Winter Interlude

Both Harry Truman and the citizenry of Independence, Mo. have become so used to his being President of the U.S. that his annual trip home for the Christmas holidays--a ceremonial which once caused almost as much stir as Admiral Byrd's return from the South Pole--went off as casually as if he were still just a plain U.S. Senator.

Only a small crowd waited in the 20DEG cold at Kansas City's Fairfax Field to watch the presidential DC-6 Independence land after a four-hour trip from Washington. Kansas City shoppers hardly bothered to look as the President rode through town with his wife Bess and daughter Margaret. Their police escort and the driver of their maroon Lincoln dutifully stopped at all red traffic lights.

"Real Solid Gold." The whole five-day interlude was a quiet, relaxing time, devoted to family and old friends. Harry Truman walked across the icy street from the Truman home, coatless, but carrying a cane, to take a present to his spinster cousin, Miss Ethel Noland, drove out to make a call on Miss Ethel's 70-year-old sister, Miss Nellie, who is recovering from an operation at Independence Sanitarium. He sent his excuses to a big meeting of the Truman Democratic Club, held especially in his honor. But as always, on his vacation visits, he received old cronies and the political faithful at his headquarters in the penthouse of Kansas City's Muehlebach Hotel.

Prevented from cheering the President personally, the club sent Kansas City's beefy Alderman Thomas J. Gavin around to give him its Christmas present--a $275 gold cigarette lighter, which, club members happily reported, had been bought wholesale for $150. "It's real solid gold," Gavin told non-smoker Truman. "Don't give it away, Harry."

Back to the Labyrinths. The Trumans were also invited, as usual, to a holiday dinner and reception at the grandiose farm home of their old friend C. Blevins Davis, onetime Independence schoolteacher who came into money on the death of his wife, Great Northern Railroad Heiress Marguerite Sawyer Hill. This set some local tongues wagging, since Host Davis had been sued by a New York salesman named Collins last autumn on the grounds that he had found Mrs. Hill and helped C. Blevins win her for his bride. The Trumans firmly ignored the gossip, went to the party, and seemed to have a fine time.

When Mrs. Truman kissed the President goodbye at the airport after his brief vacation, he looked rested, fit and pleased with the world. But by week's end--with both the budget and state-of-the-union messages ahead, and with Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill on the way to the U.S. for a Washington visit--Harry Truman was deep again in the labyrinths of official Washington, a city much more terrible than peaceful, snowy Independence, Mo.

This file is automatically generated by a robot program, so reader's discretion is required.