Blog 3863 – 06.20.2026

“Give ‘Em Hell, Harry”

The man who was President when I was born in 1950, Harry Truman, left Washington, D.C. after his second term on a train back to his home state of Missouri with his popularity waning. He paid for the ticket himself. Years later Congress would vote to give him a small pension for his services. To paraphrase the words of Archie Bunker in the opening song of All In The Family, “Mister, we could use a man like Harry Truman again.”

Harry Truman saw the job of President as it was intended as a  public servant position not king or dictator. He was President of all the people, not just Democrats, not just the Christians, not just white folks, not just a few rich and powerful people. When he left office his popularity had dropped in large part because of Wisconsin Senator Joe McCarthy’s lies about all of the Communists in the federal government, the confirmed number of whom he could never keep straight. Lies are so much harder to remember than the truth.

Joe McCarthy was a Republican and they hated and still do the Democrats’ social programs of the nineteen thirties and forties that helped bring us out of the Great Depression and through a Second World War. Instead of blaming everyone else Harry Truman said, “The Buck Stops Here.” He knew that the people were counting on him to make a difference, not to enrich himself or his family and friends from the U.S. Treasury but to promote and to defend programs for all the people.

History has not been kind to Joe McCarthy’s lies nor will it be to 45 and 47’s. Yet Truman’s stock has risen and will continue to for years to come.

The early Christian church according to the Book of Acts tried communism for a while, “having all things in common” but it did not work out for them. In the book of James, purportedly written by Jesus’ brother, the writer calls out the richer church folks lording it over the poorer ones saying things like, let us have the prominent seats while you sit at our feet. James condemns such behavior saying, “God is not a respecter of persons.” In other word millionaires, billionaires, even a trillionaire have no special capital deserving of deference or special treatment.

I do not believe in a literal eternal burning hell nor even a temporary purgatory where everyone rich and poor must pay for their sins. And I certainly no longer believe anyone gets a free pass because they know or claim to know someone. I think/believe it is possible that we get to have many of these adventures in time and space and that perhaps we can learn a few things from these life experiences that we carry into future incarnations. I do not believe in karma per se for that would be very much like hell and purgatory in episodic form.

Jesus once had a young rich ruler come up to him wanting to be his disciple asking him, “Lord what should I do?” Jesus told him, “Go and sell all that you have and give it to the poor. Then come and follow me.” The young man we are told went away sorrowfully because he had great riches. Republicans especially do not like the suggestion that Jesus was a socialist. 

A particularly long chapter in Matthew 25 quotes the purported sayings of Jesus. Today I share a portion in which Jesus sounds very much like a socialist.

Full disclosure again, I do not believe that the Bible is the inspired word of God in whole and in part and without error. I do believe however that there is in the Bible, as in most books, some good, inspiring, and encouraging words worth remembering. I stopped at verse 40 because verse 41 says, “Depart from me, you cursed, into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels;” and the following verses go on to say again that failing to do what verse 35 and 36 says is our duty to all our brothers and sisters, even the least of these, will result in repeated curse of verse 41. A real socialist would not need the threat of everlasting fire to share with family falling on hard times.

If one walks and talks like a socialist, a Christian, perhaps they truly are. And if not, “Give ‘em hell, Harry.”

Your friend and fellow traveler,

David James White