Jefferson City appears as a working center of state administration and political organization in Harry S. Truman’s rise from county office to statewide office. A federal reemployment post brought him to the city twice a week, while the 1934 campaign used its government connections and the Capitol as points of political contact amid a statewide contest conducted on the roads and courthouse lawns of Missouri.

Federal work and the road to Jefferson City

In the fall of 1933, after Tom Pendergast objected to a Republican appointment to direct Missouri’s federal reemployment service, the appointee was dismissed and Truman received the post. Unwilling to leave the Jackson County Court earlier than necessary, Truman accepted it without pay, waiving a salary of $300 a month. He drove to and from the federal office in Jefferson City twice a week, making the long journeys across the state while overseeing the placement of unemployed laborers with contractors on federal public-works projects. His county experience suited the work, and the drives gave him time to consider an uncertain political future. The post also brought him into contact with federal administration: he reported to Harry Hopkins and traveled to Washington on government business, which he had not previously done.

A campaign hub in 1934

During the 1934 Democratic Senate primary, Jefferson City figured in a campaign fought across Missouri by automobile. Route 50, running between Kansas City and St. Louis by way of Jefferson City, was one of the state’s main highways, but candidates and campaign workers ranged far beyond the principal roads to reach the state’s 114 county seats. In the summer heat, Truman’s supporters came to Jefferson City to secure Governor Guy B. Park’s backing and contact state employees whose jobs were owed to the Kansas City organization. The city thus linked the campaign’s statewide reach to the government personnel who could help mobilize support; the major Truman rally described in the account, however, took place in Columbia, not Jefferson City.

Speech at the Capitol

Truman spoke in front of the Capitol at Jefferson City about the distress he had witnessed while traveling through the countryside. The setting gave his campaign argument a concrete subject: farm prices had collapsed, eggs that normally sold for 25 cents a dozen brought only 5 cents, and more than 18,000 Missouri farms had been foreclosed since 1930. Drought and extreme heat were destroying crops, while abandoned homes and impoverished farm families marked the landscape. His remarks connected the campaign to conditions beyond political rivalry, placing the hardship of rural Missouri before an audience at the state’s seat of government.