A question regarding Missouri railroad history

[wagnersteve]

One of the books I'm reading is Citizen Soldier: A Life of Harry S. Truman, by Aida D. Donald, who died very recently.  She was the widow of Prof. David W. Donald, who was chairman of Harvard's   Committee on Higher Degrees in the History of American Civilization -- since renamed American Studies -- when I was earning my Ph.D. in that program.  I knew him very well but probably only encountered her in person a few times.  She became head of Harvard University Press and did great work there.  The book, like another of hers on Theodore Roosevelt, which I haven't started reading yet, is meant for general readers.  Both were published by Basic Books, in 2006 and 2007, respectively.  

The one on Truman could have used better editing at some points. And it has no footnotes or endnotes to help figure out the sources for statements in the text.  Pages 100-102 discuss hearings on railroads by a U.S. Senate subcommittee Truman headed, ca. 1937, that led to a Transportation Act passed in 1940 that disappointed him.  On page 102 is this: "The railroad fiasco was a tough learning experience for Truman . . . [including ] how a final act could accomplish little, after months or even years of work.  His one win was saving the Missouri Railroad from bankruptcy."  I have been unable to learn what railroad Mrs. Donald meant.  Wikipedia says the Missouri Pacific declared bankruptcy in 1933 and went into a trusteeship that lasted until 1956.  I've also checked online concerned its subsidiary Missouri-Illinois and the Missouri-Kansas-Texas without success.  Can anyone help me pin down which railroad the author had in mind?

[Christian]

Probably the Frisco. Although Missouri Pacific was headquartered in St Louis it was not much of a presence in Missouri outside of the St Louis/KC corridor. The Frisco was headquartered in Springfield, MO and had much more local presence. The  1940 transportation act was a hodgepodge of surface transportation regulations and really didn't do anyone much good. Aeronautics were excluded which would have made Truman unhappy because he was a long champion of the air industry. WWII lead to government controls which pretty much ignored the transportation act of 1940.

[wagnersteve]

Nov. 10, 10:30 a.m., EST

Christian, thank you very much. You are likely right. The Katy's presence in Missouri was always tenuous, and the Texas Special (a joint MKT-SLSF operation) was more of a Frisco train than a Katy one.

I've now gotten farther in Mrs. Donald's book, to a point where she misquotes FDR's first Vice President, John Nance Garner of Texas, as having said that the U.S. Vice Presidency wasn't worth a bucket of warm spit. The word he actually used was the onomatopoetic term for urine that is essentially the same in English, German and even French. That's comparable to the bowdlerized version of Lyndon Johnson's vulgar, cruel -- and inaccurate -- statement that Gerald Ford was "so dumb that he can't walk and chew gum at the same time". LBJ didn't say "walk" but instead the English "four letter word" meaning to pass gas from the large intestine. The German cognate replicates the sound better; it's Furz, for which a phonetic English spelling word be FOORTS with a long "u" sound.  The German language is often more "earthy" or vulgar than English; its nickname for the bassoon is Nonnenfurz, which in English means nun's fart.