Remarks from Dr. John H. Finley, M.C. Migel, and Helen Keller
Introduction:
We are speaking now from a room roughed-walled by its first plaster, with bare beams overhead and lumpy cement for a floor. The National Broadcasting Company is bringing you a ceremony in connection with one of the great humanitarian movements of the world. We are here this afternoon, the addresses at the laying of the cornerstone of the new building of the American Foundation for the Blind in New York City. The Georgian building, fresh in new brick and cement, is at 15 West 16th Street, just off 5th Avenue in Manhattan, and still is in the process of being built.
The addresses will be by Dr. John H. Finley of The New York Times and president of the New York Association for the Blind, who also acts as chairman, Mr. M.C. Migel, president of the American Foundation for the Blind, and the famous deaf, blind woman, Helen Keller. Trustees, friends, members of similar organizations and agencies, and blind men and women stand in the bare room before the speaker's platform. We turn you now to Dr. John H. Finley.
Dr. John H. Finley:
Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, both here and elsewhere, thanks to the National Broadcasting Company, we are able to send, at the beginning of this ceremony, a word of greeting to Mrs. Macy, Ms. Sullivan, that was Helen Keller's teacher from her childhood, who is now herself in a hospital with blinded eyes.
In the address which Helen Keller made in Glasgow on receiving the honorary degree, she said, "When I think of what one loving human being has done for me, I realize what will someday happen to mankind when heart and brain work together. Darkness and silence need not bar the progress of the immortal spirit." To that one loving human being, we send a message of gratitude from the sightless world, and of admiration from those who have never known the pain of darkness. In all the annals of the race of men, from Homer's time till now, in all our kin, what no one else had ever done, you've done, brought two great, loving miracles in one.
Mrs. Macy, may vision come back to you, but should it not, you must know that you have yourself given to the world a light that never was on land or sea, and that will never go out so long as the world keeps a memory of those who have brought its greatest miracles of love and of skill.
And now, Mr. Migel, I turn to you. This building whose cornerstone we are about to lay is the gift of Mr. M.C. Migel, the president of the American Association for the Blind. I congratulate him on having both the opportunity and the means to avail of it. The most advanced view of the ancients in their attitude toward the blind is expressed in the commandment in Leviticus, "Thou shall put no stumbling block in the way of the blind," and in the verse in Deuteronomy, "Cursed be he that maketh the blind to wander out of the way."
There was no suggestion that a helping hand should be given to the blind in their darkness. This building, in providing shelter for activities in behalf of the blind throughout America and in encouragement of local associations, is an intimation to the world of how far we have traveled toward the light. How blind old Homer would have hailed you, Mr. Migel, but you will be thanked by untold thousands through the years to come. I wish I were a Homer to put their thanks into an immortal verse. Mr. Migel.
M.C. Migel:
Mr. Chairman, the friends of the blind. We find ourselves gathered here today to commemorate an event which is but one additional stepping stone to the many that have marked in recent years the path toward removing the handicap of blindness throughout the world. Through close association and intimate knowledge of the world of the blind, we have come, dear friends, to consider blindness strictly in the sense of a physical handicap. We have seen through a lifetime of experience that when fair-minded people understand the problem of any particular race, they desire to share and thus lighten the burdens of those least able to carry them. How much more urgently needed is this sharing and understanding in the greatest of all races, the race of life?
Through many years of close association with our blind friends, and by blind friends, I mean our blind population as a whole, we are convinced that excepting this physical handicap, the sightless are not different from those in the seeing world. In proportion to their number, there are just as many average men and women, just as many below the borderline, and just as many intelligent, upstanding, capable men and women among the blind as there are among the seeing.
I have had the great good fortune of personal contact with thousands of the blind in the United States and in other countries, and I know whereof I speak. Admitting then that blindness is only a physical handicap has been the function of our foundation, as well as of other associations, schools, commissions, workshops and so forth, to endeavor as far as possible through education, through employment, and through stimulation of both mind and body, to adjust, and by any and all means within our power, to offset the physical disparity of the blind.
Nor has this education been confined to those physically without sight. The popular conception of centuries in the seeing world that a blind man or woman was only fit for the discard, a derelict, a broken reed, an incubus on society had to be combated, not by propaganda nor by sentimental or idle theories, but by education of the public mind, by a spirit of truth, and by actual demonstration of the intelligence and capabilities of the blind. This has been part of our labors.
Today, we find that there's hardly an avenue of life in which a man or woman without sight is not attaining success. They are occupying positions of trust and responsibility calling for the highest quality of intelligence, as lawyers, merchants, members of the United States Senate, British Parliament, French Chamber deputies, as heads of institutions of learning. All the blind have needed was opportunity, and given this opportunity, within our own short span of life, an almost miraculous transition has taken place, not alone the welfare of the blind themselves, but in the point of view of the seeing as regards the blind.
The American Foundation for the Blind, founded for the purpose of aiding the blind by creating opportunities for the advancement of their welfare, has endeavored to do its full share nationally and otherwise. The foundation exists only for this purpose. Almost from its incipiency, the foundation has had the great good fortune of collaboration and inspiration in all its labors from the great mind and genius of Helen Keller. She more than anyone else has given us our abiding faith in the blind and their capacities. To perpetuate the labors of the foundation and to encourage us to even greater effort and accomplishment, this edifice has been presented to us. It is consecrated to the service and welfare of the blind, and we here pledge ourselves to carry on by all means within our power so that the lives of our blind friends may be made better, richer and happier.
Dr. John H. Finley:
Many years ago, when I first saw Helen Keller as a girl at a reception at the home of a friend in Princeton, she was told by Ms. Sullivan, Mrs. Macy, by her fingers that I was next in line, but Helen had never heard of me. Mistaking me for Finley Peter Dunne, whose writings she knew, she said as I shook hands with her, "How do you do, Mr. Dooley?" I am proud to say she now knows me by my own name.
Two or three of the most precious letters that I've ever had have come from her. She writes and speaks such beautiful English. I've often said that there are some advantages in being deaf and blind, for she has never heard an ungrammatical sentence or an ignoble word, nor has she seen an ugly thing in this beautiful world of ours. You have but to read her letter telling me of what she saw from the top of the Empire State Building to know this to be true.
I was going to introduce her with a sonnet from our city laureate, Robert Underwood Johnson, but I'll save that to the end because I want you who are not here to hear every word, as well as those who are here, every word that Helen has to say. I now introduce Helen.
Helen Keller:
[Keller Speaks 00:12:40]
Polly Thomson:
Dear Mr. Migel, Dr. Finley and friends. Deep emotions stir within me as we lay here the cornerstone of our house of hope for the blind of America.
Helen Keller:
[Keller Speaks 00:13:14]
Polly Thomson:
From the beacon that will rise upon this cornerstone of beginnings, kindled by Mr. M.C. Migel.
Helen Keller:
[Keller Speaks 00:13:45]
Polly Thomson:
Will radiate beams of light which will penetrate every corner of dark land.
Helen Keller:
[Keller Speaks 00:13:59]
Polly Thomson:
For 50 years, Anne Sullivan Macy, my beloved teacher, has been the light in my life.
Helen Keller:
[Keller Speaks 00:14:21]
Polly Thomson:
Now she is ill and the darkness that covers has fallen upon her. Still, the light of her love shines amid the encircling gloom and we are happy.
Helen Keller:
Thank you.
Dr. John H. Finley:
We make the transition now, but I will read for you who are here, even if those who are outside can't hear, this sonnet that I intended to read in advance, and I'm glad I didn't because we might not have heard that last word, that precious word of Helen.
Oh, not alone, we are. This is about Helen. The innocence life looked upon as never seen before, the world divested of its fret and roar and measured through here by each gentler sense. Not only wisdom, calm and joy, intense honey from hives of universal law, not only faced before the future's door whence brood our doubts of whither and of whence. But that sweet spirit of courage and of cheer that shames our best endeavor with a smile, a patient as divine as ever led faith to the flame. No weak regret, no fear, guided by loving hand away from guile. Love is her labyrinth unfailing thread.
Thank you. And now we pass through the placing of the box in the cornerstone.
Oh, if Mr. Lattimer will first speak. Mr. Lattimer.
Mr. Lattimer.
Mr. Lattimer:
Chairman, Migel, friends. They don't know [inaudible 00:17:00] they should. As one who had some small part in the steps that led up to the incorporation and the organization of the foundation, who was its first director general, member of its executive committee, and now a trustee at large, it's not surprising that I should take a very definite pride in the laying of this corner stone.
In my earliest conception of the foundation, inseparably interwoven was the dynamic personality of Mr. M.C. Migel as the man to become the president of this foundation. It is again then not surprising, but I take pride in the fact that it was in some measure my infortunity that led Mr. Migel to assume this arduous task.
It is of course, as it has been in many previous instances, Mr. Migel's generosity that makes the laying of this cornerstone possible. There is to my mind however, and to the minds of all my fellow trustees, one sad note. That sad note lies in the fact that our first treasurer, Mr. Herbert H. White, is not living to participate with us in this happy occasion.
In conclusion, in congratulating Mr. Irvin, Mr. Hayes and the other members of the staff of the foundation, it is particularly gratifying to me in the contemplation of their work and their efforts to realize that the workers for the blind in general are becoming increasingly conscious of the excellent service that the foundation has rendered, is rendering, and is prepared to render through organizations for the blind and through its own independent research agencies. I am grateful for this opportunity in connection with the laying of this cornerstone to say these few words of commendation to all concerned and of my gratitude to Mr. Migel himself.
Thank you.
