13 Facts About Basil O'Connor

Daniel Basil O'Connor was an American lawyer and nonprofit executive.

Daniel Basil O'Connor was born January 8,1892, in Taunton, Massachusetts.

Basil O'Connor became a newsboy at age 10, and organized a monopoly of the city's newspaper routes.

Basil O'Connor earned money for college by playing the fiddle in a dance orchestra.

Basil O'Connor did his undergraduate work at Dartmouth College and graduated from Harvard Law School, then was admitted to the bar to practice law in 1915.

In 1920 O'Connor met Franklin D Roosevelt, who was running for Vice President on the Democratic ticket.

Basil O'Connor was executive manager of a number of companies, among them the New England Fuel Oil Corporation in the 1920s, and the American Reserve Insurance Corporation and the West Indies Sugar Corporation in the 1940s.

In 1927, he and Roosevelt and a group of friends created the Georgia Warm Springs Foundation, in which Basil O'Connor served first as treasurer and later as president.

Basil O'Connor was a member of the so-called Brain trust that advised Roosevelt on political strategy during his 1932 Presidential campaign.

Basil O'Connor declined to join the Roosevelt administration on a formal basis, preferring the life of a lawyer.

Basil O'Connor declined payment for his leadership of the Red Cross.

In 1958 Basil O'Connor received the Mary Woodard Lasker Award for Public Service of the Lasker Foundation in recognition of his efforts in the fight against polio.

On January 2,1958 the National Foundation celebrated its 20th anniversary at Warm Springs, Georgia and Basil O'Connor was honored by having his bust inducted into the Polio Hall of Fame next to FDR and fifteen polio scientists from two centuries.