Senator Harry S. Truman (D-Mo.) was not a particularly known figure nationally at the start of 1941 save for being an FDR loyalist, although in Missouri he was controversial. He had won his renomination in 1940 by the skin of his teeth and had a close election given that his career was boosted extensively by the corrupt Pendergast machine, which was now crippled given Tom Pendergast’s imprisonment for voter fraud. Indeed, when first elected in 1934, Truman was known as the “Senator from Pendergast”. However, what he would do after the election would be a reputation changer for the ages.

A Good Government Committee

Truman went on a trip in early 1941, touring the country to see how $10.5 billion was being spent on national defense, and he saw a lot of waste and war profiteering, which disgusted him, recalling, “…there were men, hundreds of them, just standing around collecting their pay, doing nothing” (Levin Center).

On February 10, 1941, he delivered a speech calling for the creation of a committee, officially called the Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program, as a watchdog committee to make sure that funds were being spent properly and to uncover waste and malfeasance. President Roosevelt was not enthusiastic about this committee to say the least, but decided that it was better for a Democrat to take the lead on this than Republicans who were itching to lead investigations (Inskeep). On March 1, 1941, the Senate voted without objection to create this committee and give it a little money. This would be popularly dubbed the “Truman Committee”, as he was selected to chair it.

The Truman Committee Gets to Work

 Although Senator Truman was pressured by the Roosevelt Administration to fill the committee with loyalists, he filled the committee with men he had found to possess integrity and practicality, whatever their party or wherever they stood on the New Deal (Levin Center). Interestingly, one of these men was Maine Republican Owen Brewster, who would have a major conflict with Howard Hughes and be portrayed as a villain in Martin Scorcese’s The Aviator, but Brewster’s story, and my take on him as a politician, is for another time. This committee discovered a good deal of waste and malfeasance. Examples included:

“The Carnegie-Illinois Steel Corporation sold faulty slabs of steel to be sued in shipbuilding and falsified quality control reports;

Defective engines made by the Curtiss-Wright Company and used in airplanes led to the death of student pilots;

Standard Oil Company and Alcoa, which had exclusive patents or monopolies on critical war materials, had intentionally slowed the development of substitutes or created artificial shortages; and

The Remington Company, according to Senator Truman, got “$600,000 for acting as advisors to the Government” but in his words: “[n]o one knows what this advice is or what it is worth.” (Levin Center)

Although Truman did publicize the committee, he also was not taking every opportunity he could to do so. If he found mismanagement in certain places, he’d give the department heads a chance to fix it by giving them a call and telling them of the problem (Inskeep & Drummond). If they were not receptive, then Truman’s temper would flare up and he would go after them, including holding a public hearing. In their first report, the Truman Committee found $100 million in waste on upgrading army camps, and that these camps were not being modernized in the process (Inskeep & Drummond). The committee also issued recommendations based on their findings, and such recommendations would save the government money, which became all the more valuable when the United States entered World War II.

Although only $1 million was spent on the committee, the committee throughout World War II is estimated to have saved between $10-15 billion in costs, saved thousands of lives through exposing defective military equipment and materials, and easing federal contracting processes (Levin Center). This was a remarkable turnaround from past perceptions of him, and made him a popular figure. Truman’s highly capable chairmanship of this committee, his good relations with Southern Democrats, being from a border state, and Majority Leader Alben Barkley’s (D-Ky.) defiance of FDR on tax legislation set him up for the vice presidential nomination in 1944. Although he didn’t want the nomination, it was foisted upon him as a service to his party, as many Democrats on the inside knew that FDR’s running mate would likely be president. And indeed, it only took three months into Roosevelt’s fourth term for that to happen. The Truman Committee to this day is a model for legislative investigative committees.

References

Portraits in Oversight: Harry Truman and the Investigation of Waste, Fraud, & Abuse in World War II. Levin Center.

Retrieved from

Harry Truman and the Investigation of Waste, Fraud, & Abuse in World War II

Special Committee to Investigate the National Defense Program. U.S. Senate.

Retrieved from

https://www.senate.gov/about/powers-procedures/investigations/truman.htm

Inskeep, S. & Drummond, S. (2023, May 11). Truman Committee became the model for scrutinizing giant public expenditures. NPR.

Retrieved from

https://www.npr.org/2023/05/11/1175403633/truman-committee-became-the-model-for-scrutinizing-giant-public-expenditures