Friends and Partners: The Legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Basil O’Connor in the History of Polio

By David W. Rose

Friends and Partners: The Legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Basil O’Connor in the History of Polio presents the story of two men, one the President of the United States, the other an ambitious attorney, who became the "architects of the fight against polio." With unfettered access to the March of Dimes Archives, this book explores the friendship and partnership that ensured the end of polio in the US, with exclusive pictures and documentation.

The book describes the founding and history of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s (FDR) polio colony in Warm Springs, Georgia, and the early years of the March of Dimes as established by FDR in 1938 as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Other little-known aspects of the partnership are also included, such as O’Connor’s participation in FDR’s "Brain Trust," the President’s birthday ball fundraisers during the Great Depression, the March of Dimes during World War II, and O’Connor’s simultaneous leadership of the American Red Cross. Finally, the book explores, in detail, how O’Connor used the legacy of FDR after his death in 1945 to promote the philosophy of "freedom from disease" to achieve the goal of ending polio through the March of Dimes. Friends and Partners: The Legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Basil O’Connor in the History of Polio will appeal to researchers, students, and policy makers in public health and medicine as well as all those interested in learning more about this pivotal period in history.

• Presents the story of two men, one the President of the United States, the other an ambitious attorney, who became the architects of the fight against polio
• Draws upon the March of Dimes archive to provide information exclusive to this publication
• Constitutes the first biography of public health hero Basil O’Connor
• Provides historical insights into the development of philanthropy in conjunction with major public health initiatives

• Language: English
• Publisher: Academic Press
• Release date: Mar 10, 2016
• ISBN: 9780128036143

David W. Rose

David W. Rose is Archivist of the March of Dimes at the foundation’s national office in White Plains, NY. He is a certified archivist of the Academy of Certified Archivists, and he oversees the preservation and organization of the documents, photographs, and audiovisual materials of the March of Dimes Archives. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Anthropology and Philosophy from Case Western Reserve University and a Master’s degree in Anthropology from the New School for Social Research. David is author of the first photographic history of the March of Dimes in the Images of America series published by Arcadia. He is an active member of the Mid-Atlantic Regional Archives Conference (MARAC) and Archivists Round Table of Metropolitan New York and serves as an advisor to the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation. David is a writer and amateur mycologist, past president of the Connecticut-Westchester Mycological Association, and contributing editor to Fungi Magazine. He has been consulting archivist to the New York State Museum and to the North American Mycological Association. His writings on the history of mycology have covered a range of topics including mushrooms in cinema, science fiction, ethnopoetics, and popular culture; the history of amateur mycology in the United States; and biographical portraits of musical composer John Cage, Johns Hopkins surgeon Howard Atwood Kelly, and molecular biologist Max Delbruck.

Book preview

Friends and Partners

The Legacy of Franklin D. Roosevelt and Basil O’Connor in the History of Polio

David W. Rose

Series Editor

Edward R. B. MCcabe

March of Dimes Foundation

Table of Contents

Cover image

Title page

Copyright

Dedication

Foreword

Acknowledgments

Epigram

Chapter 1. Introduction: The March of Dimes and Historiography

Chapter 2. Behind the White Carnation: The Leadership of Basil O’Connor

Chapter 3. O’Connor and Roosevelt at Warm Springs

Chapter 4. The Brain Trust

Chapter 5. The March of Dimes in World War II

Chapter 6. Hollywood and the Publicity Machine

Chapter 7. Basil O’Connor and the American Red Cross

Chapter 8. The March of Dimes After Franklin D. Roosevelt

Envoi

Appendix

Bibliography

Index

Copyright

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Dedication

In Memory of Charles L. Massey (1922–2015)

President of the March of Dimes (1978–1989)

Foreword

Most Americans today know little about polio—and that’s surely what Basil O’Connor would have wanted. The disease he fought so hard to conquer is now a relic of history, banished to isolated corners of the globe, on the brink of eradication. It was not an easy fight. Those who lived through the polio years well remember the fear it generated and the suffering it caused. The battle had an iconic symbol in Franklin Roosevelt, a battalion of brilliant scientists led by Albert Sabin and Jonas Salk, and an army of dedicated March of Dimes volunteers. Largely ignored, however, is the field general who molded this talent and energy into a stunning national crusade. The full story of Basil O’Connor’s central role in defeating polio, deftly told here by David Rose, is long overdue.

Polio is an intestinal infection that spreads from person to person through oral–fecal contact: unwashed hands, contaminated food or water, or shared objects. The agent is a virus that enters the body through the mouth, travels down the digestive tract, and is excreted in the bowels. Usually the infection it produces is slight—a headache, slight fever, nausea—though the victim remains a carrier of the disease. In rare instance the virus enters the bloodstream, invading the brain and central nervous system and destroying the nerve cells that stimulate the muscle fibers to contract. Death most often occurs when the breathing muscles controlled by the brain stem (or bulb) are involved, a condition known as bulbar polio.

Once called infantile paralysis, polio did not appear in epidemic form in the United States until 1916, claiming 6,000 lives, many of them in New York City. Why it came when it did, and why the mass outbreaks occurred almost exclusively in the United States and other developed nations, remains a mystery. Polio in epidemic form is both a modern phenomenon and an affliction of the West.

Some see it as a disease of cleanliness. As Western nations industrialized, they became more health conscious. Clean water, better sanitation, and stricter personal hygiene became hallmarks of modern life. What Americans could not foresee, however, was that their antiseptic revolution brought risks as well as rewards. As these reforms advanced, people were less likely to come into contact with poliovirus early in life, when the infection is milder and maternal antibodies offer temporary protection. The end result would be a vastly expanding pool of victims—the most famous, of course, being Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR).

When Roosevelt was struck down by polio in 1921, the public response bordered on disbelief. The disease was just taking hold in the United States and the victims were mainly children, as the New York City epidemic of 1916 had so cruelly shown. Yet here was FDR—39  years old, robust and athletic—at the mercy of a children’s disease, paralyzed from the waist down.

When I was writing Polio: An American Story, my editor asked me to explain how FDR contracted polio. I flippantly (if correctly) replied: He was unlucky. That wouldn’t do, of course. I had to provide some background to explain Roosevelt’s ill fortune.

It was well known that FDR had come of age on an isolated estate in the Hudson Valley. He had been sheltered by a small army of nannies and tutors, interacting with adults and avoiding the common childhood illnesses until his arrival at boarding school. From that point forward, I wrote, his medical history resembled an encyclopedia of contagious diseases. The list included typhoid fever, swollen sinuses, infected tonsils, and endless sore throats, some of which forced him to bed for weeks. During the influenza pandemic of 1918–19, Roosevelt contracted a case of double pneumonia that almost took his life. His early years, it appeared, had left him immunologically unprepared for the world beyond Hyde Park.

There was more. The summer of 1921 had been especially hard on him—intense, humiliating, and pressure packed. Already drained from a losing campaign for vice president the previous fall, FDR found himself in the middle of a national scandal regarding his role, as assistant secretary, in allegedly using undercover agents to entrap young sailors. It was a bogus charge, politically motivated, but it forced him to testify before Congress in the brutal Washington heat. Exhausted, he set out for the family’s retreat at Campobello, in Canada’s Bay of Fundy, stopping along the way to attend a massive Boy Scout jamboree at New York’s Bear Mountain Park. It was here, in all likelihood, that poliovirus entered his body. A poignant photo, one of the last taken of Roosevelt walking unassisted, shows him marching in the scout parade.

Upon reaching Campobello, FDR lost himself in a whirl of activity—sailing, swimming, hiking, and drinking into the night. Stress and heavy exercise can lower one’s immunity. Following a relay race with his children and a swim in the frigid Bay of Fundy, FDR spent the afternoon in a wet bathing suit answering his mail. He woke up the next morning with a fever and a limp leg. Within days, he’d lost all feeling below the waist. He was paralyzed.

It would take Roosevelt 7 years to return to public life. In between, he tried every conceivable cure for paralysis, to no avail. He even purchased a broken down resort in Warm Springs, Georgia, where the soothing mineral waters held the promise of recovery, and where the idea of helping other polio survivors took shape. Warm Springs would remain an integral part of Roosevelt’s life—a place where he could be himself, without having to hide his paralysis or worry about the intrusions of the press.

It was during this hiatus that Roosevelt met O’Connor. Their paths had crossed briefly in FDR’s prepolio days, introduced by O’Connor’s brother, a New York City politician. A more fateful meeting occurred in the lobby of the Broadway building where O’Connor worked as an attorney and Roosevelt, a lawyer himself, kept an office. Walking painfully on the arm of his chauffeur, Roosevelt slipped and fell on the polished marble floor. O’Connor was among those who rushed over to help him up.

An unlikely union evolved. The two men had little in common. O’Connor came from a Catholic working-class background. A self-made man, having worked his way through Dartmouth and Harvard Law School, he lacked Roosevelt’s pedigree and easygoing charm. FDR was looking to start a law firm based on his name and connections, with someone else handling the mundane day-to-day chores; O’Connor, a notorious workaholic, seemed the ideal choice. If Roosevelt was the young prince, said one observer, O’Connor was the perfect vassal.

David Rose tells the full, inspiring story of this remarkable partnership. Had FDR not returned to politics, he likely would have spent his days focusing on the rehabilitation of polio survivors and the search for a cure. Instead, he chose the substitute he trusted the most. Standing next to FDR on the day he announced the formation of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis in 1938 was Basil O’Connor, the handpicked director, who vowed to end polio whatever the cost. I am, said O’Connor, very confident of our future.

It proved a brilliant selection. Stubborn and single-minded, with great organizational skills, O’Connor revolutionized the manner in which philanthropies raised money, recruited volunteers, and advertised the cause. It was the National Foundation—better known to Americans as the March of Dimes—that invented the poster child and the mothers’ marches used so successfully to this day by other charities. It was the March of Dimes that first used celebrities—from Eddie Cantor to Helen Hayes to Grace Kelly to Elvis Presley—for attention-grabbing public events. And it was the March of Dimes that turned fund-raising on its head by seeking small gifts from the many rather than large gifts from the few. No one, even in the depths of the Great Depression, was too poor to give a dime to help a child walk again.

Above all, it was the March of Dimes that created a radical new model for giving in the United States, the concept of philanthropy as consumerism, with donors promised the ultimate personal reward: protection against the disease itself.

Polio reached its peak in America in the late 1940s and the early 1950s, with as many as 50,000 cases a year. It became, in essence, the crack in the middle-class window of an increasingly suburban, prosperous, baby-centered post–World War II culture. Polio hit without warning each summer like a plague. Newspapers kept daily box scores of those admitted to hospital polio wards. Beaches, swimming pools, bowling alleys, and movie theaters were closed. Rumors abounded that one could get polio from an unguarded sneeze, handling paper money, or talking on the telephone. We got to the point that no one could comprehend, a pediatrician recalled, when people would not even shake hands.

Actually, polio was never quite the raging epidemic portrayed in the press. Ten times as many children would be killed in accidents in these years, and three times as many would die of cancer. The national dread of polio had two main causes. One was the intensely visual nature of the disease. A person could walk into restaurant without knowing who might have heart disease or leukemia, but no one could miss the telltale signs of polio: crutches, leg braces, and wheel chairs. The other was the strategy of the National Foundation to hype the power of polio to strike down anyone, anywhere, at any time. There was but one way for parents to protect their children—and that was to support the March of Dimes.

Basil O’Connor knew little about science, much less the dynamics of polio. What he did know, however, was that progress on this front had been painfully slow. With abundant resources at his disposal, O’Connor convinced Tom Rivers, a pioneering virologist, to form a committee on scientific research within the Foundation. Then he hired a superb administrator named Harry Weaver to oversee the agenda. Rivers and Weaver agreed that prevention was the best path to follow—and that meant a vaccine.

Three basic questions had to be answered: How many different strains of poliovirus existed? How could a safe and steady supply of poliovirus be produced for use in a vaccine? And what, exactly, was the pathogenesis of the disease—how did it travel through the body and get to the central nervous system, where the damage occurred?

Question one would involve dozens of researchers and a vast pool of money. A successful vaccine had to protect against every strain of poliovirus, and nobody had a clue what that number might be. Finding out was tedious work, but absolutely essential. I know of no problem in all the medical sciences that was more uninteresting to solve, Harry Weaver admitted. [It meant] the monotonous repetition of exactly the same technical procedures on virus after virus, seven days a week, 52  weeks a year, for three solid years.

In all, 196 strains were tested, and all fit neatly into three distinct types. Unlike influenza (or HIV/AIDS to come) the poliovirus family proved remarkably stable and conveniently small. This was very good news, indeed.

Question two would be answered by John Enders, Fred Robbins, and Thomas Weller at the Children’s Hospital of Boston. Their ability to culture poliovirus safely in animal tissue outside the body (in vitro) is considered one of the landmark achievements of modern virology. The three men, all March of Dimes grantees, would be awarded the Nobel Prize for Medicine—the only polio researchers to be so honored.

Question three would require the shared research of David Bodian at Johns Hopkins and Dorothy Horstmann at Yale, each with heavy March of Dimes funding. Previous theories had poliovirus entering through the nose and traveling directly to the brain and central nervous system without entering the bloodstream. What Bodian and Horstmann discovered is that poliovirus enters the mouth, passes through the digestive tract, and, in a small number of cases, does indeed move through the bloodstream into the nervous system. A vaccine producing antibodies in the blood could probably neutralize the virus.

Hundreds of scientists provided the building blocks for the life-saving vaccines developed by Jonas Salk and Albert Sabin. The beauty of the program overseen by O’Connor, Rivers, and Weaver was that it relied on the best available talent. At a time of intense anti-Semitism in the medical field, the two largest March of Dimes research grants went to Salk and Sabin—both Jews. At a time when prejudice against female scientists was commonplace, two of the most successful grants went to women—Isabel Morgan working on a killed-virus vaccine at Johns Hopkins, and Dorothy Horstmann at Yale. Pedigree meant little. Large sums went to researchers at Harvard, Hopkins, and Yale, but equally large amounts were given to researchers at less prestigious places. Quality alone determined these awards.

In 1954, the March of Dimes sponsored the largest public health experiment in American history—the field trial of Jonas Salk’s killed-virus polio vaccine. More than a million school children were involved: one group receiving the real vaccine, a second group getting a look-alike placebo, and a third group acting as observed controls. The experiment was double-blind, meaning that neither the child receiving the shot nor the person giving it knew what was in the needle. The vaccine, produced by Parke–Davis and Eli Lilly, had been triple tested for safety: first in Salk’s laboratory, next by the manufacturers, and then by the National Institutes of Health—the only government involvement in the entire experiment.

Many in the scientific community were skeptical of Salk’s vaccine. They viewed Salk as a relative novice, barely 40 and relentlessly ambitious, who had not paid his dues. They fretted that his killed-virus vaccine was not strong enough to produce lasting immunity or safe enough to be mass-tested on children. But O’Connor not only had faith in Salk, he also had the last word. Thousands were being struck down each year by polio, and Salk alone appeared to grasp the urgency of the moment. As O’Connor put it: He sees beyond the microscope.

It would take a full year to tabulate the results. On April 12, 1955, as families huddled around radios, the verdict came down: Salk’s vaccine was safe, potent, and effective. At a White House ceremony honoring the achievement, President Dwight D. Eisenhower choked back tears as he told Salk and O’Connor: I have no words to thank you. I am very, very happy.

Three years later, Albert Sabin successfully tested his live-virus oral polio vaccine in the Soviet Union and other Iron Curtain countries. By 1961, as Sabin’s vaccine replaced Salk’s, the number of polio cases in the United States dropped below 1,000 and would soon be in double digits, virtually wiping polio off the American map.

There was a problem, however. In an extremely small number of cases—about 1 in 750,000—the live virus in Sabin’s attenuated vaccine reverted to virulence, causing polio in the child. As a result, polio could never be fully eradicated—a reality that everyone but Sabin himself sadly acknowledged. In the 1990s, the United States went back to a more effective version of the killed-virus Salk vaccine. Polio completely disappeared.

The enormous efforts of the March of Dimes in the domestic polio crusade have been taken up globally by groups like Rotary International, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the World Health Organization, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). The aim is to make polio the second infectious disease in human history to be wiped off the face of the earth, smallpox being the first. And both vaccines—the killed-virus Salk and the live-virus Sabin—will be needed to finish the job. What greater tribute to the memory of Basil O’Connor than to see this noble goal fulfilled.

David Oshinsky, PhD,     Director, Division of Medical Humanities NYU School of Medicine

August 2015

Acknowledgments

The philosopher and critic Walter Benjamin claimed that nothing that has taken place should be lost to history, but that only to redeemed humanity does the past belong in its entirety. Accordingly, these pages will show that Basil O’Connor has been pulled back into view from the prolonged neglect that precedes becoming lost, and that in his vision for the March of Dimes as a quest for Freedom from Disease he hungered to redeem humanity for future generations of children from the disasters of polio, birth defects, and premature birth. The endeavor of biographical and historical reconstruction is never an isolated one, and the following individuals and institutions contributed in various ways with vital assistance and spirited encouragement. It is a pleasure and an honor to acknowledge my debt of gratitude to all those who invigorated this project with their knowledge, expertise, and support.

The original research for this project was supported by a Lubin–Winant Research Fellowship from the Franklin and Eleanor Roosevelt Institute. On behalf of the March of Dimes Foundation, I express my heartfelt gratitude to the Institute for this generous gift of support. To the staff of the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library in Hyde Park, New York, I wish to express my enthusiastic thanks not only for the consummate professionalism and steadfast dedication to serving researchers from every walk of life but also to reflect their own surplus of Rooseveltian generosity back to them with the deepest appreciation. The FDR Library is an archival and historical treasure! In particular, Lynn Bassanese, Robert Clark, Clifford Laube, Franceska Macsali-Urbin, Sarah Malcolm, and Jeffrey Urbin have all provided invaluable assistance to the author, and the March of Dimes counts them as treasured friends and partners.

Angela N. H. Creager of Princeton University and Daniel Wilson of Muhlenberg College kindly reviewed a first draft of this writing, as did Charles Massey of the March of Dimes. Dr. Creager and Dr. Wilson provided helpful advice on many occasions as well as a sustained dialogue about the history of 20th-century science, medicine, and disease that proved invaluable. David Oshinsky of New York University and Peter Salk of the Jonas Salk Legacy Foundation did the same. Dr. Oshinsky’s vivid presentations on the history of polio remain second to none; his assistance has been consistently generous, sparkling with insight; and we thank him for his beautifully written foreword to this volume and for his many years of support. Dr. Peter Salk has shared his personal knowledge of his father Jonas Salk and the history of the polio vaccine with exacting attention to the nuances of historical interpretation, providing many colorful details of his own experiences with Basil O’Connor. I am proud to say that Peter and I first met when we shared the podium at a commemoration of the 50th anniversary of the Salk polio vaccine announcement at NYU in 2005.

I extend my profound thanks to March of Dimes President Dr. Jennifer Howse and to Senior Vice President and Chief Medical Officer Dr. Edward McCabe for the opportunity to help preserve the legacy of Basil O’Connor and the March of Dimes in this monograph series. Dr. McCabe reviewed my writing with insightful criticism every step of the way, and I deeply appreciate his expert guidance and personal support. Many thanks to Senior Vice President of Strategic Marketing and Communications Doug Staples and the Media Relations Team of Michele Kling, Todd Dezen, and Elizabeth Lynch whose keen sense of history as a work in progress provides a constant learning experience. I am especially grateful to Michele for her fund of historical knowledge and insightful review of a first draft of my writing. I extend my sincere thanks also to Dr. Michael Katz and to Dr. Christopher Howson for their expert tutelage regarding the international dimensions of the Foundation and for sharing their wealth of knowledge of the history of science and medicine. Thanks to Cynthia Pellegrini of the Office of Advocacy and Government Affairs, and Beverly Robertson and Lilliam Acosta-Sanchez of the Pregnancy and Newborn Health Education Center, for helpful information on many occasions; to Motoko Oinuma for technical support; and to Peter Coletta whose knowledge of film history and technology is always most helpful. To my wife, Susan Rose, Director of Program Services, March of Dimes New York State Chapter, I offer my deep appreciation for her critical insights and supportive understanding throughout this project.

Many others have provided expert knowledge and helpful assistance on more occasions than I can tell: sincere thanks to Chuck Dittrich, Deborah Gardner, Ronald Green, Joan Headley, Caitlin Hawke, Julia Marino, Jan Nichols, Adam Pellegrini, Edith Powell, and Phil Schaap. Thanks to the members of the 21st century incarnation of the Cuff Links Club in their enthusiasm for FDR, in particular Dr. Steven Lomazow, Dr. Hal Toby Raper, Frank Costigliola, and Robert A. Friedman. Of the many scholars who have utilized the March of Dimes Archives, I am very grateful for a stimulating rapport with Richard Altenbaugh, Suzanne Bourgeois, William Cleveland, Charlotte Jacobs, Alex Kertzner, Stephen Mawdsley, Naomi Rogers, and Durahn Taylor.

A very special thanks to Cathy Hively, granddaughter of Basil O’Connor, for sharing her reminiscences about Doc and Hazel in lengthy interviews on several occasions, and for her warm friendship and generous support of the March of Dimes.

Thanks also to fellow archivists Michael Shadix, Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation; Peter Carini, Rauner Special Collections Library, Dartmouth College; Christine Beauregard, Manuscripts and Special Collections, NY State Library; and Susan Watson, Hazel Braugh Records Center, American Red Cross. My editors at Elsevier have been most helpful and efficient; they are Molly McLaughlin, Erin Hill-Parks, and Catherine A. van der Laan.

Finally, this project could not have been completed without the assistance of Saira Suri, an undergraduate attending Vanderbilt University and summer intern at the March of Dimes in 2013, 2014, and 2015. Saira volunteered her assistance