THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, August 4, 1996 TAG: 9608040054
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B7 EDITION: NORTH CAROLINA
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: By Paul South
LENGTH: 69 lines
The touch of Franklin Delano Roosevelt is still felt on the sliver of soil known as Roanoke Island, more than half a century after his funeral train rolled north through the Carolinas to his final resting place.
The Lost Colony's Waterside Theatre was constructed by laborers from the Civilian Conservation Corps, with money from the Works Progress Administration. The CCC and the WPA were only two of the alphabet agencies Roosevelt created to put destitute Americans back to work.
The ``Lost Colony'' story, by Paul Green, was written with the help of FDR's Federal Writers Project. The New Deal was concerned not only with busying idle hands, but lifting sagging spirits.
On Aug. 18, 1937, Roosevelt came to Roanoke Island to see Green's play, and to mark the 350th anniversary of the birth of Virginia Dare.
``They took down a barricade so that he could sit in the back of his limousine and see the play,'' said Wynne Dough, curator of the Outer Banks History Center. ``That way, he wouldn't have to get out of the car, and people wouldn't see that he had braces on his legs.''
Later, in a speech to the cheering crowd, FDR was able to pull himself up to a lectern, which again concealed the 10 pounds of steel on his legs. The people of Roanoke Island saw a courageous, forceful commander-in-chief - not his handicap.
American attitudes toward the disabled are different today than in the 1930s. The story of Franklin Delano Roosevelt's courageous and successful victory over polio has become a source of inspiration for millions. The image of the chief executive in a wheelchair who led us through a Depression and a world war confirms the belief that there are no limits to human potential.
But if the federal commission formed to oversee construction of a new Roosevelt Memorial in Washington has its way, Roosevelt's wheelchair and braces will be concealed once again.
One proposed sculpture at the 7 1/2-acre memorial would show Roosevelt seated in a chair with his beloved dog Fala - with not a wheelchair, brace or cane in sight.
Lester Hayman, a member of the commission, said earlier this year that the decision not to show the wheelchair was made because the commission ``wanted to show Roosevelt as people then knew him.''
Monuments, however, are not built to enlighten those who lived in the time of the person the memorial honors.
They are designed for those living now, and in decades to come, to help them understand an individual, and his or her mark on the world.
The FDR Memorial Commission's decision tinkers with an unalterable historical fact:
Franklin Delano Roosevelt couldn't get around without crutches, braces or a wheelchair.
And that fact alone makes it all the more amazing that he was elected to the world's most powerful office four times. He led the nation through war and Depression, and set the stage for America to become this century's most powerful nation.
And he did it all from a wheelchair, pushing the envelope of the human spirit, and providing a model for the millions of physically challenged people around the world.
The willingness of some to alter history begs a question:
If the FDR Memorial Commission is allowed to remove Roosevelt's wheelchair, what's to stop historians of the future from deleting the Holocaust from textbooks, erasing the Birmingham church bombing from the civil rights movement, or taking the resurrection out of Christianity?
Future generations need to know that Roosevelt reached the pinnacle of greatness from a wheelchair. They need to see his courage, built of steel braces, an iron wheelchair and wooden canes. They need to hear the unforgettable words: ``We have nothing to fear but fear itself.''
If those words still ring true, then what are the historians afraid of? by CNB