There's Nothing Mild About Harry

Harry Truman, 33rd president of the United States, was known as a fighter. Whether people agreed with Truman or not, they respected his straightforward way of looking at the facts and stating the truth - even when it hurt.
During the 1948 presidential campaign, the polls consistently showed him losing to Governor Thomas Dewey of New York. Asked about his apparently inevitable defeat, Truman went straight to the point and talked about an epitaph he'd seen in Arizona.
"Here lies Jack Williams. He done his damnest.' I think that is the greatest epitaph a man could have.  Whenever a man does the best he can, then that is all he can do."
Following up that attitude with some of the hardest campaigning seen in a presidential election, Truman won by two million covets.

Adapted from The Bully Pulpit and printed in Leadership...with a human touch, October 16, 2001, Page 24