05/24/2026
Harry S. Truman left the presidency on the morning of January 20, 1953, and quietly walked away from power in a way almost unimaginable today.
He had no presidential pension, no government office, no staff, and no official motorcade waiting for him. The Former Presidents Act — the law that later provided salaries and offices to former U.S. presidents — did not yet exist. His primary regular income was a modest military pension from his service as a field artillery captain during World War I: $112.56 per month.
He boarded a train at Union Station with his wife, Bess, and returned home to Independence, Missouri.
At the end of his presidency, Truman’s popularity was among the lowest of any modern American president. Much of Washington considered his administration a disappointment. Newspapers treated his departure almost as a relief.
So Truman simply went home and lived quietly.
That summer, he bought a Chrysler and personally drove with Bess across the country. A former President of the United States stopped to pump his own gas, signed autographs for truck drivers who recognized him, and was once pulled over in Pennsylvania for driving too slowly. Back in Independence, he answered his own phone, personally responded to thousands of letters, and walked through town every morning at such a brisk pace that reporters sometimes struggled to keep up.
He did not spend his retirement attacking his successors or trying to rebuild his public image. He remained the same plainspoken Missourian he had been before entering the White House.
But history slowly began to reconsider what he had accomplished.
As president, Truman signed Executive Order 9981 in 1948, ending racial segregation in the United States Armed Forces despite major political opposition. Through the Truman Doctrine and the Marshall Plan, he committed the United States to rebuilding Western Europe after World War II and containing Soviet expansion during the early Cold War. Much of the democratic stability Western Europe experienced afterward can be traced to those decisions.
In November 1945, Truman also became the first U.S. president to formally propose a national health insurance program.
The idea was fiercely attacked. The American Medical Association condemned it as “socialized medicine,” and Congress repeatedly blocked it. Truman later described the failure to pass national healthcare legislation as one of the greatest disappointments of his presidency.
Still, he returned home to Missouri and carried on with his life.
Twenty years later, on July 30, 1965, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed the Social Security Amendments of 1965 — creating Medicare and Medicaid.
Johnson chose not to sign the bill in Washington. Instead, he traveled to Independence, Missouri, and held the ceremony at the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum.
There, seated beside him, was 81-year-old Harry S. Truman.
Johnson publicly acknowledged that Truman had helped plant the seeds for the program decades earlier. After signing the bill, Johnson presented Truman with the very first Medicare card. Bess Truman received one as well.
The man many once believed had failed lived long enough to see one of his biggest unfinished ideas become law.
Truman died on December 26, 1972, at age 88. Today, historians commonly rank him among the most consequential presidents in American history.
He never aggressively campaigned to restore his reputation. He simply returned to the small Missouri town he came from and allowed time — and history — to speak for him.
History has a long memory.
For Harry Truman, it took about twenty years to catch up.
Truman was also a deeply devoted Freemason. Harry S. Truman became a Mason in 1909 and remained active throughout his life. He once said that becoming Grand Master of Masons in Missouri was one of the greatest honors he ever received — an achievement he valued even above the presidency itself.
Highlights of his Masonic life include:
* Founding member and first Worshipful Master of Grandview Lodge No. 618 in Missouri
* Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Missouri in 1940 while serving as a U.S. Senator
* Recipient of the 33° in the Scottish Rite
* Active participant in both the Scottish Rite and York Rite
* The only U.S. president known to have celebrated 50 years as a Freemason while still living
For many Masons, Truman remains an example of humility, service, integrity, and quiet leadership — a man whose work ultimately spoke louder than public opinion.
