ABLEnews Extra

                   FDR: Forget the Disability or Remember?

         Continuing our coverage of the contraversy surrounding
         the depiction--or nondepiction--of Franklin Delano
         Roosevelt's disability in a monument currently under
         construction, we present these thoughts from Bob Dole,
         Dave Birnbaum, and Dave Littlejohn. Your thoughts are
         welcome here...on ABLEnews. As to our own thoughts,
         we believe the most lasting memorials are constructed
         in the heart where, please God, they form the foundation
         of acts honoring the noblest principles of those who have
         gone before us.

         [The following  file may be freq'd as FDR50405.* from
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         ABLEFiles Distribution Network (AFDN) and--for a week--
         ftp'd from FTP.FIDONET.ORG on the Internet. Please allow
         a few days for processing.]

[with a tip of our ABLEnews' hat to Alexander Vachon on ADA-LAW]

Subject: Senator Bob Dole Lauds President Franklin Roosevelt

For Immediate Release: Tuesday, April 4, 1995
Contact: Clarkson Hine, 202-224-5358

PRESIDENT FRANKLIN DELANO ROOSEVELT:
A DISABILITY HERO

Washington--Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole today made the following
remarks on the floor of the U.S. Senate in honor of the 50th
anniversary of FDR's death on April 12, 1995:

As many members of the Senate know, it is my custom to speak each year
about a disability subject on April 14th.  It is the date I was
wounded in World War II and joined the disability community myself.
This year we will be in recess on April 14th, so I will give my annual
message today.

I will talk about another member of the disability community--
certainly one of its most prominent members.  But throughout his life,
his disability was not only unknown to most people, it was denied and
hidden.

I am speaking about President Franklin Roosevelt.  Next week, the
nation will commemorate the 50th anniversary of his death on April
12th, 1945.  He will surely be recalled by many as a master
politician; an energetic and inspiring leader during the dark days of
the depression; a tough, single-minded Commander-in-Chief during
World War II; and a statesman.

No doubt about it, he was all these things.  But he was also the first
elected leader in history with a disability, and he was a disability
hero.

    FDR's Splendid Deception

In 1921, at age 39, Franklin Roosevelt was a young man in a hurry.  He
was following the same political path that took his cousin Theodore
Roosevelt to the White House.  In 1910 he was elected to the New York
State Senate, and later was appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
In 1920, he was the Democratic candidate for Vice President.

Then, on the evening of August 10th, while on vacation, he felt ill
and went to bed early.  Within three days he was paralyzed from the
chest down.  Although the muscles of his upper body soon recovered, he
remained paralyzed below the waist.

His political career screeched to a halt.  He spent the next seven
years in rehabilitation, determined to walk again.  He never did.  He
mostly used a wheelchair.  Sometimes he was carried by his sons or
aides.  Other times he crawled on the floor.

But he did perfect the illusion of walking--believing that otherwise
his political ambitions were dead.  He could stand upright only with
his lower body painfully wrapped in steel braces.  He moved forward by
swinging his hips, leaning on the arm of a family member or aide.  It
worked for only a few feet at a time.  It was dangerous.  But it was
enough to convince people that FDR was not a "cripple."  FDR
biographer Hugh Gallagher has called this effort, and other tricks
used to hide his disability, "FDR's splendid deception."

This deception was aided and abetted by many others.  The press were
co-conspirators.  No reporter wrote that FDR could not walk, and no
photographer took a picture of him in his wheelchair.  For that
matter, thousands saw him struggle when he "walked."  Maybe they
didn't believe or understand what they saw.

In 1928, FDR ended his political exile, and was elected Governor of
New York.  Four years later, he was President.  On March 4th, 1933,
standing at the East Front of this Capitol, he said, "the only thing
we have to fear is fear itself."  He was 35 feet from his wheelchair.
Few people knew from what deep personal experiences he spoke.

Perhaps the only occasion where FDR fully acknowledged the extent of
his disability in public was a visit to a military hospital in Hawaii.
He toured the amputee wards in his wheelchair.  He went by each bed,
letting the men see him exactly as he was.  He didn't need to give any
pep talks--his example said it all.

    FDR: A Disability Hero

Earlier I called FDR a "disability hero."  But it was not for the
reasons some might think.  It would be easy to cite his courage and
grit.  But FDR would not want that.  "No sob stuff," he told the press
in 1928 when he started his comeback.  Even within his own family, he
did not discuss his disability.  It was simply a fact of life.

In my view, FDR is a hero for his efforts on behalf of others with a
disability.  In 1926, he purchased a run-down resort in Warm Springs,
Georgia, and over the next 20 years turned it into a unique, first
class rehabilitation center.  It was based on a new philosophy of
treatment--one where psychological recovery was as important as
medical treatment.

FDR believed in an independent life for people with disabilities--at a
time when society thought they belonged at home or in institutions.

Warm Springs was run by people with polio, for people with polio.  In
that spirit, FDR is the father of the modern independent living
movement--which puts people with disabilities in control of their own
lives.

He also founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis--today
known as the "March of Dimes"--and raised millions of dollars to help
others with polio and find a cure. On April 12th, 1955, on the 10th
anniversary of his death, the March of Dimes announced the first
successful polio vaccine, engineered by Dr. Jonas Salk.  Today, polio
is virtually extinct in the United States.  Next week, the March of
Dimes will celebrate the 40th anniversary of the vaccine in Ann Arbor.
[CURE Comment: Regrettably, the March of Dimes went on to betray the
promise of its founding when it funded search-and-destroy missions
against children with disabilities while within the womb.]
                                                          
In public policy, FDR understood that government help in
rehabilitating people with disabilities is "good business"--often
returning more in taxes and savings than it costs.  It is
unfortunately a philosophy that even today we often pay more lip
service than practice.

    Disability Today and Tomorrow

Our nation has come a long way in its understanding of disability
since the days of President Roosevelt.  For example, we recognize that
disability is a natural part of life.  We have begun to build a world
that is accessible.  No longer do we accept that buildings--either
through design or indifference--are not accessible, which is a "keep
out" sign for the disabled.

We have come a long way in another respect--in attitudes. Fifty years
ago, we had a President, Franklin Roosevelt, who could not walk and
believed it was necessary to disguise that fact from the American
people.  Today I trust that Americans would have no problem in
electing as President a man or woman with a disability.

Let's not fool ourselves--this work is not done.  Not by a long shot.
And I think this is something that we can all agree on, Republican or
Democrat.

So, next week, as we honor President Roosevelt, let us remember him as
a disability hero and dedicate ourselves to this unfinished business.

                               ###
                               
[courtesy of David Birnbaum via Handicap Digest]

Subject: Re: Another Take on FDR's Memorial

Here is my letter I sent to the NY Times about the FDR memorial:

April 12, 1995

New York Times
Letters To The Editor
229 West 43 Street
NY, NY  10036
Fax: (212) 556-3622

Re: 4/10/95  "Roosevelt's Disability An Issue At Memorial" by M.
Mutchler

Editors & Meghan Mutchler:

FDR's grandson, David B. Roosevelt asserts that "the [FDR] memorial
should not be a vehicle for making a social statement."  Ironically,
removing FDR's disability from the memorial would make a huge social
statement: 'a physical disability is something to hide, something to
be ashamed of, even if you're elected President four times.'

During his lifetime, FDR hid his disability, not because he was
ashamed of it, but because the general consensus at that time, albeit
a prejudiced one, was that a person with a disability can't run a
grocery store, let alone run a country during a depression and a world
war.

When I first started using a wheelchair fifteen years ago, I used to
ask photographers at family weddings to photograph me from the chest
up so that my wheelchair wouldn't show on the photograph;  I thought
that being in a wheelchair made me less of a person.   Almost all of
my prior exposure to people with disabilities was negative.
Gradually, I realized that a disability is a simple fact of life--it
neither diminishes your worthiness, nor does it make you a hero or a
martyr.

Unfortunately, The FDR memorial commission thinks that showing FDR's
disability in a sculpture would be 'an affront to his memory.' If they
depict FDR without his disability, then they would be giving credence
to prejudices that should have been eliminated years ago.

Would we be having a similar debate if we were honoring some other
famous patriot who concealed their mixed African heritage during a
political career because it was necessary to do so at that time?
Would we lighten their skin or straighten their hair in a national
portrait, because they had to do so fifty years ago to get elected to
office?

David J. Birnbaum

[thanks to David Littlejohn in Handicap Digest]

Subject: Re: Another Take on FDR's Memorial

If Franklin Roosevelt had wanted to play "role model" for other
American cripples, he would have.  He chose not to while he was alive,
and I dislike the idea of some special interest protest group trying
to gang up to force him to do so after he's dead.

President Roosevelt, despite all the petty digs of revisionist
biographers, can serve as a example of intelligent and dedicated
public service for all Americans.  Must monuments to Beethoven somehow
celebrate his deafness?

Roosevelt doesn't belong to "us" (i.e., others who have trouble
walking), and I see no reason to underline this relatively unimportant
fact about him in the FDR Memorial.  If you really can and do
accomplish important work (e.g., Stephen Hawking, Carson McCullers,
John Hockenberry, Oscar Peterson), then the fact that you have a
harder time getting around than most other people is, in the end,
irrelevant.  FDR is FDR: he made it without "role models," and so can
we...

ABLEnews Editor's Note: It has become the fashion to debunk and even
trash our heroes. Whether you regard FDR as a hero...or, better, what
aspects of his life you deem heroic, depends on what you value, i.e.,
the acts you deem noble. But as one who believes we are called to seek
perfection (by a perfect Creator), I believe all people regardless of
the accident of disability should have heroes--preferably, one's close
to home. My own hero is my father, Earl Appleby Sr., whose life
against the odds during nearly a decade in coma inspired the founding
of CURE and, hence, ultimately, ABLEnews itself. I trust you may
benefit in some small way from his rich legacy.

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