You Know Me, Al

In the turbulent spring of 1946, when the U.S. was paralyzed by a railroad strike, Harry Truman stormed into Congress and gave Alexander Fell Whitney, co-leader of the strike, one of the savagest verbal rawhidings ever dealt a private citizen by a President of the U.S. With that, he broke the strike. Beaten and embittered, Al Whitney swore that he would use his union's last penny to humiliate and defeat Truman. "You can't make a President out of a ribbon clerk," he bellowed.

One day last week the door to the President's Oval Study swung open and Al Whitney entered.

Whitney (hand outstretched): "It's over the dam, Mr. President. How are you?"

Truman: "Al, this never should have happened."

Whitney: "You're right, Mr. President. I got bad advice."

Truman: "We all do at times. How are you, anyway?"

Whitney: "In the pink. I don't need to ask how you are--you're looking great."

The two men sat down and chatted for a while. Then Al Whitney, his public recantation completed, got up and left. On his way out he told newsmen: "I intend to live for the present and the future."

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