THE SUNDAY OREGOXIAX, PORTLAND,
5, 1908.
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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
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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