Basil O'Connor
Basil O'Connor ( born January 8, 1892 in Taunton, Massachusetts, † March 9, 1972 in Phoenix, Arizona) was an American lawyer and philanthropist. Together with U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt he started two foundations for rehabilitation for polio sufferers and for research into the prevention and cure of poliomyelitis. From 1944 to 1949 he was Chairman and President of the American Red Cross and from 1945 to 1950 Chairman of the League of Red Cross Societies.
Life
Lawyer and businessman
Basil O'Connor studied at Dartmouth College and Harvard Law School in 1915 and received his license to practice law. He then worked for a year in New York with the law firm of Cravath and Henderson, and then three years Streeter & Holmes in Boston. In 1919 he settled in New York in a private law firm down. In the early 1920s he met Franklin D. Roosevelt and became his legal advisor. In 1924 she opened a joint office which in 1933 had survived until the election of Roosevelt as U.S. president in the year. From 1934, O'Connor was then senior partner of the law firm O'Connor & Farber. In addition, he was at times a director of several companies, as in the 1920s, the New England Fuel Oil Corporation, and in the 1940s the American Reserve Insurance Corporation and the West Indies Sugar Corporation.
Philanthropic activities
Franklin D. Roosevelt was suffering since 1921 from a paralysis of the legs, which was regarded as poliomyelitis - according to recent research, it was the then little-known Guillain -Barré syndrome - and most of the time confined to a wheelchair. In 1926 he founded, together with Basil O'Connor the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation. The foundation, which was renamed after the death of Roosevelt in Roosevelt Warm Springs Institute for Rehabilitation, raised funds for Help for contracted polio people. While Roosevelt himself initially the presidency of the Foundation took over, but they gave in 1928 to O'Connor after his election as governor of New York, O'Connor has been with the foundation first treasurer. Ten years later, both called the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis to life that focused on the promotion of research on the prevention and treatment of poliomyelitis. The management of the Foundation took over O'Connor. Became known as the National Foundation among others by the March of Dimes fundraiser in which, by a radio campaign, Americans were asked to donate a dime, ten cents. On April 12, 1955, and thus exactly ten years after the death of Roosevelt established the National Foundation announced the development of a polio vaccine by Jonas Salk. Since 1979, the Foundation itself carries the name March of Dimes.
From 1944 to 1947 O'Connor took on a proposal from Roosevelt also became Chairman of the American Red Cross as a successor to Norman Davis. He ushered in the two largest non-profit organizations of that time in the United States. From 1947 to 1949 he was president of the American Red Cross and from 1945 to 1950 in succession to the Swiss Johannes von Muralt Chairman of the League of Red Cross Societies. During his tenure, the National Blood Program (National Blood Donor Program ) of the American Red Cross was established. In addition, programs in the field of public health have been a focus of his work. In the Office of the Chairman of the League of Red Cross Societies followed him, the Swedish lawyer Emil Sandström.
After working for the Red Cross, he devoted himself increasingly to work for the two poliomyelitis foundations, which he headed until his death. His work was exceptionally successful in terms of donations compared to other foundations. It succeeded the National Foundation under his leadership, to collect 1954 around 66.9 million U.S. dollars, at a figure of 100,000 new cases. In comparison, 11.3 million dollars were donated in the same year for the prevention and treatment of heart disease, at about ten million cases of illness. 1958 O'Connor received for his efforts to combat poliomyelitis Mary Woodard Lasker Award for the Public Service of the Lasker Foundation.
The following undated quote probably comes from Basil O'Connor: