Beschreibung:

ROOSEVELT, Franklin D. Typed letter signed ("Franklin D. Roosevelt") to Joseph Leib, Albany, 8 July 1931, marked by him "Personal & Private" at top. 1 pages, 4to, Governor's stationery, spotting and soiling, part of envelope laid down on verso, punch-holes at edge -- [ With :] Typescript article by Joseph Leib, entitled " "Roosevelt--Our Next President," WITH EXTENSIVE EMENDATIONS, DELETIONS AND CORRECTIONS BY ROOSEVELT in pencil in 29 places, with some 59 words in his hand. 10 pages, 4to, carbon typescript, punch-holes along left-hand edge . ON THE EVE OF HIS FIRST CAMPAIGN FOR THE WHITE HOUSE, ROOSEVELT DOWNPLAYS HIS POLIO, AND INSISTS THAT "I...AM PROBABLY IN BETTER HEALTH THAN NINETY-NINE PEOPLE OUT OF A HUNDRED." A very revealing letter and typescript in which Roosevelt defends his health and soft-pedals his presidential ambitions. The Governor thanks Lieb (a free-lance journalist and Roosevelt supporter) for his "suggested story" on FDR's political career and his recovery from polio. He makes "a number of corrections as to facts," and adds, "By the way, I don't 'suffer,' [from his polio] I have no pain and except for weak knee muscle am probably in better health than ninety-nine people out of a hundred." He declines to answer questions about his political ambitions since "I am taking absolutely no part in National matters and I know you will understand because I have been very consistent in sticking to matters in which the State is primarily concerned." For someone uninterested in the presidency, Roosevelt takes great pains going over this candidacy-boosting profile, making extensive corrections and rewriting passages on nearly every page. He also appears to have passed it on to Missy LeHand (his long-time personal secretary) to review, and one or two corrections are in her hand. He strikes out anything remotely detrimental, including an entire paragraph on his battles with Tammany Hall and collaboration with Republicans while a state senator. His additions play up his wartime record as Assistant Secretary of the Navy and tout his visits to the battle theatre "during the summer of 1918...on a destroyer..." A passage that emphasizes his wealthy background gets pencilled out. But the most revealing changes touch on Roosevelt's polio. Where Lieb wrote that Roosevelt "has battled infantile paralysis," FDR changes it to "has been building up his leg muscles..." He amends Leib's account of his "swinging himself between two crutches" on the way to the rostrum to deliver his 1924 speech to the Democratic convention to "coming to the platform on crutches." At the end, Lieb's purple prose has Roosevelt "proud even in suffering...pale with years of struggle against paralysis...," and Roosevelt deletes this emphatically with heavy, repeated pencil strokes. Roosevelt had no use for self-pity. His strategy was always to play down his disability, to himself as much as to others. He does, however, allow Lieb's final characterization to stand: he is "most obviously a gentleman and a scholar." Together two items . (2)