Franklin D. Roosevelt: Autograph Telegram....

Description

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In FDR's own hand in its entirety, an autograph Western Union Telegram signed "FDR" in pencil, 1p, 8 ½ x 7." On official Western Union paper form stock, FDR writes in his own hand to Arthur Carpenter, his business manager at Warm Springs, Georgia, who also had polio. FDR writes, in his own hand: "Dear Carp–/ Tell all newspapers I can't possibly reach a phone, and that I have received no news and given out no stories./ FDR." Pencil note signed: "G.F. Butts" appears to the left of FDR's signature, likely relating to the sending of this Western Union telegram. In the summer of 1921, FDR contracted poliomyelitis, developing the first symptoms after a vigorous day with his family and swim at his Campobello Island, Canada summer home. In 1924, FDR began spending several months each year in Warm Springs, Georgia. Many polio victims had been helped by swimming in the pool of warm mineral water there, and swimming gave him a chance to exercise his legs. "The water put me where I am, and the water has to bring me back," FDR said. At the Georgia warm springs, FDR met patients who could barely afford the cost of polio treatment. In 1926, he bought the springs, pools, hotel, cottages and the surrounding 1200 acres of land for about $200,000. The next year, with a group of friends, he established the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, which provided low-cost treatment for polio patients. George Foster Peabody (1852-1938) was a New York banker and philanthropist who acquired, in 1923, the property at Warm Springs, Georgia, near his boyhood home. FDR later purchased and developed this site as the home for the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, a health resort, and at the time one of the premier centers for the treatment of infantile paralysis/polio. It was at Peabody's suggestion that FDR first visited the springs in 1924, FDR himself searching for a remedy to allow him to walk again after his August, 1921 attack of the virus. Arthur E. Carpenter was the manager of the Foundation from its start to the mid-1930s. Lightly creased, file holes at top, else fine condition. A wonderful, handwritten Western Union telegram from FDR to his Georgia Warm Springs business manager, with potential political intrigue in which FDR tells his manager to tell the press that he cannot be reached and has issued no stories to the media.