Missouri Farmers’ Association

The Missouri Farmers’ Association appears in the account of Harry S. Truman’s campaign for the Democratic nomination for the United States Senate as a political organization whose president actively supported Truman’s opponent. Its documented role is specific: William Hirth joined Cochran’s campaign and used the association’s public standing to cast Truman as beholden to Tom Pendergast. The episode places the association within the campaign’s rhetoric, but does not establish a formal endorsement by its membership or show how members voted collectively.

Leadership and Political Alignment

William Hirth, identified as president of the Missouri Farmers’ Association, joined Cochran’s campaign. He attacked Truman as “Tom Pendergast’s bellhop,” arguing that a county judge tied to the political organization was an implausible candidate for the Senate. His charge connected the campaign’s broader concern about Pendergast’s influence to an appeal aimed at voters beyond Jackson County.

Hirth’s intervention was not merely a general criticism of Truman’s qualifications. It framed his candidacy as an extension of a local political machine, and thus made the question of independence central to the contest. The account documents Hirth and the association’s president, not a vote by the association’s membership; it does not say that the organization formally adopted his position.

The Primary Contest

As the primary approached, Truman and Cochran appeared to be running nearly even, while Maurice Milligan had fallen behind. Hirth’s attack therefore came during a close contest in which the candidates’ standing with voters across the state mattered. Truman answered attacks by challenging Milligan’s handling of government payroll appointments and criticizing Bennett Clark’s record, rather than allowing the campaign to remain solely a referendum on Pendergast.

On August 7, Truman won the primary by 40,745 votes: he received 276,850, Cochran 236,105, and Milligan 147,614. Truman did well among farmers, although Cochran also carried many counties. The result establishes that the association president’s support for Cochran did not determine the outcome; it does not reveal whether the association’s members followed Hirth’s political lead.

Significance and Limits of the Evidence

The association’s documented significance lies in the contrast between an organized leader’s campaign activity and the more varied electoral geography of the primary. Hirth gave Cochran a forceful public line of attack, while the eventual result depended on support distributed across the state and a particularly large Truman margin in Jackson County. In a later Senate primary, Truman again did better with farmers than he had in 1934, and his victory included support from that constituency; the account does not attribute that support to the Missouri Farmers’ Association.

The association is thus visible in the narrative as a political voice, not as a fully described institution. The evidence identifies its president and his campaign alignment, but supplies no account of the association’s internal structure, membership, policies, or subsequent activity. Its appearance nonetheless illustrates how the campaign’s argument over political independence could be carried into a contest involving rural voters.