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Tom W. Loyless (ca.1871 - March 19, 1926), now best known as the manager owner of the Warm Springs spa resort, owned by George Foster Peabody. Prior to managing the resort, Loyless, a native of west Georgia, served as a newspaper reporter, editor and publisher at papers in Augusta, Columbus and Macon. He was " one of the South's leading editorial voices, known for his fierce commentaries and a temper that matched." [1]
As a young editor Loyless earned a reputation for bluntness and a fiery temper that did not always limit itself to print. An 1897 dispute with H.C. Hanson, editor of the rival Macon Morning Telegraph (later merged with Macon Evening News to form the Macon Telegraph ) in which Loyless accused Hanson of bias in reporting became so heated that when meeting Hanson in person Loyless struck him. Hanson in turn drew a handgun.
In 1903 Loyless and H.H. Cabiness acquired ownership of the Augusta Chronicle . By 1915 Loyless was editor of the few newspaper editors in Georgia to proclaim the innocence of Leo Frank and denounced his prosecutors as corrupt. The Chronicle supported Governor John M. Slaton in commuting Leo Frank's death sentence. Thomas E. Watson, publisher of Watson's Magazine and The Jeffersonian, openly advocated the lynching of Frank and defended the mob that attacked the Governor's home. For several weeks Loyless devoted almost his entire newspaper to confronting Watson. The Chronicle was practically alone among the daily newspapers to do so. [2] In 1919 Loyless moved to the Columbus Enquirer-Sun. [3] His editorials about Frank cost him his local popularity and made him an enemy of the Ku Klux Klan.
Georgia banker and philanthropist George Foster Peabody had often visited the estate of his partner Spencer Trask in Saratoga Springs, New York, and in 1910 agreed to succeed him as chairman of the state commission set up to purchase and conserve the famous spa there. In 1923 Peabody acquired the Meriweather Inn at Warm Springs, Georgia near his boyhood home. Loyless had been leasing the Inn, and became Peabody's agent, managing the property. [4]
Loyless proved an ambitious caretaker of the much-in-disrepair property. After a young man suffering from polio discovered that the springs helped him, Loyless and Warm Springs attracted the attention of Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had been stricken by a paralytic illness in 1921, diagnosed at the time as polio. Based on his own improvement, Roosevelt decided that Warm Springs could help victims of polio, and he worked together with Loyless on improvements to the resort and spa.
In March 1923, Loyless was in New York and addressed the Jewish Correspondence Bureau regarding the Frank case. [5] Loyless remained at Warm Springs until his health failed due to cancer in 1925. An obituary (featuring the subheading "Georgia Editor Was an Unceasing Enemy of the Klan") appeared on page 19 of the March 22, 1926, issue of the New York Times.
Loyless is portrayed in the 2005 movie Warm Springs by Tim Blake Nelson. While the film gives the impression that Loyless was no longer active in newspapers at the time of Roosevelt's visits, he was in fact still involved with the Columbus (Georgia) Ledger (of which Loyless owned a percentage). Franklin Roosevelt contributed several editorials to the paper as a guest editor and nine guest-editorials for Loyless's former paper, the Macon Telegraph, which were syndicated nationally. [6]
Franklin Delano Roosevelt, commonly known as FDR, was an American statesman and politician who served as the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 until his death in 1945. He previously served as the 44th governor of New York from 1929 to 1932, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy from 1913 to 1920, and a member of the New York State Senate from 1911 to 1913.
Warm Springs is a city in Meriwether County, Georgia, United States. The population was 465 at the 2020 census.
George Foster Peabody was an American banker and philanthropist.
The unfinished portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt is a watercolor of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, President of the United States, by Elizabeth Shoumatoff. Shoumatoff was commissioned to paint a portrait of President Roosevelt and started her work around noon on April 12, 1945. At lunch, Roosevelt complained of a headache and subsequently collapsed. The president, who had suffered a cerebral hemorrhage (stroke), died later that day.
The Little White House was the personal retreat of Franklin D. Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States, located in the Historic District of Warm Springs, Georgia. He first came to Warm Springs in 1924 for polio treatment, and liked the area so much that, as Governor of New York, he had a home built on nearby Pine Mountain. The house was finished in 1932. Roosevelt kept the house after he became President, using it as a presidential retreat. He died there on April 12, 1945, three months into his fourth term.
Eugene Talmadge was an attorney and American politician who served three terms as the 67th governor of Georgia, from 1933 to 1937, and then again from 1941 to 1943. Elected to a fourth term in November 1946, he died before his inauguration, scheduled for January 1947. Only Talmadge and Joe Brown, in the mid-19th century, have been elected four times as governor of Georgia.
F.D. Roosevelt State Park is a 9,049 acres (36.62 km2) Georgia state park located near Pine Mountain and Warm Springs. The park is named for former U.S. President Franklin Delano Roosevelt, who sought a treatment for his paralytic illness in nearby Warm Springs at the Little White House. The park is located along the Pine Mountain Range. The western portion of the park, formerly named Pine Mountain State Park, was named a National Historic Landmark in 1997. F.D. Roosevelt State Park is Georgia's largest state park.
Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd was an American woman who was best known for her affair with US president Franklin D. Roosevelt.
Warm Springs is a 2005 made-for-television biography drama film directed by Joseph Sargent, written by Margaret Nagle, and starring Kenneth Branagh, Cynthia Nixon, Kathy Bates, Tim Blake Nelson, Jane Alexander, and David Paymer. The screenplay concerns U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt's 1921 illness, diagnosed at the time as polio, his struggle to overcome paralysis, his discovery of the Warm Springs resort, his work to turn it into a center for the rehabilitation of polio victims, and his resumption of his political career. Roosevelt's emotional growth as he interacts with other disabled people at Warm Springs prepares him for the challenges he will face as President during the Great Depression.
Fala, a Scottish Terrier, was the dog of United States president Franklin D. Roosevelt. One of the most famous presidential pets, Fala was taken to many places by Roosevelt. Given to the Roosevelts by a cousin, Fala knew how to perform tricks; the dog and his White House antics were mentioned frequently by the media and often referenced by Roosevelt and his wife Eleanor. Fala outlived Roosevelt by seven years and was buried near him.
Marguerite Alice "Missy" LeHand was a private secretary to U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) for 21 years. According to LeHand's biographer Kathryn Smith in The Gatekeeper, she eventually functioned as White House Chief of Staff, the only woman in American history to do so.
Elizabeth Shoumatoff, née Avinova, was a portrait painter who was best known for painting the Unfinished portrait of Franklin D. Roosevelt. Other paintings of White House residents include portraits of President Lyndon B. Johnson and Lady Bird Johnson. She painted renowned American business leaders such as Richard K. Mellon of the Mellon Bank, Thomas J. Watson, Sr. of IBM, Robert W. Woodruff of Coca-Cola, Harvey Firestone, the Hunts, the Heinzes and the Duponts. She painted multiple generations of prominent families such as Fricks, Whitneys, Phipps and countless others. She also painted international leaders, including William Tubman, president of Liberia, Rabindranath Tagore the Nobel Prize-winning Bengali poet, the grandchildren of Charlotte, Grand Duchess of Luxembourg and Anne Cox Chambers, U.S. Ambassador to Belgium.
Franklin D. Roosevelt, later the 32nd president of the United States from 1933 to 1945, began experiencing symptoms of a paralytic illness in 1921 when he was 39 years old. His main symptoms were fevers; symmetric, ascending paralysis; facial paralysis; bowel and bladder dysfunction; numbness and hyperesthesia; and a descending pattern of recovery. He was diagnosed with poliomyelitis and underwent years of therapy, including hydrotherapy at Warm Springs, Georgia. Roosevelt remained paralyzed from the waist down and relied on a wheelchair and leg braces for mobility, which he took efforts to conceal in public. In 1938, he founded the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, leading to the development of polio vaccines. Although historical accounts continue to refer to Roosevelt's case as polio, the diagnosis has been questioned in the context of current medical science, with a competing diagnosis of Guillain–Barré syndrome proposed by some authors.
Eleanor and Franklin is a 1976 American television miniseries starring Edward Herrmann as Franklin D. Roosevelt (FDR) and Jane Alexander as Eleanor Roosevelt which was broadcast on ABC on January 11 and 12, 1976. It is the first part in a two-part "biopic" miniseries based on Joseph P. Lash's biography and history from 1971, Eleanor and Franklin, based on their correspondence and recently opened archives. Joseph Lash was Eleanor's personal secretary and confidant. He wrote several books on the Roosevelts including some on both Eleanor and Franklin individually and was also a controversial activist in his own right in leftist, liberal politics, social and labor issues of the era.
The Polio Hall of Fame consists of a linear grouping of sculptured busts of fifteen scientists and two laymen who made important contributions to the knowledge and treatment of poliomyelitis. It is found on the outside wall of what is called Founder's Hall of the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation in Warm Springs, Georgia, US.
Basil O'Connor 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.
The State Bar of Georgia is the governing body of the legal profession in the State of Georgia, operating under the supervision of the Supreme Court of Georgia. Membership is a condition of admission to practice law in Georgia.
Warm Springs Historic District is a historic district in Warm Springs, Georgia, United States. It includes Franklin Delano Roosevelt's Little White House and the Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation, where Roosevelt indulged in its warm springs. Other buildings in the district tend to range from the 1920s and 1930s. Much of the district looks the same as it did when Roosevelt frequented the area.
Dowdell's Knob is a prominent mountain in Harris County, Georgia. It is the highest point in Harris County at 1,395 feet above sea level and the highest point on the Pine Mountain Range in the area. It is often referred to as a historical spot where former U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt would dine occasionally. He had a brick oven and picnic area constructed on this mountain for his use during his visits to nearby Warm Springs. Dowdell's Knob is located 66 mi (106 km) south of Atlanta and 30 mi (48 km) north of Columbus.
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