FDR PASSING

In less than a month, a memorial to President Franklin Delano Roosevelt will open on the Mall in Washington, DC. The FDR Memorial Commission refuses to include a statue of President Roosevelt in his wheelchair on the 7.5-acre site. Taxpayers have spent $42 million on this memorial, the only memorial built with taxpayer money, it was to become the property of the National Park Service.

FDR contracted polio at age 39 and never took another step unassisted. Our 32nd president used a wheelchair every day during his 12 years in the White House.

Write to your senators and your congressman now and formally request Interior Secretary Bruce Babbitt delay acceptance of the FDR Memorial until a legally binding agreement is signed saying that a statue of FDR in a wheelchair will be added to the memorial. Say you20 would like to hear back from you before the memorial's dedication on May 2.

You can write them at:

The Honorable ____________
United States Senate
Washington, DC 20510

The Honorable ____________
U.S. House of Representatives
Washington, DC 20515

Or, call the Capitol Operator at (202) 225-3121 to be connected to your member's office.

POINTS TO INCLUDE IN YOUR LETTER:

• It is important to include a statue of FDR in a wheelchair because [include your own thoughts].
• An N.O.D./Harris poll found that 73% of Americans favor showing FDR's disability clearly as part of the memorial.
• Refusing to portray FDR as a man with a disability is a step backward from the advance of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA).
• 50 disability organizations have joined in strong support of the need.
• The FDR Memorial Commission dropped plans to show Eleanor Roosevelt with a fur stole when animal rights groups complained.
• The Secretary of Interior delayed acceptance of the Vietnam Memorial until designers added a flagpole.
• Seven Roosevelt grandchildren agree, in the words of Anne Roosevelt, that FDR "would be comfortable, perhaps eager, in light of current increased understanding of disability issues, to share awareness of his disability with others."
• "It would be a shame if at least one of the figures in the FDR Memorial did not show him as a man who had a disability." President George Bush

For more info: