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  4. Screen Gems Collection (outtakes from the television series “Decision:  The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman”)

Motion Picture MP2002-108

Screen Gems Collection (outtakes from the television series “Decision:  The Conflicts of Harry S. Truman”)

Administrative Information

Footage
470 feet
Running Time
13 minutes 49 seconds
Sound
sound
Color
Black & White
Produced by
Screen Gems in association with Ben Gradus
Restrictions
Unrestricted
Description

Harry S. Truman discussing with interviewer Merle Miller such topics as the Santa Fe, Oregon, and California Trails, Truman's ancestors, and Missouri and Kansas during the Civil War. Sound only.

Date(s)
ca.
1961 - 1963

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This item does not circulate but reproductions may be purchased.

To request a copy of this item, please contact truman.reference@nara.gov​​​​​​​

Please note that this video belongs to a different video collection than the items available to be borrowed by teachers, from our Education Department.

Moving Image Type
Screen Gems

Shot List

Reel 1

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0:00   Unidentified voice says: “Talent Associates, Truman Story, take 10, roll 37, wildtrack 1054 with overlap” Harry S. Truman is discussing the Santa Fe and Oregon Trails. Question: (questions asked by Merle Miller) what did the trails look like? Mr. Truman replies it was the roads wagons used. There were several sets of wagon wheels; there was no exact trail.
1:40   Questioner asks Mr. Truman to describe southern feelings in Independence during the Civil War. Mr. Truman replies that most of the settlers came from Kentucky, Tennessee, and North Carolina. Further north of Highway 36, people came from Ohio, Indiana, northern Illinois. He discusses the Missouri Compromise. Repeal of the Missouri Compromise in 1856 was the leading cause of the Civil War.
3:45   Questioner asks Mr. Truman about the people who came from Kansas, were they more northerners than southerners? Mr. Truman discusses the border disputes between Kansas and Missouri.
4:31   Questioner asks if this area was the beginning of the Civil War? Mr. Truman replies yes. Questioner asks if the Marauders came from Kansas. Mr. Truman replies that they were called the Redlegs. The Missouri people just wanted to pay them back.
5:36   Was history badly done? Mr. Truman replies that history has been garbled by people who had control of publications and were prejudiced against the Missouri attitude.
6:27   Mr. Truman discusses being President of the National Trails Association. He found the same prejudices in Kansas as in Missouri.
6:53   Did you see any men who participated in the raids? Yes, Mr. Truman replied he had been to reunions of the Quantrill’s Raiders and also reunions of the Redlegs in Kansas (going unidentified). He found no difference in the men. Mr. Truman describes the reunions as men remembering and making up stories, like a reunion of World War I soldiers.
7:58   Question about the story of Henry Chiles and Vivian Truman playing as children when they played the Dalton and James gangs; they went to Harry to tell them who were the bad guys. Mr. Truman describes the games the children played as border war games, and that they also played games about the Spanish American war.
9:20   When did he meet the Chiles family? They were kinfolk; one of the Chiles married his aunt. The family was well thought of in these parts. He discusses Janie Chiles, his geometry teacher.
10:44   Question about border warfare and loyalty oaths. Mr. Truman replied that the carpetbag government ruled that southern sympathizers had to take a loyalty oath to the United States government. He said it was suggested when he was President that students who needed help take loyalty oaths. President Truman suggested that rich kids take the same oath. The idea disappeared.
12:53   If youngsters aren’t trained in loyalty and the meaning of our country, you can’t give them an oath to make them loyal. They have to have it in their hearts