they should wear to make a good impression on the president. Grady
pointed out that Mr. Truman was photographed in white buck shoes
while on vacation in Key West, and maybe their delegation should
meet him in white bucks of their own. Billy loved the idea and com-
missioned Grady to find identical shoes for the whole delegation.
On the day of the appointment, the team donned what they
had been wearing at their most recent Bible conference at Winona
Lake, Indiana—flamboyant cream-colored suits, hand-painted
ties, and the unmistakable white bucks. “People probably thought
we were a barbershop quartet,” Billy later said with a smile.
President Truman greeted them cordially, saying that he’d
heard some good things about their meetings.
Billy told him about Los Angeles the previous fall, where an
unprecedented 350,000 had attended the fifty days of meetings,
and about the New England meetings, including the 50,000 who
had gathered in Boston Common to hear him speak. Billy
reported that he had told the gathering that because of the recent
news that the Soviet Union was building a nuclear arsenal, he had
publicly called on the president to proclaim a day of national
repentance and prayer for peace.
Mr. Truman nodded but said nothing.
Then Billy reaffirmed his support for swift reaction to North
Korea’s invasion of South Korea, even though the recent news
from the battlefields was not encouraging.
“Our allotted time was quickly running out,” Billy reported
later, “and what I really wanted to talk to him about was faith.”
“Mr. President,” Billy said, casting about for an opening, “tell
me about your religious background and leanings.”
“Well,” the president replied, “I try to live by the Sermon on
the Mount and the Golden Rule.”
“It takes more than that, Mr. President,” the evangelist said,
now on familiar ground. “It’s faith in Christ and his death on the
Cross that you need.”
The president then stood up, the visit apparently over. Billy
and the others stood up too, and Billy asked, “Mr. President, could
we have prayer?”
Learning from Failure