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THE MARCH OF DIMES AND THE NATIONAL FOUNDATION FOR INFANTILE PARALYSIS

President Roosevelt and Polio

Of all the major ills that still plagued Americans in the 1930s, polio became a community rallying point and an urgent subject for medical research. Polio was an enemy that struck the nation's young in a vicious manner, often paralyzing or crippling victims for life, if it was not fatal. The nation's first citizen was its foremost victim. In 1938 not all Americans knew that their president, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, was a paraplegic, a crippled victim of poliomyelitis. Roosevelt disguised his paralysis with strong steel braces on his paralyzed legs when he had to stand and often appeared seated in open-topped automobiles where the crowds could not see his disability. He was only photographed in a wheelchair once during his entire political career. But the story of his apparent "victory" over the disease was common knowledge. He made frequent therapy visits to Warm Springs, Georgia, to the Warm Springs Foundation, which ran a treatment center for polio victims. In 1934 the foundation needed financial support, and the decision was made to ask the public for contributions. President Roosevelt lent his name to the fund-raising campaign, which was based on a series of annual balls held in various cities on Roosevelt's birthday, 30 January.

The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis and the March of Dimes

In January 1938 President Roosevelt provided his leadership to expand the Warm Springs Foundation into a national organization—the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. A dynamic lawyer named Basil O'Connor, who had once practiced law in New York City with Roosevelt, took command. The new foundation's stated purpose was "To lead, direct, and unify the fight against every aspect of the killing and crippling infection of poliomyelitis." The plan was to collect small contributions from a large number of people, and its fund-raising campaign became famous as the "March of Dimes." The campaign soon captured the imagination of the country. At halftime at basketball games in small towns a big canvas was spread on the court to receive the change that the spectators showered down. The Disney Studios created a cartoon for the foundation featuring Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, and friends marching off to fight polio:

Heigh-ho, heigh-ho
 We'll lick ol' polio,
 With dimes and quarters

And our doll-aaars—
 Ho, heigh-ho!

Research as a Popular Cause

Roosevelt believed that poliomyelitis could be conquered with a program of scientific education and research and the organization of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Ordinary people came to see research as a popular cause, and the March of Dimes annually raised more money than any other health campaign. The millions of people who gave money every year to the March of Dimes did so because they wanted to care for polio patients and to wipe out the disease that had so injured them. The scientists—microbiologists, biochemists, or the newly emerging specialists in virology and immunology—desired to solve the mystery of poliomyelitis and to understand the nature of viruses and the way they spread. Out of this program came the research that supported the ultimate creation of the miraculous Salk and Sabin polio vaccines in the 1950s.