European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - October 23, 1977, Darmstadt, Hesse                                Georgia s f by Hugh a. Mulligan associated press Lorida bound tourists marching through Georgia by the thousands these Days Detour of interstate 75 to enjoy a double presidential sight seeing Bonus in the Pine and Peanut covered Southwest Corner of the state. Within 80 Miles of each other but worlds apart in nos Talgia and social Milieu Are Plains where president Jimmy Carter was born and reared and warm Springs where president Franklin d. Roosevelt battled to live an Ordinary life and where he died on april 12, 1945, Miles from his wife but looking into the face of the woman he loved. The irony of time is that Plains population 683, has changed a Good Deal going straight to hell according to brother Billy since Carter became president in Jan uary while warm Springs population 549, tries hard to look pretty much the Way it did when Roosevelt first came there in 1924, seeking a cure for polio except the town was called Bull Chville then. Funny thing is Eleanor Roosevelt s maternal grand Mother was a Bulloch from a rugged clan of slave owners and Confederate blockade runners and her Cousin Minnie Bulloch ran the dry goods store but the first lady hated the place and spent very Little time in the town. The old Southern railway station has been pulled Down to save taxes. The site of its historic platform is marked now with a quotation from a 1941 going away speech see you in the fall if we Don t have War. I hate  it was there that for used to arrive in the Fer Dinand Magellan his Armor plated Pullman that the secret service boys called car no. One a pre cursor of air Force one. The observation deck was equipped with an elevator so Roosevelt could be lowered to hobble off on 20-Pound braces and the Strong Arm of a bodyguard to mingle with his fellow invalids. Only the townsfolk and a few intimates realized How disabled he really was. But appearances never mattered so far Back in the Piney Woods which is Why Roosevelt loved the place and its soothing buoyant Springs with a temperature of 88 de Grees fahrenheit the year round. He called it the most wonderful Pool in the world and ended up buying the dilapidated resort All 12,000 acres of it and turning it into a treatment Center two years after he first saw it. Polio is All but eliminated now but the Georgia rehabilitation Center still has a waiting list for paraplegics and victims of rheumatism and arthritis. A prisoner of polio most of his Public life since stricken in May 1920, for Felt free in warm Springs to Lead an invalid s life among fellow cure seekers without pity or embarrassment. He taught them to swim organized their therapy treatment carved the thanksgiving turkeys and smiled the famous smile wider when they called him or. Roosevelt than when anyone called him or. Pres  there were no standing ovations Here noted author Jim Bishop. Few of his friends could  when Roosevelt was inaugurated 32nd president of the United states in 1933, a special train pulled out of warm if warm Springs seems to Echo for s patrician Charm Plains reflects Carter populist Appeal. Springs for Washington full of Well wishers in wheel chairs on stretchers in braces on crutches. The Atmo sphere aboard was More sedate no doubt but no less fervid in Hometown Pride than in the Carload of Beer drinking Good old boys that Billy Carter escorted from Plains to the capital for the 39th president s inaugural 44 years later. One of their own had made it. Most of the 150,000 tourists calling at the Little White House this year pause to Admire the 1938 Ford open tour ing car that local Blacksmith Tom Bradshaw fitted out with hand controls so the president could go busting out the bumper Gates which swung open when the car touched them to go tooling about the winding roads and narrow Bridges of the Pine and Magnolia scented Hills. Roosevelt liked to Chat with the dirt Farmers the Black Field hands the rednecks idling at the Dusty Crossroads and could listen for hours to a country fiddler or Back Woods preacher. He was not averse even during prohibition to a proffered fruit Jar of Moonshine but the Hudson Valley Squire who winced when Al Smith called him Frank could never be mistaken for a Good old boy. Even when he toyed Over his breakfast grits with the idea of running for governor of Georgia shortly before new York democrats nominated him to succeed Smith in Albany the patrician manner held Sway in the Little Pine Board cottage he built in the Hope never realized of re gaining his legs. Sightseers trooping through the fluted columns of the Little White House Marvel now at the quaint presidential commode the ancient ice Box Daisy Bonner s stove the naval prints and the barkentine ship models the armless wheelchair his straight backed dutch chair on rollers the desk where he suffered the massive Haemorrhage the simple bedroom where he died. But since Elliott Roosevelt four years ago rattled the skeletons in the family closet with the Roosevelt of Hyde Park an untold Story revealing his father s two Clandestine love affairs the masses moving through the cottage whisper among themselves about the twin Beds in mrs. Roosevelt s room which she Seldom used and the single bed in his room. Eyebrows Are raised at the discreetly named Secretary s room where Margue rite Missy Leland his private Secretary nurse confidante and mixer of the 7-to-l presidential martinis was quartered. My conscience the president called her. Father made no attempt to conceal his feelings abut Missy wrote Elliott who nce discovered her sitting in his Lap and often saw her in a night Robe taking dictation. It was to Shock to discover a surprising number Colling at the Little cottage never heard of Franklin d. Roosevelt/1 Missy shared a familial life in All its aspects with father. What did Surprise us was the later knowl Edge that Mother knew too and accepted the Situa Tion As a fact of life like the rest of  stronger than the scent of the flowering Dogwood an Aroma of scandal hangs Over the unfinished portrait of Roosevelt on the easel in his study. It was commissioned by Lucy Mercer Rutherfurd the other Lover whom mrs. Roosevelt thought her husband had Given up 25 years before when she threatened to leave him. But Lucy Rutherford was there looking into his face when he died. She fled the House in hysterics and her name was not included in press reports of the death scene. Eleanor Learned the truth the Day after he died and was  Arm Springs then was a place of rendezvous As Well As rest for the paralysed president whose heart secrets were kept for 30 years by adoring country neighbors and a Small Loyal press corps unaccustomed in those Days to leaking the private scandals of Public figures. Wartime Security also played a part. Pool reporters holding Down the rocking chairs on the porch of the warm Springs hotel were not permitted to say that the president had left Washington much less that he was driving out the Gate to hold hands with Lucy Rutherford. In the aftermath of the Pentagon papers and water Gate of Wilbur Mills and Wayne Hays it is difficult to imagine a presidential train disappearing for hours sometimes Days on end at a Railroad siding in Allamuchy n.j., or Aiken s.c., the untrodden ways where Lucy Rutherford lived without a Media explosion. These Days someone in the West Wing would be sure to have leaked what ambassador Joseph Kennedy retorted when for asked him to end his relationship with Gloria Swanson "o.k., if you give up Missy  tourists who know the love secrets of warm Springs tend to be forgiving in their comments and cautious in their questions but a surprising number calling at the Little cottage never heard of Franklind. Roosevelt. Some of the Young ones High school age have to be told who he was and what he did for this country and the poor people and the burdens of War he had to Bear says guide Ben Caldwell who remembers the . And when Rural electrification came to these parts in for s first term. Eighty Miles further South a Media explosion unprecedented in Roosevelt s time occurs whenever Jimmy Carter comes Home to Plains. Sometimes As Many As 300 newsmen cram the motels for Miles around and More than 10,000 people line . 280, the main Street which flanks the tracks of the Seaboard coast line and neatly bisects the town. To City the collection of television trailers under the town water tank is a High Point on the route of the Peanut special mini train one of several organize Tours pointing out  landmarks As Jimmy s birth place miss Lillian s Home Amy s school and the housing project where Jimmy and Rosalynn lived when he left the nuclear Navy. Seeing Dan rather or Harry Reasoner in North Tennessee Carolina Alabama Florida the flesh is almost As emotionally tearing for a tourist As pumping brother Billy s pumping hand at his Amoco Sta Tion or picking up a Case of Beer from him. To avoid the tourist crush Billy has built a House 19 Miles away but he turns up often at the Gas station. It now grosses $500,000 a year compared with $100,000 when Jimmy was just governor of Georgia. Miss Lillian too had left her House on main Street where she complained of being a prisoner of Plains and now lives in the More secluded Pond House not far from the president s ranch style House on Woodland drive which is cordoned off by state troopers. Even when Jimmy s away in Washington As they say around Plains 1,500 tourists a Day and 3,000 on saturdays and sundays Stop off in Plains to Ogle  wonders As the world s largest worm farm and world s Best known antique shop both owned As their signs proclaim by state sen. Hugh Carter first Cousin of president Jimmy  a number of tour buses now include both warm Springs and Plains in their itineraries so visitors can Sample the difference Between the two presidential geor Gia retreats. If warm Springs seems to Echo Roosevelt s patrician Charm Plains pulling five times As Many tourists reflects Carter s populist Appeal. There Are no for Martini glasses or Moonshine fruit jars to be had in the gift shop at warm Springs but the bizarre souvenir shops of Plains offer a bewildering array of Billy Carter Beer mugs Good Ole boy and red neck Power to shirts Peanut jewelry sacks of Carter peanuts and Georgia red Clay billed As the real dirt behind the Carter family and a peach tree switch like Jimmy s daddy whupped him with when he took a Penny from the Church  a Peanut Man flashing the Toothy Carter Grin walks around town greeting visitors and promoting the Peanut magic theater which is not to be confused with the Peanut museum or the Peanut gallery or the ice Cream parlor opened by two City counsellors where the special flavor is Plains  the tourist Boom has brought president Carter s Hometown its first traffic Light to handle the 2,700 cars a Day on . 280, not to mention three or four weekly newspapers and a jump in land prices from $600 to $5,000 an acre so that just about every other House on main Street seems to be for Sale by James Dalton realty co. The Atlanta firm which has taken Over operation of Carter peanuts cleaner dryer Sheller according to the sign out on the Highway is worried about getting the Harvest trucks through to the warehouse in the traffic jams. Concerned about its hustling image the town fathers have voted to remove the soda vending machines from the Only downtown shopping Street and to enforce regulations on the size of signs. Until Jimmy went to the White House Plains was the sort of sleepy Highway town that Indiana humorist Herb Shriner described As being Between the non rhyming lines of a Burma shave  now the town has authorized a 90-room Motel and dozens of $50,000 Homes Are going up to accommodate the permanent secret service detachment the communications specialists and other presidential Camp followers. Roosevelt s staff lived in cottages on the Hospital grounds except for a company of marines camped out at the Edge of the Golf course. Besides a keen sense of tourist economics the towns people of Plains Are keen about preserving valid historical connections with the 39th president As Well As the 1910 Brick facade of storefronts. Unlike warm Springs the Railroad depot built in 1888, still stands and has gained in historic value because Carter used it As his presidential Campaign Headquarters. On Days when he is in town the passenger platform Wall to Wall with telephones serves As a press room. Billy runs a souvenir shop in the old waiting room. A whiff of notoriety if not scandal on a scale to com Pete with warm Springs already hangs Over Plains. Yankee tourists in particular want to see the spot where buddy Cochran rammed his sports car into the crowd at a Kun flux klan rally and the two rival Baptist churches that came about from the split in the congregation Over admitting Blacks to membership. Jimmy Carter was a teenager living in a clap Board farmhouse with an outdoor toilet when presi Dent Roosevelt was sojourning at warm Springs. He remembers when Rural electrification came Down their Road after for got in and How times improved gradually for the red dirt Farmers. So it came about that on labor Day 1976, Carter went on a personal pilgrimage to warm Springs to launch his Campaign for the presidency against Gerald Ford in Stead of staying at Home with the Good old boys in Plains. He Drew 9,000 people at 8 30 in the morning which is pretty Good says Frank Allcorn who used to run the warm Springs hotel and now is executive director of the warm Springs memorial association. John Kennedy came Here in 1960 and Drew 15,000 but he was Lucky enough to go on at 10 30. All the big democratic politicians make a Point of stopping off Here. Now i suppose they la be going on Down to Plains  Only a Marker now recalls where for s Armor plated Pullman used to halt. Carter Waves off Peanut special carrying friends neighbors to inauguration. Page 12 the stars and stripes the stars and stripes Page 13