Block · one region of the page, as the scanner read it. It may hold a whole story, part of one, several, or an advertisement; stitching blocks into articles is the next step. Text is supplied OCR.
Page 2 · column 6 of 9 · from the scan, no model involved
Icing Off The Floor
Herndon remembers the time “Brother Bill’s” wife (a niece of Senator Carter Glass) baked two birthday cakes for Truman with the plan that Simmons should deliberately drop the first cake at the feet of the president. Thinking his birthday cake was spoiled, Truman got down on his hands and knees in the White House dining room and started eating the icing off the floor before he discovered he had been the victim of a practical joke.
Herndon tells the story as an example of the human quality of the Trumans. “Bess and Margaret were delightful people,” he says. “Bess was everybody’s mother. Margaret was just as vivacious and attractive as she could be—a pure delight.”
Herndon also liked the way Truman “used to run away from the secret service. He’d climb out windows to meet some old Capitol crony who would wait outside for him to go play poker and drink bourbon.”
Herndon was also a supporter of Richard Nixon and refers to him fondly by an old congressional nick-name best left unpublished. But what bothered him about young Dick Nixon was the way he would burst through the revovling doors at the back of the Capitol building and leave them spinning. Every time Herndon would grab the door and make it stop. On his wall hangs a photo of President Nixon shaking hands with him in the Oval office. Herndon remembered the picture was snapped just as Nixon said, “Oh, yes—the door.”
During all those years Johnson was the only president he didn’t know although he saw a great deal of him around The Hill. “He was a wheeling, dealing dynamic man and I have great respect for him, but I don’t know anybody that knew him unless they could do him a favor.”
More poignant than the death of presidents is the assumption of power and how the country continues, Herndon believes. His first thought upon hearing of the death of Roosevelt was “Where’s Truman?”
He thinks the most emotionally moving moment arising out of the events in Dallas 20 years ago was the swearing in of Lyndon Johnson in the air with Kennedy’s blood-stained widow at his side.
Although he was never a particular admirer of Kennedy (he thinks Nixon could have won a recount in 1960, but didn’t demand it because it would have thrown the
94.5%