FDR was paralyzed throughout his presidency. He went to great lengths to hide this, and the media was complicit in keeping it from the people. While it pretty clearly worked out OK, I’m torn about the ethics of this:
Was he right to hide it from the nation?
Was the press right to aid in hiding it?
I’m inclined to say no to both; people have a right to take serious health problems into consideration when choosing a leader, and the press has no business covering up something of that magnitude. We’re not talking about hemorroids here.
What’s less clear is why not even his opponents let it slip. Surely some Republicans must have known about his condtion, and some of them must have felt (rightly or wrongly) that a paralyzed president was a bad thing; and yet none of them blew the whistle.
Were they right to keep the secret?
Again, I’m inclined to say no. But having said that …
Are we better off now, when that sort of thing would be impossible?
Is it? Bob Dole made a serious bid, despite his nearly useless right arm. I can easily imagine a paraplegic candidate also making a bid. In fact, I’d bet that another paraplegic white president will occur before a black president.
Well, I was thinking of the coverup more than the election of someone with a disability. It could be argued that Dole’s arm or McCain’s shoulders aren’t as bad as polio; but in any event, the voters would know about it.
It wasn’t a secret, you know. My grandmother is 87, and can clearly remember voting for FDR (and against him, as she developed Republican leanings during his administration). It was common knowlege that he was paralyzed, and my grandmother knew of it at the time. Political opponents of FDR would call him a cripple behind his back.
Just because it wasn’t in the papers or in photographs doesn’t mean people didn’t know. It just meant they had enough tact not to mention it at most times.
Check again, FDR was stricken by polio in 1921 and it wasn’t long after that he could not walk without braces. So this was something that was kept from the public for a long time even before the war. Also, Kennedy had some very serious health problems that was also kept from the public. I’m not so sure whether the press kept it under wraps though.
Polio is a little more serious then just crippling someone. It was always a possibility that he would be further paralyzed and would succumb to suffocation. There’s a reason a lot of polio sufferers ended up in iron lungs.
Well, I’m not saying that nobody at all knew. He acknowleged publicly that he had some problems. But the majority of the population did not know the full extent of them – i.e. that he was totally paralyzed from the waist down and moved around in a wheelchair.
I don’t think that the press was wrong in keeping FDR’s paralysis quiet-- it had utterly no bearing on his ability to do his job. Why get the prejudices and fears of the people aroused over nothing?
I am one of those who doesn’t feel that the American public’s “right to know” is sacrosanct when it comes to politicians’ personal lives. Some have criticized the press for not reporting on JFK’s infidelities-- but I happen to agree with the press on this one. It has no relevance whatsoever.
America’s nosiness about the personal lives of public figures is not one of our most attractive traits. Unfortnately, our modern media encourages this sort of voyeurism. Young people know more about the love lives of celebrities than they do about what’s going on in Congress. I find this disturbing, to say the least.
I do not believe that becoming a public figure ahould mean surrendering all privacy. If a politician has acted inappropriately in the course of his/her public service, that is something that should be brought to the public’s attention, but past drug use, sexual indiscretions and the like should not be taking up space in our newspapers or our attention.
Well, that’s just the rub; I agree with your principle, but there comes a point where things like that do have a bearing on how well he can do the job. Some things are none of our business; some are.
Frex: when Dick Cheney was nominated for VP in 2000, a lot of people were asking questions about his history of heart trouble. I don’t think those were unfair: people wanted to be sure he was going to able to serve his term.
I certainly don’t think it was unfair to ask questions about Bush’s drinking problems; and if a reporter gets very reliable sources saying that nightly bottles of Glenfiddich are being delivered to the oval office, that’s something we do have a right to know IMO.
And the issue, as I see it, is not so much whether or not something will hinder performance of duty, but who gets to decide that. Obviously, Cheney didn’t think his heart was a disqualifier; nonetheless, I think it was his duty – and certainly it was the press’s – to disclose that, because ultimately, whether or not a person is qualified is up to the voters, not the candidate.
We might know that now but who could say for sure in the 1930’s since polio didn’t just cripple people it could kill them. FDR’s polio got progressively worse over the years and there are plenty of people who think he probably shouldn’t have run for that last term. If it was just nothing why would FDR care about people knowing about his health?
I’d have to say that polio during the 1930’s was certainly something that could prevent a public figure from performing his duties.
IMO, if there is a reasonable chance the disability/problem/whatever might affect the President’s ability to perform his duties, then the topic should be raised. But if there are no overt “warning signs” of a problem, then it should be nobody’s damn business.
Of course, actually trying to apply this principle to a sitting President can be tricky; at what point during Reagan’s two terms would questions about his age and/or possible Alzheimers have been appropriate?
JFK was lucky. Congress tried to impeach Clinton over the fact he got a blow job in the White House from an intern. I still haven’t figured out what business that was of Congress. Over in Europe, while it might have been good for shits and giggles in the press if one of their leaders did such a thing, it wouldn’t have been a major political issue.
Since nearly all historians agree that FDR was one our greatest president I think it clear that his heavy deceptions about polio ultimately didn’t matter very much. Polio did not stop him from leading the country and leading it well.
From what I have read the greater deception with his physical condition came in his fourth term. He barely served a few months of it. The public should have been better informed about his declining health. But given his enormous popularity I still think it’s clear he would have re-elected anyway. The textbooks I have read indicate that many Americans simply could not imagine another person as president during that time period.
Well, that’s exactly why I find it interesting. His presidency was enabled by a central dishonesty (and several peripheral ones), that would fail and be political suicide if anyone tried it now; and yet it all worked out.
I should add, for those who don’t know, it’s the central thesis of the documentary now on the History Channel.
As Mr. Moto said, it wasn’t exactly a secret that FDR was crippled. So what the press did in avoiding photographing FDR in his wheelchair, etc., was out of respect for the man who was obviously never that comfortable with his own disability. Perhaps they also saw that the country would not be well served by undue attention to his disability, and I think they were right to see that. The press was in many ways a nobler institution back then. Still, there’s the possibility or danger that the “wheelchair issue” represented a larger problem … the press’s inability or unwillingness to criticize the president’s policies. I am not sure to what extent that was a problem.
The press never had a problem criticizing Roosevelt – he was the most reviled president since Lincoln. You may recall the famous Literary Digest poll of 1936 that predicted Landon would beat Roosevelt (Roosevelt carried 46 out of 48 states.) The editorial writers of the time reflected the upper-calss conservatives the LD polled far more than their blue- and even white-collar readers.
As for reporting the wheelchair, it was just a different time. The press knew something was up with Wilson’s stroke, they knew Harding had a woman on the side, they knew which members of Congress were showing up drunk. Repoprting weaknesses showed disrespect for the office and vices simply weren’t talked about among the ruling class.
But it was an open secret. My parents were teenagers/young adults when FDR was President. Neither of them ever saw him in person, but they knew he was in a wheelchair. Roosevelt himself made an olbique reference to it in his final speech before Congress, a week before he died:
“I hope that you will pardon me for the unusual posture of sitting down. It makes it a lot easier for me not having to carry about ten pounds of steel around the bottom of my legs.”