The Cuff Link Gang

The Cuff Link Gang was a group of close Roosevelt associates. The original members of the club were those men who had worked with and for Roosevelt on his unsuccessful campaign as the Democratic Vice-Presidential candidate in 1920. FDR gave each of the men a set of cuff links, one with the person’s initials, and the other with FDR’s. This club then met annually throughout Roosevelt’s life around the time of his birthday, and the parties usually were themed in some way. Other members were added to the club in later years through Roosevelt’s traditional giving of a set of links.                

The original members of the Cuff Link Gang were Louis Howe, Stephen Early, Marvin McIntyre, Charles H. McCarthy, Thomas Lynch, Kirke L. Simpson, Stanley Prenosil, James P. Sullivan, and Renah F. Camalier. Members added later were Samuel I. Rosenman, Henry Morgenthau, Jr., Basil O’Connor, Henry Hooker, Robert Sherwood, Harry L. Hopkins, Adm. Ross McIntire, and Gen. Edwin (“Pa”) Watson.

During the White House years, a group of women also joined in the birthday dinner, including Eleanor Roosevelt, Elinor Morgenthau, Missy LeHand, Grace Tully, Marion Dickerman, Nancy Cook, Margaret Durand, and Malvina C. Thompson. The women, however, did not join in the post-dinner poker game.                

Birthday Balls and the Fight Against Infantile Paralysis

The first Birthday Ball was held in 1934, with 4,376 communities joining in 600 separate celebrations that raised over one million dollars for Warm Springs. Future Birthday Balls continued to raise about a million dollars per year, with contributions split between Warm Springs and the local communities where the balls were held.

In 1938, FDR created the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, not only to help Warm Springs but also the victims of polio throughout the country. To increase awareness of the campaign, radio personality and philanthropist Eddie Cantor took to the air waves and urged Americans to send their loose change to President Roosevelt in “a march of dimes to reach all the way to the White House.”

Soon, millions of dimes flooded the White House. In 1945, the annual March of Dimes campaign raised 18.9 million dollars for the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis. Ultimately, the March of Dimes (as the National Foundation became known) financially supported the research and development of a polio vaccine by Jonas Salk in 1955, eradicating the disease throughout most of the world by the 1960s.

Franklin Roosevelt’s dedication to finding a cure for polio benefited millions of children worldwide. But it was the participation of Americans across the nation in Birthday Balls that made the campaign a success. Their hard work and financial support supported the development of new methods of treatment to improve the lives of those stricken with polio and the creation of a vaccine to protect future generations from its devastation. Although the Birthday Balls ended in 1945 with the death of President Roosevelt, both of their legacies live on in the March of Dimes.