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After eight long years the narrow and vicious circle of my life widened and I was allowed to again glimpse the far-flung horizon of my youthful dreams. It all came about like this:

Back in the fall of 1916 I was caught in the dreadful scourge of that arch crippler, Infantile Paralysis. Thousands of my fellow creatures were brought low. Wherever his gnarled fingers hitched, there had remained the blight of an arrested and crippled life. Sitting one evening in December by an open hearth fire, my father from across the library table asked if I had ever heard of the place, Warm Springs, Georgia? I told him I had not, just turning my head wearily on the back of my wheel chair. He turned back a page and proceeded to read to me one of the most beautiful stories I have ever heard. I have since learned that it was as true as it was beautiful, and vital to me, and such as I, beyond the computation of mere words.

Since no one knows how long this marvelous spring has bubbled, it is no wild fancy if we guess and say "it has always been." Discharging 1,800 gallons per minute, holding an even temperature of 89 degrees Fahrenheit the year round, retaining a secret formula of certain rare minerals wisely compounded and health-giving to old, and young, is it any wonder that I marked well my father's reading? He read of how the Indians, a hundred years before --- Cherokees, Seminoles, Blackfeet and various other tribes, had at certain seasons of the year put aside their war paint and down the "Valleys of Hall," and "Out of the Hills of Habersham," wended their silent ways toward this spot. Here was established "neutral ground," and here they lingered for weeks. They drank of the water and they bathed in it, and infirmities were lightened while disease disappeared. The foothills of Pine Mountain still hold in happy abeyance the very atmosphere of tepee, camp-fire and "wampum;" in the rolling lowlands the joyful whoop of Hiawatha still echoes as the speeding arrow ends its flight in the heart of the leaping deer.

Continuing on my father soon brought me upright in my chair when he read, "And now Warm Springs has been rediscovered. The Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt is now convinced that the water holds true merit, and that very soon science will heartily endorse hydro-therapy as invaluable in the treatment and cure of infantile paralysis." He read of how Louis Joseph, a young engineer, stricken with infantile in the wilds of South America, had been carried by natives 20 miles back to civilisation and had, through friends and relatives, found his way to Warm Springs, and when lowered into the pool "just to pass the time," had felt renewed stimulation and added strength from day to day. "That's the thing!" I had cried, "swim your way back to health and strength!" Straightway my father and I fell into a discussion and plans were made and a decision reached whereby I should visit this place at the earliest convenience.

Came the time on April 7th, 1925, when I bid my family and friends goodbye at the little old station, back in the little old town, in the good state, Pennsylvania. And so, apropos the sorry business of saying goodbye, a little levity was not out of order. Many of my fellow "lame-steppers" have remembered a joke, or looked for the ridiculous and grotesque in the otherwise solemn rites of final farewells, and found it not remiss to force a laugh to hide a tear. I had a strange feeling that morning. Torn between the yes and no of things I realized a strange complex bestride my worthy ambitions. There stood my "best girl" spilling tears over the edge of a black-bordered handkerchief, wild that I was leaving, wilder if I'd stay. From the depths of dank despair I would then lift myself and visualize the land where a probable cure awaited my complaint --- a land of pleasant climate, a land of romance and told in song and story and called, "Dixie." Then I was conscious that my feet were cold, and ---- I wanted something to happen. It did.

I was admiring the cluster of frost-diamonds on the station platform as the first rays of the rising sun struck the place where my trunk sat, all ready tagged for the trip. When the approach of the train sounded a mighty important looking clerk bustled out and began in rude fashion to jiggle the trunk down the incline. All was fast action as the train stopped. Of a sudden (and it served him right, since her photograph in the silver frame will never again be the same) this presumptuous clerk slipped on a frosted cluster, and down came trunk and man in a slithering and skiing fashion to lie at my foot, the trunk atop the man. How it was to laugh, and I did it with a vengeance. My plan had been to ride in my wheel chair in the baggage car through to Washington, consequently I followed in after my trunk and found my way to the rear of the car via three sacks of mall, three chicken crates, one very expensive-looking casket and various other and sundry things not worthy of mention. Thus it was that I had taken my farewell.

Came the next day --- in the afternoon, when the weather grew warm and the glorious sun smiled down from the azure depths. The windows in the car were raised and the low croon of the electric fan was music to my ears. (I was traveling "first-class," now, and my wheel chair had the "Bridal Suit" back in the baggage car.) As we neared Warm Springs, the train veering to the left, there unfolded before my wondering eyes one of the roseate sunsets of Georgia. It was magnificent as flecks of gold turned crimson, turned purple and violet and faded into the opalescent blue of the evening sky. We rounded a sharp bend and I saw lights flickering in the distance. "Warm Springs!" called the conductor, and I had reached the end of my journey.

I was carried out of the car and down the steps while a kindly and inquisitive crowd of villagers drew nigh. We greeted each other and I noticed with what "delicious" ease these natives spoke the "English as she is spoken." There was no cacophony of clashing consonants with this style; nothing but euphony of sweet sound. I overheard low mention back in the crowd of my pathetic thinness, and one kind old lady said, "He's so pale he's like to die." But these good people soon realized that this was not the kind of proper greeting --- commencing as if I was already lying in state, and one good sport came up and told me how I would soon gain weight and in a few days "look like the tanned side of a buffalo hide." Another one told me that he "reckoned" a boll weevil or two in my soup would greatly aid and abet the fattening process.

I never will forget the fresh woody smell on the evening air. It had the exhilarating tinge of pine and I breathed it deep. Leaving the station we started for the resort Inn but a mile and a half distant. The road wound and dipped gracefully through the dark and silent woods. Once on a rather high elevation the driver slowed down and pointing down over the shadowy and undulating hills, told me that at the foot sprang the wonderful Warm Springs. My heart had given an extra bound within me as I anticipated my first dip into the pool in the morning.

We reached the Inn but it was not yet open for occupancy. (Remember I am now telling of Warm Springs under the old regime of things, back in the early spring of '25. Infantile paralysis was as yet a strange creature here and there was poor accomodation afforded). I was directed to a nearby cottage where preparations for my arrival had been made. Here I was warmly greeted by the house-keeper, Mrs. Bulloch. After laving face and hands and drying much of the Southern Railway on a virgin towel, I was wheeled out to the dining, room and placed at the head of a long table. A colored girl sat a large platter of "something" in front of me which I was smilingly told was "Country Captain." This is a typical southern dish (or is it from India?) and is composed as follows: chicken, rice, rasins, tomattoes, onions, thyme, currey and garlic. An artistic hand had delicatly frescoed it over --- fore and aft, so that now it reposed in front of me a truly beautiful study in brown and white. I ate it all up!

I had scarcely finished the meal when in walked the Manager and his wife, the delightful Mr. and Mrs. Tom Loyless. With them was a winsome lady, Mrs. Walty, wife of the Inn proprietor. I was then given a brief history of the place from the keen and eloquent (and now late) Mr. Loyless. I was told how up to this time it had only been recognized as an old-fashioned southern pleasure resort. The large public bathing pool had afforded an invigorating and delightful watering place the year round. The water had received a reputation for improving the condition and actually curing persons suffering from rheumatic and nerve disorders. Now, it had lately proven beneficial in the long sought cure for infantile. Was there not a potentiality here worthy of valiant endeavor? With an estimation of 125,000 persons suffering from the effects of this malady at the present time, was there not a just reason for prosecuting the find to the very limit? I simply listened as he went on, rising on the wings of his eloquence and in the sincerity of man's gratitude to man, hailed him as a god.

The low sighing in the pines and. the call of a night bird reached my ears as Mr. Loyless, wrapped in the intimacy of his golden thoughts, waxed silent for the moment. The rest of the party respected this silence and I was free to contemplate my own strange thrust into this Delightful Unknown. The air --- so fresh, and with the subtle hint of pine aroma in every breath, must have been filtered in the garden of Jove himself. Outside there was the steady whispering in the trees and the fireflies sparkling; within me the sudden sweep of a resplendent "thing" --- intangible, understood only in this that I wanted to throw out my arms in fond anticipation for the new and glad life I again hoped to make mine, and crush it to my breast. Truly, this feeling of hope and ecstasy was an echo from some phantom life blown straight from the isles of the sea. I could feel it.

My eyes took in the room in which we sat. There were sad deficiencies evident. This was the "flaw" in the otherwise golden dream. An old fashioned southern watering place had of a sudden taken on a new lease in life, and like the little lady about to make her debut into the social order of things, needed new dresses, trappings and accoutrements without number. I noticed that few of the walls had been plastered, but that white-wash over weather-boarding (inside and out) proved the leading motive. The screening was torn and rent asunder, and through the roof the night threatened through. From his reverie Mr. Loyless at last roused himself and voicing my thoughts, said; "Could the generous heart of the public but in part visualize this dream that Mr. Roosevelt and I share in common, what untold good could we not bring to this vast army of the Lame!" I had replied that the people would first have to be told of the possibilities here, and of the new "find," and then learning of the motive back of it all they would subscribe to every need. This would mean hard work and intelligent planning, he had answered, and then in an after-thought, added: "And I am far from being a well man."........Mr. Loyless had lived nearly a year longer, but could not have died without knowing that left alone in the hands of the Master-Mind, Mr. Franklin D. Roosevelt, and given a little time, their dream would perforce come true. And so it had happened. To-day the signs of the Resort Beautiful loom on every hand and the dream is coming true.

The good people soon realized that I was tired and sleepy and I was forthwith, wheeled through to an adjoining room. Everything was in emaculate white --- white bed and white counterpane, white bowl and pitcher, and --- white-wash. How I had slept!

The next morning I was out on the porch in the sun before breakfast. The picture lacked nothing. The grounds stretched away on all sides on a sort of plateau --- large step at the base of Pine Mountain. The trees fringed it round about. From the porch where I sat they were high overhead and stretching away to the left, to a distance of 200 yards, their tips were only visible where the lip of the plateau occured, and at the foot of which bubbled, the Spring. The Inn cottages, of typical southern architecture, were 15 in number and together with the Dance Pavilion, circled the rim of the plateau. The Inn, a large structure in yellow and green, rose to the right of me, and its spires and domes and sharp angles, and its hints of cloistral seclusion where the twining ivy closed from view, led one to imagine that all the shades of architecture, from the Renaissance on, reposed before him. A large green campus lay before me in the center of which played a fountain. Farther away other cottages showed through the trees, but these were privately owned, and the white-wash menace had not reached to them.

It was near 10 o'clock when a car drove up and I was taken to the pool. I entered through a green latticed gate and there was the wonderful springs! How it bubbled up like a giant mushroom! A number of bathers were already disporting themselves in the pool. I was wheeled along the edge and introduced to them. Two of them were infantile patients who had arrived a day in advance of me - Mrs. Steiger, from Jefferson City, Mo., and Mr. Lambert Hirsheimer, Falmouth Heights, Mass. Mr. Roosevelt had not yet arrived at the pool. I was taken to a locker where two assistants finally got me into a bathing suit. I was wheeled out into the sunlight and lowered into the pool. As they lowered me away nobody would have shot these gentlemen had they chanted "dust to dust -- ashes to ashes," etc., for I was so ignominiously white and angular and thin as to justify most any tragic end most any day. I was draped with three tubes to keep me from sinking, but I think it was mostly forsight of the assistants to keep me from being drawn through the over-flow pipe.

The water was of the most pleasing temperature --- not so cold that it would chill a person, nor so warm that it would enervate, I paddled around with my hands and was surprised with what little ease I could move my legs. Because of the light mineralization of the water it was pleasant to drink, and we were told to drink it by the quart. There was also noticeable at once an extra buoyancy to the swimmer. According to Fitch in his book, "Mineral Waters of the United States, and American Spas," the water is lightly mineralized, thermic, calcic, magnesic, bicarbonated alkaline water, possessing antacid, diuretic, and slightly tonic properties. Besides, there is a feeling abroad that it may be radioactive.

It was great sport just paddling and floating around. Soon Mr. Roosevelt's cheery "Good Morning!" sounded on the air and in a few minutes he had joined us in the pool. At once we were told and shown a series of exercises he had worked out. It was "Catch hold of the bar this way" --- now swing --- in and out --- Hard! harder! that's it --- that's fine! Now - again, this way ----," and so through the entire regime of things he had worked out that morning. It was all along the line of lending to the affected limb and muscles the normal actions as near as possible. We were told to concentrate hard on every action and movement. The gentle caress of the water as we moved our limbs through it had a most stimulating effect. Swimming applies a gentle massage to the entire body. Also, that gravity is entirely eliminated in the water plus a slight resistance to every movement, makes this form of exercise most ideal. Then it was to sun bathe, lying in the sun getting the rays direct on our bodies. (Soon I know why the villager had said I would soon look like the "tanned side of a buffalo hide." This Georgia sun was a most intimate creature.)

All of us were highly elated when a few mornings later Mr. Roosevelt, having gathered us around, him in the general round-table discussion, deftly made inference as to what the future might hold for us. We were then doing our work in the large Public Pool. We enjoyed little or no privacy. We needed a private patients pool and we needed equipment --- bars, tables, rings, special places for sun-bathing, means of transportation; in the winter we needed the pool enclosed with sky-lights of vitaglass admitting the sun's rays, the lockers and dressing rooms to be steam-heated and ---- we needed doctors and nurses! What glorious news! He, our noble mentor, had spoken. He, a man of large affairs --- of international repute and who has sat high in the councils of this country's administration, had noticed the movements of our lame feet in the water, and that we were ill at ease when a strange swimmer came close to us.

At this time we had advanced only so far in the general scheme of things as to have with us every three or four weeks, Dr. Johnson from Manchester, a town five miles away. Exploiting Mr. Roosevelt's idea a chart had been improvised tabulating the muscles in the affected limb and area involved. Whenever the time was propitious a "clinic" was held. Lying flat on our backs on the concrete walks circling the pool, with the sun blinding our eyes and trying to look comfortable and blase-like while Mr. Roosevelt and the doctor looked for "traces," or took time off to discuss the vagrancies of an inner quadriceps, these were the joys of a clinic. Only were faces screwed up when it was to move laterally to and fro our delicate heels over the rough concrete so that the good doctor could study our "adduction" and "abduction." But, in those pioneer days was born the new era we are now living in and enjoying; and, in those pioneer days we did well.

Those who came into our midst that first summer of '25 came from distant places, and have come back each year since then and remained longer each time. They did only one thing, and that was improve in every respect. One came with crutches and a brace, and left with a cane only. Others came in wheel chair and nearly put them aside that summer. The writer of this article came in a wheel chair accompanied by his brother, and before the summer had passed was walking with crutches and was loath to use his chair. (He had nearly "discarded" his brother). Came that first summer: Mr. Paul B. Rogers, Milwaukee, Wis.; Mr. D. C. Gerard, Chicago, Ill.; Abe Bloomberg, Dawson, Ala.; Miss. DorothyWeaver, St. Louis, Mo.; Miss. Elizabeth Retan, Boston, Mass.; Mr. Euclid Philpot, Gadsden, Ala.; Mr. G. Fred Bolts, Elizabethville, Pa.; Mr. William Schneider, Kansas City, Mo.; Mr. George Brunlik, Chicago, Ill.; Mr. Reginald Bulkley, Boston, Mass.; Mrs. Thelma Steiger, Jefferson City, Mo.; Mr. Lambert Hircheimer, Falmouth Heights, Mass., and the Hon. Franklin D. Roosevelt from New York City, dearest of friends and noblest of mentors, and now owner of the famous Georgia Warm Springs.

Thus ended our "first summer" of 1925.

By,
G. Fred Botts