Basil O'Connor (1892 – 1972) was an American lawyer -

Basil O'Connor

1892-1972

shyster

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Basil O’Connor (January 8, 1892 – March 9, 1972) was an American lawyer. In cooperation with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt he started two foundations for the rehabilitation of polio patients and the research on polio prevention and treatment. From 1944 to 1949 he was chairman and president of the American Red Cross and from 1945 to 1950 he was chairman of the League of Red Cross Societies.

A KNACK FOR TAKING DIMES FROM schoolchildren

“His genius was in generating large numbers of relatively small contributions for a cause,” The New York Times wrote of O’Connor. “Over the years he collected and spent more than seven billion dimes — many of them from schoolchildren — with a half-billion dollars of it going to the war on polio.”

Prior to 1965, Dimes were 90% silver, 10% copper - the internet says that number of dimes is worth over ten billion dollars

The Architect

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O’Connor was president of the National Foundation For Infant Paralysis from its outset in 1938 and of the “Georgia Warm Springs Foundation” after 1945. On January 2, 1958 the National Foundation celebrated its 20th anniversary at Warm Springs, Georgia and Basil O’Connor was honored by having his bust inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame next to FDR and fifteen polio scientists from two centuries. And that’s what has us making this page.

EARLY LIFE

Son of a

tinsmith

Contemporary tinsmith who also serves as a reenactor at Fort Ross State Historic Park, standing with an ear trumpet, a 19th-century hearing aid

Daniel Basil O’Connor was born January 8, 1892, in Taunton, Massachusetts. His father was a tinsmith. O’Connor grew up poor but scrappy — an “Irishman one generation removed from servitude”, as he described himself. He became a newsboy at age 10, and organized a monopoly of the city’s newspaper routes. He earned money for college by playing the fiddle in a dance orchestra. When he arrived in New York he dropped his first name after seeing the long list of D. O’Connors in the phone book.

Basil O’Connor did his undergraduate work at Dartmouth College and graduated from Harvard Law School, then was admitted to the bar to practice law in 1915. For one year he worked in New York for the law firm of Cravath & Henderson, and for the next three years for Streeter & Holmes in Boston. In 1919 he founded his own law firm in New York.

Pete’s Dragon, one of the Passamaquoddy ruses

Lawyer

and

businessman

In 1920 O'Connor met Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was running for Vice President on the Democratic ticket. O'Connor became his legal advisor. In 1924 the two men associated in their own law firm which existed until Roosevelt's first Presidential inauguration in 1933. Beginning in 1934 O'Connor was senior partner in the law firm of O'Connor & Farber. He was also executive manager of a number of companies, among them the New England Fuel Oil Corporation in the 1920s, and the American Reserve Insurance Corporation and the West Indies Sugar Corporation in the 1940s.

"A permanently self-sustaining source of funds"

The 'voluntary' health organization

In August 1921, while vacationing with his family at their summer home on Campobello Island, Franklin D. Roosevelt fell ill and was diagnosed with polio. FDR sought therapy at a resort in Georgia, whose attraction was a permanent 88-degree natural spring, but whose main house, the Meriwether Inn, was described as "ramshackle". Roosevelt bought the resort and the 1,700-acre farm surrounding it in 1927. After visiting Roosevelt there O'Connor characterized the place as "a miserable mess", and decided to promote public support for the rehabilitation of those with polio. In 1927, he and Roosevelt and a group of friends created the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, in which O'Connor served first as treasurer and later as president.

From Bullochville to Warm Springs

More than $1 million was raised for the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation by the first nationwide President's Birthday Ball on January 30, 1934. The foundation was reconstituted as the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, founded by Roosevelt on January 3, 1938. The nationwide President's Birthday Ball of 1938 was dubbed "the March of Dimes" by radio star Eddie Cantor, and in time it became the foundation's official name. The notable fundraising campaign appealed to Americans to "send your dime to President Roosevelt at the White House" for the fight against polio. The 1938 campaign was a smashing success and revolutionized fundraising in America, with over $1,800,000 raised.

The Birthnight Ball originated in Britain to commemorate and celebrate the birthday of the monarch each year. During and after the Revolution, Americans continued this tradition; however, absent of a monarch, Americans turned to the next closest figure, General George Washington. Winter balls were already common among the elite and celebrating Washington’s birthday became a stylish celebration every February. While there is less evidence of celebrations immediately following the end of the Revolutionary War, they began again in earnest with the election of George Washington as president in 1789. Letters and newspaper accounts often noted the style of the occasion. It was clearly an event where the elite, or “ladies and gentlemen,” as the papers often called them, could make a statement with their appearance.

Publisher Gerard Piel credited O'Connor with a "unique social invention: a permanently self-sustaining source of funds for the support of research — the voluntary health organization." With a centralized administration, state and local chapters and a large corps of volunteers, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis became the prototype for dozens of similar foundations. His efforts in fundraising were much more successful than those of other foundations. For example, the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis succeeded in collecting $66.9 million in 1954 for 100,000 new patients, while in the case of about 10 million patients with heart diseases only $11.3 million were donated.

Photograph of Missy LeHand, secretary to President Franklin D. Roosevelt, with the morning mail arriving at the White House in response to an appeal to donate dimes to fight infantile paralysis as a way of celebrating the president's birthday — the first "March of Dimes" campaign Title: Dimes for Infantile Paralysis foundation flow into White House for president. Washington, D.C., Jan. 28. Official mail was nearly forgotten today at the White House as letters containing ten-cent contributions to the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis continued to arrive by the thousands. Miss Margaret Lehand, Personal Secretary to President Roosevelt, is shown opening some of the 30,000 to arrive in the first mail this morning, 1/28/38

The organization initially focused on the rehabilitation of victims of paralytic polio, and supported the work of Jonas Salk and others that led to the development of polio vaccines. After Roosevelt's death, the foundation gradually began taking care of patients with handicaps of all kinds.

On April 12, 1955 – ten years after Roosevelt's death – the National Foundation published the successful results of Salk's research on the development of a polio vaccine. Following widespread use of the polio vaccine, the organization was faced with disbanding or steering its resources toward a new mission. Basil O'Connor, then the organization's president, directed his staff to identify strengths and weaknesses and reformulate its mission. The National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis (NFIP) shortened its name to the National Foundation (NF) in 1958 and launched its "Expanded Program" against birth defects, arthritis, and virus diseases, seeking to become a "flexible force" in the field of public health.

In the mid-1960s, the organization focused its efforts on prevention of birth defects and infant mortality, which became its mission.

1976, the organization changed its name to the March of Dimes Birth Defects Foundation. Reducing the toll of premature birth was added as a mission objective in 2005.

Photograph of President Franklin D. Roosevelt purchasing a certificate enrolling him as a 'founder' of the new National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Standing around FDR, left to right: Thomas Parran, Jr., U.S. Surgeon General; Keith Morgan, National Chairman of the Committee for the Celebration of the President's Birthday; Dr. Thomas W. Gosling, National Director of the American Junior Red Cross; Katherine Lenroot, Chief of the United States Children's Bureau, U.S. Dept. of Labor; and George E. Allen, Commissioner of the District of Columbia and Executive Director of the National Campaign. Joplin Globe, Tuesday, January 18, 1938 (page 2) Washington, Jan. 17 (AP) — President Roosevelt enrolled today as "Founder No. 1" of the new national foundation he organized to combat infantile paralysis … The general public will be asked shortly to help the efforts against infantile paralysis by becoming "founders" in the new national organization. One dollar will be charged for enrollment. Chairman Keith Morgan hopes to enroll 2,000,000 persons.

The Coinage Act of 1792 established the dime (spelled "disme" in the legislation), cent, and mill as subdivisions of the dollar equal to 1⁄10, 1⁄100 and 1⁄1000 dollar respectively. The word dime comes from the Old French disme (Modern French dîme), meaning "tithe" or "tenth part", from the Latin decima [pars]. The dime is currently the only United States coin in general circulation that is not denominated in terms of dollars or cents. The dime is the smallest in diameter and is the thinnest of all U.S. coins currently minted for circulation, being 0.705 inches (17.91 millimeters) in diameter and 0.053 in (1.35 mm) in thickness. The obverse of the current dime depicts the profile of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and the reverse boasts an olive branch, a torch, and an oak branch, from left to right respectively.

From my favorite etymology website: *dekm- Proto-Indo-European root meaning "ten." It forms all or part of: cent; centenarian; centenary; centi-; centime; centurion; century; centennial; cinquecento; dean; deca-; decade; decagon; Decalogue; Decameron; decapod; decathlon; December; decennial; deci-; decile; decimal; decimate; decimation; decuple; decussate; denarius; denier (n.) "French coin;" dicker; dime; dinar; doyen; dozen; duodecimal; duodecimo; eighteen; fifteen; fourteen; hecatomb; hendeca-; hundred; icosahedron; nineteen; nonagenarian; octogenarian; Pentecost; percent; quattrocento; Septuagint; sexagenarian; seventeen; sixteen; ten; tenth; thirteen; thousand; tithe.

It is the hypothetical source of/evidence for its existence is provided by: Sanskrit dasa, Avestan dasa, Armenian tasn, Greek deka, Latin decem (source of Spanish diez, French dix), Old Church Slavonic deseti, Lithuanian dešimt, Old Irish deich, Breton dek, Welsh deg, Albanian djetu, Old English ten, Old High German zehan, Gothic taihun "ten."

The following undated quotation is attributed to Harvard graduate Basil O'Connor:

"The world cannot continue to wage war like physical giants and to seek peace like intellectual pygmies."

References

- Whitman, Alden (March 10, 1972). “Basil O’Connor, Polio Crusader, Dies”. The New York Times. Retrieved September 25, 2015.

- “F. D. Roosevelt Ill of Poliomyelitis”. The New York Times. September 16, 1921. Retrieved September 25, 2015.

- Ward, Geoffrey C.; Burns, Ken (2014). The Roosevelts: An Intimate History. New York: Alfred A. Knopf. ISBN 9780307700230.

- Barrett, William P. “March of Dimes’ Second Act”. Forbes, November 19, 2008.

- Baghdady, Maddock J. (Spring 2008). “Marching to a Different Mission” (PDF). Stanford Social Innovation Review: 60–65. Retrieved September 25, 2015.

- Furman, Bess (January 3, 1958). “New Hall of Fame Hails Polio Fight”. The New York Times. Retrieved April 8, 2020.

External Links

- Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement History – Basil O’Connor
- A film clip “Longines Chronoscope with Basil O’Connor is available for viewing at the Internet Archive
- “At the President’s Birthday Ball” (1942) by the Glenn Miller Orchestra (YouTube)
- “Fund Raising for Roosevelt”, unissued British Pathé newsreel footage, without sound, of the 1944 March of Dimes and the President’s Birthday Ball; incorrectly identified as political campaign fundraising (YouTube)
- America Salutes the President’s Birthday Archived 2017-05-10 at the Wayback Machine (March of Dimes fund appeals 1943–45) at the RadioGOLDINdex
- FDR’s Birthday at the Franklin D. Roosevelt Presidential Library and Museum

Non-profit organization positions
Preceded by Jean de Muralt	Chairman of the International League of Red Cross Societies 1945–1950	Succeeded by Emil Sandström

Categories:

- Sons of tinsmiths

- 20th-century American lawyers

- American people of Irish descent

- Dartmouth College alumni

- Harvard Law School alumni

- American Red Cross personnel

- Presidents of the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies

- People from Taunton, Massachusetts

- 20th-century American philanthropists