Do you know that there are web sites that tell you how to get even? Say the neighbor kid puts sugar into your gas tank and it cost you a zillion dollars to get the car repaired, how do you get even with the little snipe? You dont! Getting even is not the thing to do. You talk to the kids parents, hand them the bill, and get out of there before they kill the little sniper. Say someone says your daughter cant sing. Well, that is just an opinion, isnt it? Ill tell you what Harry Truman did when someone said his daughter, Margaret, couldnt sing. He got as mad as a summer hornet with a nest full of baby hornets. They didnt call him "Give `em hell, Harry!" for nothing. The following is extracted from http://www.trumanlibrary.org/trivia/letter.htm. Here is what Washington Post Music Critic Paul Hume's said in his December 6, 1950, review of Margaret Truman's singing performance at Constitution Hall: "Miss Truman is a unique American phenomenon with a pleasant voice of little size and fair quality (she) cannot sing very well is flat a good deal of the timemore last night than at any time we have heard her in past years has not improved in the years we have heard her (and) still cannot sing with anything approaching professional finish." Here is what Truman said in his letter to Hume: I've just read your lousy review of Margaret's concert. I've come to the conclusion that you are an "eight ulcer man on four ulcer pay." It seems to me that you are a frustrated old man who wishes he could have been successful. When you write such poppy-cock as was in the back section of the paper you work for it shows conclusively that you're off the beam and at least four of your ulcers are at work. Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you'll need a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below! Pegler, a gutter snipe, is a gentleman alongside you. I hope you'll accept that statement as a worse insult than a reflection on your ancestry. Now what good did that do? This letter is now history and shows a lack of constraint by the President of the United States. It also shows that he had little finesse in writing nasty letters. He should have just gone over to the newspaper and given the critic a punch in the nose. That would have made a great picture for the Truman Library. Truman, Margaret Truman, President, critic, Washington Post, singing, Paul Hume |
