Rare ALS signed “Harry,” three pages, 5.25 x 8, United States Senate letterhead, April 1, 1935. Letter to [John] Snyder, later his Secretary of the Treasury. In full: “Thanks a lot for your letter of Friday and the enclosure. I am sending you a check by this letter. The Senate is in session and talking as usual. We were supposed to consider the Pure Food draft as submitted by the M.D. Senator from New York, Royal S. Copeland. Instead of discussing the matter under discussion we are hearing all sorts of oratory about the work relief bill. You never can tell what the Senate will talk about or what it’ll do after it talks. When I listened to all the talk on it when under consideration I thought it was lost but it carried 73 to 16 so you see conversation in the Senate is for publication not for voting purposes. In about an hour we’ll probably get to the matter under discussion. Thanks again for the permit. I hope you’ll come and help me to dispose of the merchandise. I appreciate Henninger’s missing me but he has a better man in charge.” In fine condition, with two punch holes to top edges.
After Truman was sworn in as US senator in January 1935, his regiment command was given to his friend, Lieutenant Colonel John W. Snyder, this letter’s recipient. Truman writes that while he appreciates being missed by Lieutenant Henninger “but he has a better man in charge.” Barely three months into his senatorial duties, Truman realized that “you never can tell what the Senate will talk about or what it’ll do after it talks. When I listened to all the talk on it [work relief bill] when under consideration I thought it was lost but it carried 73 to 16 so you see conversation in the Senate is for publication not for voting purposes.” The fellow senator referenced here, Democrat Royal S. Copeland, had spent the day this letter was sent showing senators what he called a ‘chamber of horrors’ to demonstrate the need for revision of the Pure Food and Drug Laws, according to an Associated Press article recounting that day’s senatorial debates. ‘Senator Copeland, a physician, talking informally as if he were in a classroom, exhibited to the Senators bottles and packages of foods and drugs which he said were either fakes or dangerous,’ the article noted. Copeland’s presentation obviously took place after Truman dispatched this letter of frustration to his friend, based on Truman’s lament that “We were supposed to consider the Pure Food draft.” Ten years later, Truman would be in the White House and Snyder would be a member of his Cabinet. Pre-certified John Reznikoff/PSA/DNA and RRAuction COA.
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