, not excepting the present incumbent.
Each of FDR's successors has, in different ways, had to cope with the question of how to comport himself with respect to the Roosevelt tradition. Much of America's political history since 1945 is a reflection of their responses.
On April 12, 1945, as World War I1 neared its end, Vice President Harry Truman was presiding over a dull Senate de- bate on a water treaty. When it ended, shortly before sunset, he made his way to the office of the Speaker of the...