Harry S Truman
No period goes behind the S in Truman’s name because it isn’t an initial. It’s simply a letter he placed there to burnish his image when first attempting to become a County Judge back in Missouri. Being a judge wasn’t like being a judge presiding over legal cases in a courtroom either. He was more of a commissioner, and he used his time as such to work long and hard at improving the roads in his district, the beginning of his lifelong love of roads and travel by automobile.
It was while running for this judgeship that the relatively unknown Truman was asked if he wanted to join the local chapter of the Ku Klux Klan. The individual who approached Truman was employed by his own benefactor – Tom Pendergast – and therefore to be trusted. He promised more votes, including the support of all fellow Klansmen in the district. Truman needed votes. He gave the envoy ten dollars for membership dues. Later he found out that the Klan was virulently anti-Catholic – particularly anti-Irish Catholic.
As a captain of artillery in World War I, Truman had commanded a battery which included several Irish-Catholics, many of whom he still drank and played poker with in the local Freemason’s Hall. Truman wasn’t about to tolerate prejudice against any of “his boys”. He summoned the messenger, renounced his membership, and demanded his ten dollars back.
That is the known extent of Harry Truman’s involvement with the Ku Klux Klan, a brief use of their influence to burnish his credentials, quickly disposed of, and never revisited. Truman is frequently denounced as a Klan member, and technically maybe he was despite never attending any meetings, being initiated, or swearing any oath. As President, he desegregated the military through the use of an Executive Order when a bickering Congress failed to act, enraging Southern Democrats but is still considered by many to have been a racist. His Klan membership is definitive proof. Maybe. Maybe not.
Sources For Further Reading:
Middle Tennessee State University – Ku Klux Klan
Southern Poverty Law Center – Active Ku Klux Klan Groups
CBS News – Disturbing Photos of The Modern-Day Ku Klux Klan
PBS – Grant, Reconstruction and the KKK
US News – KKK Groups Still Active in These States
News Channel 3 – Report Says KKK Groups Are Still Active, One Is in Michigan
DW – Four Active Ku Klux Klan Groups in Germany
Smithsonian Magazine – The Ku Klux Klan Didn’t Always Wear Hoods