Master of His Fate by James Tobin (free ebooks for android txt) 📗

feet. In his calves he could make a couple of muscles twitch, but nothing more. Above the knees, the virus had devastated the muscles of his thighs.

At Campobello, Dr. Lovett had told the Roosevelts to watch for signs of recovery in a couple of weeks. With the New York reporters, Dr. Draper had promised “he will not be crippled.”

But if Dr. Draper had felt optimistic at first—partly because of what Dr. Lovett had said, no doubt—now he was not so sure.

He detected one especially frightening possibility. The muscles in FDR’s lower back, critical to staying upright in a seated position, were too tender for Dr. Draper to examine carefully. But he suspected they were in very bad shape. He wrote about his concerns in a private letter to Dr. Lovett in Boston:

“He is very cheerful and hopeful, and has made up his mind that he is going to go out of the hospital in the course of two or three weeks on crutches. What I fear more than anything else is that we shall find a much more extensive involvement of the great back muscles than we have suspected and that when we attempt to sit him up he will be faced with the frightfully depressing knowledge that he cannot hold himself erect.”

Dr. Draper was worried about more than FDR’s paralysis. He was worried about his willpower.

FDR would have to endure a long, difficult, and painful program of exercise. To get through it, he must pin his hopes to the vision of a strong recovery. But if he discovered that he couldn’t even sit up, how could he ever believe that he might walk again?

“I feel so strongly after watching him for over a week that the psychological factor in his management is paramount,” Dr. Draper told Dr. Lovett. “He has such courage, such ambition, and yet at the same time such an extraordinarily sensitive emotional mechanism that it will take all the skill which we can master to lead him successfully to a recognition of what he really faces without utterly crushing him.”

From this, it sounds as if Dr. Draper had begun to think that FDR’s legs would never work again. If that turned out to be true, could he summon the courage to live his life without the ability to walk? Or would he give up in despair?

A few days later, on Dr. Lovett’s advice, Dr. Draper had the nurses lower FDR into hot baths. The heat soothed his back muscles, and FDR did sit up. So he would not be imprisoned in a bed. It was a crucial success.

But below the waist, his legs were the same as ever.

Sara Roosevelt was keeping herself “very cheerful,” Eleanor noticed, though “it must have been a most terrific strain for her, and I am sure that, out of sight, she wept many hours.”

At Campobello, Sara had tried to believe that Franklin would make a full recovery. But like her brother, Fred Delano, she had been raised to look hard facts in the face.

Now, in her son’s hospital room, she could see what seemed the obvious truth: His legs simply were not getting any better. If he would never walk again, what should he do with his life?

To Sara the answer was quite clear. He should retire to the family’s country home at Hyde Park. With her fortune, there was no need for him to worry about making a living. He could pursue his hobbies. He could add to his collections of books, fine art, and stamps. Perhaps he would write articles or even books. He loved Hyde Park. He could live out a pleasant life there in privacy.

So she left New York City to make preparations in the big house overlooking the Hudson.

While she was doing so, a friend of hers, Mrs. Lily Norton, visited for a few days and listened to Sara’s story of all that had happened. Then Mrs. Norton sat down to write a letter to a friend. Her thoughts probably reflected what Sara had been thinking:

“Tragedy rather overshadows this once so happy & prosperous family, for Mrs. R’s only son, Franklin Roosevelt, was struck down in August with a terribly serious case of infantile paralysis. He is only 39 … He’s had a brilliant career … Now he is a cripple—will he ever be anything else? His mother is wonderfully courageous & plucky, but it’s a bitter blow.”

When the news of FDR’s illness appeared in the newspapers, his friends in politics were relieved to learn the doctors were predicting a full recovery. But as he stayed in the hospital week after week, they became curious about how he was really doing.

One of these friends was James Middleton Cox, a wealthy newspaper publisher who had been the governor of Ohio and FDR’s running mate on the Democratic ticket in 1920. When he visited the hospital, Cox was shocked. He just couldn’t believe that FDR, the athletic young man who had campaigned so vigorously just a year earlier, had been cut down by a child’s disease.

“Jim’s eyes filled with tears when he saw me,” FDR recalled later, “and I gathered from his conversation that he was dead certain that I had had a stroke and that another one would soon completely remove me … Jim Cox from that day on always shook his head when my name was mentioned and said in sorrow that in effect I was a hopeless invalid and could never resume any active participation in business or political affairs.”

Other visitors saw that FDR was nowhere near walking, and they passed that news to friends. Young Roosevelt was putting up a good front, they said. He was a brave fellow, all right. But as for politics, the Democrats could forget about him.

“The word had spread around,” said Frances Perkins. It was: “‘Poor Roosevelt, he’s through.’ ‘Too bad about Roosevelt, he’s through.’ ‘Too bad.’”

Why would a man like James Cox cry at the mere sight of his friend?

Why would everyone think FDR was through in politics