House, but also both Houses of Congress.
The election of 1920 may have been a disaster for the Democratic Party as a whole,
but in many ways it was a triumph for FDR. For it was through the 1920 campaign that the young Roosevelt
first acquired a national following. It also provided FDR with the opportunity to hone his political
skills, skills that he would use to great effect, later in his career.
Following the 1920 election, FDR returned to private law practice, eventually
establishing a partnership with Basil O'Connor that specialized in corporate cases with offices at
120 Broadway in the heart of Wall Street. In the summer of 1921, FDR also took a well-deserved
vacation, heading to his family's summer retreat on Campobello Island, New Brunswick. It was during
this fateful period, while enjoying the splendors of a maritime summer with his children, that FDR
contracted poliomyelitis (infantile paralysis). Despite courageous efforts to regain the use of his
legs, the disease would render FDR unable to stand or walk unassisted for the rest of his life. FDR
refused to accept this, however, and for the next seven years would undergo a daily regime of exercise
and therapy in a vain attempt to rebuild his atrophied muscles. This relentless search for a cure would
ultimately bring FDR to Warm Springs, Georgia, where in 1927 he established the Georgia Warm Springs
Foundation for the treatment of victims of polio. FDR threw all he had into the foundation and invested
nearly 2/3rds of his private fortune into it before he heeded the call to return to politics.
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