Disabled want Roosevelt portrayed in wheelchair

President Franklin Roosevelt governed from a wheelchair and should be portrayed that way at his memorial, insist advocates for the disabled.

Armed with a new law requiring that the Franklin Delano Roosevelt Memorial recognize the president's disability, witnesses made their wishes known Monday at a public hearing called by the National Park Service.The park service will attempt to reach a consensus on how the rule should be implemented, since the law does not spell it out.

But the witnesses repeatedly and vigorously asserted that what is needed is a three-dimensional statue of "Roosevelt-in-a-wheelchair" near the memorial's entrance on the Tidal Basin, not some lesser throwaway gesture that could be ignored.