People generally knew that FDR had suffered physically from polio or a polio-like ailment, but there was a lot of confusion and misinformation as to the degree of his affliction. His condition was rarely discussed in the press because it was impolite, and Roosevelt and the Democratic Party made sure to keep it that way. They did not offer much to reporters in the way of details. In fact, there were suggestions by FDR's people that he was getting, or had got, better.

Here is an article from the Palm Beach Post in 1997 where four seniors recall what they knew back then. They all say they knew about Roosevelt's condition, but three of them say the details were only vaguely understood.

When Roosevelt was campaigning in the western U.S. during his first campaign for president, on October 14, 1932, the United Press syndicate service ran an article that read in part:

"Roosevelt's audiences in some quarters were lukewarm or curious.

"He probably benefited himself in certain quarters by a show of vigor and health counteracting the impression in some sections that maybe the Democrats had a 'wheelchair candidate'."

The Democrats were afraid that their opponents were going to try to "spin" his disability against FDR, and they had reason to be concerned. In one instance, Charles Davenport, a geneticist and a prominent proponent of eugenics in the United States, wrote a letter to the editors of Life Magazine arguing that FDR's disability made him a dangerous man, comparing him to Joseph Goebbels:

Why not look up history to see how dangerous is the ambitious, mentally well-endowed, physical cripple, whether the crippling was congenital or acquired? From Tamerlane to Goebbels (the clubfooted), physical cripples, genial, gentle-hearted, charitable men, like Georges Couthon and Talleyrand, have led revolutions and aspired to dictatorships while burdening their country with heavy taxes and reducing its finances to chaos. The physically defective man tends to compensate for his defect...

As Roosevelt's health had begun to fail by the time of the 1944 election, his critics felt more emboldened to mention his physical capabilities. The October 17, 1944, Chicago Tribune ran an op-ed:

"Evidence increases that Mr. Roosevelt is not in fit physical condition to meet those demands [of serving another term as President]. His absences from his office because of illness, some of which have been concealed by censorship, have become more frequent...In opening his speaking campaign before the teamsters in Washington, Mr. Roosevelt spoke from a wheelchair. It was the first time he found it necessary to do so in a public appearance."

So it wasn't so much that FDR was embarrassed or anything, but more that he and the Democrats didn't want to give political fuel to their opponents. The press understood this and out of a sense of fairness, and lack of cooperation by the FDR administration, kept the public largely in the dark.

The public slowly began to learn about the extent of FDR's physical limitations after his death. A multi-volume biography of Roosevelt by Harvard professor Frank Freidel, published in 1952-54, talked about FDR's paralysis at length. This was the first major biography of FDR after he had died, and was written with cooperation from the Roosevelt family. A chapter entitled "Infantile Paralysis" began with a self-deprecating quote directly from FDR's personal diary, written on September 16, 1921:

"I have renewed my youth in a rather unpleasant manner by contracting what was fortunately a rather mild case of infantile paralysis."

In 1961, Eleanor Roosevelt published her autobiography, detailing the circumstances around FDR's paralysis, and plainly stating that "for the rest of his life he was unable to walk or stand without the braces and some help, though he could still swim and play water polo."