sitting down during the presentation of what I wish to say, but I know you will
realize it makes it a lot easier for me in not having to carry about ten pounds of
steel around the bottom of my legs and also because of the fact I have just completed
a fourteen-thousand-mile trip. [applause]."
We will never know if FDR's sudden and frank acknowledgment of his
disability would have continued in further public appearances, for
within six weeks he was dead, the victim of a massive cerebral
hemorrhage suffered while he was seeking a respite from the heavy
burdens of office at his beloved Warm Springs. The nation was stunned.
It seemed impossible that a man of such energy and determination, who
had brought the United States through the two great crises of the modern
age, was no longer with us.
FDR was the longest serving President in U.S. history. He was also the first
paraplegic to lead a great nation. Under his tenure, the American people came to
accept the idea that it was possible for a government to be compassionate, that its
first responsibility must be to look after the well being of its citizens. FDR had
always been a liberal, but his struggle with and eventual triumph over polio deepened
his understanding of human nature and brought him into direct contact with the less
fortunate in our society. Many years after his death, Eleanor Roosevelt once remarked
that his illness proved "a blessing in disguise," for it gave him strength and meant that
"he understood human suffering and knew that it could be overcome. He also knew that one
must have spiritual and physical courage; and, if one had that, there was no situation
that could not be met."
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