Meriwether County GaArchives Photo Place.....FDR At Warm Springs RR Station ************************************************ Copyright. All rights reserved. http://www.usgwarchives.net/copyright.htm http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/gafiles.htm ************************************************ File contributed for use in USGenWeb Archives by: Christine Thacker http://www.genrecords.net/emailregistry/vols/00033.html#0008100 May 15, 2007, 2:04 pm Source: Columbus Ledger-Enquirer Photo can be seen at: http://www.usgwarchives.net/ga/meriwether/photos/fdratwar12853gph.jpg Image file size: 127.6 Kb Georgia Was Adopted By a Yankee President By Clason Kyle Sesquicentennial Editor "I'm just a Georgia cracker farmer." But he wasn't at all. He was the Duke of Dutchess County, the Jekyll of Hyde Park, a former Under Secretary of the Navy, former Governor of New York State, and into his fourth term as President of the United States of America. He was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. He had indeed not only bought up thousands of acres atop Pine Mountain, Ga., but he nurtured - at his own expense - a hot, mineral-loaded springs that had been known by the Creek Indians for its curative powers into one of the most famous "hospitals" in the world, a medical center for whom thousands paid millions annually to dance at balls in honor of his birthday. Although he was to die - on April 12, 1945 - at the small white cottage that was similar in architecture to one that he saw in nearby Greenville, FDR, from his very first visit there in October of 1924, never failed to gain strength - seemingly of more than just the physical variety -- at Warm Springs. He was benefitted by and at home in a God-forsaken region. "At Home in a God-Forsaken Region" is the title Of one of the chapters of a new book on FDR, entitled "The Squire of Warm Springs, F.D.R. in Georgia 1924- 1945." The author is Theo Lippman Jr., a native of Brunswick, Ga., who now is an editorial writer for the Baltimore SUn. "The Squire of Warm Springs," published by Playboy Press, is Lippman's fifth book. In "The Squire," Lippman concentrates not on the awesome duties of being President, but on obligations and activities that Roosevelt assumed in his adopted state, obligations and activities such as running a cattle and tree farm and turning a spa that had seen better days into a celebrated clinic for persons suffering from the same disease that he contracted on Campobello, an Island off the coast of Maine. The disease, Polio or Infantile Paralysis. Lippman tells many fascinating stories of the Georgian by self-adoption. He tells how Roosevelt enjoyed giving the slip to his Secret Service and, in his open car with the special hand-gers,scooting about the dusty unpaved country roads alone. Or after an exercise session with physiotherapist Alice Plastridge, upon noticing that the nearest agent was looking the other way, FDR "ducked underwater, swam through to one of the other pools and hid under some steps. The suddenly empty pool touched off a mad scramble of agents, first alarmed, then embarrassed. Roosevelt's guffaw could be heard in the dressing rooms many yards away, said Plastridge." According to Lippman, FDR also enjoyed driving into Warm Springs, stopping at the curb before the drug store, hoking, for service and ordering a Coke. In later years, after winning the Presidency, this freedom was lost to him, chiefly because the "public curiosity about the President was enormous. The extent of that curiosity suggests by contrast how accepted rich man Roosevelt and even Governor Roosevelt had become." The person might be the same, but the size of his elected office had made him different. Roosevelt was introduced to many things in Georgia, such as Brunswick Stew and poverty, Southern as well as depression-style. According to Lippman, FDR "got to like cornbread and turnip greens." But he also did some introducing himself. He liked elaborate picnics, not the simple sort that was generally done. "Roosevelt," wrote Lippman, "preferred regular, dinner dishes, tables with linen, chairs or, as often as not the back seats of his cars removed and placed on the ground. He thought picnics should be catered, that there should be servants. In addition to beer Or Coke from a bottle, he had glasses and the ingredients for cocktails and a cocktail shaker along." He liked his Martinis "four to one," learned to drink Moonshine, and was inordinately fond of corny jokes. He could be meddlesome, as indeed he was when he tried to influence Georgia voters to not re-elect Walter F. George as Senator and consequently suffered one of his rare political defeats when Georgia voters resentful of his interferring in their election - returned George to Washington. He could also be forward looking. His Yankee thrift had been astounded when his electric bill, at his cottage was nearly four times that which he normally paid while in residence at his family manor in New York. In a speech, he said, "That started my long study of proper utility charges for electricity and the whole subject of getting electricity into farm homes throughout the United States. So it can be said that a little cottage at Warm Springs, Ga. was the birthplace of the Rural Electrification Administration." He believed in "getting the South 'out of hock' to the North" - this from an industrialization aspect - and in stopping the farm-to-city movement, as he thought rural life was superior to urban life, "particularly for those in bad economic straits." Hence, the resettlement plan of the Works Project Administration, one of whose three pilots projects was Pine Mountain Valley community, a project abandoned by Congress in 1943 as no longer needed. ("No longer needed" was a phrase for a Utopian effort that had failed?) Roosevelt was not without his defectors. But when personal loyalty was demanded, FDR could command the highest. His physical infirmity and visible aspects of it as his braces, wheelchair and special ramps were zealously protected by an almost adoring press corps, to the extent that the American people forgot that he was virtually a cripple. Lippman quotes the familiar story of Madame Chiang Kai-Shek departing from an interview with the President, telling him to "not get up" and see her out. Where the personal gesture of consideration was concerned, FDR was without peer. This is exemplified in the story that Lippman tells of the late Cason Callaway discovering, while dressing for a white-tie evening at the White House that he had not packed white buttons. Could he borrow a set from the President, he asked of FDR's valet? Alas, Roosevelt's reply was that he had only one set. "So an embarrassed Callaway went to the reception with black buttons. His embarrassment left him when he saw one other guest similarly improperly accessorled - the President of the United States." The Georgia cracker farmer from New York had scored again. Special Sesquicentennial Supplement III Ledger- Enquirer, Sunday, April 30, 1978,pg S-5 File at: http://files.usgwarchives.net/ga/meriwether/photos/fdratwar12853gph.txt This file has been created by a form at http://www.genrecords.org/gafiles/ File size: 7.3 Kb