[applause] ms. Albright thank you. Good afternoon and welcome. I am truly delighted to be here with all of you and to celebrate Public Service and the legacy of harry truman. As someone who believes passionately in the importance of americas global leadership, i have a natural love and affinity for harry truman. But my affection for him is rooted in something more basic. He was my First American president. My family and i arrived in america november 11, 1948. A week after he narrowly beat dewey in 1948. All of this was some time ago. In fact, i tell my students now that i went to college about halfway between the invention of the ipad and the discovery of fire. [laughter] ms. Albright so, it was much later when i became secretary of state and the question arose as to where to hold a particular ceremony. The event was to mark natos decision to include poland, and my native hungry as nightmares hungary as new members. I wasnt able to decide everything but i was able to decide that. I cannot think of a more appropriate place than the truman president ial library in independence, missouri, a place devoted to the man whose vision was responsible for nato. As i stood there, i was so excited that i cannot help to use an old czechoslovakia expression, hallelujah. [laughter] ms. Albright i was equally excited to hold a ceremony in washington to formally rename this building in honor of president truman. In 2002, i was honored to be asked to serve this foundation. Harry truman was both a remarkable president and a remarkable man who spoke often about the importance of promoting young leaders. He wanted this foundation to be a living memorial, encouraging educated citizenship and political responsibility. For the past 40 years, thanks to the generous support of congress and the american people, that is precisely what this foundation has done. Surveying the problems facing our country, i think we can all agree its mission is more vital than ever. It is a great pleasure to be about to convene this symposium and to have a conversation on the past, present, and future of Public Service. To get that discussion started, it is my pleasure to introduce the executive secretary of the Truman Foundation, andy rich. [applause] mr. Rich good afternoon. Thank you, secretary albright, the Vice President of the truman board and to all of the officers and the trustees of the Truman Foundation, to the many distinguish guests. Welcome. For almost five years it has been my privilege to lead the day to day management of the Truman Foundation. I am a 1991 truman scholar myself. I am so pleased you can all be with us today to celebrate the Truman Foundations 40th anniversary. The Truman Foundation is the president ial moral to Public Service in the United States. How important our work is at a time when Public Service is all too often extraordinarily difficult and undervalued. The Truman Foundation was president trumans idea. Toward the end of his life, he told his admirers he did not want a brickandmortar monument, he encouraged a living memorial, an institution that would support new americans from every single territory that Value Service to their communities and this country as much as he did. That is what the Truman Foundation has been doing for 40 years now. We have selected more than 3000 Public Service leaders in the community in which they can be helped and make an even bigger difference in the life of this country. 40 years into our work we have a wonderful track record, and so this afternoon we pause to take stock and to celebrate. I want to thank secretary of state john kerry and everyone here at the state department for hosting us this afternoon, and i want to extend special thanks to the Dalton Briscoe center of American History at the university of texas, alston for sponsoring this event with support from the Bernard Foundation. We could not have found a more perfect sponsor in the real partner for this event. As many of you know, he was the governor of texas in the 1970s and served in the legislator when harry truman was president. The center at ut austin holds his papers and also those of such revered Public Service figures as former House Speaker sam rayburn and former Vice President john garner. They were contemporaries and in some cases good friends of president truman and each embodied his same spirit and commitment to Public Service. So, that will be the subject of our first panel, and we have four distinguish historians with us. H. W. Brands is a history professor and professor of government at the university this university of texas, austin. He has written books including a bestseller on Franklin Roosevelt. Mark updegrove is the director of the Lyndon Johnson library and museum at the university of texas next to the center. He is the author of four books and is an expert on lbj and the presidency. Nancy beck young is the professor of history at the university of houston. She is also an expert on the presidency and president ial congressional relations in the 20th century. She is currently writing a biography of John Nance Garner. Finally, we have an author who has written books on many of the leading public figures of the 20th century. He has been a tremendous partner to us on this symposium. Our sincere thanks again to him and i want to turn it over to don in our fellow panelists for the first discussion this afternoon. [applause] well, it sounds like can you hear us ok . All right. We are on. Thank you, andy, for that introduction. It is a great privilege and an honor for us to sponsor this celebration of the 40th anniversary of the truman scholars program. I also want to thank andy rich and secretary albright for really the outstanding job that they have done in pulling together this program. It has been about a year since we were talking about this and i am delighted we have reached this point today. I also want to acknowledge this, i want to repeat it, we received really substantial funding for this program from the artery and audrey and Bernard Foundation in waco, texas, and i just want to have a shout out to them as well before we get into the program. I want to add that the decision for us to support this conference was very easy to make, primarily because the truman scholarships over the 40 years have made such a significant contribution to the public good with all of the gifted individuals, students who the Truman Foundations support has made possible for them to go to school and to enter Public Service, and so it was easy for us to sponsor something that was going to celebrate that. Also, it gives us the opportunity, the center the opportunity to bring to attention our own work and furthering knowledge of the research and teaching we support and facilitate. It is also a fact that andy mentioned that we have the Sam Rayburn Library and the john garner museum. We also have a very, very close working relationship with the lbj library, our nextdoor neighbor at the university of texas, austin. We have three experts, as andy mentioned, who will join me in discussing the relationship harry truman had with three texans who were among the most influential and wellknown political figures of their day. Cactus jack garner was speaker of the house of representatives, and he was later Vice President for the first two terms of Franklin Roosevelts administration. His protege, cactus jacks protege, john garner was sam rayburn, who was the longestserving speaker of the house in American History, and rayburns protege was lyndon b. Johnson was Vice President and then president of the United States himself. So, lets begin the discussion today, turning to dr. Nancy young who will start the discussion off about john garner and Harry Trumans relationship. Harry truman and John Nance Garner were cut from the same cloth in many ways. They were born and raised in rural backgrounds. They did not have the formal education of a john f. Kennedy. They both appreciated the experiences of a common man and woman. That is what drove them to Public Service, i believe. Don already mentioned garner was fdrs first Vice President. Truman was fdrs last Vice President. They shared skepticism about that office both held with garner once observing that the vice presidency was not worth a couple of warm spit. That is a sanitized version of the quote. There is a less sanitized version, and i will let your imagination take you wherever it will. Harry truman, not to be outdone, made a similar observation about the vice presidency, that it was like the fifth tit on a cow, no are way to really change that one around that i could think of. [laughter] hopefully that will suggest to you the common bond of the two men. Garner was trumans senior and garner was in the vice presidency when truman came to the senate, so he was the presiding officer in the chamber. Garner gave truman the same advice he gave all new members, and that was to be quiet and learn how things work for a while. Garner did serve as a mentor to truman when he was a young senator, and if you went to trumans washington, d. C. Home, you would see on his small bookshelf a few books, a twovolume biography of andrew jackson, the bible, stories of great operas, and a biography of john garner. There interesting combination of books. Very interesting combination of books. Garner and truman did not always think alike and perhaps the most important moment where they disagree was with fdrs plan in 1937 to expand the size of the Supreme Court. The Supreme Court had been deciding against new deal measures and fdr did not want the trend to continue with pending court cases, so he hoped that expanding the size of the court would solve that problem. Truman was happy to support the president in that regard but garner said, i will oppose it with all of the strength that remains to me, but i do not imagine it will be any good. Why if the president asked congress to commit suicide, it would do it. So a little frustration there. Not that long after in the 1940 president ial election, garner made a brief challenge to fdr that did not work out well for him, so he left washington, dc, saying he would never go back again and he never went back again. Some have mistaken that statement as a resignation from politics overall, and that would not be true because garner remained very involved in politics until he drew his last breath. When truman became president , he said of garner, when garner was Vice President , there was hardly a day when at least half the members of the senate did not see him in his office or talk to him somewhere in the capital. In the past four years when Henry Wallace was Vice President i doubt if there are a half a dozen senators all told who have been in the office. You can draw your own conclusion. Garner provided a model for truman in how to approach is increasing role in public life. Fastforward to 1948 when truman saw reelection to the presidency in his own right, he made a series of tours throughout the country. One region he did not visit was the south, giving up on any hope of carrying Southern States with thurman splitting off into the dixie party. Truman did get to texas and he made a special point of going on a whistle stop and meet with his old friend, cactus jack garner. Truman needed texas to win the white house. He campaigned very well in texas and throughout the country. Sam rayburn said he was one of the folks very good from the back platform, a crowd of 10,000 people showed up to greet truman at the train station at 6 50 in the morning, and the high point was a breakfast garner have for truman served on the back porch of garners home and the crowd cheered. They could not care so much about trumans civil rights agenda, but a friend of john garner and that is all that mattered to them and he did indeed carry texas. Truman came back to visit garner one more time in 1958 for a celebration of garners 90th birthday. Trumans airplane was delayed with mechanical problems in dallas so he did not get there until late in the evening passed garners bed time of 8 00, so they agreed to talk the next morning after agreeing that they were a sight for sore eyes. I think that sums up nicely the garnertruman relationship and i will turn it over to my wiser and more learned colleagues. [applause] you want to talk about rayburn . Sure. I would love to. I would add that 8 00 was pretty much trumans that time bed time as well. They did not miss out on much. Harry truman and sam rayburn had a lot in common. They were both smalltown southerners. They both prided themselves on their plain speaking, straight shooting character. They would tell things the way it was, the way they saw it. They did not feel inclined to mince words for political benefit. Perhaps most important at least for the relationship between the two, they were loyal democrats, and they would stand by the Democratic Party. There was a lot in the background of the two that might have made them friends, but the fact that they became important Political Partners was less foreordained. In fact, it was largely a matter of accident. The accident was the death of Franklin Roosevelt. Sam rayburn came to real political power before harry truman did. He was speaker of the house starting in 1940. Truman was a member of the senate. He developed a certain reputation during world war ii in terms of keeping an eye on Government Spending on the war. That brought him to national attention, or at least the attention of Franklin Roosevelt, and when there was a revolt in the Democratic Party in 1944 against Henry Wallace, roosevelt was looking for someone that he could talk into the vice presidency, and who would not create another revolt in the party. Harry truman was sufficiently regular that the Party Accepted harry truman. Trumans appreciation of the vice presidency from the moment declined from the moment he was elected. He shared john garners low opinion of it. While he was try to find what to do with himself, he used to hang out with sam rayburn. Rayburn had this hideaway deep in the bowels of the capital where what he called the board of education used to meet late in the afternoon. They would share their favorite drink, and they would ruminate on politics in washington and the state of the Democratic Party. Harry truman was in sam rayburns office on a momentous day in 1945 in april when he got word that a call had come from the white house and it was important he called the white house. He called the white house. The first thing he said, according to somebody that was there, he puts on the phone and he said, jesus christ and general jack. This is what harry truman said. He knew that something was up. He went to the white house and discovered Franklin Roosevelt had died and he was now president of the United States. He would realize that his relationship with sam rayburn all of a sudden had become very much more important. It is a surprise for both of them. When harry truman became president , he had no idea that he was about to launch two revolutions in american affairs. A revolution in Domestic Affairs that did not go as far as he wanted. It would take another 15 or 20 years. Harry truman was the first president since reconstruction to believe that the president needed to take a positive role in improving race relations. Harry truman, for example, was the one that issued the executive order to desegregate the military. That is one that hung fire while truman was still president , but it was essential to the relationship between truman and rayburn. The other, perhaps more farreaching revolution was that that harry truman launched an American Foreign affair and in both of those areas, truman made rayburn uncomfortable. Rayborn like many of those in the United States had an idea that after world war ii the United States might gradually proceed from responsibility for World Affairs that it had taken after pearl harbor and but somehow approximate the previous attitude of the country toward the rest of the world. Truman realized this would not work. The world would not remain peaceful unless the United States continued to play a large role. One of the moments in which harry truman had to call on sam rayburn was when truman was presenting congress with what became the marshall plan. I will let truman tell the story. He invites s