Dear Hearts & Gentle People

Some days it was the little, everyday things that crept up and overwhelmed a man with thoughts of life's swift pace and inexorable end. Harry Truman had one day like that last week.

It began with a perfunctory White House morning schedule, including a check to see whether flowers had been dispatched to the funeral of his good friend, Roger Sermon, mayor of Independence, Mo. Then it shifted to Washington's Episcopal Cathedral of St. Peter & St. Paul. There, on an unseasonably balmy afternoon, bareheaded Harry Truman and Bess, too warm in a mink cape and navy blue taffeta, tried in vain not to steal the show. They wanted to be as inconspicuous as any of the other 1,100 guests at the wedding of Treasury Secretary John Snyder's hearty, handsome daughter Edith ("Drucie") to John Ernest Horton, a personable former White House social aide, soon to be a movie pressagent. Drucie's best friend, Margaret Truman, was maid of honor.

After the ceremony, champagne bubbled from a five-stream fountain at the wedding reception in the rambling Chevy Chase (Md.) Club. The President bypassed the fountain during his twelve-minute appearance, but he did take time, after nudging Bess, to buss the bride.

Then Harry Truman dropped by at the Statler Hotel to speak a few words to the ladies of the Women's Patriotic Conference on National Defense, gathered in annual convention. Usually such extemporaneous appearances find the President at his relaxed and good-natured best. This time "he spoke solemnly and earnestly:

"One of my closest friends, the mayor of Independence, Missouri, passed away on Monday night very suddenly, from a heart attack. He and I were raised togther in our home town. He is five or six years younger than I am--or was ... I was most anxious to be present to pay my respects to his passing, but conditions were such in Washington that I had to stay here . . .

"And then this afternoon, the daughter of another one of my closest friends was married, and I was present at that ceremony. That young lady I remember when she was like this--along with my daughter . . . That brings home to me that here are the young people ready to take up for the country, and here are those of us who have passed the three-score mark, passing on to the next world, leaving it to the younger people. I have but one ambition as President of the United States, and that is to see peace in the world, and a working, efficient United Nations to keep the peace in the world. Then I shall be willing to do what my mayor did, pass on happily so that some able, younger man may carry on the work necessary to keep this Government going."

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