THE DIGNITY OF DENIAL

F.D.R. NEVER MADE A DISPLAY OF HIS SUFFERING. WE CAN LEARN FROM THAT

Even as President Clinton officially opened the Franklin Roosevelt memorial last Friday in Washington, the great controversy raged: the memorial contains no statue of F.D.R. in a wheelchair. Should it?

The arguments pro and con are by now well known. One side points out that when a man has over 35,000 photographs taken of him and exactly two show him in a wheelchair, we can fairly conclude that he was intent upon concealing his disability. How odd, then, to honor a man by portraying him precisely opposite to the way he wanted to be seen.

The other side argues that Roosevelt...

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