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A spirit of camaraderie prevails throughout the reserve which makes the newcomer feel at home. First names are used in greeting -- and nicknames. Cosmopolitan interests make contacts as pleasant as aboard ship. And because Southern skies are what they are at night, and the Georgia moon, is what it is, and magnolias bloom in the spring and Youth is Youth, Romance has its innings now and then. Wedding announcements have more than once appeared on the Bulletin Board.

During the year many relatives and friends visit Warm Springs. A fine golf course is available for them, tennis courts, a Drive Yourself Car arrangement, a public pool, filled with the same warm spring water. And always the invigorating hill air, the fragrance of the Pines, the flood of sunshine, the delight of wild life. Red-headed woodpeckers climb about the trees, blue jays wrangle, tame squirrels live the life of Reilly all over the grounds, thrushes and mocking birds and whippoorwills tell of their presence in the woodlands. One of the joys of Warm Springs is the almost human saddle horses, sleek and shining, which may be rented for a nominal sum. For very young people there is a pony cart and a colored man who knows all there is to be known about horses.

Something of the spirit of the Warm Springs Colony was evinced last spring when a number of patients contributed their blood, to be used by the Rockefeller Institute in making a serum with which to combat Infantile Paralysis. None know better than they themselves the malignity of this Common Enemy. They recognize that efforts at defense are still feeble and are eager to help in any way that those who come after may benefit.

Inspired by the appeal of Governor Roosevelt that a Crusade against Polio be started at once, there was organized this summer, a National Patients' Committee with the purpose of entering upon a crusade as earnest as those of other Ages. The members and officers of this committee know from their own experience what it means to "have Infantile Paralysis" and are giving themselves heart and soul to an effort to control and alleviate one of the most devastating diseases which menaces mankind.

To a certain extent the work in Georgia is pioneer work. History is in the making. A record of this is being written into the pages of the Polio Chronicle, a monthly publication which made its first appearance during the past summer.

There have been no miraculous cures in the swimming pools of the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. Yet blighted muscles and paralyzed nerve cells have responded to the system of treatment and careful examinations show gain -- and more gain. Steps nearer normality are taken than have been taken before. Each patient is given a periodical report with markings that read like a rating in school.

"Look," I heard one red-haired girl who had Polio only last fall cry out as she examined her card, "There's nineteen muscles come up!"

Only in rare instances is there complete recovery from Polio. But those who have experienced it know the significance and thrill of even a little progress.

Through the interest in the Foundation which has been aroused throughout the country, proof is constantly coming in that hundreds of bright people who have had Infantile Paralysis are doing important things. The periodical visits of Governor Roosevelt, the adventurous hour when each member of the Colony is presented to him, have peculiar inspiration. He has been through the mill, too. And is still persisting in the same form of exercise. Above all, he has an arduous job, a job which demands tremendous vitality and long hours of very hard work. Every newspaper in the country daily records his unceasing activity.

What he does -- can be done!

I have said that when you come up the hill from the depot the Warm Springs Colony seems like a country club or a hotel resort. When you go back down the hill to take the train after a sojourn of weeks, it seems like something more -- like a huge family of two or three generations which has come together for a reunion, and stayed on, happily, in a kinship of a common interest, strong as the ties of blood.