F.D.R., Eddie Cantor, and Jack Benny

[Brad from Georgia]

Just finished reading The Squire of Warm Springs: F.D.R. in Georgia, 1924-1945 by Theo Lippman (who used to work for my home-town newspaper). It's mainly about the Warm Springs Foundation for polio patients, F.D.R.'s experimental farm near the town of Warm Springs, and so on--but Jack gets a couple of mentions. In 1938, money for polio treatment and research was being raised by "Birthday Balls" held on F.D.R.'s birthday, January 30. The book reports that the previous fall, Cantor was a guest at F.D.R.'s "Little White House" in Warm Springs, and when F.D.R. remarked that he'd like to find one million donors to contribute a dollar a year each to polio research, Cantor said, "Have ten million kids send in a dime each." He then said "You could call it the March of Dimes, like the March of Time."

And kicking off the fund-raising that year, the Capitol Theater in New York hosted a star-studded evening of entertainment...with Jack Benny being a spokesman for the first March of Dimes, which became one of his favorite charities.

[Frank Nelson]

I guess that' s why FDR is on the dime. I didn't know that.

[DerekVOF]

Good guess -- that's exactly why FDR is on the dime -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/March_of_Dimes