Do you remember Canfil's comments? SANDERS: Say. Truman was his God. JOHNSON: He chauffeured him around didn't he in that '34 campaign? SANDERS: They were in the Army together, and I think Canfil came out a major and Truman was a captain. They were not alike at all; they were just as different as daylight and dark. Canfil was very forceful, and he would protect Truman just against anything, and pretty near to a fault. JOHNSON: He decided to be his personal bodyguard, is that right? SANDERS: Oh, yes, yes. JOHNSON: But there was something between them that though they were different personalities, they hit it off, so to speak? SANDERS: Oh very close. Canfil, of course, became United States Marshal. I'd go down and say I want this, that, or that, and we got it. JOHNSON: Do you remember any particular instances where you were asking Senator Truman for a favor or for his good word or whatever? Do you remember any particular instances of when you asked him for something? SANDERS: I can't think of one particular instance. So many things came up. JOHNSON: Did it involve local politics, like Postmaster appointments? SANDERS: For instance -- well there was the WPA. Truman was elected in '34, and WPA started in about '34 itself. One day I got a telegram that said to put so many men to work on a sewer project in Cameron. I had never been consulted in any way, shape, nor form. I was not an engineer; I knew nothing about what it meant. I went to the City Council, and they didn't know. Somebody said, "Well, I understand somebody talked about building a water line from the end of Chestnut Street out there on out to that restaurant out in town." I went to the engineer here. Of course, I was a young man, a farmer, who would tackle pretty nearly anything, and this engineer, well he had read something of it. The next day I had a telegram saying to put so many to work on a rock quarry at Grayson, and maybe by the same day put so many in a rock quarry at Cameron. There hadn't been any rock quarry either place. I was just as new to it as you are right now; nobody wrote or called me. I was talking to people. In two or three days I put some to work on the streets of Lathrop. In approximately a week, here came a man who said he was a roving engineer. Also we were to have some tools in a few days. And in two or three days here came an old truck with old tools, hammers and picks and so forth. In the course of about a month, I was notified that I was going to get $100 a month for doing the work. Sounds like a story, but that's the way it was. JOHNSON: What did Senator Truman have to do with that? SANDERS: He was the Senator; I suppose he paid the man that they sent the telegram to. JOHNSON: He said that you were the man to get it? SANDERS: Well, I got the telegram directed to Ted Sanders. JOHNSON: Do you still have that telegram? SANDERS: Oh, I don't know that I do. There were articles in the paper, some old papers here, about it. Well, I tell you it was pretty well wrote up. After it went on a few months, why this "cross faction," who were old timers and powerful, were very, very jealous of my position. I had built up quite a little organization here. They had a meeting, and they -- the crosses -- and the old-timer Democrats then against me, had a meeting in Plattsburg one night. They had thrown a fellow against me, and against a man by the name of Pike who was an engineer. Pike had come through here, a consulting engineer, or inspector, and he was a gentleman if I ever knew one. They were going to find fault with us and have us removed from the job. Well, it happened that they didn't have a telegraph line in Plattsburg; they had to call in their telegrams. Well, it happened a friend of mine had a girlfriend that worked in the telephone company. See, they sent the telegrams out and she had a list of what they said. She told my friend, and of course he reported to me, and I reported to Canfil, and the next day the Kansas City Star had on the front page a full column about me and this engineer and my position with WPA and how it was going to be moved out. Early in the morning the Republican paper here in town called me and said, "Ted, what about the paper?" I said, "I know nothing about it." "Well, get your paper." I went downtown and people I knew just kind of acted a little different to me. The next day it had about the same article in the same paper, and the next day they were being kind of sweet to me. On the third day there was about the same article in the same paper, and they began to ask what it was all about. Well, of course, they didn't get us thrown out. It was interesting. We graveled every street in Cameron and some of the alleys. We built the swimming pool in Cameron. They had a Republican council in Cameron and they were against most of this. It seems like these projects were drawn up in Washington or someplace, and they'd have a project study. They sent one in here for a second reservoir. Well, the newspaperman was quite interested and businesslike and JOHNSON: What was his name by the way? SANDERS: Bert Witt. He said, "Well, let's get on it." So I went to Black and Veatch in Kansas City and got some advice on it. I came back and Watt publicized it, because the city didn't have to put in anything. So then we built the reservoir here. This was the WPA. Then we built the reservoir at Plattsburg, and the courthouse at Maysville. JOHNSON: In other words, the New Deal was pretty popular around here? SANDERS: Well, here, yes, in this way. The people were so poor, and they were appreciating it. They expect to work. To get on this job they had to go to Lathrop to be called "certified" out of that office. So if any man wanted a job, they'd give him one. If he lived near Plattsburg, they sent me the name, and he'd get a job at Plattsburg. Those people would come and they were appreciative. It was so bad. They were paid $38 for two week's work, five days a week, and when they got their check they appreciated it. We had a rainy fall, and men came out to work there with sacks around their feet, and the soles out of their shoes. We'd ask, "Where's your lunch?" They didn't have anything to put in it. I assume it was against the rules of the Government, but I said, "Well, this afternoon let's go up to Carl Ellis." He was a grocery man there in the store. I'd say, "Carl, you let this man have something for his lunch until he can bring his check in." In every case he said yes. You bought a loaf of bread then for a nickel. You could buy beef steak in Cameron for 10 cents a pound right at the butcher shop. It was that bad. And these people worked diligently. That was WPA. JOHNSON: They got some useful work done, too, didn't they? SANDERS: Oh yes. We had the ledge of rock out here. Of course, we had no jack hammers to make the holes in the rock. What they did -- they had a two-inch iron bar, hard iron bar, it might be three feet, another maybe six, and to get their hole to put the dynamite in, they had this blacksmith bring it to a sharp point. Two men would make the hole for the dynamite. One would hold it up, and the other had a yeast box, and the yeast, in this particular case, came in boxes about that big of a square. So they had a yeast box, and they'd sit down and one of them held the rock and the other one hit the rock with this twelve-pound maul. They'd change off and they'd do that all day. Maybe tonight they'd be down a foot or maybe two feet in that block. Then they put the dynamite in and blew it out. Later, the engineer, Pike, a very honorable man, said, "Ted, I can't buy you a jack hammer, but I can give you enough hours rental on it to pay for a jack hammer. It cost $500. But I can get you enough hours at $1.10 an hour to pay for the jack hammer." I went to the Republican council and they wouldn't back the $500. Anyhow I connived around and got the jack hammer; that's the way we paid for the jack hammer. JOHNSON: Did Senator Truman ever get out here to Cameron? Did he ever visit the town that you remember? SANDERS: Yes. Yes, when he was Senator. The Catholic priest here was very active in politics and they had a grove south of town, Cordewin Grove, and every year this priest would have a Catholic picnic, a political picnic. It was big enough that the Postmaster from St. Louis, Dickmann at the time, came up here to this Catholic picnic. Truman came up here and made a speech at the Catholic picnic. JOHNSON: Do you remember what year that would have been? SANDERS: I can't. I suppose the records would show. But there was a number of years that the Catholic priest had those, and they were big things. JOHNSON: He came up to give speeches at this picnic. Were there any other occasions that you can remember of Mr. Truman being here in Cameron? SANDERS: No; I remember he came and made the speech up there at their picnic. JOHNSON: Was that in an election year? Do you remember if he was running for election that year? SANDERS: It was an election year. JOHNSON: Could it have been 1940? SANDERS: Possibly. JOHNSON: What were you doing in 1940, politically? SANDERS: Only the same thing I'm doing now; Im just a good Democrat. JOHNSON: You were farming? SANDERS: Always farming. JOHNSON: And you were helping administer WEA work here in the county? SANDERS: I've been on this same farm 65 years. I've been hiring men for 75 years. My grandfather died and he had a big farm. I think my grandmother handled that until I was married up there. JOHNSON: You didn't do anything in the 1940 campaign? SANDERS: Oh, every year I took a part. JOHNSON: Do you remember what you did in 1940? SANDERS: Oh, I put signs in my yard, and anything I could. At that time I was pretty influential because I was WPA administrator in this county and we had men working at different places in the county. I tried to be very gracious with the help. I stood good for overshoes a few times for them. I tried to help them. There was no politics in it though. What I mean by that is there were so many that wanted on. At one time we had four college graduates working on WPA that couldn't get a job; two or three of them were teachers. It was a bad time. JOHNSON: So Harry Truman was popular because of his support of WPA. SANDERS: Yes. JOHNSON: How about Governor Lloyd Stark? Did Stark campaign in the county in 1940? SANDERS: I don't know whether he did in Cameron; he talked in the county. He made quite a campaign. JOHNSON: Did you meet him? Did you meet Stark? SANDERS: Yes, I met him, but I wasn't at all grateful to him. JOHNSON: Did he give you some apples maybe? He was an apple man you know. SANDERS: Yes, he had the delicious apples -- Stark did. JOHNSON: Truman was reelected, of course, in 1940. SANDERS: When he was President he came to Kansas City and I said, "Where can I send you a turkey? He said, "Ted, I'll give you a name. We wouldn't get to eat it if you sent it to us." He gave me the name of Murphy, a friend of Trumans. Anyhow, my ice cream man, you see, had paper cartons that he shipped ice cream in. So we froze those turkeys, put dry ice in these paper cartons, and sent them by express to the President. On one occasion Matt Connelly was in Kansas City with Bill Boyle, and I took three turkeys down and they went on the plane: one for Connelly and one for Bill Boyle, who was chairman of the National Committee, and they took one to Truman. JOHNSON: In 1940, you did not attend the Democratic convention, is that right? SANDERS: No, I didn't. I did in '44. JOHNSON: Okay, can you tell us about that convention in '44? SANDERS: Well, Canfil and I became very close friends. I'd go into Kansas City, and I'd go into the Marshal's office. I went in on this occasion, on the Thursday before the National Convention, and just Truman and Canfil were there. Canfil said, "Ted's coming to the convention?" Truman said, "Sure, Ted's got to be there." Canfil, said, "When are you coming up?" I said, "Whenever you say." He said, "We've got to go up tomorrow. Why don't you come Sunday morning? Come to the Stevens Hotel; I'll have the reservation for you." Now this is a pretty big story, and it happened that Truman said, "Bob Hannegan says he's going to make me Vice President." Now that was on the Thursday before the election. JOHNSON: Oh, he said that? SANDERS: Said it to me, direct to me; nobody there but him and Canfil and I. JOHNSON: Where were you at the time?
SANDERS: That was in the Marshal's office in the Federal Building. JOHNSON: Okay, in Canfil's office. SANDERS: Yes. JOHNSON: And Harry Truman told you that Bob Hannegan had told him that he was going to make Harry Truman Vice President? SANDERS: It's all right to tell now because most of them are dead. JOHNSON: Sure. But Truman went to Chicago pledged to support Jimmy Byrnes for Vice President. Do you remember that? He was promoting Jimmy Byrnes for Vice President? Did he ever say anything to you about that? SANDERS: No, I don't think so. JOHNSON: Jimmy Byrnes called him here in Independence to ask him if he would give the speech nominating Byrnes. SANDERS: I remember Jimmy Byrnes in the story. I'll tell you who was the contender there; it wasn't Jimmy Byrnes. It was Wallace, Henry Wallace. He was the contender. JOHNSON: Now when Harry Truman told you that Bob Hannegan said he was going to make him Vice President... SANDERS: On the Thursday before, he said, "Bob Hannegan says he's going to make me Vice President." I went right down and told my banker. Years later some lady came to see the banker and he told her, "On the Thursday before, Ted said it was Truman who was going to be Vice President." Ben Jones, the race horse man, was racing out at Aurora, at Sportsman Park; he was my closest friend. I called him and told him they were going to make Truman Vice President. A day or two after he was nominated, I saw Ben. He said, "How did you know he was going to be Vice President?" That's a pretty big story. I haven't told this story. Pretty big story. I went up on Sunday morning, and went into the suite. Truman was there along with Tom Evans, who was a warm friend of Truman. He had four Crown Drugstores in Kansas City; that meant quite a bit at that time. He was in there also with a man from St. Louis and New York. Canfil was there too. He was very forceful, and he felt he had all the power in the world, since Truman was behind him. I said, "Hello." Canfil said, "Come in; this is our man from...," talking to me. They didn't know but what I was as big as they were. They were big people. He said, "I've got you a reservation over at the Blackstone; you can't rest in this hotel. Go over there and rest and come back," which I did. I think it was that afternoon, Sunday, that a man said, "Come over." He was with a Chicago paper, I don't remember what paper; his name was Delaney. He said he was over at the Sherman Hotel, and the Wallace people told him they didn't want him around there. I said, "You stay right here; he's our man." From then on I was just as much a part of that convention as any man there, at the suite, the room. If they called from New York, I answered it. I was just as big as they were. I had a sergeant at arms badge, and I had everything you could think of. The fact is that Roosevelt wanted Henry Wallace to be Vice President, no question about that. Roosevelt came through Chicago on the train on his way to San Francisco. I don't know whether Roosevelt was nominated that night or the next night. Hannegan went out and visited with him on the train, and came back whenever it was. So they nominated Roosevelt. By the rules of the trade, they would make the Vice Presidential nomination the next night. About 6 o'clock, this newspaperman came in and called Canfil aside. Canfil said to me, "You go tell Bob Hannegan to come over here or call me." Hannegan was in the same hotel. I went and told him. He called Canfil. Canfil said, "This man said that the Wallace people have issued 500 bogus passes. They let one garment factory out here at noon, and they're going to block that convention." Hannegan said, "Well, we just won't have the nomination tonight." I never saw that in the paper. "We won't have the nomination tonight." So we came back. In came a sharecropper from the South, some politician, and Canfil said, "What did you do with them?" He had had poster pictures made to use in the parade when Truman's name was put in nomination. "Well, we put them in Hannegan's office." The office was just underneath the grandstand. And Canfil said, "Jesus Christ, if the Wallace people knew Hannegan had, you know, been in on this thing. Tom, you and Ted (that's me) go out and get those posters." We got in a cab. I had a sergeant at arms badge. We got about two blocks from the convention hall, where we were stopped. "You can't go any farther; that thing's packed to the rafters," we were told. Well, I showed him my badge. He said, "That don't mean a thing. The fire chief said don't let anybody in there." We went back and told the story to Canfil that we couldn't get in. Well, that was that. So what they did was that Hannegan just had speakers speak all night on any subject they wanted to speak on until the people sometime in the night went home. Then the next evening we went out and nominated Truman. Well, that day Truman said to me, "Bob said he was going to nominate me tonight, and do you think we ought to get a hall to meet the people'" Well I said, "No, let them come right through this suite." I said, "Newspapermen can't get you into any corner; just let them come through here. " I went out to the convention that night, but I didn't stay for the nomination. I went back to the hotel with Canfil. Truman called us and said, "They nominated me." He said, "I'm going out with friends tonight; I'll be there at 9 o'clock in the morning." Well, of course, I went to sleep in the hotel suite there, the headquarters suite. Then between 12 and 1 o'clock there came a rap on the door. There was a man and two or three women. They said, "What kind of an outfit is this that you're having here?" They thought it was very unusual I guess. I don't know what our answer was. But the next morning, early of course, here came newspapermen, plenty of them. And finally they said, "Where's the hall?" "Right here." And they said, "What kind of an outfit is this?" JOHNSON: After Truman told you that Hannegan was going to do this, did he add any more comment to it? How did he react to that? Was he willing to be SANDERS: Vice President? Well, certainly he was willing; he expected to be Vice President. JOHNSON: You know Franklin Roosevelt called him from San Diego, to that suite there in the Blackstone, I think it was, and Truman hedged around. SANDERS: I don't know about that. By the way, Canfil got so he came to see me quite often; he stayed at my farm -- the only place I ever knew him to stay anyplace, with anybody. He came here, and we'd butcher a hog and he'd stay two or three days, sometimes here and sometimes at the farm. JOHNSON: When was the first time you went to Washington, D.C.? SANDERS: Oh, it was after Truman had been President for a few months. Vivian Truman and Canfil and I went to Washington in a car. We got in town and called the White House. They said, "Come to the West Gate." We were driving Canfil's car; he was a United States Marshal. We got to the West Gate. Anyhow we had no trouble getting in. We drove in under those big trees. Canfil locked his car very tight, and then we went in the office building, as I recall it. We went into the President's Oval Office you read so much about. Truman said, "I'm glad you've come; I've got my work done for this afternoon." We just visited a little bit. Steve Early, who had been Roosevelt's secretary, was very popular, so he was Truman's secretary. President Truman said he had put some honor on him. He said, "Steve says he's got to quit me and try to make a living for his family." He was going to be a manager of a Pullman car -- I believe. And then shortly he says, "Steve, show the boys the swimming pool." We just walked out of the Oval Office to the swimming pool which connected the mansion and the office building. They told us that that was built by newspapermen. They raised the money, so Roosevelt could take exercise in it. "Come on," said Canfil. Then Early said, "I expect some of Mrs. Roosevelt's swimming suits are in the bathroom; go on and swim if you want to." I never swam on the farm, never wanted to. "Come on," Canfil said. We found some suits of some kind and we got in that pool. I'll tell you what it was 85 degree temperature, about four feet deep, could see a dime on the bottom of it, just right. We got in there and hollered and yelled like country people, I reckon. Here came two Secret Service men. They just stood in the door and looked at us. I just imagine they thought, "What kind of an outfit is this?" And they turned and went away. Well, anyhow that was it. We went back to the Oval Office. All this happened one afternoon. The President said, "Steve, show them the Cabinet Room." As I recall, we came out of his Oval Office, through what was Rose Conway's office then, and into the Cabinet Room. This Cabinet Room had a table there so designed that you could see everybody. You were facing everybody at the table. They said it was donated by someone who had been in Congress or something from Texas; they had given them that table. Well, I was never one to pick up souvenirs or anything, but there was some note paper on the table, and I just reached to pick up a slice of it, and put it in my pocket. Somebody tapped me on the shoulder. "Oh my God," I said. I turned and it was Truman. He said, "Ted, do you want me to autograph that to someone for you?" "Yes, my daughter Dixie." So he wrote, 'Best wishes, Dixie Rose Sanders, daughter of my good friend Ted Sanders." That was my experience, all in the first day. Then the President said, "Let's go over and see the women." That's his wife and Margaret. They were staying at the Blair House until they could redecorate the White House. So, we walked across there. At the Blair House, Margaret and Mrs. Truman of course came in; it was a family affair. Pretty soon the President said, "Bess, have you got a place for these boys to sleep?" She said, "Yes." I said, "Oh no, no, no, now wait a minute. We've already asked Rose to get us a reservation at the Wardman Park Hotel." He said, "Well, it's just as well. I couldn't visit with you tonight anyhow. I've got to know what's in this book by 8 o'clock in the morning." He handed me the book on the Yalta Conference, a leather-bound book -- I'd say about six inches each way, and about oh, reasonably thick. He said, "I've got to know what's in that by 8 o'clock. I'm going to meet Molotov in the morning, but you boys be here and have lunch with us tomorrow. Come to the gate about 11:30 and come by yourself or together; it doesn't make any difference." So we had lunch that day at the Blair House with them, and we stayed three days, I think it was. Well there was a man by the name of [William D.] Simmons. I'd call him a receptionist; he had been there 25 years under three presidents. He was very gracious. One morning I dropped in there, and he said, "Would you like to see the Cabinet come in?" I said, "Yes." Anyhow, they walked right by the hall where I was sitting, which was just something a lot of people don't get to do. I expect it was the next day that President Truman said, "Ted, would you like to go through the mansion?" I said, "Yes." I went in. A few minutes later here came a colored man, and Truman said, "He will go over with you." We walked right out of the Oval Office, right along the bathroom into what I would call the back door of the White House, the mansion. There was a man at the door to meet me, and apparently we were the only ones there. Well, he was just as gracious to me as if I had been there all the time. He went to take me through, and I think went on the elevator upstairs. This is where he made the fireside chat talks. There was the ping pong room, and then the Lincoln bed. It had several mattresses on it, and a canopy and all on it. In the bathroom to that, was a kind of a six-sided bathtub, the only one I ever saw like it. He said, "The Roosevelts liked pictures; they weren't housekeepers, and so they didn't have these pictures framed. They just tacked them on the wall, just as close as they could get together. Of course," he said, "they had been here 18 years." Somebody had taken the pictures down, and of course the walls were soiled underneath there. It was the same day that I had lunch two hours before. At that point, here came Mrs. Truman and Margaret in the front door and he went to talk to them. So there I was, wandering just free around there as you'd be if you were home. Meanwhile, Canfil had come in and said, "Where's Ted?" They said, "Over at the mansion." So he came storming in that door by himself like he had a right to. He said, "Come here, I want to show you something." We went up the stairs to the Lincoln Room and he -- a big man -- jumped right in the middle of that bed. Later he slept in it all night. JOHNSON: Do you remember the date of that? When did that happen? SANDERS: Truman would have had to have been in about three months or so. It was in the different papers. The Associated Press had it the next day, saying, Missouri Boys Swim in the President's Pool." JOHNSON: Was Vivian Truman there? SANDERS: He was there, but he didn't go into the swimming pool. JOHNSON: Okay, I've got a date of April 19, 1945. That would be only a week after he became President. SANDERS: Well, that could be it then. JOHNSON: This must be it? SANDERS: It could be it. It was soon after he was President. The Roosevelts had just moved out. JOHNSON: Yes, right. You mentioned the Blair House. That was when they were living in the Blair House waiting for the Roosevelts to move out. SANDERS: That's right. JOHNSON: I see. SANDERS: This was so great. This is a pretty big story I'm telling you. I've never heard anybody else refer to those things. This man said, "I'm going to show you something very few people know we have; that's the bomb shelter." He said, "We stopped all building in Washington when we built this bomb shelter. We took all the concrete and steel there was in Washington. These walls have three feet of concrete and steel; the top has three feet of concrete and steel, a space of three feet, then another three feet of concrete and steel." I went in it. This motor is supposed to filter this air for 48 hours to take care of 200 people. Then he said, "Here's the motion picture room." Now I'm just not straight on this. I walked up among the machinery, and as I recall, I believe they were using the bomb shelter as a hall for the pictures. I don't remember. So then he took me in the kitchen. You could see the top of old style ranges, just as close together as they could be, the fire boxes and the stove tops of old style ranges. They extended, oh, twelve feet here and eight feet this way. Of course, the ice cream packer was there; each one had a lock on it. I said, "Where do they buy their food" He said, "Oh, the chef buys the food anyplace she wants to buy it. When the first Lady is here -- the President's wife -- they usually take what they have up and let her pick the menu. Now the Roosevelts had lots of help. But," he said, "Mr. Truman doesn't have the money." So he said, "The President has to pay this help, so he doesn't have much help; and, if he has a dinner and has one Republican, that's a non-political meeting. So that way we try to have a non-political meeting." I'll tell you what I did. I sat down in that Cabinet Room and wrote letters to anybody I wanted to write to, on that Cabinet stationery. And I mailed them out of there. JOHNSON: How many days were you there on that occasion? SANDERS: I think three days. But I was back often after that. When I was there, I heard them talking. Truman didn't say this. They said they were going to buy horses for Europe -- for Poland, and for Turkey, to give to these people to farm with. On the way home I said to Canfil and Vivian -- of course Canfil never had been a farmer at all -- "We might as well furnish some of those horses," because I'd always had farm horses and traded horses. I'm not big at all. It wasn't many days until I think Vivian called me, and said, "Say, they're buying horses." "Is that right?" There was a big horse market in Kansas City then. Ferd Owens had a big market. Vivian said, "Yes, Ferd's got an order." Ferd was a smart horseman, and he was clever. I'm talking about 40 years ago. They had a market then, every Monday from September to April in Kansas City. They sold mules there, and people came from Tennessee and those areas and bought a carload of mules every Monday. Anyway, he had a big market. I think he had an order for maybe a thousand head. Of course, Vivian and them knew it. Well, anyhow, we discussed it. It was new to us. President Truman wasn't helping; he didn't know anything about it. We weren't referring to it. Anyhow we got an order for 300 horses, and sold them to the Government. Vivian went back and he said to Truman, "Ted and the boys [Vivian's sons] are to sell some horses to the Government." He said, "Hey, hey, hey; it's all right for Ted to sell the Government horses, but not our boys. We don't want another Teapot Dome." Well, you remember Teapot Dome? JOHNSON: Yes. He wouldn't let Vivian then sell horses to the Government? SANDERS: His boys, not Vivian. JOHNSON: Oh, the boys. SANDERS: Vivian's sons I was referring to. "It's all right for Ted." At this time Roy Johnston was a very close friend of mine, an auctioneer and very popular. He was going to stand in with me. I think we got one order for 300 or 400 horses. He said, "Ted, I've got to take care of my auction business." It was running big then. JOHNSON: What year is this about? SANDERS: About 1947 or '48. And there was Finus Moss, a very good friend of Roy's, and a horseman. So, all right. I learned a little about the business; these were smart horsemen, like Ferd Owens; they had to use horse trading sense, getting those orders. So I got this first order. What they do is to publicize the order. Say, they are going to buy 20,000 horses; they just bought horses first, no mules. Let's see, they were mares first; they had to be just mares. It was right at the time that the tractors were coming in, and horses were going out. We had to sell them to the Government for $75 a head; we had to buy them cheap enough to compensate for that. I went on a train to Washington. You put in your offer to sell; you filed it with the Agriculture Department, up to say 2 o'clock on Thursday. The bid would be opened at 10 oclock the next morning; that is, the offers to sell. They would take it from the low prices. As I say, I went on the train the first and second time and learned a little about it. I found out that that took about a day and a night. So the next time I went on the plane. When I went to Washington I just called the White House and Rose Conway, and she said, "Come out." So I went. I didn't see the President. Matt Connelly was his secretary, and we visited. On one occasion I said, "Matt, there is a double-cross from one of the fellows that's buying the horses for the Government." JOHNSON: This is the third trip to Washington, and you were talking to Matt Connelly. SANDERS: I said, "Say, you call so and so about those horses." And he said, "Ted, you can't do that." I said, "I don't mean that..." He said, "Put this down; you can't believe any one person in Washington." He stressed it to me. Well, anyhow he did call someone. I made an appointment for 9 o'clock the next day to meet this man. I went to his office. He had a couple of secretaries come in, and about the first thing they did was get their nail polish out and so forth. And here came the porter in, a colored man, and they said, "John, go get us some coffee and some rolls or some donuts or something." They looked like that's the way they were working. And then this man came in, and somebody with him. He didn't know whether they were even buying the horses. He was the man that was kind of paying for them. He didn't even know what their offers were, or the man that was accepting these offers. So I finally figured that out. A friend of his, it developed, was from Mississippi or someplace. And he said, "You go out with this boy." We went out to some office in town, and I said, "Say, I came in connection with the specifications about the horses." I think he said, "Well, if you don't like it, why don't you just don't put in your offer?" This man that was with me said, "I'm the man that's paying for the horses." He was speaking for his friend, you know. I found out what had happened. There was a horse market in port Smith, Fort Worth, Omaha, Wichita, and this Owens in Kansas City. He came to Kansas City, and this Owens was smart; he was sharp as a tack -- anything to get the business. What he had done, in effect, was to say, "Old Boy, now I'm going to take care of you. I'm going to give you a dollar and a half a head for every horse I get." Offhand, you wouldn't think that was much, but he was getting an order for a thousand. That worked out. So what we had been doing is laying down this offer to sell: "We'll sell you 600 horses at $73," and he laid it on the desk. He had Owens' blank offer to sell, and he'd just fill it out about $1 a head cheaper than what we were offering, don't you see, or what other people offered. I tumbled with that, and after I talked to this fellow, I went back and said to one of the other higher-up men, "Say, we're getting the go-around." So the next day and every time after that, those offers had to be sealed. And this guy lost his job. Then the horsemen got to meeting there and discussed what we could pay for horses. Well, this Owens couldn't be honest, and they were trying to just settle with me. I bid most of it. They tried to get me satisfied to take 300 and they get 1,000, don't you see. They would put in a certain price and take into consideration what it would cost for the difference in freight rate. I saw that. So the next time they had a meeting and went over to put in these offers to sell, I went on the plane, again, you understand. Of course, I went to the White House when I got there. Now Truman didn't know a darn thing about it; I didn't talk to anyone at the White House about the horse business. But I went out to the White House. Owens told somebody, "Why, he gets over there with a newspaper in his pocket and a pencil behind his ear and goes right to the White House." He was talking about me; didn't hurt me any you see. Anyhow, I know on one occasion I called Rose Conway. She said, "What are you going to do this afternoon?" I said, "I don't have anything to do." Do you want to sit in on a press conference?" I said, "Yes." She said, "Be here at 1:30." At 1:30 a colored man came in, and said, "They're coming in now." He opened her door. The President was at the desk there, and he had a meeting of, oh, I suppose 40 newspapermen who came in the other door. There was some note paper on the table. I'd forgot that, but I've got a bunch of boxes in a cupboard back there, and the other day I looked at them. I guess Dixie wrote down "Press Conference That Daddy..." in these papers. Those things are just little things. JOHNSON: Do you remember when that was? Do you remember the date or when that press conference was? Did you happen to write it down? SANDERS: No, but those papers are in there. JOHNSON: What were your impressions of that press conference? Was it really interesting to you? SANDERS: Oh yes, they were asking the President questions, and he was answering. These papers that I picked out were put there before the conference. It must be the subjects they were going to discuss. I didn't think so much about it. JOHNSON: This was a press conference in the Oval Office? SANDERS: Yes. JOHNSON: Was it kind of crowded, do you recall? SANDERS: Oh, I don't know. DIXIE ROSE POLLARD (Sanders' daughter): Did you tell him about Canfil and the Potsdam Conference? SANDERS: He took Canfil with him. In fact, there's a letter here from Canfil in those letters. POLLARD: Tells about it. SANDERS: He sent me a German mark with it. Then when he came back to see us, he said, "I got along fine with Stalin." He'd be just as harsh and tough as Stalin would, you know. Anyhow Truman thought enough of him that he had him with him. Canfil discusses with me what they talked about. JOHNSON: What was Canfil's impression of Stalin? SANDERS: Oh, he said, "We got along fine." He said Stalin was just about as rough I guess as Canfil and Canfil was just as rough as Stalin. He had a nice visit. POLLARD: Canfil, from a child's opinion; you know Canfil was just about as big and gruff and like a bulldog. But there was a softness about him too. There was a softness about Canfil. Daddy, what was the time you were at the farm and they called from Washington and Canfil... SANDERS: Oh. I went down to Kansas City one day and Canfil said, "Ted, Dan Mees is quitting." He was head of the Revenue Department in West Missouri. "Who have you got for the Revenue Department?" I said, "Oh, I don't know." He said, "Hell's bells" -- that was his byword -- "haven't you got somebody? What about your man [Carl K.] Connell?" Canfil used to come up here and stay two or three days at a time. He took quite a fancy to Dixie; she was just in high school then. JOHNSON: We should mention that Dixie is your daughter; we'll get it on the record. POLLARD: Dixie Rose Pollard. SANDERS: Anyhow, he came up here so commonplace. This dairy man was English; we called it the Dairy. They made ice cream. He had been there sixty years in business and stayed open late nights; so when a friend came up we'd go down to George's office. And Connell was the hardware man here. Back in WPA times he called here one time to see me and told my wife he was going to Kansas City, and he wanted to see me. I had met Connell once before in 1919. John W. Davis was running for President in 1920 and that's when Harding was elected. Anyhow my father and I were going over to Brunson; they were going to have this convention over there and John Davis was going to speak. Nelson was going to be elected Governor we thought sure. Well, right at that time, the Ku Klux Klan came out, and this mixes up the thing. It met down there someplace and Doc Nelson and some friends of his thought they would go over and see what this Klan is doing. So the next day the papers had it that Nelson had joined the Klan, and it killed him for Governor right quick. Davis came and made a speech on Nelson's farm, and there were 50,000 people there. I remember they had a tent. I remember Davis speaking; he said, "If the time ever comes that I can't practice the religion taught at my mother's knee, I hope my tongue cleaves to the roof of my mouth and my hands fall palsied to my side." He was trying to front for Doc Nelson, don't you see. Well, it got so bad that Doc Nelson jumped in the pool and drowned himself. JOHNSON: Which Nelson are you... SANDERS: Doc Nelson. He was then the contender for Governor, but that killed him, just going to that meeting. I met John Alexander; he was our Congressman then, and a very popular Congressman. He lived in Gallatin. Well, this Connell, a young man, was driving him over to Brunson, and to Lexington. When we reached the river there was no bridge so we had to go on a ferry. We put our car on a ferry. Well, my father was friendly to Congressman Alexander, and Connell was driving. Then years passed. That would have been '19 and now we're getting up to '34, 15 years later. Tom came to the house and said, "Your man Connell was here to see you; he's going to Kansas City and he'll call you tonight." Well, my brother lived in that community and he had visited Connell. Connell had this store and times were tough, so he wanted to manage the WPA in Davis County. My brother said, "See Ted." Well, then he called and said, "Say, I want you to meet me. Can you come to Kansas City tomorrow?" I said, "Yes." Of course I suspicioned what he wanted; he hadn't told me. I'll say this -- if you call me and want me, I don't ask you what you want; you want me when you call. I said, "Yes, I'll meet you at the courthouse steps." "All right." He told me he wanted this job. So we went right up to Canfil's office. I said, "This is our man. He's one of our men and he wants that job." So he called the St. Joe office which was head of this district, and told the man, "Say, put Carl K. Connell to handle the WPA in Davis County." The man argued with him. He said, "Hell's bells, this is our man; give your man something else." Well, Connell then handled WPA. So getting back now to Canfil's visiting up here, you see years have passed, and Connell had got to be a thrifty businessman. We went in and visited a little every time he'd come up here. Canfil might buy a skillet or something. Then, getting back to Dan Fees. Canfil said, "What about your man Connell?" "You couldn't beat him." And they couldn't because Republicans and Democrats, everybody, liked him. So I came back the next Wednesday to see Connell and he said that Canfil had called him last night, and told him to come down, so he went to see Canfil." Well years back I said to Canfil, "Come up, we're going to butcher a hog on the farm," and he'd come. And I guess it was the first butchering he'd seen, but I kept one hog. We rendered the lard. When he started home, I put it in his car. From then on about every time he'd say, 'When are we going to kill?" He'd be up here. Well, somebody from Lathrop, a little town down here, was butchering some hogs. So I took some hogs down there to have them do the killing. Canfil came up and we drove down that day. They'd butcher in a little room, and stand around, telling me to help cut something. Somebody came and said that there was a call for Canfil from Washington. Well, I had a friend then by the name of Powell, and he might have been around there, a very close friend. I mean he got to be a friend of Canfil up here; he came up every night. We went down to Powell's house, where he could call Washington. He talked to somebody there. I'll never forget. He said, "This man Connell, he and Bill would make a great team." This friend of mine had a recording in there, getting all this. In a day or two I said -- I swore -- "Tear that up; Jesus Christ, if Canfil knew you had a recording of that, he'd hate us the rest of his life." He destroyed that. Well, anyhow Connell got the job. POLLARD: Excuse me for interrupting, but the one I was trying to remind you of -- when they called mother here to get hold of Canfil and he came to town. There was some crucial world event that was going to happen. And he had to leave from here, don't you remember? He told mother that a lot hinged on this, because Truman told him to get with him. He said, "I've got to go to the Boss," or whatever he called the President. You'll think of it in a minute. SANDERS: I don't remember. JOHNSON: I guess now we've touched on your visit there in 1945, in April. Do you know a Walter Batts, or a George Sanders? SANDERS: No. JOHNSON: How about a Frank Land? POLLARD: I knew Frank Land. The Frank Land I think you're talking about is Land-Sharp Chevrolet. And he was the father of DeMolay. His widow is still alive if you want to know. JOHNSON: Well, I've got on the record that you visited the Oval Office in April 1945, and now you tell me you were back there a couple of times, at least twice, or more times than that. SANDERS: Oh, I went to the White House a dozen times I reckon. I don't think I had any more visits with him in the Oval Office. Of course, I went to Rose Conway's office. In fact, I recall the White House on different occasions. I've never told this story before, but it happened that way. I didn't know any better. I'll tell you what happened. It gets bigger as I talk to you. Life Magazine has an article; it said . POLLARD: I've got that magazine. SANDERS: It said, "This man Truman has met more people since he's been in office than Roosevelt did in four years, from Anthony Eden, Prime Minister of England, to Ted Sanders, livestock dealer and politician from Clinton County in Missouri." That was in Life magazine. Now, I'm going to make this awful big. I'm going to make it awful big to you now. I've never made this speech before. JOHNSON: Okay. SANDERS: Sounds so big. One day I was sitting in Rose's office and the switchboard was just through the wall. A girl came in and I'd been around enough, so these girls knew who I was. She said, "Rose, is Mr. Sanders here?" "Yes " "Telephone." I picked up the telephone, "Hello." "Mr. Sanders?" I said, "Yes." He said, "I don't suppose you remember me; I'm Colonel Voss. I was your county agent in Caldwell County, Missouri three and a half years ago. "Oh, yes, colonel I remember you." "I saw where you live and thought I'd just like to call up and talk to you." Well, that pretty well knocked me off my arm chair. POLLARD: And that was the night that Mr. Truman left you to read his papers to get ready for the meeting with Molotov. SANDERS: I told him about that. JOHNSON: Did you open the book? SANDERS: No, I don't suppose I did. I might have; I could if I wanted to. I don't suppose I did. JOHNSON: How about the convention of 1948? Were you there? In Philadelphia wasn't it? SANDERS: No, I didn't go. JOHNSON: Any other visits that stand out in your memory, any other visits to Washington? SANDERS: Went to the inauguration. There were four of us that went from here: Connell and Raymond Kimes and Roland Powell, a friend of mine from Lathrop. We went up to the inauguration. JOHNSON: The names again? SANDERS: C. K. Connell, Raymond Kimes, and Roland Powell of Lathrop. We went to the inauguration; went on this special train out of Kansas City. Of course, Canfil got my reservation for me and had it in the hotel, the best hotel. But when Powell decided to go, we said to Canfil we needed another room. Well, all the rooms were taken but there were some private homes; so he got a reservation in a private home. Well, on the way over there, Connell met a man on the train who he knew quite well. This fellow was lost. When we got off the train, and went to the hotel, I said, "Now, wait, let's get straightened out here." They took me up to this room where I had a reservation, a big room, with two beds. I said to the clerk, "Can we get another bed in here" He said, "Yes, we can put another bed in there." So I said to Connell, "you stay right here and let your friend have this reservation out at this house, don't you see." We were there a little while and Canfil was over at the headquarters at the Mayflower Hotel. Canfil called and said, "Get over here right quick." I went over and of course he was head of everything when he was around; he'd just push everybody back. There were people around the office who didn't like him because he was Truman's friend and hed hear what talk was going on. He might call someone and say, "What are you trying to do to this man?" and give him the devil. Or hed go over and not knock; he just went on in. I got over there. "Come here," he said. "Now what have we got?" I said. He took me off in the room there, and he gave me a block of tickets to this inauguration, and to all different things. I had a pocket full. And at that time you see they thought that Tom Dewey was going to be elected President. The Congress before sets up the plan for the seats there, the program for it. Well, the Republican Congress thought Dewey was a cinch to be elected and they spent more money than they had ever spent to put on this inauguration. When he got beat, why, the hotels were set up for a big feed. The story was then around that they had got furs to sell the women that came, and there was supposed to be a big time with those New York and California people coming to see Dewey sworn in. Then came this bunch like us from Missouri. We hit those hamburger stands. Now this is no exaggeration; we'd go into one of those pretty fair-class places and they would just kind of give us the cold shoulder. As I say, we were so cocky; I had seats for everything. I've never told this to anybody. The night before the inauguration I was talking to a couple of women. Well, one was a reporter for one of the New York papers. Of course, we discussed the thing that happened. They couldn't go up to the inauguration. I said, "I've got seats for the inauguration; you come on to the inauguration." One of these women worked at the -- what is the big building there? POLLARD: Pentagon. SANDERS: Pentagon Building. She invited me out. She said, "I'd like to take you through." She said 3,500 people work there. I should have taken her up on it, but I didn't. She was very gracious. The next morning they came down there and I think they brought their nephew with them. I told them I had a bloc of seats. Well, we went out to this thing and we sat just as close to the inauguration as to that open door right there. Then, the next day this woman who worked at the Pentagon said, "Do you boys want to go up to Mount Vernon? I'll come and take you." I'd been out there; I didn't care. So she took Connell, Kimes, and Powell out on that trip that day. It went on for ten years, twelve years. I got a letter from this woman. She had got divorced and married a man in Houston. Her sister, Liz, had bought the paper in Houston, and she enclosed a column that Liz had in her paper when Kennedy was elected President. It recalled her opportunity to attend the Truman inauguration, thanks to some Missouri friends. This woman wrote a long column about it. I thought it was kind of unusual, you know. JOHNSON: Did you shake Truman's hand in the reception line? I think he had a reception line at the Armory. POLLARD: You know when you went to the Armory after the inauguration? Did you shake Truman's hand in that line? SANDERS: No, I dont think so. In the first place, it was $10 to get into that Armory, into the hall, or $20, and then they said they had 500 seats. Well, they sold 1,500 and they just kept selling seats. Well, it was so darned thick in there. One of our fellows, Kimes, went. He was really invited by our Governor. He was a colonel on the staff of Governor [Forrest] Smith. They were going to have some kind of a drill the next day and he wore his 5-star general suit. Well, that night we drove out to this Armory, and it was so thick, so thick, that you could hardly stand. Of course, Truman wasn't there very long. They had several of those meetings to go to. JOHNSON: Did you meet him during the second term very often? SANDERS: No, not often. JOHNSON: Then when he came back home I suppose you got to visit him in Independence. SANDERS: I never did. When he got back, I told my friend Powell of Lathrop, a very close friend of mine, "You take Truman a turkey." He took it down there, and the guard said, "I've already heard about this." And they took it over. The next year he took it down, the guard said, "You go over and put it in the ice box." On one occasion he went over and Mrs. Truman came in. Harry was asleep, but she said he might get up in a little bit. Well, Powell was one of these nice looking fellows that would visit with anybody. He spent quite a bit of time in the kitchen with Mrs. Truman, but Harry didn't wake up. After he died, we could not leave Mrs. Truman out. Dixie, my daughter, took a turkey to Mrs. Truman following that, and has up to even this Christmas. JOHNSON: How many letters do you have there would you say? SANDERS: Oh gracious, I don't know. POLLARD: He probably has 40. JOHNSON: Most of these are from Mr. Truman? POLLARD: They are from Mr. and Mrs. Truman. SANDERS: I know I have 47, because I got one every time, thanking for the turkey. JOHNSON: What's your earliest letter there would you say? SANDERS: There's one letter in there I think about '36 or '37. I didn't keep them Senator letters; they may be in some drawers. JOHNSON: Let me know if you have any of those. We have very few during the first term. If you have any letters, especially during that first term, we'd be interested in copying them. Have you copied or xeroxed any of these letters? POLLARD: I should. SANDERS: One letter is in here, that I thought was quite personal. It thanked me and said, "Ted, looks like you're always thinking of us, and we're usually thinking of you." I thought that was pretty nice, coming from the President. POLLARD: One time I went to Mrs. Truman's at Christmastime, and I said, "Well, I brought your turkey." You know, she's very matter of fact; she said, "Well, I knew Ted wouldn't forget me." JOHNSON: When was the last time you went? POLLARD: Just this last year. And I was very close to Rose Conway. In fact, I was with her on the day before she died. That doesn't make any difference. But anyway, it got to the point where she just called the Secret Service and said, "Dixie is coming," and that was all right. When she got sick I didn't want to bother, so I'd call the Secret Service and that would be fine. Well, on one of these Christmas times we were having terribly cold snowy days. I live in Kansas City. I called them and I said, "I'm going to bring the turkey." Well just then it started to snow. I started out and the street were so slick. So I turned around, came home, and called. They said, "You know, we thought of that after you put down the phone, that you shouldn't have started out on the highway." So anyway, that delayed us like three days. Well, finally the sun came out and the snow was knee high, and I said, "We've got to get that turkey over there." I don't think they ever cooked it until February. They always cooked that turkey when Margaret came and Margaret used to come in January or February. She never came during the holidays. We went in the back door, and do you know the snow hadn't been scooped. I thought, "There's a moral to this; it doesn't make any difference if you're a President or ex-President's wife of the United States, you don't always have all the fine things in life." I wondered why didn't somebody clean that sidewalk or steps or porch. Anyway, I didn't see her this last Christmas, but I got to see her every other Christmas. The lady that's taking care of her has always been hospitable to me. JOHNSON: Why, I want to thank you for the information. It was great talking to you. SANDERS: You're welcome; I may think of other things. POLLARD: You've missed the best story on Canfil. And you're going to think of it tonight, because remember mother was so worried when they called and said, "We must get ahold of Canfil." She got in the car and came out, and he wanted to come up here and use this phone because he didn't want to be on the party line. SANDERS: I'll tell you, Canfil called one day when they were campaigning for Truman for Vice President, that is, after the nomination. Canfil called one day and said, "Ted, Senator [Carl A.] Hatch is here." He said, "Do you want to go with us on a two or three-day trip?" "Yes. He said, "We'll be there at 10 o'clock." Of course, Senator Hatch was the daddy of the Hatch Act you know. He was the Senator from New Mexico. A smart man. We left here and went to Macon; stayed all night in Macon. Canfil said, "Now don't give him a drink, Ted. Don't have anything to drink now; he'll drink too much.' We got into Macon and got a hotel room. At that time cigarettes were rationed or something; you couldn't go into a grocery store and buy them. Hatch just went out and started up and down the street, went in a grocery store and came back with several packages of cigarettes under his arm. He never mentioned it, and I didn't either of course. The next night we stayed in Moberly, and of course, Canfil was riding herd over everything. Again Hatch made a trip around getting those cigarettes. Never a word said. The next night we were going to stay at Marshall. That evening I went around and got some cigarettes, and I came back and handed them to Hatch. I never said a word. Marshall is in Saline County; that's one of the good counties. It publicized that Hatch was going to be there and there was a big crowd. I mean a. big crowd. There were a couple of committeewomen there, too. I asked them, "Do you want to meet him?" "Ye s " "I'll take you; come over to the hotel when this is over." So, we were at the hotel a little bit, and Hatch went to his room. Canfil said, "Well, better go to bed." I said, "Yes," and I went up. He turned the key in his door, and I was next door. He went in and I went right back down. I thought these women would be over there, and here they came. Of course, if Canfil knew I was going back, why, he would have ostracized me. I went back, and I was just crass enough. I just went up and knocked on Hatch's door; I had these two women, committeewomen. He was in the bathroom, I think. He came out, and there they are, the committeewomen. He was just as grateful as he could be. They said, "Well, Senator, you have to meet people." They were having a party out at their house, and said we should go out there. I don't remember the conversation. Hatch was ready to go. He went out; it was a nice big home, with a basement bar. After a while, we came back to the hotel. The next morning Canfil was up and said to the clerk, "You had a big party down here last night, didn't you?" The clerk replied, "No, we didn't have any party." "Sounded like you had a big party here last night." The clerk said, "No, we didn't have any party at all." Hatch never said a word about it; I didn't either. Later, Truman made Hatch the Federal Judge of New Mexico. This friend of mine in Lathrop -- his sister worked there for the Government, and we decided to go to Albuquerque. We went out to see the judge. We went in and his secretary was there and she said he'd be hack in a little bit. We went back, and he was very gracious. He said, "And how is Fred?'° I said, "Oh, I saw him just before I came over here." He said, "He couldn't help but be a policeman could he?" And that was the last time I saw Canfil. When I got back he had had a heart attack and died. I'll tell you a pretty big story. After the Postmaster here died, Canfil said, "Ted, who have you got for Postmaster?" I said, "I don't know." He said, "Hell's bells; get somebody out there." Well, my friend at the dairy; he never was particularly in politics, but he had a son who was an ex-soldier. He said to his father, "Say, we want to make so and so Postmaster up here." Well, that evening Canfil talked to my friend at the dairy who told him about this man for Postmaster. When I talked to him, Canfil said, "Well, we'll put in Jay Marcus," who was at that time a mail carrier. But before he left, Canfil said, "Ted, it's whoever you want to put in there." Well, anyhow we put in this other fellow. It's a good thing we did because this Jay Marcus got elected to something else. But what I'm getting at is Canfil just handled the situation. Oh, what I was going to tell you. One night he was here, and we were going to the farm. I said, "Mr. Canfil, you know friends are about the best thing we've got in this world," I said, "Every business success I've had and every pleasure I've had, of any importance, I'd have to give some credit to friendly connections." He said, "Yes, there are just two people I've ever been close to -- you and Harry Truman." I thought that was a pretty big compliment. On another matter, Truman's mother put a mortgage on their farm and Canfil and Truman both signed the mortgage and neither one of them had anything. JOHNSON: Wasn't that in that 1934 campaign you're talking about? SANDERS: Yes. JOHNSON: They mortgaged the farm? SANDERS: And I know Canfil more than once drove to Washington when Truman was Senator and Truman rode back with him in the car. Truman had a pillow in the back seat and he rode in the back of the car. This Canfil was so odd. I went to Washington a time or two in the car with him. He did all the driving. We might be just driving along, getting along fine and he'd just pull into a station and tell the fellow, "Change the oil." JOHNSON: He'd always insist on doing the driving? SANDERS: Yes; he did all the driving. One night -- maybe this was my first trip to Washington -- I was ready to get home. We were at Columbia in the evening time. Anyway, he just pulled into one of these places and said we were going to stay all night. POLLARD: He was as "in-charge" a person as I've ever seen. SANDERS: He was the most powerful man in the nation next to the President. JOHNSON: What happened when he didn't get his way? How would he act? Or did he always get his way? SANDERS: He got it. POLLARD: That's the thing. Now I want to tell you. You probably know of Rose Conway. Of course, one thing, she never wrote a book. She never would. In fact, she told me about two or three weeks before she died, "If only these walls could talk." I know that she had a lot of things; she promised, I think, that she would never do it. Anyway, I think he probably was the gruffest man she ever met. She was always very complimentary of Daddy, and, of course, of Vivian, and a whole lot of people. But whenever I'd mention Canfil, she would kind of shudder. It was just kind of like he was so overpowering. And another thing, he had first access to Truman, before his personal secretary. SANDERS: Oh yes. POLLARD: Oh yes, I mean there was Canfil and Truman and then Rose. Of course, Rose was very close to him and loyal as anybody who ever was. JOHNSON: But he never tried to push Truman into doing something he knew Truman wouldn't like to do? SANDERS: No, Canfil was clean as a hound's tooth. He was honest. JOHNSON: He knew Truman well enough that he wouldn't ask him to do anything he did not want to do? SANDERS: As I say, I think Truman was closer to Canfil than he was to his brother. POLLARD: His question was, though, that he wouldn't have pushed Truman into something that Truman wouldn't want to have done. SANDERS: Oh no, no, no, no. JOHNSON: Did Rose Conway ever say that she promised not to write? POLLARD: No, she never said that to me. But I think -- never to Truman did she ever promise that, no. But I think within herself, you know. I think that within her own life, she just lived on her happy memories. JOHNSON: We have a few of her papers but they don't deal with personal relationships. Thanks again, very much. [Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]
Alexander, John, 60-61 Batts, Walter, 65 Canfil, Fred, 5, 7, 9, 14-16, 29, 32, 33, 35-37, 38-41, 43-44, 58, 62-64, 68-70, 78-82, 83-86, 87
[Top of the Page | Notices and Restrictions | Interview Transcript | List of Subjects Discussed]
|
