Harry S. Truman’s speech opposing Maurice Milligan’s reappointment as U.S. attorney was a bitter defense of political fairness that became, in the book’s judgment, the worst moment of Truman’s Senate career. On February 15, 1938, he attacked Milligan and federal judges in Kansas City, even though Franklin D. Roosevelt had personally asked him not to obstruct the reappointment. Truman’s speech gave force to his anger at what he regarded as a biased prosecution and trial system, but its severity damaged his standing and achieved no practical result: when the Senate voted, he was the only senator opposed to Milligan.

Background and Political Stakes

The confrontation came amid the aftermath of a large insurance bribery scandal in Missouri. A company official had offered Thomas J. Pendergast money in exchange for the release of nearly $10 million held up over a dispute about fire-insurance rates. Payments eventually rose to $750,000, with cash delivered to Pendergast personally and to his home. The book says it is not recorded how much Truman knew about the affair before it became public; it judges that he probably knew very little, partly because he took the news so hard. The scandal nonetheless formed part of the political atmosphere surrounding Milligan, whose term as district attorney was expiring.

In early 1938, both Governor Lloyd C. Stark and Roosevelt urged the Senate to confirm Milligan’s reappointment. By senatorial custom, Truman could have blocked it merely by declaring Milligan personally obnoxious to him. Roosevelt telephoned and asked Truman, as a personal favor, not to do so. Truman did not use that procedural pretext, but neither did he simply keep out of the matter. Silence remained an option; instead, he chose to make his case publicly on the Senate floor.

The Senate Speech

Truman entered the Senate Chamber on Tuesday, February 15, and delivered a full-scale attack on Milligan as well as on the federal judges in Kansas City. He described Milligan as Roosevelt’s “personal appointment” and accused him of appeasing the “rabidly partisan press.” He called Milligan corrupt and charged that the judges were playing politics because they had been appointed by Republican presidents Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. His most inflammatory comparison was that a Democrat from Jackson County had as much chance of a fair trial in the federal district court of western Missouri as a Jew would have in a Hitler court or a Trotsky follower before Stalin.

The speech challenged more than Milligan’s character. Truman argued that the courts had denied Jackson County residents a fair hearing, pointing in particular to their refusal to allow anyone from the county to serve on juries. A federal district judge later recalled that only Democrats had been indicted in precincts where vote fraud occurred, although Republican election judges and clerks in those same precincts were also guilty. The judge believed this pattern had distorted Truman’s view of the case. His recollection helps explain the grievance behind the speech, without making its rhetoric or its judgment of the entire court system any less sweeping.

A Break with Truman’s Usual Senate Role

The address was an exception in Truman’s record. He had never before attacked the President, and he had never before touched on, much less defended, his political origins in the Senate. He read from a prepared text, but the book describes him as seeming out of control and as grossly overreacting, even while acknowledging that some of his objections deserved to be heard. The combination mattered: a prepared argument did not prevent the speech from appearing driven by fury, and a legitimate complaint about jury selection did not make the broader attack politically effective.

The episode also put Truman’s loyalty to old allies in public view. The account suggests that the attack may have brought Pendergast some satisfaction, but says it served no purpose beyond releasing Truman’s pent-up anger and possibly doing that. Truman’s choice contrasted with the safer alternatives available to him: Roosevelt had asked him not to intervene, and he could have remained silent. Instead, he accepted the political cost of opposition. In that limited sense, his supporters could regard the act as a brave gesture of loyalty; he had not “run for cover.”

Consequences and Reassessment

When the time came for confirmation, Truman was the lone senator to vote against Milligan. He failed to change the outcome, and the speech did not persuade his audience beyond the familiar image of boss rule. The book judges that a more measured defense might have allowed Truman to explain the Kansas City organization he admired and the unfairness he perceived. As delivered, the address helped neither his reputation nor his cause.

The reaction from the White House was so harsh that Truman began to believe his career might be finished. He brooded for days. In a confidential letter to a friend, he said that, in view of the Senate speech and the White House’s response, he would not seek reelection in 1940; he later asked for the letter back. The episode therefore had consequences beyond the failed vote. It exposed how sharply Truman could depart from his customary restraint when he believed a political community was being treated unfairly, while showing the cost of turning that grievance into an attack that left him isolated and achieved nothing.