Fun Fact #438 The Crippling Setback

 Fun Fact #438  

The Crippling Setback

In 1920, Roosevelt stepped down from Congress while he ran for Vice president to James M. Cox but lost the election to President Calvin Coolidge. Thus, FDR began planning to regain his senate seat in the 1922 elections when he fell ill and was left permanently paralyzed from the waist down thanks to Polio. This was a deathblow to political careers at the time when many thought the effectiveness of their leaders would be mirrored in their Physical capability. Tammany Hall cheered and the news was widely known shortly afterwards. 

Yet something strange happened. Roosevelt refused to give up. Instead he turned to a known but largely dismissed medicine at the time: Hydrotherapy. Using the last of his inheritance, he laboriously worked to learn to walk using a cane and iron braces and set up “The National foundation for Infantile Paralysis” (Today known as “March of Dimes”) who would develop the Polio vaccine so no one would have to experience the same pain he had to. Despite his wishes to keep his disability a secret, many were impressed by his determination and support began to gather for FDR once more. Thanks to the widely known nature of his disability Hydrotherapy for use in rehabilitation of the disabled began to become a far more common practice improving the lives of many across the nation. 

 During this time he also began his radio broadcasts "Fireside Chats” (one of the first politicians to do so) which allowed him to quickly reach his constituents and publicly address their concerns in a time when Radio was beginning to boom in popularity.