As President Barack Obama flew to Detroit Monday for a speech before union members, Sen. Carl Levin (D., Mich.) showed him an address by President Harry Truman 63 years ago—a speech also delivered to union members in Detroit on Labor Day.

President Barack Obama waves to supporters during a Labor Day speech at Detroit’s Renaissance Center, headquarters of General Motors, Monday, Sept., 5, 2011. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)

“Here’s a give-em-hell kind of speech from Harry Truman,” Mr. Levin told the president.

Mr. Obama was clearly taken by Mr. Truman’s speech, since he went on to cited it in his own talk, echoing the former president’s assertion that gains made by unions contribute to the country’s well-being, rather than detracting from it as some suggest.

President Truman, Mr. Obama said, “talked about how Americans had voted in some folks into Congress who weren’t very friendly to labor. And he pointed out that some working folks and even some union members voted these folks in. And now they were learning their lesson. And he pointed out that — and I’m quoting here — ‘the gains of labor were not accomplished at the expense of the rest of the nation. Labor’s gains contributed to the nation’s general prosperity.’” …