THE OREGON SUNDAY JOURNAL, ' PORTLAND, SUNDAY MORNING. JUNE IS. 1909
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015 SI
the
Wonderful Story of
the Lad Whose Case
Touched a President's
Heart
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MILING JOE" is home again.
He went back to the East
Side tenement district in New
York, cured, after his four long years in the
sea air of Coney Island.
Cured, you see. Not simply "im-
roved," as the solemn doctors say when they
patients go back well started toward he-
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w- cured, and so make room for a few
others of the four or five thousand half
starved sufferers in Manhattan who are wait
ing their chance to be saved from the terrible
tuberculosis of the bones and joints and glands
that is laming and wasting them and fitting
them for crutches or the grave.
Joe "Smiling Joe" is cured. That
means he is made into the full, glorious,
mighty possibilities cf a man, of a matt who
can use his whole heart and soul and body for
a man's work and a man's life, as well as the
rest of us.
It means more, much more. It means
that all over this broadband, wherever hun
ger and the pallid air of cabined poverty help
the cruel bacilli of those crudest of diseases
to do their crippling work, hope shall spring
and health shall raise its drooping head, and
men and women shall stand up in the form
of their Creator to look life bravely in the
face, saved.
YES; of course you know "Smiling- Joe." the boy
whose sunny soul saw mirth and f rlendllneti
In every inch of the pitiless world that alwayi
ringed him around with pain.
But one is so-liable to forget the details of theie
ad cases. What was it that made him so interesting?
Vitn it any rl-'uiiarity of his affliction?
No; his was the cv'.imonfst sort of a perpetual
helplessness and suffering. Was it was It? Why.
feally, when one comes to recall clearly, It wasn't any
thing: more than his emile from out of the dreadful
bandages he wore.
Nothing more, in plain truth. But In the course of
the last few years that smile of his amid the dread
ful bandages has gone all over, the country, so that
th nation's many millions Lave seen it and remember
it, while the nation's many thousands who have little
one enduring a like affliction know that there Is at
least one place in the land where there is a chance for
their salvation.
MISERY LOOMED BEFORE HIM
Joe" Barron, in 1905, was years old, and he had
tuberculosis of the bones and spine. Althdugh still in
Its incipiency. the appalling disease was rapidly mak
ing of him one of those bent, contorted, helpless crip
ples from Whom the world of love and kindness coldly
turns away when the germs have done their hateful
worst. '
On the various sea coasts of Europe there are no
fewer than seventy-five sanatoria which are devoted
xeilvly to the treatment cf tuberculosis in children-
They know what children are worth over there.
tut, until recently, in the United States such an Insti
tution would have been a cariosity.
In -June, 1904. the New York Association for Im
rrovins; the Condition of the Poo r. after a preliminary
investrgatlon ,-of the numerous sanatoria of Europe,
Oertrted that this country should have at least one to
hicb the victims oX Uur nu&JUUUs struggle- for ex
istence might have recourse.
Now, while America was cheerfully blissful in Its
Ignorance of any such cures, iier great city has been
going right ahead, with Its poisonous tenements and
its ill-fed tollers, manufacturing regiments of miser
able cripples every year, and manufacturing more of
them every year.
. This state of affairs made the association very
anxious to lock arms in the struggle against that ter
rible Increase, even though the weapons and the com
missariat were both lacking.
So in June. 1 904. the fcea Breeze Hospital, the first
seaside hospital in America for the treatment of
tuberculosis of the bones. Joints and glands of chil
dren, was started on the shores of Coney Island, with
nothing but u coveted platform and some tents.
i'hu sea and lite sea air wen tu do ttia rest and
they've dune it.
Among the crippled Jetsam of the Kast Side, now
eagerly snatched up by active charity and shipped to
the care of the nurses under whose bare tents "Joe"
Uarron appeared a year later, with his spine begin
ning to weaken and a smile on Ms thin, drawn, little
4-year-old face that was heartbreaking in Its wln
someness and its fortitude
They gae him the approved treatment, the lack of
which, together with the open, fresh sea air and
plenty of wholesome, nourishing food, entails disas
trous consequences in cases like his. Just as the sup
plying of them means restoration to complete health.
They strapped him to a curved board, fastened so
tightly that he could do no more than wave his arms
and twist his head about a little.
Most of the poor little wretches who como to Sea
Breeze have been so starved for food and light and air
that It takes days, and sometimes weeks, to restore to
their souls the heritage of happiness that belongs by
right of birth to childhood.
But little "Joe'' Barron, although his martyrdom
was no different from that of hid companions, seemed
to have brought into the world, witti the misery to
which he .'as condemned, some bright, enduring ray
of the heaven whence children come.
He was always cheerful, always hopeful, always
smiling, ss though his small heart held such a big
love for all about him that he could not feel the
harshness of earth's unjust sentence.
Now, the new seashore sanatorium had to, and has
to. exist on the dole of charity; and charity must be
stimulated with words and scenes If It is to keep Its
beneficiaries from perlshlnar from sheer want.
So the patients at Sea Breeze were sometimes pho
tographed. In order that charity, being stimulated,
might dole out more to keep them alive and, perhaps,
enable a larger number of the small martyrs of the
East Side to feel God's sunlight and drink in the salt
air of Ills healing ocean.
The photographer happened, they say, to catch
"Joe's" smile. The truth is. when he came to level his
camera at that habitual optimist he could not have
helped photographing the smile, even if he had found
"Joe" asleep.
It made a striking picture, the essence of 'the
drama and all art seized fresh on the lips ef life's
reality the hard bed of pain In contrast wltn the In
domitable human courage which his lifted the world
from Its primeval anarchy.
When the association sent out that photograph,
with an appeal for charity's dole, newspaper and mag
azine editors all over the country who are really
human beings, albeit somewhat Indurated to battle,
murder and sudden death saw in a flash the marvel
of that smile.
Everywhere they reproduced It; everywhere the
people of great cities and of the villages and farms
felt the responsive thrill which, of old, kindled pagan
souls In the presence of some statue of Prometheus
bound. Everywhere American men and women learn
ed the Inspiring story of "Smiling Joe."
In the fours years that have elapsed since "Joe"
Barron was taken to Sea Breeze to be cured huge
myths have grown up about the magic of his smile
beautiful myths, too, more beautiful than the poign
antly tragic one of that ancient, brave Prometheus,
who, stealing heaven's fire of Immortality for man,
was condemned to be bound to a rock while vultures
preyed forever on his vitals.
BOARD HIS BEST ALLY
It was reported that the face of the smiling boy
had so stirred the depths of charity that It brought to
the association the $250,000 so desperately needed to
extend Its work. That was a glorious myth. but. un
happily, too glorious to be true.
While "Smiling 'Joe's" picture was traveling to
millions of homes here and was slowly spreading its
Inspiration abroad, the boy who made It possible was
steadily winning his way to perfect health.
Although born a cripple, with his spine crooked and
his leg twisted, the stern but kindly board to which
they bound him proved his best ally. Summer and
winter the nurses carried him and his fellow-sufferers
out to the porch, where they lay all day, breathing In
the sea air; summer and winter they had the same
good sea air flowing over them in great waves of
health at night, for the windows of the indotTr wards
were invariably open wide.
Jacob A. Klls, whose interest In the poor is unfftlU
Ingly alive, accompanied President Roosevelt in 190S
on a visit of Inspection of the' sanatorium, and "Smil
ing Joe" fairly .touched Mr. Koosevelt tu the heart.
Tne President shed tears over the little sufferer.
A year of the curved board sutliced for Joe's case.
It left him straight as an arrow and as helpless as
the day he was born. He had to grow muscles before
he could walk, and he had to live in an enveloping
plaster cast while he grew tne in. It made him look
like an animated marble monument, and its successors
stayed on his harassed body for more years, until the
doctors, a few weeks ago. after all his play In the
open and his sleep In the healing air. pronounced him
well and let him go back home again.
Those are the simple, unadorned facts about "Smil
ing Joe," with these other facts In place of the beau
tiful myth:
By the summer of 1905 the banatorlum had demon
strated the- astounding thing that the air of ttie At
lantic ocean, at the shore of th?i United States wan
Just as healthful as the air of the Atlantic ocean at
the shores of Europe. Any sand crab or flshhawk
could have told the doctors that without half think
ing; but we must be cautious and highly scientific,
you see, when we are contemplating- any such innova
tions as founding a sanatorium or boiling eggs.
The association determined to try for .funds tr
erect a large hospital modeled on the little Sea Breeze
i'lstitutlon. John D. Rockefeller offered to give $125.
000 cash If us much could be raised from other
sources. The second sum was virtually all pledged
when the photograph of "Smiling Joe" was made pub
lic. Yet the photograph brought In a great deal of
money. The $250,080 Is In bank now. awaiting tha
action of New York city In condemnation proceedings
appropriating Rockaway Beach for purposes of public;
health and recreation. But the city eant afford It
Just yet; and so the thousands of little cripples on the
East Side must wait and become more crippled until It
can give their promised sanatorium a site big enough
to accommodate it.
While Joe's picture did not bring in all the $350,000
so widely talked of. It did a great deal to arouse inter
est In the relieving of little Invalids sucli as he, and
was responsible for many contributions.
But the smile has. perhaps, done something1 more.
It has spread the light of hope wherever Viope was
not. and has made national the force of thn movement
to save the Innocent martyrs of our headless civiliza
tion where It might still have been local.
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I AN a woman be a successful legislator!
One woman, at least, answers yes, be
cause, 6he says, with due modesty, she has
proved it.
She is Mrs. Alma Lafferty, who was a member
of the recent Legislature of Colorado the only
woman in a body of sixty-five lawmakers. During
, the session her courso was watched with interest
not only by the people of her Denver district, but
by those of the state and by many throughout the
country. ,
Mrs. i Lafferty says sho is satisfied with her
record. The voters who elected her appear to be
satisfied, too, so all ;ia well. : .
'HEN Mrs. Lafferty began her term she was
regarded first as an easy victim by those
who wished to introduce freak legislation.
Every one with a strange, freakish bill
appealed to her to Introduce it. She probably re
ceived visits from more cranks than any other mem
ber of the Legislature. But not for long. Mrs.
Lafferty Issued Iier first bulletin early in the session.
"No cranks need. apply,'" she declared. "1 am here
for serious business and not as a vehicle for mental
versatility."
To this declaration she clung, and although she
became one of the most prolific introducers of bills
in the Legislature, freak bills ware not on the list.
Other legislators began to take notice of this determined-looking
woman. She sat In- the middle of
the chamber, and her desk nearly always bore flowers
or other indications of femininity.
Mrs. Lafferty, above all, made a reputation for
two things getting good bills through and develop
ing intp the most exptTt lobbyist on the floor of the
House.
She took to lobbying as naturally as a duck to
water, and commanded one of. the most powerful
lobbies before the Legislature. It was largely made
up of women lobbyists. Women have made a reputa
tion in Colorado, with their votes to use as a club,
as the most persistent fighters that appear before
the Legislature. They have the quality of neveT know
ing wnen they are whipped, and Mrs. Lafferty pos
sessed this quality to its fullest extent.
W,hen a fight was raised on one of her bills she
flooded the floor of the House or Senate, wherever it
was occurring, with her lobby, before the enemy knew
she was prepared. Through the Women's Club of Den
ver she held the threat of the female vote of the
state against any one who opposed her, and on non
political questions the women were behind her, re
trardlees of politics.
In addition she commended the educational lobby
of the state, for she fathered, or, rather, mothered,
about all the educational bills presented to the Legis
lature. She allied herself with Judge Ben B. Llndsey,
of the Juvenile Court of Denver. Introducing all the
Juvenile bills that passed and now bear the signature
of the Governor. Judge Iylndsey, whose sensational
and successful run as an Independent candidate Is still
puzzling the bosses of both parties, who considered
him "dead," gave her bis influence In return for her
support of Juvenile bills.
But the strangest fact In Mra. Lafferty's legislative
career, on the face of It, Is that The bill she desired to
have passed above all others was defeated. More than
anything else, she wished an eight-hour bill for laun
r (irla. It went through, tha llOoso and met strong;
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opposition tn the Senate, being- finally killed on the
last day of the session by one vote.
This eight-hour bill for laundry girls has been the
pet measure of the Federated Women's Clubs of Colo
rado for several years. A law giving laundry girl
eight hours was passed by the last previous Assembly
and knocked out later by the Supreme Court. Mrs.
Lafferty revived the light at the recent session and
introduced three bills covering the subject. ,
One was not properly drawn and died In committee.
A second was , drawn solely for the benefit of the
laundry girls and waa dropped by her when House
bill 32 4 had gained some headway. This provided
eight hours fr employes of laundries.- mechanical or
.mercantile establishments, hotels and restaurants.
1'he msrxwUle esUbUAlwjisnts, hotels nd-restu-
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rants Immediately set about to kill It. The Hotel Keep
ers' Association and the Laundry Association both
have- strong organizations. An attempt wag made by
the enemies of the measure to have an amendment In
serted Including telephone employes. This was design
ed to bring the Colorado Telephone Company into the
fight, and any Colorado legislator who wishes to get
a bill through steers clear of legislation aimed at that
company. Its Influence Is more than they wish to have
against them.
The amendment was defeated, and the bill finally
reached the Senate shorn of the provisions agajnst the
hotels, restaurants and mercantile establishments. But
those interests, having started a fight on It. were de
termined to see it through to a finish. Mrs. Laffertv
threw her lobby into the Senate and, one after another,
went to senators and told them if they wished to see
their pet measures get through the House to vote for
the bill.
But the Senate was in a deadlock. Not until the
. day before adjournment did the laundrv bill come up
for third reading. Mrs. Lafferty had a majority of
senators working for her. One Instance in particular
illustrates her method: ,
A senator' had a bill for a home for mental defect
ives. Mrs. Lafferty had Introduced the same bill in the
House and was anxious to get It through. The Senate
bill was then in the House, but the senator was op
posing her laundry blUi She went to him and said:
"If you want your bill for mental defectives to pass
the House, get my laundry bill through the Senate,"
The senator changed his attitude and voted for her
bill.
LOST BY ONE VOTE
On the last day the hotel and business men throng,
ed the Senate chamber, as also'dld the members of Mrs.
Laflerty's lobby. She went from senator to senator
with pleas. But the business interest was too strong.
Several senators changed position and the bill was
lost by one vote. Even then Mrs. Lafferty sent for her
lobby and got the bill up on a motion to reconsider,
but the damage had been done and the motion was
lost.
Mrs. Lafferty was more successful on her other
bills. She put through a teachers' pension fund bill,
although It was Introduced by another member of the
House. She got through her bill o create a state
board of teachers' examiners. In the face of a strong
fight by the State Normal School, one of the most sue.
cessful state institutions In the matter of getting ap
propriations from the Legislature, she put through her
bill for the certification of teachers by any state edu
cational institution. Where other Juvenile court bills
were killed, Mrs. Lafferty's went through without a
' change and unanimously.
On purely political questions Mrs. Lafferty took no
part. The direct primary law did not interest her. The
bank guarantee was not nearly so important in her
eyes as the eight-hour bill. The initiative aniKreferen
dum and the straight Australian ballot questions bored
Mrs. Lafferty. She does not believe in political theo
ries. And she had a peculiar habit, that grew notice
able toward the end of the session, of being absent
from the House chamber when the time came to vote
upon a bill upon which she did not care to be recorded.
For this reason some of her male colleagues have
firm convictions against women legislators, though to
Mrs. Lafferty credit It can bs said that she ntvt,
broke, t&ith,
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