the dwight d. eisenhower presidential library and museum hosted this hour long event. first i want to say good afternoon, and i want to thank some people, of course, tim for giving me this opportunity to come down and speak with you today. i m really excited about it and samantha who handled a lot of the publicity for the event she did just a wonderful job and without people like that, also there was a local radio station that did a great interview, and between newspaper, radio, i m always appreciative of all the people who support your visit and so i want to thank all of them before i get started. i m going to jump right into it and tell you a little bit about why i m here. the kansas city monarchs was a negro league baseball team and most of you have heard of them. maybe you heard of jackie robinson or satchel paige. they were organized in 1920, 194 they won the first world championship. that was 90 years ago. i was trying to figure a way to honor these great men who pur
especially over the same period of time. number one. number two, truman was famous for being a walker. every day he took his constitutional. referring to the speed of the pedestrians in the competitive races, i think, and it s hard to tell, we have no photographs much less moving pictures. it s a shame. still the age of line drawings and engravings. the way people described westin s walk sounds similar to what race walking is today. they said he had a wobbly walk, that he moved his hips. he swung his hips. i have a feeling that he walked fast. much like modern race walkers do. as far as truman, you mentioned harry truman. he walked, i forget what it was. what was his old military pace of 60 steps a second or 60 steps a minute or something? he was famous for his walks. liked to walk around washington. there is a good story where the secret service hated it. the secret service had been protecting fdr, you know, for 12 years and really didn t have to worry about fdr going on l
so when he actually when he left the white house in early 53, he had had to take a loan out from a bank in washington to help make ends meet, and he also refused to commercialize the presidency. he would not take lucrative speaking fees. he would not sit on corporate boards, that sort of thing. i m glad the presidents still don t do that. so anyway, he was really kind of a poor guy. he was the last president to become a regular citizen again in a way, and so on this trip they stayed at hotels, and they ate at roadside diners, and they crashed with friends in indianapolis one night, and so it s kind of the story of this trip and also how being an ex-president has changed. yeah, they came to new york. they actually stayed at the waldorf in new york for four nights, and i was curious how they could afford that, and then harry saved all his correspondence and at the truman library i found a letter from the general manager of the waldorf saying, i hear you re coming to new york
the packard car company, which said you could go 300 miles in a day. i guess he was desperate for ads because he did not like cars. westin did not like cars just because he thought they made people walk less. ironically, westin in 1927, was crossing a street in manhattan and was hit by a car and was left crippled and never walked again and died two years later at the age of 90. o leary fareed a little better. he would stage walking exhibitions before major league baseball games. he would go out and challenge the fastest runner on the team to run around the bases twice while he walked around once and more often than not he won, and then he would pass the hat. literally, pass a hat through the stands collecting nickels and dimes and this is basically how he funded his retirement. the book, i have a scene where i imagine he performed before a game in chicago between the white sox and a s in 1927 and i imagine the players in the dugout were all born well, well after the golden ag
would hear about contributions to the baseball world, including future hall of fame players and several innovations of the sport like the use of lights for night games. d eisenhower presidential library and museum hosted this hour-long event. i want to say good afternoon. long event. first i want to say good afternoon, and i want to thank some people, of course, tim for giving me this opportunity to come down and speak with you today. i m really excited about it and samantha who handled a lot of the publicity for the event she did just a wonderful job and without people like that, also there was a local radio station that did a great interview, and between newspaper, radio, i m always appreciative of all the people who support your visit and so i want to thank all of them before i get started. i m going to jump right into it and tell you a little bit about why i m here. the kansas city monarchs was a negro league baseball team and most of you have heard of them. maybe you