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"Family values," explains Jackson. The Eisenhowers treasured what they had -- one another and a fresh land. "Our pleasures were simple -- they included survival" is the way Ike put it. Bible Scripture was read three times a day in the Eisenhower home. Those lessons were reinforced in the town where Eisenhower sought and won approval from almost everyone, including the town toughs whom he fought when necessary. Hemmed in by family and neighborhood, he had no other choice -- or experience. Happiness was discipline.
At age 10, when Ike was denied the right to go trick-or-treating on Halloween with his brothers, his temper overwhelmed him. He ran outside and pummeled a tree until his small fists were torn and bleeding. He went to bed and sobbed for an hour. His mother came in, salved and bandaged his hands, then explained the futility of uncontrolled anger: "He that conquereth his own soul is greater than he who taketh a city." Much later Ike claimed that was "one of the most valuable moments of my life." Five times in 1954 when he was President, there were emotional appeals from his advisers to strike militarily at the troublemakers in Asia. Each time he went off to think, and each time he heard the echo from that day in Abilene. He kept the peace.
He had neither the inclination nor the need to worry about his financial or social status in Abilene. Ike revered an older man, Bob Davis, who taught him how to play poker and how to net fish on the banks of the Smoky Hill River. Davis was illiterate. Ike's best friend was Everett ("Swede") Hazlett, son of an Abilene physician who lived in the affluent part of town. In his exuberance Ike rounded up companions for baseball, football and camping from anyplace. His most famous fistfight was with Wes Merrifield, and according to Ike himself, the fight went more than an hour, ended in a draw when both boys were exhausted. The two got along out of necessity after that.
In war, Ike's magic was to inspire foot soldiers and generals alike, blending English lords with plain Americans, reconciling and focusing the energies of haughty, contentious commanders such as Britain's Field Marshall Bernard Montgomery and the U.S Third Army's General George Patton. Holding the trust of the grandiloquent politicians such as Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt was just as challenging. It took all Ike had and four packs of Camels a day.
In the White House he soothed the sulking Democrats of Capitol Hill. They still smarted over the fact that he had interrupted their party's long grip on the presidency. He won Speaker Sam Rayburn and Senate majority leader Lyndon Johnson to his side as often as not. One evening after plying L.B.J. with Scotch, Ike pointed to his own chair in the Oval Office and said, "Senator, someday you should be in that chair." Johnson roared back to his office in the Capitol wearing that tribute like a battle ribbon.