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  Harry S. Truman - Columbia Scholastic Press Association (March 15, 1952)
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ContributorThomas Walker 
Post Date ,  12:am
DescriptionDr. Murphy, distinguished guests, Mr. Mayor, delegates to the 29th Annual Convention of the Columbia Scholastic Press Association:

You know, I was very much afraid that you were going to take that admonition of Dr. Murphy seriously, but I am very glad that you didn't—when he told you not to make any noise after the broadcast went on.

I am happy to be with you today. It is a pleasure to talk to the young people who run the school papers of this great country of ours. You probably don't know it, but I was a school editor myself once of the high school paper in Independence, Mo. And it was a first edition, too. Charlie Ross, and four or five other kids and myself got out the first number of "The Gleam," named after the admonition in Tennyson's poem, "After it, follow it, follow the gleam."

I have been trying to follow it ever since. From then on I kept going, and you know the trouble that I am in today. So you see, if you are not very careful, you may end up by living in the White House, and I say to you that it is a wonderful experience indeed, in spite of all its troubles.

All my life I have been interested in the Presidency, and the way Presidents are chosen. I remember very well the first presidential nominating convention that I attended. It was in Kansas City, Mo., in 1900, when Bryan was nominated the second time for the Democratic nomination for the Presidency. I was 16, and I enjoyed that convention very much, because I thought old man Bryan was the greatest orator of the time. And I still think so. President Roosevelt said he was one of the great progressives of our times, but he was ahead of his time.

A lot of us are in that condition.

Now, besides being nominated for the Presidency three times, Mr. Bryan became an editor. And you know, I am very much interested in editors and publishers. It is a very great responsibility to be the editor of a great newspaper, or a great periodical. And we have some wonderfully great magazines and newspapers in this country. It is the duty of the editors of those great publications to see that the news is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. And these great ones do just that.
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