The New, Improved FDR

...Such as respect for the past...

...Is "to appropriate" anything like "to expropriate," to arrogantly seize what does not belong to one...

...years ago, there has been a continuing chorus that representations of Roosevelt should include one of him in a wheelchair...

...Besides, "memorials are for us...

...Halprin, at the dedication of the wheelchair sculpture, gracefully acceded to the modification—as if he had any choice...

...BY WOODY WEST The contest wasn't really close: Political sentimentality whipped historical fidelity in a Washington main event...

...This tinkering with the FDR image may seem a small thing, but it diminishes Roosevelt by its very pettiness...

...In the debate over his memorial, however, those who have devoted themselves to the crusade for disability "rights" have vociferously urged that he should be shown in a wheelchair because—well, because...

...Whether from pride or perhaps a sense that being shown as less than robust might cause doubt about his capacity, he saw to it that there are only a handful of photos, of the tens of thousands taken during his presidency, of him in a wheelchair...

...The campaign for the addition of the wheelchair was merely the final victory in this dismal revisionism...

...For those who've been occupied with such quotidian affairs as earning bacon and beans, a reprise: In the long debate over an FDR memorial, and indeed since its dedication three Woody West is associate editor of the Washington Times...

...The victory was celebrated by Bubba himself on his farewell tour: Bill clinton called the late addition to the memorial "a statue of freedom," illustrating his genius for being always on the approved page of the populist hymnal...

...Note to Editor: Insert the standard disclaimer graph here, that the writer and the publication in no manner, fashion, or degree condone discrimination based on ethnic heritage, sexual proclivities, or dietary preferences, and endorse equality of opportunity and full civil rights, etc...

...It's hard to believe FDR wouldn't see some worth in having this new [wheelchair] statue in place, if only so it can be seen by the ones who can't clamber...

...That was nice of them, though the exculpation illustrates the remarkable condescension usual among those who mangle the past for sake of the transient present...

...Note to Editor: Better repeat the disclaimer paragraph from above...

...But as is the case with most such memorials, FDR . . . has been appropriated by later generations for purposes of inspiration...

...Oh, Maude...

...An editorial in the Washington Post did the chore for the FDR modification...

...The partisans of the morals and standards of the moment succeeded earlier in eliminating any portrayal of FDR that would have shown him with the cigarette holder—a trademark of Roosevelt's public persona...

...His handicap was hardly a state secret...

...It is questionable, too, that FDR's debility necessarily would have been construed as "a sign of weakness" by a people that four times elected him to the presidency, during which long and turbulent tenure he rallied the nation's spirit through the Great Depression and World War II...

...The historical objections to the wheelchair might have been decisive, the Olympian opinion averred, "if public monuments were meant primarily to fulfill the wishes of those they memorialize...

...Their stern righteousness, though, exhibits contempt for perspectives and opinions not their own and in so doing drastically narrows the realm of the permissible, in speech and in action (ask a conservative professor, if you can find one, on any campus...

...Another similar expression of presumption came from a granddaughter of FDR...

...Say what...

...Another organization, which mans the barricades on behalf of birds, bunnies, and bees, was able to ensure that Eleanor Roosevelt's furs were banished from the memorial...

...A news report of the ceremony included this: "The people with disabilities in attendance said they did not fault Roosevelt for living by the standards of another time, when disability was a sign of weakness...

...Whatever else he was, Franklin Roosevelt was singularly tough-minded...

...Malleable young minds might have deduced that the great man sm---d...

...This was rejected until the considerable muscle of lobbyists for the disabled caused the monumental powers to bend to their gale-force insistence...

...Who in public life wants to be construed as not unequivocally in favor of the good, the true, and the beautiful, as determined by liberal special-interest groups that count the cultural cadence...

...such may seem a harsh judgment on those who designate themselves as "advocates" for the disabled...

...He would be proud of this memorial," Anna Eleanor Roosevelt was quoted as saying...

...The occasion was the dedication at the FDR Memorial on the Mall of a statue of Roosevelt—in a wheelchair...

...A casual passerby might have supposed that memorializing heroic individuals was to honor the ideals they championed...

...His shade must flinch at such squishiness in his name...

...They aren't necessarily for the people they memorialize...

...FDR, of course, went to considerable effort to avoid being seen in public in the crippled state a bout with polio left him at the age of 39...

...Their point of view is reminiscent of an observation by Eric Hoffer, the late longshoreman-philosopher: "There is always a chance that he who sets himself up as his brother's keeper will end up by being his jail keeper...

...Fashionable points of view thrive by means of institutional justification, of course...

...Then in a world-class exercise in oleaginous sentimentality, the Post's editorial concluded: "This is one of the country's better monuments for children...

...They flip coins into the watery places, touch the statues and clamber over the rocks...

...The architect of the FDR Memorial, Lawrence Halprin, contended that his original design, sans wheelchair, was the more historically correct and honored Roosevelt's desire that his disability not be obvious...