Harry Truman in Claremore
for Memorial opening

People in Memorial Archives photo Noel Kaho, Truman and Paula Love.


It’s a little-known fact.

Harry S Truman, America’s 33rd president, visited Claremore not once, but two times.

The first was as a United States Senator; the occasion the Nov. 4, 1938 dedication of the Will Rogers Memorial.

The second; 10 years later on a “Whistle Stop” presidential campaign.

State Sen. Sean Burrage made this discovery recently while visiting the Truman Library in Independence, Mo., with his tween-age son, Truman (yes, he is named for Harry and the Burrage’s younger son is Carter, named for Jimmy Carter).

Burrage’s son campaigned with him so he has an understanding of the political process not usual for an 11-yea-old as well as knowledge of the history for the man whose name he carries.

An interactive display in the Library has the 1948 “Whistle Stops” laid out. Visitors press a town button to hear the speech delivered by Truman from the train’s rear platform.

Burrage, who was visiting the Library for the first time, punched in Claremore and Chelsea and found quality of the recordings difficult to understand. His fascination with what he could understand of the message led him to the Library website to access the entire speech read from the train’s rear platform.

Two things about the stops are amazing to the first-term Oklahoma Senator.

“We’re just a blip on the map for candidates now,” he said, and to think Truman had been here twice and “that a person from Missouri went on to be president.”

Burrage calls Truman “almost an accidental president.” He was part of a controversial Democrat party group and served as a Senator from Missouri 1935-45

He was tapped as a running made for President Franklin Roosevelt in 1944. He took the oath of office in January 20, 1945 and 82 days later was sworn in as president when Roosevelt died.

Campaigning on the train was in Truman’s day akin to Internet and television for today’s candidates, said Burrage.

Another amazing discovery in his search for the full script of his Rogers County speeches is the speech in Claremore was delivered from the “rear platform” at 5:20 p.m. At 6 p.m., he delivered his campaign address in Chelsea.

“You couldn’t do that now,” Burrarge exclaimed. By the time the entourage is rounded up, the motorcade started, “no way.” he said.

But even more amazing for Burrage and his son, was to read in his message 60 years ago from the train that it was his second time in Claremore.

Extolling the greatness of Will Rogers and the friendship the two shared with Vice President John Nance Garner, Truman told of the threesome often having lunch.

“I wish it were possible for me, but the time does not permit, to go to the memorial for this great man, and lay a wreath on that memorial to him. He was a terrific loss to this country. We all suffered.

“It is going to be my privilege now to present to Mrs. Paula Love, his niece, a wreath which I hope she will lay on the memorial for me.

“I was telling Mrs. Love, that I was here when the memorial was opened. I wasn’t so well known then, and I didn’t attract nearly as much attention as I do today.”

Paula Love, then Will Rogers Memorial director, presented Truman with a statuette of Will Rogers.

Almost all his talk in Claremore was about Will Rogers, quoting him and complimenting him for his “commonsense approach to things in this country, but he gave us a laugh every once in a while.”

A few minutes later in Chelsea, Truman also paid tribute to Will Rogers, telling about leaving the wreath and mentioning Will’s sister, Mrs. McSpadden (Sallie Rogers McSpadden).

He humbled himself saying it “is a compliment to the President of the United States to have you come out this way to see and hear what he has to say.” He focused on oil (found in Chelsea at 31 feet) and “the farm situation.”

He complained that the last Congress did everything they possibly could to “wreck the Democrat farm program, which has been effect since 1933.”

Diane Milam Wadley remembers that her father, Stuart Milam, helped raise money for Truman to continue his “Whistle Stop” campaign.