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Why Didn’t Presidents T. Roosevelt and Truman Have Vice Presidents?
Nearly a decade of vacancies
If you ever sift through a list of former vice presidents of the United States, you will come across something odd. If you pay attention, you will notice that for two presidential terms, there was no vice president. Presidents Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman had no vice presidents for either of their first terms. The combined time of vacancy stretches to nearly eight years. Roosevelt did not have a vice president from 1901 to 1905, and Truman did not have a vice president from 1945 until 1948. It seems out of place to see the word NONE in the vice presidential column for these two influential presidents.
Every four years, the choice of a presidential candidate’s vice presidential pick is a hot topic of conversation. Vice presidents are often chosen for their geographic home or their former experience in a bid to woo voters. The idea of there being no vice president is foreign. So how is it that two presidents in the 20th century managed to govern without one for nearly two full terms?
The answer to that lies in how both Theodore Roosevelt and Harry Truman ascended to the office of the presidency.
