In 1927 the governor of New York addressed the Crippled
Children’s Society about the need for bringing physically
handicapped children into the mainstream.
In 1927 the governor of New York addressed the Crippled Children’s Society’s annual meeting about the need for bringing physically handicapped children into the mainstream and helping them live as normal a life as possible.
He also advocated the same for the former crippled children who had grown into crippled adults. His compassion was evident but the practice of politics had also made him shrewd, so he mentioned the millions of dollars in taxes that their incomes would produce for the common good.
The speech was widely reprinted and carried by many radio stations. A large part of its success was because in addition to being a widely known politician, he was the nation’s most famous cripple, Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
Roosevelt, born on Jan. 30, 1882, was the scion of a family that had settled in New York while it was still known as New Amsterdam. He was educated at Groton and Harvard as his ancestors had been. He was a distant cousin of the immensely popular Theodore Roosevelt and married TR’s niece, Anna Eleanor Roosevelt, with her uncle giving her away.
Franklin Roosevelt entered politics and won a seat to the New York State senate in 1910. During World War I he was appointed to the same post that Theodore Roosevelt had previously held, assistant secretary of the Navy,
In 1920 he became the vice presidential candidate on the Democrat ticket with James Cox. They lost decisively that year to Warren G. Harding and Calvin Coolidge. But a larger struggle was ahead of him. In 1921, the 39-year-old Roosevelt was stricken with poliomyelitis, better known then as infantile paralysis.
That ordeal and his determination to reclaim as much of his life as possible left him with the sobering sense that physical affliction could hit any class, any station of life. With the ardent aid of his wife, Roosevelt regained a good part of his mobility and lost much of his arrogance.
Although he depended on crutches or a wheelchair to get around, he vowed that he would not live the life of a pampered cripple. In the summer of 1924, with his legs encased in metal braces, he walked across the stage to nominate Al Smith as the party’s standard bearer.
Smith lost his bid, but Roosevelt went on to be elected, then re-elected to the governorship. At the party’s national convention in 1932, he was nominated on the fourth ballot and was elected to the presidency.
Roosevelt had purchased a spa in Warm Springs, Ga., where he frequently spent time in its soothing waters. He extended its use to other polio victims, and many friends and lobbyists added facilities to it for the treatment of polio.
His leadership in the 1930s, when he told a Depression-savaged public that the only thing it had to fear was fear itself, and his inclusion of the common worker and black Americans in the American dream were as crucial to that time as Lincoln’s administration had been during the Civil War.
Many Americans old enough to remember that era still hold him in near-saint status, although some opponents labeled him as a traitor to his class. It is hard to think of anyone that could have led the nation as well as he did during World War II.
Americans of my age still recall the thrill we got in bringing a dime to school on his birthday every Jan. 30 to help in the fight against polio. Over the years the March of Dimes, as singer Eddie Cantor dubbed it, has provided research into preventing polio and a myriad number of other diseases that afflict children as well as adults.
It is fitting that in 1946, a year after his death, a coin was minted bearing Roosevelt’s likeness. It was, of course, a dime.
