Cover art by Wayne Boring
According to David W. Rose in the 2003 book Images of America: The March of Dimes, infantile paralysis – more commonly known as polio – was arguably the most feared disease for the better part of the twentieth century. Its symptoms ranged from headaches and sore throats to paralysis and death. Franklin D. Roosevelt contracted polio in 1921, the year after being selected as the Democratic nominee for vice president. He eventually lost the use of his legs but went on to serve as the governor of New York from 1929 to 1932, and then president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945.
As well as being the most famous victim of polio, Roosevelt was also its most vocal advocate for treatment and finding a cure. In 1927, for instance, FDR founded a patient care center called the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. Seven years later, money was raised across the country in celebration of his birthday, leading to the President’s Birthday Ball Commission for Infantile Paralysis Research. Then on January 3, 1938, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was created, as well as its fundraising arm, the March of Dimes.
“President Roosevelt became convinced that polio could only be conquered through a broad and sustained program of scientific education and research,” historian Saul Benison later explained. “The organization of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was in essence the first step toward the realization of that goal. It was also something more. At a time when deadly assaults had already been launched against the human spirit and life itself in Europe, the new Foundation… stood as an affirmation of the value of conserving human life and dignity. Ordinary people everywhere recognized this quality and quietly and emphatically made its cause their own.”
In July 1940, Clark Kent and his alter ego Superman made it their cause as well. In the opening pages of Action Comics #26, Professor Clarence Cobalt of the Cobalt Clinic unsuccessfully attempts to place an ad in the Daily Planet. “This is outrageous!” he shouts. “Infantile paralysis and other forms of bone and joint malformations can be cured at my institution.”
“Fakers like you are a curse to humanity, and should be behind bars,” editor George Taylor replies. “President Roosevelt’s Infantile Paralysis Fund and other recognized institutions are doing a marvelous job to help children with crippling disease. And if another newspaper has run your ad, that’s no indication that we’ll make the same mistake.”
Professor Cobalt raises his cane to hit Taylor but the usually docile Clark Kent steps in, grabs the cane and breaks it in two. Afterwards, Taylor tasks Kent and fellow Daily Planet reporter Lois Lane with writing an expose on Cobalt. Upon arriving at the clinic, the journalists meet a boy on crutches named Tommy and his mother. Clarence Cobalt has offered to treat Tommy with pills that cost ten dollars a bottle, which is more than the family can afford. Clark Kent tastes one of the pills and deduces it is nothing more than sugar.
Lois Lane then enters the clinic as a new patient and is diagnosed by Professor Cobalt and his assistant Grafton with a decalcification of her hip bone, which – she is told – could lead to death. They likewise offer to treat her with pills that cost fifty dollars for a one-week supply. Lane pays for the pills and exits, but Clark Kent is again enraged and confronts the pair of “doctors,” asking about their medical background. He is promptly thrown out the door for his efforts.
Under the leadership of the organization’s first president, Basil O’Connor, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis combined the efforts of its predecessors with a new education program and opened local chapters through the United States. Since medical and hospital insurance was unavailable at the time, the National Foundation also assisted families with treatment costs that most could not have afforded otherwise. Furthermore, it recruited both technical and non-technical volunteers, financed treatment centers, and created regional respiratory equipment centers.
To cover the cost of these expenses, the National Foundation launched an annual fundraiser – held each January, in honor of President Franklin Roosevelt’s birthday – called the March of Dimes. The phrase was coined by comedian Eddie Cantor during a meeting of Hollywood executives shortly before the organization was officially launched. Radio advertisements were created afterwards that asked listeners to send dimes directly to the White House in support of the National Foundation. At first, the campaign appeared to be a flop but the White House soon started receiving so much mail that it took months to open all the letters and count the funds received.
“The key ingredient was the appeal to the ordinary person,” David Rose explains in Images of America: The March of Dimes. “The campaigns were not geared to gifts from corporations or wealthy philanthropists, but to the American people – the individuals who witnessed the ravages of polio and who placed enormous trust in the foundation that was striving for answers.”
After tossing Clark Kent out the door of their clinic, Professor Clarence Cobalt and his assistant Grafton see him talking with Lois Lane and realize that she is also a reporter. They thus kidnap the pair but make the mistake of keeping them in separate rooms. Kent is able to transform into Superman, steal the clinic’s files, and rescue Lois Lane before returning to captivity. The resulting expose by Lois Lane convinces Cobalt and Grafton to release Clark Kent as well, along with the message that they plan on suing the Daily Planet for libel.
Realizing that the Daily Planet will need proof of Cobalt’s deception, Superman uses the files he stole to visit the clinic’s patients, only to discover that Cobalt and Grafton have already retrieved all of the fake medicine that they had prescribed. At his final stop, Superman finds a little girl in desperate need of medical treatment. After rushing her to a nearby hospital, he is further informed that the only doctor equipped to handle a case of poliomyelitis is two hundred miles away.
Superman races to the home of Doctor Worthington, then transports him back to Metropolis during a hurricane that sends a flying house in their direction. While the doctor is able to save the little girl, Professor Clarence Cobalt and his assistant Grafton find their own lives in danger when a mob of angry patients and parents descend upon the clinic and attempt to lynch the fake medical examiners. Superman rescues them in exchange for a confession, then hands them over to the police.
Action Comics #26 ends with the words, “Help fight infantile paralysis! Contribute to President Roosevelt’s fund!” It also asked that all correspondences be sent directly to the White House in Wahington, DC.
A portion of the funds raised by the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis was used for a research grant to Dr. Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh. Salk eventually discovered that the various strains of polio fell into three groups and that by including a strain from each group, a vaccine could be created.
After the immunization of test subjects in Pennsylvania proved effective, the National Foundation formed a Special Advisory Committee on Active Immunization in May 1953 and launched a national field trial the following year. Two million schoolchildren were vaccinated during the trial, and the polio vaccine was proclaimed “safe, potent, and effective” soon afterwards. As a result, new cases of polio declined by ninety-six percent between 1955 and 1961.
For all practical purposes, polio had been defeated.
Anthony Letizia