Sold – Harry Truman: The Contributions and Expenses of His 1934 Senatorial Race

In 1922, after Truman’s haberdashery business failed, Tom Pendergast, boss of the Democratic machine that ruled politics in Kansas City and western Missouri, asked him to run for office (the post was Western Judge for Jackson County). Truman came to Pendergast’s notice because his nephew had served with Truman in World War I and spoken highly of him.

Pendergast was a shrewd assayer of the vote-getting potentialities of aspirants to public office. He regarded Truman’s Baptist, Masonic, American Legion connections, and his war record as political assets. Truman was elected to the job (which was an administrative rather than judicial position). He was defeated when he ran for a second term in 1924, but came back in 1926 and was elected presiding judge, a post he held until he became a U. S. Senator. During his eight years in that office, he was noted for building a modern road system throughout the county. Despite his association with the Pendergast political organization, whose corruption was recognized, Truman established a reputation for personal honesty.

In 1934 Truman ran for the U.S. Senate; this was his first campaign for an office that would take him to Washington. Pendergast, needing a respectable name on his own slate to defeat Sen. Bennett Champ Clark’s candidate, agreed to support him. Truman won in the primary by a plurality of about 40,000 votes and later won the election. The machine support was extremely effective in both the primary and the general election, but Truman was his own man and not controlled by the party organization.

It is said that Pendergast never gave Truman a reason to answer him “no.” Rufus Burrus was a lawyer who lived just two blocks from the Wallace/Truman home in Independence. He was very familiar with Bess Wallace Truman and her family, and his Aunt Florence taught Harry to play the piano. Burrus met Truman in 1921 and is identifed by the Truman Library as his “longtime friend and attorney,” their relationship lasting until Truman died. Burrus handled many aspects of Truman’s legal affairs, including those during his 1934 Senate run. He was so familiar with Truman’s election and financial affairs, that David McCullough’s fine biography Truman quotes Burrus as saying of the 1940 Senate campaign, that funds were so low at one point that there was not money for a hotel room, so candidate Truman slept in his car. An extensive oral history interview with Burrus is in the Truman Library, along with some papers concerning him.

After Burrus’s death, his estate was sold, and we offer one item of particular interest from it – his executed attorney’s file copy of the official “Candidate’s Affidavit” filled out and filed by Truman on November 8, 1934 with the “Clerk of County Court, Jackson County, Mo.,” in connection with his 1934 Senatorial election. In it, Truman certifies that the form contains a list of “all sums of money contributed, disbursed, expended or promised by me…in connection with my election to the office of United States Senator…and the purposes for which all such sums were paid, expended or promised…”

There is a list of all 33 contributors to his campaign, and a showing that Truman received a paltry total of $889.50 in contributions. At least half of these were made by construction-related companies, which likely shows the Pendergast influence (Pendergast was himself in the cement business and cronies were in other aspects of construction). None of the contributors appear to be friends or relatives of the candidate. The largest contributions were made by Welch Sandler Cement Co. ($200), Swenson Construction ($100), James Hudgins ($65), Weeks More Construction Co. ($50), Fred Green ($50) and Ed Welch ($50). Under this list is the candidate’s statement of expenses – “To my necessary personal, traveling or subsistence expenses, or for stationery, postage, writing or printing. For the general election in November, 1934” – and his representation that he only spent $785.00 on the campaign. Below this Truman has signed. This is a one page legal-sized document, not notarized and undated, and is the copy Truman’s lawyer retained for his files (the other copy having been filed in accordance with law).

The Truman Library now has the notarized, filed copy, and it is dated November 8, 1934. It is otherwise identical to this, its apparent carbon copy. The number of contributors, the amount of contributions and the total of expenses seem ludicrous, even unbelievable, yet the Truman Library’s copy corroberates that this is true. David McCullough, in his book Truman, recites these same figures. This document is not merely a unique memento of Truman’s first election for national office, but offers historically important detail on his support. However, it offers another lesson as well, showing the limits of what money can buy.

Today scores of millions of dollars are spent by political candidates on major campaigns, such as for the Senate, and it is impossible to imagine running a Senatorial race on only $785. Yet the result produced for $785 in 1934 (even allowing for inflation) seems a lot better than some bought with cascades of money today. This extraordinarily important document is the only one we have ever seen or heard of on the market that reveals and certifies the complete contributions and expenses of a political candidate who went on to become president.