THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND, 5, 1908. JBtmd Wet? Wfa fkm ms&rf:: . ' THE man who Is the world's lead ing authority on the constitution of steel is stone blind, his eye sight liavingf'bcen destroyed by an ex plosion which occurred early In his chemical Investigations of the consti tution of steel. He is Edward DeMille Campbell, since 1905 director of the chemical laboratory of the University of Michigan. The man to whom learned university professors of mathematics and famous astronomers come for Instruction In the most abstruse mathematics has been stone blind from birth. He Is J-cwls B. Carll, of Brooklyn, famed the mathematical world over as Its only living authority on the calculus of variations, a branch of the science which only the cream of the mathe matical sharps have brains enough to conquer. The-woman whose 6000 odd gospel congs have gone round the world has been stone blind since she was six months old. Today sne Is nearing her eighty-eighth birthday, and Is as act ive mentally and physically as she was 44 years ago when she began giving to Christianity such hymns as "Jesus, Keep Me Near the Cross," "Rescue the l'erishing," "I Am Thine, O Lord," and "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." John B. Herreshoff, famous on two continents as the modeler of the latter day defenders of the America's cup, has not been able to tell day from night since he was 15 years old, when a film began to spread (Over his eyes and soon thereafter left him in total physical darkness. For the first time in its history a blind man has been elected to the Senate of the United States. He Is Thomas P. Gore, one of the first pair of toga wearers from the new state of Oklahoma. When he was nine one eye was put out during a quarrel with a play mate; when he was 12 the otlfer was destroyed by another playmate acci dentally piercing it with an arrow. For years two of the sovereign states of the Union California and Rhode Island supinely did the bidding of two "blind bosses," Christopher A. Buckley and General Charles R. Brayton, respectively. The most popular tutor in mathe matics at Columbia University, be cause he is the most "successful, is Dr. Newell Perry, whose face, when he was a child of eight on his father's ranch in California, came in contact with some poison, causing him to go blind in a few weeks. These are only a few of the more prominent blind men and women who, aided almost solely by their indom itable determination to do so, have risen superior to an affliction that the average man or woman looks upon as appalling. A complete list of who's who among the blind would be long, indeed, and include th6 names of such well-known doers as M. Riggenbach, professor of theology in the University of Basle; M. Camllle Lemaire, the French architect, who, on becoming blind, devoted himself to writing a his tory of architecture; Dr. Emile Javal, the French oculist, who, since be coming sightless at the age of 62, has spent his time teaching others how to perform the operations for which he was famed on the Continent; Dagnia, the organist; to say nothing of the most famous blind personage of mod ern times John Milton. Remarkable Feats of Memory. Varied as are the careers of present day prominent blind men, a glance at ihclr lives shows that the success of each man rests largely on the circum stance that he has been able to de velop his memory to perform feats that ili-serve classification among the phe nomena of tne mind. One of the problems in Mr. Carll's book on 'Calculus of Variations" takes up several score pages. He spent three years working out the problem, but not until he had arrived at the correct answer did he commit any portion of the problem to paper by the point sys tem. As fast as he worked out one slop of the problem it took him weeks, sometimes, to do this he stored the re sult of his labors in his memory and did not bring it forth again until he, too. could cry "Eureka!" In such man ner be wrote the whole of his first book, a formidable volume of 568 pages, on which he spent ten years. His sec ond book, "Afterthoughts on Calculus of Variation." is the result of twenty ye;;rs of study. It deals with the most difficult mathematical problems known tc the human mind problems that Mr. Carll was not able to master when he wrote his "variations "; hence the name, "Afterthoughts." And no problem in this second work, the only one of its kind ever written, was committed to paper until Mr. Carll, pacing up and down his room, day after day, week nftM- week, month after month, year nfter year, In several instances, had Srasped the solution. Senator Thomas p. Gore is credited with having graduated in geometry without drawing a line or making a single figure. Perhaps the most re markable demonstration of his truly remarkable memory was given during a debate with Senator Hernando de Soto Money, of Mississippi, Gore's na tive state. Money, at the time, was a candidate for re-election to Congress on the Democratic ticket: Gore, then a Popu list, had been selected as the party's best man to answer the arguments of '"the gentleman from Mississippi." Just before the word contest began the blind man requested of his oppo nent that a division of time be made. Money, who that day had met Gore for the first time, resented the request for . some reason, and his reply was none too civil: "I will speak as long as I please. Tou are at liberty to do the same." For three solid hours thereafter Money let loose a veritable flood of talk on the big crowd assembled for miles around the little town of Hoen linden to listen to the debate. Through it all Gore sat with unruffled brow; then, when his opponent had run out of breath at last, lie took the plat form and held his hearers spellbound for four solid hours. Incidentally, lie quoted, without a slip, page after page of his antagonist's record as set down in the Congressional Record, this hav ing been read to him only a day or two before. Though he drank himself blind be , fore he went into polities and then put liquor KWiiy for himself forever, "Boss" Buckley has never forgotten any man "whose voice he has heard even once only since he went into poli tics. To his peculiar ability to remem ber voice tones he undoubtedly owed much of his success as a 'boss." Until he was deposed he ran a low type of saloon in San Francisco. Here poli ticians of 'both parties from all over tlie state would come to pay their liom" use. Perhaps a visitor had not stood before Buckley for 13 years, and then 'i &Jt.2&TVELZ. FEARY- WHOSE ' - I I, C jtfV '-'iF I TJZSEATISE C2VJZ62mR ttATHr JJEWFSS. OASXL, THE BLIND ,JM0T, I , vM Vf? l''" M ' J.T -J ' A CM 13 A. STANDARD J7V '2smEMTICUN, WORKING- mMM Aim.i ' I SF vMS? hl " ' ' f-L T J Wi TJ3E ZZVZVZtf!3JTr.Ar CUTJL JER0L. CN THE EFAW WwHAhr III 7 ''JY I lllww' ll ' ' NJA 3VUN2C7 ' Xm272EXT U ' m - , i - ib i till I i it nt v w arjwvxr .m i fl-xsv t v n - i 4k " ' ' in i i i r i ii i i 1 1 in vfrwx ! i , r - only long enough to receive his suave "How do you do?" Yet the moment the "boss" heard his caller speak, out would shoot his right hand, and in the most refined drawing-room tones would come the words "So glad to meet you, Mr. Smith. We haven't met since such and such a convention." Buckley has never been known to make a mistake in name or place of last meeting. Dr. Newell Perry tutors entirely from memory. Before she was 9 years old Fanny Crosby could repeat, word for word, the first four books of the Old Testament and the first four books of the New Testament, as well. Naturally, her ability to remember whole pas sages and books of the Bible has had a great deal to do with her success as a writer of sacred hymns. One of her greatest feats of memory was to com pose 40 hymns at a sitting and then to writethem down one after another, without a" moment's hesitation in search of a word or line. Herreshoff has declared that his suc cess as a yacht builder rests largely on the fact that he can picture so vividly In his mind the boats he saw and the models he owned during the first fifteen years of his life. Had his memory failed him in the "slightest degree In this re spect he believes he would have possessed no prope mental models to worlt with and improve upon. It is an everyday oc currence for Professor Campbell to work out intricate chemical formulae in hi mind the while he performs before his classes' experiments which a chemist with, two good eyes undertakes with some anx iety. Campbell the Blind Chemist. Professor Campbell's father was Judge James V. Campbell, a noted Jurist of the Central States. He was professor 'of 'law at the Uni-ersity of Michigan from 1859 to 1SS3. Five years after he had retired his son became professor, of metallurgy and metallurgical chemistry at the uni versity, where he had graduated four years before. After he had become blind he was promoted to junior professor of analytical chemistry, then professor of chemical engineering and analytical chem istry, and two years ago he was made director of the university's chemical lab oratory, which is reckoned among the best in the country. The year -that he secured the profes sorship at his alma mater. Professor Campbell began working on the problem of the constitution of steel. As every body knows, the hardening of steel Is due to a combination of iron and carbon, but why or how Iron, and carbon change tiieir relations to each other no scientist knows, though many -nave sought to unravel the mystery. Professor Campbell was endeavoring to learn how much car bon was evolved as gas by decomposing steel with acid when the explosion oc curred that rendered him blind. Hydro carbons mixed with many times their volume of hydrogen were present, and it was while he was trying to separate the hydrogen from the hydrocarbons that the accident took place. Gas mixed with oxy gen stored in large glass bottles was led through a capillary glass tube immersed in ice water. The tube contained a minute amount of platinum black, which by its presence caused the hydrogen and the oxygen to combine on- its surface. The tube and the ice water should have worked on the same principle as the miner's safety lamp, to prevent the com bustion from spreading. But something was wrong and every one of the bottles exploded Just as Professor Campbell -was leaning over to examine the progress of the experiment. Numerous pieces of glass were driven into his eyes. This was just before the opening of the Spring vacation. At the Fall opening of college Campbell was back again In his place, ready for all his old work. Here is Professor Campbell's descrip tion of the accident: "I was studying on the slow construc tion of hydrogen and the gases evolved when steel is dissolved. It didn't go slow ly, but rather went quickly. The mixture exploded and caused the accident." Then he added: "I took the same gases by another and safer method and from the gaseous prod ucts of the solution of steel I formed the present hypothesis of the construction of steel which I published In 1899 in the Journal of the Iron and Steel Institute, and I have not changed my fundamental ideas since that article was published." At the time of the accident to Professor Campbell there was no clearly formed conception of the formation of steel. Pro fessor Campbell worked on the accumula tion of facts for five years and them from this accumulation formed the work ing hypothesis. Since then he has been testing the validity of these acts and has found nothing as yet to contradict the correctness of the hypothesis. In short, he is accumulating fundamental ideas to get experimental evidence that every sci entist wilL accept; many - have accepted his hypothesis. Within two hours after his eyesight had been destroyed Professor Campbell was planning for his future life and work, and two weeks after the accident he was working vrith the same gases' on" the same problem, directing other hands and eyes to do and see for him what he could no longer do and see. Rather re cently he is said to have discovered a way to perform without danger the ex periment which deprived him of a sense. At present he has from eight to 12 men working under him -on the intricate prob lem which he is pursuing with an energy that outlasts the endurance of any of his assistants. In order to get the accurate measurements on which he rigidly insists, he has been compelled many times to devise delicate instruments, to - measure quantity and degree with minute accu racy. These feats of workmanship- he has trained his hands to. perform with amazing skill; indeed his hands- are trained as remarkably, as those of Her reshoff, who, simply by running his hands along a yacht's hull, can tell her speed. As his position at the bead of Ann -Arbor's chemical laboratory: implies,. Pro fessor Campbell is decidedly a man of more than one idea. Numerous- chemical experiments that have nothing, to do with the construction of steel are directed daily by him. Since he became blind the Portland cement industry of the country has been developed. As a chemist Pro fessor Campbell played a prominent part in the development,, and is a recognized authority on Portland cement. In 1895 the output of this cement in this country was about one barrel to every -150 per sons; now it is about one-half barrel for each person. - "How -have you managed to accomplish so much, especially with such a handicap to contend with?,' I asked Professor Campbell. . . "I found, at the time of my accident, that I must do one of two things," he answered. "I was doing my college work and also a great deal of outside work as a consulting chemist for several concerns. I found that 1 had to sacrifice one or the other, that I must choose between the two. I gave up the outside commercial work and gave my entire time and energy to the scientific work. All that I can say is that one can accomplish anything by attending to business and, sawing wood, and not getting discouraged. Sometimes you study a month, six months, or pos sibly two years on one idea, only to find out at the end of that time that it is not worth working out. Then you lay it : : ." . f, If iff - v , i;j . G2m CFTHE aside and put it down to .experience and begin all over again." One reason of. Professor Campbell's ability to accomplish -so: much in a given-' period, of time is to be-found, doubtless, in' his enthusiasm for physical exercise. He devotes an hour a day during the col lege year to work in tlie gymnasium, in order to keep in good muscular condition. At 11 o'-clock every morning he leaves -his laboratory with an assistant and goes to the gymnasium in the northeast corner of the campus. By 12 o'clock he has exercised for 25 minutes, taken his bath and' subjected himself to a. lively - rub down. ' While 1 exercising he uses the horses, parallel bars and dumbbells, being as clever with-them as a full-sighted gymnasium team star. . No professor at Ann Arbor sets such long working hours for himself: "none works as many weeks In" the year,, just 60; none is In better health; none oan show a" better cared Tor set of muscles. : Professor Campbell i was 44 years old last September. He is a member of the' -American ' Chemical Society, the Ameri can Institute of Mining Engineering, and an honorary member of the Michigan Gas Association. Lewis B. . Carll, whose fame among mathematicians is even greater than Pro fessor Campbell's among chemists, de spite ; the handicap . of sightless eyes, pressed Seth Lew, who" afterwards be came Mayor of. Greater . New York,' lor first place In -the' class in which they graduated - from ' Columbia University. That -.was in .-1570. 'As a student young Carll' had the text books read to him by a companion while the ' two were traveling between the university and Mr. Carll's home on Long Island. His com panion was a boyhood friend sent through Columbia by Mr. Carll's father, that his son might - have some one to read his lessons to him. Thus, Mr. Carll took a college course wholly by sound, as it were. : ; .- . On graduation he planned to become a teacher' of thevclassics. but soon found to his sorrow that nearly every one who desired his services wanted to be in structed in mathematics.- In college-he had been a fair ' mathematician. Con fronting the situation squarely, he deter mined to become as proficient in this branch of study as his mental equip ment would let him. and from that day to this he- has been a salver of the most abstruse mathematical problems known to man. Whon he decided to produce his book on "Calculus of i Variations," he dis TWjtTYtnW THOUSANDS OF BLIND WHO IAVE'JZZSEW covered ; that, only- one book -had - ever been written on that subject,- and every copy of it had been lost . or destroyed, apparently. He. therefore, had to secure the loan of various rare mathematical papers and pamphlets from the libraries of Harvard. Yale and Europe, Columbia University, g-uaranteeing their safe return. He spent, three years collecting ..in this wise the necessary- basic; data; the en suing en years -he devoted , almost en tirely to building his book.- ' - . ; His method of work was this: He in structed his brothers how to read higher mathematics properly. Then he would have one of them. read to him a few. lines at a time. Next he would go to 'his room, lock the door and pace up and down while he digested what had been read to him. . Then he would have another fourth or an eighth of a page of figures read to him, and up to his room he would 'trudge again,- to do the heavy thinking. In such fashion, he also worked out the problems in his second and greater work. - .' Professor Campbell, owing .to his muscular activity, - does not look very much like a typical college professor. Mr. Carll, ,on- the other hand, is the physical embodiment of tlie erudite student. . Blind Boy- Planned to Be Senator. A blind Boy who set out to be a United States Senator, and ' who ' has realized his ambition thi, in epitome, is the life story of Thomas P. Gore. When he was , attending school at Walthal, Miss.,-a copy of the Congres sional Record fell into Gore's hands. He got a schoolmate. Charles Pittman, to read from it to him. Among other things, Pittman read the list of United States Senators. Then It was that Tom Gore conceived his ambition of be coming a Senator himself, and in all the years that followed he did not lose sight of the goal that he finally won last December. He is now 36 years old, and until he waged his senatorial cam paign was o little known outside the two 'or three countryside communities in which he has lived that "Who's Who in America" and other reference books know no such man. Gore began his political career In his native state, Mississippi. He lias been a Populist Congressional candidate in Texas, has stumped for Bryan in In diana, Ohio, Nebraska, and the Dakotas, and is the present Idol of the Oklahoma farmers and ranchers, who, in the Sen atorial primary, rolled up a big enough majority foV him to offset handsomely the adverse majorities in the towns. To secure the $1000 that Gore spent in his campaign, his friends say that he had to mortgage his cottage home in Lawton. -.- His opponents spent $100,000, all told. - - During' his campaign for -Senator Gore . went about practically unat tendedi "Whenever possible he spent his. nights in the homes of tlie farmers, ho matter' what their political belief. His- pluck,' frankness and unassuming ways usually went straight, to the hearts of the farmers 'and their fami lies, and when, at leave-taking, he asked them to vote in a way that would make a certain little brown-eyed woman .happy, it was seldom that he received a negative or evasive reply. The "little ' brown-eyed woman," of course. Is Gore's, wife; she is also his political adviser and campaign man ager, and the Senator stoutly declares that without her help lie could not have won the toga that is now his. The ambition of Fanny J. Crosby (Mrs. Alexander Van-Alstyne) is to live to write songs in her 103d year. .That was the age attained by her favorite grandmother,, and Miss Crosby believes that sometime during the next 15 years she will write her best hymn. - - Miss Crosby declares that she ac quired the knack of making words flow rhythmically by taking lessons during her childhood years from the musical little stream that flowed by her home. From the time she entered the New York Institution-for the Blind, at the age of 15, until she was 45, she wrote secular songs exclusively, her best know profane song being "There's Mu sic in the Air." Then, at the solicita tion of W. D. Bradbury, a publisher of sacred music, she turned "to religious songs, and this has been her field ever since. Her first, hymn, written in 1864, began. "We are going, we are going. To a home beyond the skies," and four years later it wa sung at the funeral of the man who Induced the au thor to take up hymn writing. That same year Miss Crosby wrote what is perhaps her most famous song, "Safe in the Arms of Jesus." This is how she came to write -.: One day Doan, the famous Cincin nati composer, came rushing into Miss Crosby's room; she was in Cincinnati attending a religious meeting. "Miss Crosby. 1 want a song," he exclaimed, excitedly. "I must leave QKZAJZQ2&L T the city in 45 minutes. Can you write me one in that time?" "Hum me the tune" to which you are going to set it," Miss Crosby requested. When Doan had done this she asked him if he' had any suggestions as to the character of the song he desired. "Why, yes," he replied, "Safe In the Arms of Jesus." The blind woman rapturously clasped her hands. "Oh, what a beautiful thought!" she cried. Then she fell to work, and In 30 minutes had produced eight verses, three of which are still sung around the world. A nother Author of Mathematics. Like Miss Crosby, Dr.. Newell Perry, tutor In mathematics for Columbia University students, believes that if he ever "regained his sight the develop ment of his work would be greatly hin dered. He has been able to concentrate because of his blindness, he says, and he fears that with his sight restored he would lose to a great degree his power to concentrate. He, too, is the author of a mathe matical treatise, which he wrote while a student at Munich, and which that university has adopted as a standard. He went abroad after graduating from the University of California, and tak ing a post-graduate course at the Unl virsity of Chicago. He was only 19 when he ' graduated from California, and his mathematical and other stu dent feats caused him to be known on the Coast as "the brilliant blind stu dent.",He went through college on tlie money he made as a coach. Unlike most blind persons, Dr. Perry walks' neither with a cane nor an at tendant. Ho moves about in a crowded street as easily as Herreshoff -does on the deck of a yacht plunging in a frothy sea. So far he has ' never met with an accident, because, he says, he can tell something about tile size of objects he approaches by the sound of his footfall,, and governs himself ac cordingly. As a student in' California, he got his recreation by ridlrg a bicycle. On these trips he ws accompanied by a friend who rodo ahead a little way and signalled with his bell when vehi cles 'were approaching. When he was in Munich Dr. Perry endeavored to persuade some of his fellow students to ride with him, but they could not understand even why a Yankee should desire to be so foolhardy, and so re fused. - The . professors, too, forbade Perry to ride, and he had to content himself with walking. General Charles R. Brayton, lately deposed as "boss" of Rhode Island, and blind since 1900, was college bred, like Campbell, Carll, Perry, and Gore. - In deed. Buckley is the country's only "big" blind man who did not go to college. Instead he ran away from home when a boy, and at 20 started in the saloon business opposite the Mare Island Navy-Yard. Brayton was a "boss" before he became blind: Buckley developed into one after he lost his sig-ht. Brayton. like Professor Campbell, did not let the loss of this sense interfere with his life's work; he kept as strong a grip as ever on the Rhode Island Republican machine, loosening his hold only recently after his failure to elect his man United States Senator. He was the political power in little Rhody for upwards of 20 . years. : A good deal might be written derog atory of his political methods, but not of his Civil War record. He left col lege in his sophomore year to organize a company to fight for the Union. When the war closed he had risen to the rank of colonel, as a member of the Heavy Artillery having participated in numerous Important engagements, among them being the capture of Port Royal and the reduction of Fort Sum ter. (Copyright 1908. by Dexter ilui shall) i