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In 1926, a relatively unknown Franklin D. Roosevelt delivered a speech at Milton Academy. This speech, one of the few he gave following the 1921 attack of polio, is foundational to several important speeches Roosevelt would give after being elected governor and president. The speech comes at a crucial year for Roosevelt, a year that brought back confidence and optimism about his political comeback. The speech's thesis is an ode to progressive thinking and it argues for the benefits of progressive change relative to the comfort of conservative thinking. In the speech, Roosevelt seeks to reposition the Democratic Party's recent political setbacks and find a new platform for its renewal as an attractive and substantive ideology. The speech is also about Roosevelt and his optimism and confidence despite the personal setback. The speech is revealing about Roosevelt's handling of his disability and portents important features of his political comeback only few years away.
An all-but-forgotten ex-politician named Franklin D. Roosevelt was invited to the Milton Academy in Boston, Massachusetts on May 18, 1926 to give an address. The occasion was the establishment of an Alumni War Memorial Foundation. The Milton Graduates Bulletin (1926) cited only one item in Roosevelt's resume-his past service as Assistant Secretary of the Navy (p. 4). Though only 44-years-old, the accomplished politician's resume might have also included a stint as a State Senator from Putnam County, New York, and the vice-presidential candidate on the James Cox ticket during the 1920 presidential election. That career came to a crushing halt in 1921 due to an attack of poliomyelitis that left Roosevelt physically disabled and emotionally devastated.
After his illness, Roosevelt would speak in public only on rare occasions. His speech at the Milton Academy is such a rare speech in several respects. Though Roosevelt won acclaim and respect for his 1924 Democratic Convention nomination speech, he delivered a text written by one of Governor Al Smith's men. "Whither Bound?" was Roosevelt's to write and as such it affords critics the opportunity to assess Roosevelt's early speech craft and rhetorical features vis-à-vis the immediate context: his illness, disability, and his political objectives.
For a prolific politician who would give many speeches in the years ahead, the grounding of this speech in...