I have a lot of questions about this quote.
1. Al Smith said this quote in this movie, how did he feel when Roosevelt won't be dead for another 17 years?
2. Did Herbert Hoover and his supporters also said that when they lost the 1932 election?
3. In history, did all of Roosevelt's opponents said that quote often?
Al Smith and FDR eventually became bitter political enemies. Smith began leaning further toward the Republicans.
There is no record that Hoover or any of Roosevelt's other opponents ever said that, but I wouldn't be surprised if they secretly thought it. People were terrified of polio then, and there was no polio vaccine in the 1920's.
[deleted]
There was a great show on PBS about 2-3 years ago about Jonas Salk, who was credited with the first successful polio vaccine. This was introduced in 1955 I believe (and I remember being part of a test population at that time). Polio was determined to be a bacterial infection that had always been present in society, but as our culture became more anti-septic in the 1900s, our normal bodily defenses against it deteriorated. I wonder about the historical accuracy of FDR contacting this disease through contaminated water at the Boy Scout camp - could be. That's how it was often spread. What the movie didn't show was how polio also affected the upper body and respiratory system. Remember the pictures of kids in "iron lungs"?
shareTo this day no one is quite sure just how FDR contracted the disease. Some feel it was from a P.R. trip to the boy scout camp where he washed and drank from a well. Others, mostly himself and his family, feel that it was contracted while swimming near his family home. Others think it happen on another P.R. trip to New York City where he swam with some school children.
Also a side note...little known fact...Jonas Salk also invented the Flu Vaccine.
I'm pretty sure he got Polio from losing a game of Polo. I think that's the only way to get the disease.
Michael
And that is how I saved them and became KING Dumbass!!!
Not funny, especially in view of the fact that polio was/is such a serious disease.
[deleted]
I thought it was funny. Pretty bleeping funny actually. Do you get offended when someone mentions the black plague...that was pretty serious too, I think one of my ancestors died from it.
shareActually it just wasn't funny. It was a juvenile comment. About as witty as saying someone got chicken pox from a chicken. See, not funny.
shareUh-huh, yes, I see what you did there.
Except mine was funny in the sense that polo and polio have nothing to do with each other at all. They're not even similar sounding. See, when you have to explain why a joke is funny, it loses that much more.
And that is how I saved them and became KING Dumbass!!!
Well jeweiss,
It's obvious that which ever of your ancestors died from the Black Plague...it was the wrong ancestor...which is why you ended up being (unfortuantely) born.
Ciao, e buon auguri
[greem]I'm pretty sure he got Polio from losing a game of Polo. I think that's the only way to get the disease.
Michael[/green/]
I'll be sure to ask my first cousin who contracted polio before the vaccine was available where she kept her polo ponies when she little.
Nimrod.
Give me love , give me love , give me peace on earth.
I'm sorry I stepped on your dainty waifish sensibilities 2 years ago, friend. Won't happen again. And please, do ask her how she got it. I'm on tinterhooks at the moment, the edge of my seat, really.
And that is how I saved them and became KING Dumbass!!!
I have a lot of questions about this quote.
1. Al Smith said this quote in this movie, how did he feel when Roosevelt won't be dead for another 17 years?
-----
First thing I want to mention is that Franklin Roosevelt never would have been a political rival of Al Smith's to the extent that they both would have run for the same office at the same time. So, whomever the movie suggested made the comment to Al Smith might be uplifting a rival would be totally unrealistic.
Second, FDR and especially Eleanor Roosevelt were both very supportive and did what they could to help elect Smith. To even hint at this point of their relationship that there were negative feelings is to be quite silly.
Third, FDR was running for governor that year (although one might suggest that FDR was speaking at the 1924 convention, not 1928 as the movie portrays) and I doubt anyone would have suggested that Al Smith would be so naive as to think that FDR wouldn't survive his two year term.
al smith would've been a rival within the democratic party, and more specifically new york state politics.
given what was thought about polio at the time, al smith thinking roosevelt wouldn't live more than a year isn't unreasonable, despite his candidacy for governor.
the film doesn't portray negative feelings so much as natural political suspicions, typical of politicians, even the ones that are friends.
Watch the four hour documentary, FDR, from PBS (available to rent). Researched and produced by Geoffrey Ward and David Mc Cullough it covers this quote of Al Smith's at the 1928 convention after FDR's speech. Check out Wards book on FDR, A FIRST CLASS TEMPERMENT. It also covers this quote and goes into great detail about Al Smiths and FDR's rivalry.
share