Speech of Senator Harry S. Truman Before the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen, Kansas City, Missouri
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SPPECH OF SENATOR HARRY S. TRUMAN TO
THE BROTHERHOOD OF RAILROAD TRAINMEN
DELIVERED AT KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI, ON
WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 23, 1939.
For release on delivery.
I have been asked to talk to you about transportation. It is a very large
subject. Hauling freight and passengers has been the most important business
since governments began. Rome's roads made her great. Britain's sea control
has made her great. Fast transportation and instant communication across a
whole continent made the United States of America a great nation.
In the year of 1607 a handful of English came to the mouth of the James River
in Virginia and founded a colony. It took them some three months to make the
trip. A few days ago a passenger plane made that trip in twenty seven hours.
From 1846 to 1854 my grandfather was in the freighting business from Indepen-
dence, Missouri to Salt Lake City, Utah. It was customary for him to S tart
from Independence in March or April and arrive on hie return from the round
trip in September or October -- from three to four months for the one-way trip.
The transcontinental planes make that trip in nine hours or a little less.
When John Quincy Adams and Henry Clay went to Ghent to negotiate a treaty with
Great Britain after the War of 1812, it took them three months to make the
trip, and they were not able to communicate with James Madison, the President
of the United States, at all while the negotiations were in progress. When
Woodrow Wilson was in Paris negotiating the Treaty of Versailles, every one
in the United States was familiar with all that went on as soon as it happened.
It has been said that the inventor of the wheel was the creator of the great-
est boon to mankind. No one knows who he was, but he certainly contributed
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to the ease of getting from one place to another. In 1854 the Pony Express was
the swiftest method of communication. Now, you or I ean lift a telephone
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