The need for assistance to enable cripples did not disappear, as the hospital-schools did, and President Roosevelt, on February 18th, 1931, gave a radio address concerning a program of assistance for the crippled. He talked about the reasons he felt it paid to “do things” for crippled children and adults. His approach was not the human one of easing the distress of people, but on the financial aspects of helping cripples gain a sense of productivity. His argument was largely based on the math of bringing crippled Americans back into the workforce.
“I am told that there are somewhere between three and four hundred thousand cripples in this country today”, stated the President. He went on to point out that most of them were children who needed care from others. The number was a tremendous percentage of people in America’s population, in his eyes. The president suggested “for the sake of argument” that three hundred thousand people who, if they could work, might produce a thousand dollars a year each; three hundred thousand of them would add three hundred million dollars to the productivity of the United States each year. Helping cripples to become productive would help the general well-being of the United States.
The President then identified himself with cripples, stating “because as some of you know, I walk around with a cane and with the aid of somebody’s arm myself.” He said that he is aware that it costs money to bring a cripple into the workforce, but that being a cripple isn’t like other diseases that can be cured, or operations that find a person well in a few weeks. He said that he was aware that people who are crippled take a long time to reach productivity, and suggested that if the cost of getting a crippled child “back on his feet” is a thousand dollars a year, and takes five years to accomplish, the cost to the community is five thousand dollars.
Mr. Roosevelt then quickly pointed out that most cripples can be brought back to productivity, so that by the time they are age twenty or twenty-one they can expect a long and useful life, maybe as many as forty years. During those forty years, said the President, each cripple should be able to earn a thousand dollars a year. Each person should be able to earn forty-thousand dollars at a cost to the country of only five-thousand dollars, and the net saving to the state or country would be thirty-five thousand dollars.
He went on to say that there are about thirty-thousand new cases of people who become crippled each year. He suggested that the first thing we needed to do was cut down on the number of new cases. The president hoped that work in every state would bring that number down to twenty-thousand cases each year, and stated that industrial accidents were too common. The next step, said the President, was to find the cripples living in America.
He pointed out the state of New York, which had surveyed not only the cities, but the different country districts and remote farms. He said that surveys had been made that found thousands of children and grown-ups who were crippled and were without medical care of the kind they needed. He suspected that there were many more people who lived in cities and in the country that were in the same situation as the people already surveyed. Many of the cripples yet to be found, he said, had probably never seen a doctor, or been to a hospital, or been looked over to find out if they could be brought back to productivity.
Another step the President felt needed to be done was the diagnosis of the trouble the cripple was having. Unfortunately, many doctors, even general practitioners, had trouble working with “what is really orthopedic work.” Doctors had to go to specialists to find out how to treat different kinds of patients. On the other hand, more and more clinics in cities, counties, schools or run by the state were becoming available to crippled children. Medical professionals were beginning to realize that operations could be avoided through the use of “plaster casts, massage techniques and other forms of treatment.” The point, said the President, was to get the case properly diagnosed and treated.
A part of the medical step, he felt, was what he called “after care.” Once the problem was diagnosed and remedies applied, the child would go home – but the medical treatment must not stop. Parents needed to be taught how to care for their children after the child leaves the hospital. Nurses might visit on occasion, he felt, to see how the child is doing. President Roosevelt then revealed that America was creating new ways that “after care” could be provided in schools for crippled children. The majority of crippled children who receive proper treatment could be put to work as adults, in the Presidents estimation. As he worked toward the closing of his radio address, President Roosevelt complimented the cripples he had been discussing.
“The average cripple in this country has about the finest natural disposition of anyone in the community”, said the President, “There is something that comes to crippled children that gives them happier, better dispositions. They are seldom cross, they are seldom fretful; we nearly always find them ready to cooperate; we find that they turn out well as scholars and that they are r eady to assist in every way in the treatment provided for them.” President Roosevelt went on to say that America owes every crippled child a chance to “come back.” By restoring the tens of thousands of crippled children in the country we would be doing a “fine thing”, and “pursuing a great objective for the Nation.” President Roosevelt finished his radio address by stating that he was glad to have the opportunity to speak, that Americans were enlisted in a great cause, “one of the greatest causes of humanity that exists in America today.”
