Harry Truman was an “accidental” president of the United States.
Plucked from obscurity to be Franklin D. Roosevelt’s running mate in 1944, no one realistically imagined he would ever sit in the Oval Office.
But the little-known Missouri politician became America’s 33rd chief executive when FDR suddenly died the following April. America was still at war with both Germany and Japan. The memory of the Great Depression remained fresh. Truman was succeeding the only man who had ever been elected president four times.
To put it bluntly, he felt overwhelmed.
Speaker of the House Sam Rayburn, who knew Truman from their days together in Congress, offered some advice:
“From here on out you’re going to have lots of people around you. They’ll try to put a wall around you and cut you off from any ideas but theirs. They’ll tell you what a great man you are, Harry. But you and I both know you ain’t.”
All of us need at least one friend who knows that “we ain’t,” and is willing to say so.
And when we’ve been crushed by the verdict of someone who’s branded us a loser and a failure, hearing a friend’s assurance that “you ain’t that, either,” is one of life’s great gifts.
It’s worth noting that Truman is ranked by most historians among the half dozen most effective chief executives. He steered America through the beginning of the Cold War, facing head-on the vexing issues of rebuilding Europe, nuclear proliferation, and the conflict in Korea.
On this Presidents Day, the enduring image of his years in the Oval Office was the little wooden sign that sat on his desk. It was the gift of fellow Missourian Fred Canfil, a brusque and intimidating federal marshal.
During a visit to the federal prison in El Reno, Oklahoma, late in 1945, Canfil noticed a plaque on the warden’s desk. It read The Buck Stops Here.
Canfil remarked that he knew someone who would appreciate that. The warden replied that the prison’s paint shop had designed and created the little wooden sign, and he would immediately ask them to craft a duplicate.
The rest is history. The Buck Stops Here became Harry Truman’s unofficial motto.
The origin of the phrase is interesting. It comes from frontier days when poker players had to devise a marker to indicate whose turn it was to deal the cards. An inanimate object of some sort was passed from player to player. Often it was a knife with a buckhorn handle (“the buck”). The buck would come to rest in front of the player who had the next deal.
Sometimes a silver dollar might be used as the marker, which is one possible resolution of the mystery why American dollars became known as “bucks.”
If a player decided he didn’t want to deal the cards, he could “pass the buck” to the player on his left.
The warden at the Oklahoma prison, who was an enthusiastic poker player, was making it clear to everyone who walked into his office that he was never going to surrender his personal responsibility. Truman couldn’t have agreed more: “The President – whoever he is – has to decide. He can’t pass the buck to anybody. No one else can do the deciding for him. That’s his job.”
You don’t have to be president, accidental or otherwise, to recognize that the same obligation is weighing on you every day.
It’s not someone else’s job to make the decisions that have fallen to you alone – decisions concerning the condition of your heart, the trajectory of your work, the integrity of your relationships, and how best to move into your next season of life.
God has given each of us the privilege and responsibility of taking a leading role in such decisions. Are you someone whose inherent goodness and greatness will carry you to success?
You know, along with everyone who really knows you, that you most certainly ain’t.
We are all sinners and strugglers. But the Lord has a word for us:
“All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, ‘God opposes the proud but shows favor to the humble.’ Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time. Cast all your anxiety on him because he cares for you” (I Peter 5:5-7).
There’s no getting around the fact that it’s your deal today.
But God has your back.
Don’t pass the buck.
Comments