President Truman sent his first peacetime message to Congress. In 16,000 workaday wordsthe longest Presidential message since Theodore Roosevelt's 20,000-word document in 1901he laid out his program for peace and prosperity.
Had he read his message himself, Harry Truman, who speaks at the rate of no words a minute, would have taken more than two hours. Instead, he turned it over to House and Senate reading clerks.
In the Senate, veteran white-thatched Chief Clerk John Crockett droned through the 21 major recommendations, while bored and busy Senators drifted out. Soon only a dozen remained. Clerk Crockett adroitly skipped a sizable...
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