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

“Mr. Roosevelt does not attribute any medicinal effects to the Warm Springs waters, but he gives the water credit for his ability to remain in it for two hours or more, without tiring in the least, and the rest of the credit for his improvement is given to Georgia’s sunshine … With him everything in Warm Springs is ‘great’ or ‘fine’ or ‘wonderful.’ That is the spirit that has carried him to remarkable heights for a man just past his fortieth year, and it is the spirit that is going to restore him to his pristine health and vigor.”

FDR was happy to help generate a little regional publicity for Warm Springs. He did not know the Atlanta Journal-Constitution would sell Cleburne Gregory’s feature story to other newspapers. In the next few weeks, the story appeared in big-city dailies and small-town weeklies from New York to California, with headlines like FRANKLIN ROOSEVELT WILL SWIM TO HEALTH, accompanied by photos of a grinning FDR at the edge of the pool at Warm Springs.

Important Democrats spotted the story and read it.

So did people who had polio, desperate people who had spent months and years shut away from the pitying eyes of “normal” people, losing any hope of leading full and happy lives.

And now they were reading the words of the paralyzed Franklin Roosevelt, talking of a return to “pristine health and vigor.”

Back aboard his houseboat in January 1925, FDR soon realized he would have to drop his idea of using the Caribbean as an exercise pool. It just wasn’t practical—not around the Florida Keys. He enjoyed life aboard the houseboat, but there were simply too many sharks cruising the shallows for him to spend much time in the water.

Then one day in the Larooco’s launch boat he had an accident. Muscles in his right knee were torn. His leg turned black and blue. Complete rest was essential. He would not be able to exercise again until he got back to Warm Springs—three months of waiting to do anything at all to help his legs. Missy LeHand said there were days aboard the boat when he could not get out of bed and face the day until noon.

It was the worst injury from a fall he had suffered so far, but it was hardly the only time he had fallen. Indeed, one of his main reasons for wanting greater strength and balance was to reduce the danger of falls. They were not only frightening and painful. If he fell hard enough, he could wind up worse off than he was already, not to mention humiliated if a fall occurred in public.

He was always at risk. When standing with his braces, he could easily lean a bit too far to one side and find it impossible to recover his balance. When walking with crutches, he could move one foot just an inch too far, and down he would go. A helper might lose his grip on FDR for a second, and down he would go. The muscles of his lower abdomen, thighs, and buttocks were so weak that if he wasn’t careful, he could fall out of a chair.

Basil O’Connor, Roosevelt’s new law partner, had seen it happen. In fact, he had seen FDR fall the first time he ever set eyes on him.

One morning O’Connor had arrived for work at his office building in lower Manhattan to find a little group of people watching as a tall man on crutches moved slowly through the front door into the lobby. He was being assisted by another man; O’Connor guessed he was a servant or a chauffeur.

O’Connor recognized the man with crutches as Franklin Roosevelt. He had seen his picture in the newspapers. Now he watched as FDR struggled toward the elevator across the polished stone floor of the lobby. His legs were stiffly straight from his waist to his feet. The chauffeur stood just to his left, watching closely. Roosevelt’s progress was slow. Each movement required a series of smaller movements. First he would lean heavily on the crutches. Then he would toss his head back to pull his weight off the crutches for a second. In that instant, he thrust the crutches ahead, aiming the tip of the left crutch (on his weaker side) to a point on the slick floor where the chauffeur had planted his foot to keep the crutch from slipping. Then FDR would lean forward on the crutches and haul his lower body along.

O’Connor could see that the muscles of his neck were tight with the strain.

FDR had gone a short distance when the tip of the left crutch landed with a little too much force against his helper’s shoe. Suddenly he was falling. The chauffeur leaped to catch him, but it was too late. Down FDR crashed, crutches clattering, hat skittering across the floor. The chauffeur tried to pull him up by his armpits, but he was too heavy. Watchers rushed to help.

“Nothing to worry about!” FDR called. O’Connor said his voice sounded “pleasant and strong,” with “a ring in it.”

Lying on the floor, trying to twist up to a sitting position, FDR looked up at O’Connor and called, “Give me a hand there.”

To another man he said the same thing, then: “All right, now, all together!”

In a moment he was up on his crutches again.

He nodded to the chauffeur and said, “Let’s go.”

Later he was paid a visit at Hyde Park by a distant cousin named Nicholas Roosevelt. FDR suggested a drive around the estate. As Nicholas Roosevelt watched, two helpers carried FDR down the steps from the front door to the waiting auto. They got him into his seat, but “as they turned and left him he lost his balance … and he fell over on the car seat. I doubt if one man in a thousand as disabled and dependent on others would have