Chapter 6: The Perfect Symbol

Had the organizers of the American Foundation for the Blind set about inventing a torchbearer for their cause, they could have done no better than to create a Helen Keller. This radiant woman embodied both tragedy and triumph. The message conveyed by her very existence was stunningly simple. If a Helen Keller, who was not only blind but deaf, could be lifted out of what she herself called "the double dungeon of darkness and silence," then there was surely reason to believe that others could be similarly freed.

In the modern era, electronic communications have made instant celebrity a commonplace occurrence. Fame was harder to achieve fifty or more years ago when the written word and the public platform were the sole means of transmitting information. But Helen Keller was already a figure of world renown in Victorian times. Every school child knew the story, as emotionally satisfying as any fairy tale, of how seven-year-old Helen, blind and deaf since the age of nineteen months, had been a half-savage little creature, raging with frustration over her inability to understand or make herself understood, until she was released by the magic key of language transmitted through her fingers. In school auditoriums the world over, children joyously reenacted the climactic scene in the pump house, in which the gush of water on one of Helen's hands, while the word w-a-t-e-r was being simultaneously finger-spelled into the other, brought about the blazing insight that unlocked the doors of her mind.

The story of Helen Keller's childhood was even better than a fairy tale, for it did not stop with a bland "and so they lived happily ever after" but went on to tell, in gratifying detail, how Helen, once she had grasped the idea of communication, learned to read and write braille, to write script and use the typewriter; how she even mastered the technique of oral speech; and how she succeeded, in spite of her heavy handicaps, in earning a college degree from Radcliffe. It also had a most reassuring feature. Helen's fairy godmother did not disappear after waving her magic wand, but became the little girl's lifelong teacher, companion, and guide.

Although the Helen Keller "miracle" was extensively (and often exaggeratedly) treated in the press from the time in 1887 that Anne Sullivan reported her first successes with her deaf-blind pupil, the major source for the thrilling real-life story was a book that Helen wrote in 1903 while she was still in college. The Story of My Life recounted the events that began with March 3, 1887, the day that "Teacher"—twenty-one years old, herself half-blind and not yet fully recovered from an eye operation—arrived at the Keller farm in Alabama from the Perkins Institution in Massachusetts. It continued through the painstaking years of education, telling of the friendship of a galaxy of greats that included Alexander Graham Bell, Oliver Wendell Holmes, and Mark Twain, and noting that a group of wealthy and devoted patrons had supplied the financial help that made everything possible.

For the general public, interest in the Helen Keller story ended there. She was a legend, and one did not think of legends as dealing with the ordinary concerns of life. From time to time, however, her name surfaced in specialized circles. A series of articles she wrote for the Ladies' Home Journal in 1907 pleaded for public support of the campaign against ophthalmia neonatorum. Through the influence of John Albert Macy, the writer and editor Anne Sullivan married in 1905, Helen became a Socialist and made occasional public appearances on behalf of anti-war and other liberal causes. She was a supporter of the movement for women's suffrage and wrote one or two articles on this subject.

Much of Helen's time was given over to maintaining a large correspondence, not only with the many persons who had befriended her as a child but also with parents of blind children who sought her advice, scholars who wanted to know more about the methods used in her education, organizations for the blind and organizations for the deaf that asked her to help them raise funds.

Soon after Helen's graduation from Radcliffe, she and her teacher bought an old farmhouse in Wrentham, Massachusetts, a suburb of Boston. When Anne Sullivan became a bride, John Macy joined their household. The marriage was a troubled one, however, and although it was apparently never legally terminated, John Macy took his departure in 1914, never to return. He died in 1932.

While still in college, Helen had written a charmingly modest essay, "My Future As I See It." She thought she might become a traveling emissary "from the teachers in this country to those of Europe … to carry a message of encouragement to those who, in the face of popular prejudice and indifference … are struggling to teach the blind and give them means of self-support." She also thought she herself might teach. And, of course, "Whether I teach or not, I shall write. … I may perhaps translate from the classics and from the modern languages." Settlement work, she noted, attracted her as a "way in which I may render service to others with my own hands." And she liked the idea of taking care of the sick and thought she might study massage.

Her predominant interest, however, was in assisting the deaf and the blind:

I am not competent now to discuss their problems, but I shall find out what these problems are and study the methods of solving them. … I shall keep track of all the measures adopted in behalf of the deaf and the blind, and to the best of my ability support the most efficient.

Helen was twenty-three when she laid out these dreams and hopes in December 1903. Ten years later, none had materialized in any substantial way. Editors, it developed, were not interested in having her write on any subject other than herself—and that particular topic, she felt, had been exhausted. Translating jobs did not come her way. No one brought her a deaf-blind child to educate, nor could she have afforded to do the job if such a child had been produced. She was as far from self-support as she had ever been. Moreover, some of her former patrons had dropped out of the picture. A particular disappointment was that John Spaulding, "the sugar king of Boston," who had made her a generous annual allowance ever since her childhood, had died without providing for her in his will. Her teacher was subject to frequent and serious illnesses; the emotional and financial crisis precipitated by one such illness in 1913 led Helen to swallow her pride and accept the $5,000-a-year stipend from Andrew Carnegie she had proudly refused a few years earlier.

Money had always been a problem. The Keller family had no funds to speak of; indeed, Helen's father was unable to continue paying Anne Sullivan a salary soon after she and Helen left Alabama for the North. Helen and Anne managed, for the most part, by staying for long periods as house guests of wealthy friends and by accepting help from any and every promising source. Helen was later to write of this period that her teacher's "desire to have me educated and equipped to be a cupbearer of good to others was stronger than any fear of monetary difficulties. Nothing could resist the mingled dignity and audacity with which she pleaded my cause."

When Helen announced her determination to prepare for college, a group of her patrons set out to raise a fund to make this possible. In this effort, Mark Twain played a pivotal role. He himself had been rescued from deep financial difficulty through the help of the Standard Oil magnate H.H. Rogers, who, out of admiration for the writer's talent, had taken over management of the disastrous debts growing out of Twain's unlucky ventures into the publishing business. It seemed only natural to Twain, when he heard of Helen's dilemma, to seek help for her from the same source. From London, where he was spending a year trying to finish a book, Twain wrote to his patron's wife in November 1896:

For & in behalf
of Helen Keller
Stone blind & deaf, &
formerly dumb.

Dear Mrs. Rogers,—Experience has convinced me that when one wishes to set a hard-worked man at something which he mightn't prefer to be bothered with, it is best to move upon him behind his wife. If she can't convince him it isn't worth while for other people to try.

Mr. Rogers will remember our visit with that astonishing girl at Laurence Hutton's house when she was fourteen years old. Last July, in Boston, when she was 16 she underwent the Harvard examination for admission to Radcliffe College. She passed without a single condition. She was allowed only the same amount of time that is granted to other applicants, & this was shortened in her case by the fact that the question-papers had to be read to her. Yet she scored an average of 90 as against an average of 78 on the part of the other applicants.

It won't do for America to allow this marvelous child to retire from her studies because of poverty. If she can go on with them she will make a fame that will endure in history for centuries. Along her special lines she is the most extraordinary product of all the ages. …

Mrs. Hutton's idea is to raise a permanent fund the interest upon which shall support Helen & her teacher & put them out of the fear of want. I shan't say a word against it, but she will find it a difficult and disheartening job, & meanwhile, what is to become of that miraculous girl?

No, for immediate and sound effectiveness, the thing is for you to plead with Mr. Rogers for this hampered wonder of your sex. …

Twain's scheme proposed that Rogers involve the Rockefellers and the "other Standard Oil chiefs" in underwriting the cost of Helen's college education. That it worked is clear from his next note to Mrs. Rogers:

It is superb! And I am beyond measure grateful to you both. I knew you would be interested in that wonderful girl, & that Mr. Rogers was already interested in her & touched by her; & I was sure that if nobody else helped her you two would; but you have gone far & away beyond the sum I expected. …

Helen and Anne would have been infinitely better off had they followed Mark Twain's example and asked H.H. Rogers or someone like him to take charge of their finances. But Teacher, in particular, had a stubborn myopia on this subject. In her biography of Anne Sullivan Macy which was published in 1933, Nella Braddy was to write that the friends who raised Helen's college fund "hoped that the possession of money of their own would teach the girls how to manage it, but this last was a vain hope. The mystery of finance remained forever a closed book to Annie Sullivan, and if the whole truth be told, to Helen also."

Helen herself was to write, in 1929: "My sense of pride mutinies against my confession; but we are the kind of people who come out of an enterprise poorer than we went into it." At another point in the same book, Midstream: "Financial difficulties have seemed nearly always an integral part of our lives, and from time to time many people have tried to help us extricate ourselves from them." That such help was acceptable only if unaccompanied by advice, she made clear in the resentful statement that "all through my life people who imagine themselves more competent than my teacher and I have wanted to organize my affairs." Those who were really appreciated, she wrote, were "the friends who have not tried to manage me."

Some of the wellsprings of this prickly attitude may be detected in Helen Keller's memoir, Teacher, published 20 years after Anne's death:

It required a powerful temperament for Teacher to protect me against interference and the zeal of strangers who wished to run my affairs. … From bitter experience she suspected that many people who offered to help us wanted in reality to use me for their own purposes.

It is doubtful whether the trustees of the American Foundation for the Blind were prepared for the "powerful temperament" they were to encounter in Anne Sullivan Macy when they decided to enlist Helen Keller's services. They did know that Helen could only be dealt with as part of a package that included her teacher and Polly Thompson, who had joined the Keller-Macy household in 1914. Each of the three had a distinct role to play. Helen, obviously, could not appear on a platform by herself. Her laboriously acquired speech was never perfected to a point where she could be readily understood by the unaccustomed ear. Nor was she capable of a sustained speaking effort. Her public appearances, therefore, followed a pattern. First Mrs. Macy would appear, alone. She would tell how the concept of communication had been conveyed to a child who could neither see, hear, nor speak, and would describe the methods used in educating a liberated young mind to a high degree of culture. Then Helen would walk on stage and, taking hold of her teacher's hand, give a brief talk. After each sentence she would pause while her teacher repeated it in her clear diction with its faint trace of Irish brogue.

If more than a few minutes of speaking were involved, Helen might begin orally and then finger-spell the rest of her message into Mrs. Macy's hand. They would then field questions from the audience, with Mrs. Macy transmitting what was said into Helen's hand and Helen responding, either vocally or manually. Polly Thompson usually stood by in the wings, ready to go on as an alternate for Mrs. Macy if the latter was too tired or too unwell to carry her half of the program.

It was a tested "act." They had tried it out during cross-country lecture tours in 1913 and 1915, and had perfected it a few years later when they were engaged by the Keith Orpheum Circuit for two coast-to-coast seasons in vaudeville. The principal trouble was that no matter how much money they earned, it all seemed to disappear. The three women were fond of clothes and justified the cost of their liberal wardrobes by citing the necessity of being well-dressed for a variety of public appearances. When they had a few dollars to spare, they spent the money joyously on gala vacation excursions, on improvements to the rambling house in Forest Hills, New York, to which they had moved in 1917, or—often enough—on gifts for friends.

It was primarily the chronic shortage of cash, and mounting concern that she might die and leave her aging life companion unprovided for, that made Helen eagerly accept the offer to appear in a movie based on her life story. She and Anne went to Hollywood full of zeal and happy expectation. The picture, a concoction of fact and fantasy called Deliverance, opened to kindly notices in 1919 but was a box-office failure. The only money Helen and Anne got out of it was a substantial advance, all of which was used up before they ever left Hollywood.

The vaudeville experience which followed was financially more rewarding, but after two full seasons this string, too, was just about played out. They had only one story to tell, and few audiences were interested in hearing it a second time. There was no way for them to create fresh material equal in impact to that initial drama.

From many viewpoints, therefore, Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy were ready for new directions as 1924 began. At the same point, the American Foundation for the Blind, having survived its first year of operation, was ready for a major effort to achieve national recognition and support. It seemed a perfect conjunction of mutual need and opportunity.

No inspired stroke of genius was needed to conceive the plan that Helen Keller should join forces with the Foundation. Helen Keller was not only the perfect symbol, her name was a household word. She could be counted upon to attract large audiences to any public meeting at which an appeal would be made for support of a new movement to assist America's blind people.

The Foundation's first director-general, Joseph Nate, had made a tentative approach along these lines to Helen and her teacher, but nothing concrete had materialized. With Nate's departure, the responsibility for devising a way to finance the Foundation's work fell to M.C. Migel. In a letter to Charles F.F. Campbell, then director of the Detroit League for the Handicapped, the Foundation president set forth the organization's situation as of late November 1923 and the plan developed by the trustees for building a nationwide membership body.

A minimum budget of $42,500 had been adopted for 1924, he told Campbell, adding that the Foundation could easily use twice that sum for work already on hand:

Our present idea is to have the Foundation underwritten for a period of three years by … possibly fifty men and women who might pledge themselves for three years to $1,000 per annum. I believe this might not be so extremely difficult, as several people whom I have approached have already pledged various large amounts, and we have possibly $24,000 per annum underwritten.

With this accomplished the Foundation would be safe for a period of three years, and in the interim, we propose to secure at least five thousand members at Ten Dollars per annum. With the securing of the latter, we would be more or less safe for a long period. … Naturally, an endowment is the answer to the entire problem, and we feel that after three years, if our work is worth while, we can proceed on that. Our great problem at present is as to the securing of this large membership, and if we can devise the proper plan, this should not be insuperable.

Did Campbell have any practical suggestions on how this plan might be realized? What did he think of the possibility of large public gatherings? Campbell's reply, couched in characteristically enthusiastic terms, was prompt and specific:

For years, I have felt very keenly that the most practical method of raising money is to avail oneself of the services of Miss Helen Keller and her teacher. … I am convinced that nothing would please them more than to do their part in a campaign to raise funds for the Foundation.

He proceeded to outline a detailed plan:

A series of "drawing room" meetings could be arranged in the leading cities throughout the country to which a select group of wealthy people could be invited. These meetings should be made distinctly social events. … At each of these gatherings, a brief, clear-cut statement with regard to the needs of the blind and the plans of the Foundation should be given. … After such an introduction, Mrs. Macy could give, in a very few minutes, an outline of the way in which Miss Keller received her education and then Miss Keller would make a personal appeal for the blind of the country.

A born romanticist, Campbell went on to remind Migel that Helen Keller had been dramatically effective as a fund-raiser while she was a small girl. In the late 1880s he pointed out, Michael Anagnos, then head of the Perkins Institution,

raised astonishing sums of money for the kindergarten for the blind in Massachusetts by letting Helen make the appeal. The scenes enacted by Henry Ward Beecher, when people of wealth came forward and threw money and jewelry at his feet when he made his appeals in behalf of the slaves, were repeated, to a certain extent, in the presence of Helen Keller when she made her plea for little blind children.

Campbell then tackled the crux of the matter:

One question will, inevitably, arise: namely, how should Miss Keller and Mrs. Macy be paid. At first thought it might be suggested that a fixed sum, plus a commission upon all over a certain amount raised, should be given, but it would be infinitely more effective if some of the present donors to the Foundation would underwrite the Helen Keller campaign so that it could be truthfully said that … she received no portion, whatever, of the money raised during her tour. … It goes without saying that Mrs. Macy and Miss Keller should receive a very handsome honorarium for this service. … The success of such a campaign is assured, provided (and this is of the utmost importance), a high-grade, capable individual is employed to plan the undertaking.

Campbell may very well have had himself in mind as the "high-grade, capable individual" to direct the campaign. Less than two months later, Robert Irwin wrote him:

You will be interested to know that as a result of your suggestion to Mr. Migel some time ago, the Foundation is arranging for a series of meetings in and around New York … at which Helen Keller will be the star performer. It is planned to follow much the same program as you outlined in your letter.

We are very anxious to make these first meetings a thorough-going success. Mr. Migel feels that after Helen Keller speaks he would like to have the champion spellbinder of the work for the blind make the appeal for funds. Accordingly he has asked me to write you, asking if you would be able to come on for three or four days for this purpose. As this is but an experiment and the Foundation cannot get too deeply involved, we are hoping that you will be able to come and put this thing over simply for your expenses, plus the gratitude of everybody concerned.

The "champion spellbinder" agreed to help out with three initial meetings in Westchester, but the plan promptly ran into a muddled conflict of dates. While Irwin was scheduling events in Westchester, a member of Charles Hayes' staff was setting up a series of meetings in New Jersey for the identical period.

The New Jersey work was in the hands of an energetic woman named Ida Hirst-Gifford, whom Hayes had employed the preceding year to assist him in field service. During World War I, Mrs. Gifford had gained national prominence through the successful placement and supervision of 50 blind employees as armature winders in the New Jersey factory of the Crocker-Wheeler Electric Manufacturing Company. She had many important connections throughout the state and used these to organize three meetings in March and two more in early April.

Since an undeclared contest seemed to have arisen between him and Mrs. Gifford, Campbell withdrew after the first two Westchester meetings. Mrs. Gifford, whose accomplishments included musicianship, not only organized fund-raising meetings but occasionally filled in as a piano accompanist for the musical interludes that were part of every program. She developed a harmonious relationship with the Helen Keller party and remained a member of their entourage in subsequent campaigns. In the intervals between these drives, she undertook other promotional and field service assignments for the Foundation. In later years, she served as administrator of Rest Haven. She retired in 1947 and died the following year at the age of sixty-eight.

The trustees were pleased and excited over the first fruits of the Helen Keller experiment. On April 18, Migel sent a graceful note to Campbell in Detroit:

… we have been working for some little time with the assistance of Helen Keller and Mrs. Macy, and thus far have held seven meetings, addressed about 10,000 people, and have had subscribed to our Foundation approximately $8,000—a most wonderful record. … Both Mrs. Macy and Helen Keller have been indefatigable, most willing and disinterested. They really feel that they wish to help the cause.

As you were practically instrumental and took the initiative in recommending that we proceed with them, I know you will be highly pleased, and it is because of this that I am writing you.

All the meetings followed a more or less standard procedure. Each featured a performance by one or more blind artists: Edwin Grasse, who played both the violin and the piano; Abram Haitowitsch, violinist; William Fuhrmeister, baritone; or Guy Envin, the French soldier-poet, who gave dramatic recitations. Then there was a brief talk by someone representing the Foundation—most often Charles Hayes—describing its purposes and goals. This was followed by the climactic appearance of Helen and her teacher. After Helen's appeal for support of the Foundation, there was another musical interlude while ushers moved through the aisles, distributing membership blanks and collecting cash donations.

If M.C. Migel and Mrs. Gifford and ten thousand members of the public were impressed by Helen Keller's impact, so was Anne Sullivan Macy. No sooner had the first series of meetings been concluded in the spring of 1924, than Mrs. Macy declared she and Helen were convinced there was no need to wait three years before beginning to build an endowment fund. They thought it could be done at once, with an objective of $2 million. The magnitude of the goal appealed to their imaginations; they were confident it could be reached. Swayed by their confidence, the Major allowed himself to be diverted from his original timetable. If $2 million could be raised, he reasoned, the income from such a nest egg would surely make it unnecessary for the Foundation ever again to turn to the public for funds. It was an immensely appealing prospect for a man who found asking others for money distasteful.

Should she and Helen embark on a $2 million endowment campaign, Mrs. Macy informed the Foundation, they would require much more substantial compensation than the previous honorarium of $50 per meeting plus expenses. The need to make such a change had already been recognized by the executive committee, which at its meeting of June 4, 1924, authorized the president "to make arrangements with Miss Helen Keller and Mrs. Macy at the rate of $750 per month and expenses, for a period of six months, to address meetings to increase the funds of the Foundation."

Mrs. Macy did not regard this as satisfactory. She wanted $2,000 a month for the six-month campaign period, out of which Helen and her two companions would pay their own traveling expenses. For this, Helen would agree to make four public appearances a week, three with Mrs. Macy and one with Polly Thomson. What appeared unreasonable to the Foundation in this counter-offer was the stipulation that the monthly fee was to be no less during periods when the campaign was conducted in the New York area, where traveling expenses were minimal, than when the party was booked in distant cities. Robert Irwin and Charles Hayes were sent to Forest Hills to negotiate this point. They got nowhere.

There followed what was to be the first of many brushes between Anne Sullivan Macy's "powerful temperament" and M.C. Migel's equally forceful personality. The Major bridled at being presented with an ultimatum. He was offended that Anne had called in her lawyer, William Ashley, to handle the negotiations instead of dealing face to face with the trustees. There might be only one Helen Keller, but there were other ways to raise money. The Foundation had, in fact, been approached by several well-regarded fund-raising firms. As a matter of prudent business management, the Major felt the alternatives should at least be weighed.

On her side, Mrs. Macy felt she could afford to be single-minded in her demands; she, too, had been approached by commercial firms with various promotional schemes that seemed financially promising. Her principal responsibility, as she saw it, was to protect Helen's interests. All other considerations were secondary.

For Migel, however, the question had implications that transcended personalities. Publicly contributed money was a sacred trust; in his view it would be unconscionable if too large a percentage of the funds given for service to blind people were to be dissipated in expenses. Characteristically, his first thought was to solve the problem by reaching into his own pocket. He offered to underwrite personally the $2,000 monthly salary, so that this sum would not be charged against the money raised. This arrangement, he felt, would protect the Foundation from accusations of extravagance.

Some of these points had already been conveyed to Mrs. Macy when Migel proposed, in early August, that a conference be held at which the matter could be settled. He had yet to find out how rigid Teacher could be when thwarted. On August 6, she sent two stiffly worded wires. The one to Migel said:

i shall not be at conference tomorrow. if you think other agencies can raise the two million dollars without helen keller, we shall be most willing to withdraw .

To William Ashley, she wired:

mr. migel has asked me to be present at your conference tomorrow. think i had better not. understand he believes fund can be raised without helen keller. hope this is true. we should be glad to be released. if we must continue, would prefer to have our salary come out of expenses incidental to raising money than to be underwritten by migel.

One can only speculate about the outcome of so defiant a challenge had Anne Sullivan Macy been a man. What salvaged the situation, on this and subsequent occasions, was Migel's attitude toward women. It would have gone against his grain to take on a woman in open battle. Moreover, Helen Keller and Anne Sullivan Macy were no ordinary women. The Major had already developed a genuine affection for Helen that was to grow and deepen until the day he died. He had sincere respect and admiration for Anne's accomplishments; moreover he felt great compassion for her deteriorating health. He and she were the same age, but he was hale and hearty while she was not only fast approaching total blindness but was also plagued with numerous other ailments, including a form of septicemia that manifested itself in painful carbuncles.

Migel did not at that time know about the horrifying childhood years Anne had spent in the Tewksbury poorhouse until, at the age of fourteen, she clawed her way out and gained admission to the Perkins Institution for the Blind. It was not until Nella Braddy's biography of her appeared in 1933 that the world learned of the trials she had undergone before she ever heard of Helen Keller. What the Major did recognize (and it touched him deeply) was the unique nature of the tie that bound Helen and her teacher into a kind of Siamese twinship. Closer than mother and daughter, closer than sisters, closer than husband and wife, these two women all but shared a single heartbeat. Although Helen had an independent mind and spirit and personality, she was helpless without someone who could be her eyes and ears and voice. Anne had chosen to be that someone and had subordinated her own life so that Helen's might be as rich and full as possible. Such gallant selflessness could not help but move a man who was a sentimentalist at heart.

There can hardly be any other explanation for the well-nigh angelic patience that the normally quick-tempered Migel displayed toward Helen's teacher on the many occasions when she proved difficult. In the present instance, he agreed to her terms, continuing to insist only on the proviso that he would privately underwrite the salary.

The plan for the endowment campaign was announced in the Fall 1924 issue of Outlook for the Blind:

In order to insure the perpetuity of the national work for the benefit of the blind, it has been deemed imperative that an endowment fund be established, sufficient to maintain the minimum activities of this organization.

As the American Foundation for the Blind embodies a dream which has long been cherished by Miss Helen Keller, she and Mrs. Macy have consented to devote their time and energies to assisting with the endowment fund campaign.

The campaign is under the direction of a committee of men and women of nation-wide reputation, of which Dr. Henry van Dyke is chairman. Efforts will be made in every large city of this country to enlist friends and obtain contributions toward the endowment fund. This will be done principally through the medium of mass meetings which will be addressed by Miss Keller, Mrs. Macy and others.

The Foundation wishes to impress upon its friends the fact that such a national campaign depends for its success upon the active cooperation of workers for the blind in every community.

A representative of the Foundation will call upon workers for the blind in each community, several weeks in advance of Miss Keller's visit in order to perfect arrangements for the meetings.

The Foundation will in all cases be guided by the judgment of those in charge of local organizations, in order that the best interests of all may be served.

Omission of the $2 million campaign goal figure and the careful wording of the closing paragraphs were designed to avoid alienating local agencies. Rumors, some accurate and others exaggerated, were already flying thick and fast. In some cities, agency heads openly expressed resentment over the prospect that the Foundation drive might divert large sums of money from local services. In other cities, the objections centered around reports that Helen Keller would be paid a lavish salary. In still others, a highly moral tone was assumed: Was not the Foundation callously exploiting the infirmities of a handicapped person?

Echoes of disaffection were not slow in reaching New York. Robert Irwin, attending a committee meeting in Ohio, heard that Cincinnati was up in arms. In early December, Charles Hayes informed Migel that the Chicago Council of Social Agencies had voted to disapprove any Foundation campaign in that city. "This vote," he wrote, "was based on the facts that they did not endorse any national organization asking for an endowment and that they did not have sufficient knowledge of the activities of the Foundation." The "big objector," Hayes went on, was Edith Swift, executive director of the Chicago Lighthouse, who was the daughter of a former mayor of Chicago and influential in the city's business community. Hayes continued:

She will not endorse the Helen Keller meetings. She claims that they are purely sentimental and that such meetings would be damaging not only to the work for the blind in Chicago, but to the Foundation. … The more I see of the Chicago situation, [the more] I am convinced it would be extremely unwise to launch our campaign at present.

Chicago, Hayes concluded, "has an injured air, and the best way to cure it is to leave it alone now and come back later." Hayes was right in his diagnosis, wrong in his prognosis. Chicago never did permit Helen Keller to campaign there. Neither did St. Louis and several other major cities.

Understandably upset over these negative reactions, Migel suggested that Irwin spend a week or two with the campaign party as an observer. Irwin attended three meetings in Ohio, talked to a lot of people, and sent a preliminary report of his findings to Migel on January 13, 1925. He found a good deal to criticize:

We are going too fast to any more than skim off the cream. There is a lack of coordination among the different parts of the machine. After the advance man sells the proposition to the community leaders, there is not sufficient follow-up work to enable the committees to function intelligently, they are left in the dark on too many points. …

What concerned him most was how to avoid the irritations being stirred up by the fund-raising firm which had been employed to handle advance arrangements, press coverage, follow-up mailings, and other details. He urged strongly that this outfit be dismissed and that the Foundation build its own campaign organization instead.

The trustees agreed. On February 4, 1925, the executive committee acted to cancel the contract with the outside firm and voted that the campaign be continued until June 1 "under the direct management of the Foundation."

The decision to push on with the drive, despite all the vexations, was spurred by the brilliant success of the campaign effort in Detroit, where more than $40,000 was raised. Much of the credit for this gratifying result was due to Charles Campbell, who had almost single-handedly planned and directed the Detroit strategy. With his usual generosity of spirit, Campbell proceeded to detail, for the Foundation's future guidance, every step he had followed in organizing his community for liberal giving and to call attention to a pitfall: "Unfortunately, a good many thoughtful givers look somewhat askance upon national agencies." He also offered an important insight into the fast-changing economic patterns of the newly industrialized Middle West: " … few people outside of Detroit realize that this city has doubled its population within the last ten years. This means that the great majority of the men here who are rich are young and still chiefly occupied with making, and not giving, money. … Most of them still have to learn to give."

To everyone's disappointment, there were to be no other banner triumphs even remotely comparable to Detroit during the balance of the 1925 campaign. As the group moved westward, crowds came to hear Helen Keller in every city they visited, but the amounts contributed were often little more than token sums. High hopes had been pinned on Los Angeles, and particularly on the money to be garnered from the motion picture colony, but results proved as illusory as the images projected on the silver screen.

The 139 speeches made by Helen Keller in 53 cities over a period of nearly seven months in this first endowment campaign represented only part of her effort. She also wrote endless thank-you letters, addressed special appeals to potential "big givers," and suffered through innumerable receptions, luncheons, and other social functions. These were an ordeal for her. "I know that nearly everybody has heard of me, and that people want to see me, just as we all want to see places and persons and objects we have heard about," she later wrote. Still,

I do not know a more disturbing sensation than that of being ceremoniously ushered into the presence of a company of strangers, who are also celebrities, especially if you have physical limitations which make you different. As a rule, when I am introduced to such people, they are excessively conscious of my limitations. When they try to talk to me, and find that their words have to be spelled into my hand, their tongues cleave to the roofs of their mouths and they become speechless. And I am quite as uncomfortable as they are.

In one of the rare flashes of humor to appear in her published writings (as opposed to her private correspondence, which often sparkled with wit), she ended the foregoing passage with this:

Even now, where people are gathered, I say little, beyond explaining patiently that I am not Annette Kellerman [the champion exhibition swimmer credited with popularizing the one-piece bathing suit for women during the Twenties], that I do not play the piano, and have not learned to sing. I assure them that I know day is not night and that it is no more necessary to have raised letters on the keys of my typewriter than for them to have the keys of their pianos lettered. I have become quite expert in simulating interest in absurdities that are told me about other blind people. Putting on my Job-like expression, I tell them blind people are like other people in the dark, that fire burns them, and cold chills them, and they like food when they are hungry, and drink when they are thirsty, that some of them like one lump of sugar in their tea, and others more.

Helen felt differently about platform appearances which did not involve social chit-chat. She derived understandable pleasure from the warmth with which audiences responded to her. But she could never bring herself to enjoy fund-raising. The very need for philanthropy conflicted with her Socialist beliefs. As she once wrote: "in our present civilization most philanthropic and educational institutions are supported by public donations and gifts from wealthy citizens. This is a wretched way, but we have not yet learned a better one. … "

Needless to say, her campaign speeches did not reflect such views. Basically all alike, their major themes may be sampled in excerpts from the address she made in June 1925 to the International Convention of Lions Clubs:

Try to imagine how you would feel if you were suddenly stricken blind today. Picture yourself stumbling and groping at noonday as in the night, your work, your independence gone. In that dark world wouldn't you be glad if a friend took you by the hand and said, "Come with me and I will teach you how to do some of the things you used to do when you could see"? That is just the kind of friend the American Foundation is going to be to all the blind in this country if seeing people will give it the support it must have.

You have heard how through a little word dropped from the fingers of another a ray of light from another soul touched the darkness of my mind and I found myself, found the world, found God. It is because my teacher learned about me and broke through the dark, silent imprisonment which held me that I am able to work for myself and for others. It is the caring we want more than money. The gift without the sympathy and interest of the giver is empty. If you care, if we can make the people of this great country care, the blind will indeed triumph over blindness.

… I appeal to you, you who have your sight, your hearing, you who are strong and brave and kind. Will you not constitute yourselves Knights of the Blind in this crusade against darkness?

Where the Lions Clubs were concerned, this was an irresistible appeal. This nationwide organization, founded in 1917 to promote civic welfare, had already taken on the cause of the blind as one of its major projects; after Helen's talk the sponsorship became permanent. Over the years, local Lions Clubs initiated and supported educational weeks for the blind; raised funds for the brailling and sound-recording of books; supplied blind persons with canes, radios, typewriters, and other useful appliances; arranged entertainments, outings, and camping programs; paid tuition fees for blind students; organized and supported eye clinics and other medical services for the blind; contributed funds to local agencies and fulfilled in innumerable other ways the crusading role that Helen Keller had urged them to adopt.

As this first nationwide drive drew to a close, the fund-raising party recognized with deep chagrin that Helen's appeals had failed to stimulate an equally gratifying response when it came to actual cash results. Seven months of campaigning had produced $130,000 in cash and $40,000 in pledges. The Foundation's executive committee, which received this news at its September 1925 meeting, also learned that the expenses involved in raising this sum were embarrassingly high, even allowing for the fact that $14,000 in salary for the Keller-Macy-Thomson trio was not being charged against campaign results. The Foundation, it appeared, could expect at best to net about $100,000 from this endowment effort; this sum, when invested, would produce an annual income of no more than $5,000.

M.C. Migel, though deeply disappointed, was not one to carp. Shortly before the final campaign meeting, which was held in San Francisco on June 15, he wrote a kindly and tactful letter to Mrs. Macy on the west coast proposing that they confer during the summer to "map out a programme whereby Helen and you and Miss Thomson would continue with us for a long period, should you care to do so, and under an arrangement that naturally would be satisfactory and fair to both sides."

The reply that came from Mrs. Macy so perfectly typifies this complex woman's tenacity of purpose, as well as her ability to be simultaneously blunt and gracious, that it deserves to be quoted at length if not in full. It was dated June 25, 1925.

I won't harass you by going too deeply into the history of our unsuccessful efforts to secure the Endowment Fund, all the more that we have failed so obviously; but I must plead for my delay in acknowledging your letter of May 12th. Its genuine kindness went straight to my heart, and I cannot thank you enough for writing in such a splendidly generous spirit. …

I need not tell you, Mr. Migel, that I—that we all—deplore our failure to come nearer to the goal of our expectations in the matter of raising the Fund, though I now understand that those expectations were naively childish. The idea of raising two million dollars in six months for a new and scarcely heard of organization mocks at common sense.

I have often tried to project myself in imagination into your mind to get your reaction on the situation, with indifferent success. I have never been a capitalist; so I find it difficult to sense what a capitalist's state of mind is when a pet investment yields a negligible dividend. Humanly speaking, you must have felt keenly disappointed sometimes, and asked yourself if such large expenditure was justified by the meager contributions we were sending in; and perhaps you have thought that we might have done better. But as the days passed, I am sure you have felt in the depths of your generous nature that we have all done our very best. Right here I wish to say, we have been much impressed by your attitude of patient waiting for results that have not been forthcoming. Not once have you complained, or shown us by any sign that you were dissatisfied with our procedure. …

You may recollect that when we first discussed methods of raising money, I thought we should get it from the people in small donations, and, you, on the other hand, thought we should try to get large gifts from the rich. Now I am convinced that we must get a large part of the Fund from the common people before we can hope for big donations. …

The last few meetings, when we asked the people for a pledge of twenty-five cents a month for a year, the response was spontaneous, and quite satisfactory. … When the people once get this idea, the Fund will grow rapidly, and then wealthy givers will see that our work has a just claim to be taken seriously.

Less than six months later, the same woman who expressed such heartfelt gratitude for Migel's "splendidly generous spirit" was firing a volley of angry accusations at him:

[Y]our treatment of Helen Keller and me does not confirm the high opinion I had formed of you. Your words and your deeds do not harmonize. While expressing a profound appreciation of our endeavors to raise the Endowment Fund for the Foundation, you bargain with us like a railroad magnate employing stokers or road menders. When talking business, you apparently have little sense of the nature of the work we are doing for the Foundation, or of anything except securing our labor as cheaply as possible.

Several factors were responsible for this about-face. Helen and her two companions had vacationed lightheartedly on the Pacific coast for several months following the end of the campaign tour. They returned to Forest Hills in October to discover that their bank balance was alarmingly low and their house needed major repairs. The only solution they could see was to negotiate a larger salary for the 1926 campaign effort. They apparently felt such desperate financial pressure that they found it hard to recognize that the Foundation, too, faced some very real dilemmas.

For one thing, there was genuine disagreement on the part of the trustees with Mrs. Macy's theory that an endowment fund could and should be built out of small donations from "the common people." This approach might be valid, but it would take far too long and cost far too much. Migel and his associates still thought the fund would have to be raised through pace-setting large gifts from the wealthy. The trustees fully recognized the educational and other merits of building a mass body of supporters, but it would be more advantageous, they felt, for money from this source to be in the form of memberships. Endowment giving was a one-time affair; memberships, on the other hand, were annually renewable, and renewals could be solicited by mail at far less cost than the initial gift.

Of even greater importance to those operating the Foundation's steadily expanding service program was that membership fees could be used for current operations, whereas only the income from endowment gifts could be thus employed. The Foundation's operations were already moving fast in many directions, and funds to finance continued momentum were urgently needed.

An overriding consideration was that the elected officers and trustees of the Foundation could not blink at a basic problem of ethics—what price fund-raising? The cost of the first campaign had been distressingly high, even allowing for the public education benefits that had accrued. The trustees could not, in good conscience, justify any fund-raising program in which fifty cents out of every contributed dollar was used up in expenses. Nor could they risk any further undermining of their relationships with local agencies for the blind, many of which were openly expressing resentment over so ambitious a capital funds drive. A membership campaign would make much less of a stir and encounter far less opposition.

All these factors were weighed before the executive committee voted in late September 1925 to renew the Keller-Macy contract for the first five months of 1926 on the same $2,000-a-month basis as the previous year. But the proposed contract contained an important protective proviso: " … if, in the judgment of the American Foundation for the Blind, the expenses of the Helen Keller Tour seem excessive, as compared with income from mass meetings, this agreement is to be modified."

In a less tempestuous mood, Anne Sullivan Macy might have seen the merit of this position. But she was in no emotional state to be judicious. She felt frustrated at every point. She and Helen regarded themselves as morally committed to completing the endowment fund; in their view, appealing for $5 and $10 memberships would be a comedown compared with the lofty goal of a $2 million endowment. Mrs. Macy was offended at the rejection of her firm conviction that, despite the disappointing results of the previous year, such a fund could still be built through mass support. She wanted to see penny banks distributed to the nation's school children and was annoyed that no one seemed to take this suggestion seriously. Most immediate of all, she was distressed at her inability to secure a sufficiently high level of compensation to alleviate the household's financial stress.

Nevertheless, she signed the contract for 1926 after a few compromises had been worked out. The campaign would be concentrated in a smaller territory so that travel expenses would be lower. Any gifts of more than $100 obtained through the mass meetings or through direct solicitation by Helen would be placed in the endowment fund; in addition, at least 10 percent of the total money received through memberships and renewals would be credited to the endowment fund.

With this face-saving agreement, the 1926 campaign was launched and, despite its stormy beginnings, proved to be a resounding success. With Charles Hayes and Ida Hirst-Gifford doing the organizing and the legwork, the campaign party barnstormed through nine northeastern states, addressing 120,000 persons at 110 meetings in 70 cities during a five-month period. The money raised amounted to $134,000, almost all of it in small sums, at a cost of less than 30 percent of the gross.

The campaign schedule was grueling. There were two, sometimes three, meetings in a single day. They might address a noontime audience of 900 in a church in Gouverneur, New York, and that same evening face 700 people gathered in a school auditorium in nearby Ogdensburg. Some of the meetings were financial disappointments; others exceeded expectations. By this time, the campaign party had developed experience and sophistication in fund-raising. They had learned, for example, that the events that attracted the largest and most eminent audiences were not necessarily those that raised the most money.

The showpiece of this 1926 campaign was its opening gun—a mass meeting in the nation's capital under impressive sponsorship. The list of patrons was headed by Mrs. Calvin Coolidge (the President himself had agreed to become honorary president of the Foundation and was so listed), Vice-President and Mrs. Dawes, Chief Justice and Mrs. Taft, several other Supreme Court justices, virtually every member of the Cabinet, a dozen senators and congressmen, and thirty-odd foreign ambassadors, ministers, and other members of the diplomatic corps.

Three thousand people gathered in the Washington Auditorium to hear an opening address by Dr. Henry van Dyke, the clergyman-educator who was chairman of the Helen Keller National Committee. The meeting was chaired by Dr. Gilbert Grosvenor, son-in-law of Alexander Graham Bell. Edwin Grasse, the versatile blind musician who participated in this tour as he had in the previous one, provided several musical interludes. At one point he played the overture to Lohengrin *on the organ; later, he switched to the violin to play several Fritz Kreisler solos; at a third juncture he performed the "Meditation" from Massenet's *Thaïs with Ida Hirst-Gifford accompanying him on the piano. The climax, as always, was the joint performance by Helen Keller and her teacher, following which members of Washington's Junior League, acting as "Helen Keller's Aides," moved through the audience collecting cash and membership pledges.

Although the $8,400 raised that evening was not especially impressive in relation to the potential of so large and wealthy an audience, the publicity value of the illustrious patronage had its impact on the meetings that followed. In Rochester, New York, where Helen's old friend, Mrs. Edmund B. Lyon, sponsored a reception for 150 selected leaders, just over $7,000 was garnered over the teacups. This was followed by two mass meetings, attended by 3,700 people in all, at which an additional $4,300 was raised.

In Newark a series of mass meetings, plus a private tea, brought in some $6,500. In Worcester, Massachusetts, one of the Foundation's trustees, Mabel Knowles Gage, brought together a group of 75 friends at a private reception and raised more than $5,000; an additional $2,900 was gathered in smaller amounts from two public meetings whose audiences totalled 2,100. There were just enough of these gratifying high points to keep up the spirits of the weary campaign group.

Following the contretemps with Mrs. Macy that preceded the 1926 campaign agreement, Migel withdrew from active contact with the Keller household. As it happened, he spent much of 1926 abroad and it fell to Robert Irwin to help stage-manage the Foundation's relations with Helen and her teacher. Irwin not only wrote them encouraging notes while they were on the road but arranged for several of the trustees to do likewise.

The executive committee also went formally on record, at its meeting of June 10, 1926, by adopting a resolution to convey to the Helen Keller party "a wholehearted vote of gratitude" for their accomplishments. The three campaigners appeared in person at this session and Helen accepted the resolution with a graceful speech.

However, she said, "we must all realize there is still a long way—a very long way—to go. … Frankly, there are very pressing reasons that make us pause before going on with this task. The fact is we cannot afford it, but my teacher will explain this to you."

What her teacher had to say was all too familiar. According to the minutes of the meeting: "Mrs. Macy felt that the party could not continue with the campaign work under the present financial arrangement, nor did she think favorably of the suggestion that the party, instead of campaigning, devote their energies to soliciting large sums from private individuals."

It was the same old impasse and the meeting ended without reaching a decision. In mid-July Irwin wrote the Foundation's treasurer, Herbert H. White, suggesting a possible way out which, he reported, Mrs. Macy had indicated she would consider favorably. This was a proposal

that Miss Keller be placed on the staff of the Foundation at $5,000 a year, in addition to the amount paid when on the road. Miss Keller would, for this amount, allow us the use of her name in connection with all of our financial and other publicity, and would prepare special articles and special letters for us upon various topics.

At about the same time, White received a long and discontented letter from Helen Keller, written from her sister's home in Montgomery, Alabama, where she and her companions were vacationing. It was in response to one which he, in his capacity as treasurer, had sent a few weeks earlier, enclosing a check for $1,000 as a bonus for special gifts. Helen's letter re-echoed some familiar themes:

I have not written to you before because I needed to consider very carefully the advisability of accepting the check. My first impulse was to accept it; for I felt that Mrs. Macy and I had earned it. … Besides, we needed the money badly. … As we told the Executive Board, every cent of our salary went for expenses. … [I]t is utterly impossible for three women to live as we must live on such a meagre salary. … two thousand dollars a month for five months would not be extravagant compensation to pay me alone. …

Frankly, the attitude of the Foundation towards Mrs. Macy and me has always been that of an employer, governed solely by practical considerations. It has assumed that we were for sale, and has negotiated to buy us as cheaply as possible. … But we are not for sale at a bargain any more. We are capable of earning our living with much less effort and strain. … Under the circumstances, we feel quite disinclined to work for the Foundation next year. I doubt even if a more equitable arrangement would induce us to continue.

Why was it Helen Keller, and not Anne Sullivan Macy, who signed this querulous communication? Probably for the same reason that the letter transmitting the check had been signed by the Foundation's treasurer and not its president. The latter undoubtedly felt he had had enough of Mrs. Macy for a while, and she felt the same way toward him and his associates. So pervasive was the tension that it found a childishly petty outlet for annoyance. The resolution of thanks at the June meeting had voiced its appreciation to Helen Keller, Anne Sullivan Macy, and Polly Thomson. "When the Executive Board wished to express its appreciation of Mrs. Macy's and my services to the cause of the blind, it included Miss Thomson on equal terms with us in its vote of thanks," Helen's letter to White noted indignantly. "If the Board wished to honor Mr. Migel for his contributions to the Foundation, would it inscribe the name of his secretary on parchment in a similar manner?"

The upshot of all this was the return of the check "because Mrs. Macy and I feel that it would in some subtle way hamper us, and curtail our freedom of decision when the time comes to discuss plans for the future."

Caught in a crossfire that he recognized was aimed at another target, Herbert White responded with a gallant attempt to smooth ruffled feathers. White was at this time a man in his late sixties. The son of a family that had lived in New England since Colonial times, he had begun his working career at age fifteen, starting as a bank clerk and later moving into the employ of the Connecticut Mutual Life Insurance Company, of which he became treasurer in 1906. His interest in work for the blind had been constant since 1893, when he helped found the Connecticut Institute for the Blind. He was a dedicated, patriotic, and civic-minded person whose approach to life was described, when he died in 1934, as one of "unquestioning faith that ultimately there would be found a right and best way to accomplish necessary ends."

White's temperate response to Helen assured her that there was no thought of "bargain and sale" in the Foundation's dealings.

It is my recollection that the costs of campaign and terms were arranged on what at the time was agreed to be fair and satisfactory to all. If the estimates have been found incorrect it is because of our inability to forecast clearly unforeseen contingencies. … It seems to me, therefore, that misunderstanding has arisen and should be cleared up.

The returned check "is still at your disposal," he concluded. "It was sent you in good faith and it would seem to me that without loss in self-respect or without complicating the situation, which I hope may be set right, you may safely use it."

It was a troubled situation. One of the people in whom Mrs. Macy confided about it was Charles Campbell, who wrote her after reviewing the correspondence with the Foundation she had forwarded for his information. He found her feeling toward Migel unfortunate and hoped she would continue her affiliation with the Foundation. Neither White's conciliatory approach nor Campbell's impartial advice affected the immediate outcome. When the executive committee met in September, it adopted the suggestion of an extra $5,000 a year in salary for Helen. The offer was turned down. However, the letter in which Helen explained the reason for her refusal was far more moderate in tone than the one she had written in mid-summer.

The Foundation's offer had been conveyed in a letter signed by Olin H. Burritt as secretary, and it was to Burritt that Helen replied on October 22. She had made up her mind to bring her autobiography up to date, and although "the money difficulty remains the same" and "we may have to augment our income by lecturing once in a while," she was determined that "this question must not interfere with my decision; for the book must be done Now or Never. I think I can do it this winter if there are not too many interruptions. Next October, God willing, I would be ready to take to the road."

The Foundation had no choice but to accept this decision. It did act to insure some continuity by arranging to pay Helen a substantial honorarium for the preparation of some written material that could be used in mail appeals; beyond that, it could only wait until the book was finished. Four months later, Burritt sent a follow-up note asking Helen whether her availability in October could be counted upon. Her reply contained dismaying news:

The truth is, my autobiography is not progressing as fast as I at first thought it would. … Mrs. Macy has gone through the material with the assistance of one of Doubleday and Page's staff; but that is the merest beginning. The material must be gone over many times, and read to me besides. We were getting along nicely until Mrs. Macy's eyes gave out the middle of January. …

When Dr. Berens* says Mrs. Macy's eyes are better, my spirits soar, and I think the book will be nearly finished by June. When he says she must not read a word for several days, my hopes fail. …

As things worked out, Helen was not free that October, nor the following one, nor the one after that. It was 1932 before she was in a position to go back on the road for the Foundation and by then the country was so deep in economic depression that the results were a pittance. Her teacher's condition was such that there were long periods when she could not use her eyes at all. The principal saving grace in the situation was the presence of the person Helen had referred to as "one of Doubleday and Page's staff." This was Nella Braddy Henney, who not only played an essential role in the composition of Helen's book Midstream but in the process gained the confidence of Anne Sullivan Macy to such a degree that the latter allowed her to write her biography. Mrs. Henney became a cherished intimate of all three members of the household; the friendships she forged with Anne, Polly, and Helen lasted until each of them died.

(Indeed, where Anne was concerned, the friendship extended beyond the grave, for Mrs. Henney served as a consultant to William Gibson when he dramatized the story of Helen Keller and her teacher in The Miracle Worker, first as a "Playhouse 90" production on the Columbia Broadcasting System television network in 1957, then as a full-length Broadway play, and finally as the 1962 motion picture that brought Academy Awards to Anne Bancroft and Patty Duke for their respective roles as Anne Sullivan and Helen Keller.)

It was the news of Mrs. Macy's disabling illness that brought M.C. Migel back into the life of the Helen Keller household. He might have resolved never again to negotiate business arrangements with Helen and her teacher, but sickness and suffering were something else again. Now that their financial relationships with the Foundation had been settled by other officers, the Major felt free to call at Forest Hills as a friend. He went to see Helen and Mrs. Macy during Christmas week of 1926 and offered his personal financial help. He would place a fund at their disposal, he said, and they were not to hesitate to draw upon it whenever they wished. They could have a check at once if they needed it. This they refused, but the following April Anne wrote asking whether he would finance a chauffeured trip to New England that would enable them to revisit Wrentham and other scenes of the past that Helen was trying to recapture in Midstream. He agreed at once, and she replied she would ascertain the cost and let him know. On May 18 she wrote saying that "five hundred dollars will take care of it handsomely." Her letter continued:

But I am going to make a further request. Once having screwed my courage to the point of asking you for money, I find I am quite shameless in availing myself of your generosity. Frankly, our finances are very low. Thus far we have succeeded in paying our bills; but next month will bring doctors' bills which I shall not be able to manage. May I have a thousand dollars in addition to the five hundred, please? If you will be so good, you will relieve me of considerable anxiety, and make it easier for all of us.

Migel wrote back on May 20, enclosing a check, but alas, the Major and Mrs. Macy were destined to stumble into one unfortunate misunderstanding after another. Migel's check had been drawn on the President's Fund he had established at the Foundation. This fund consisted of his own money, to be used under his direction for non-budgetary expenditures. A check drawn on it was as much a personal gift from Migel as one drawn on his private checking account. But Anne did not know this, and she was mortified that anyone at the Foundation should be privy to a confidential transaction.

"I regret deeply that I ever swerved from my resolve not to ask you for money," she wrote him when he returned from abroad. "I had a very strong intuition that such a request would create a humiliating situation, which it has." She enclosed her own check in repayment of $1,500. Even though she ended her letter with a dignified statement ("Many times I have thanked you for your kindly intentions. I must still believe that you mean well."), it was to be a long time before the two got back on cordial terms.

Two years later Anne underwent an unsuccessful operation on her right eye. This was a period of such intense anxiety for Helen that Migel's heart went out to her, and he ventured once again to offer financial help. In June 1929 he wrote suggesting that Helen, her teacher, and Polly take a vacation; he enclosed a check (his personal voucher this time) for $1,000 to pay for a cruise on the St. Lawrence River. His note went on: "Also, please send me a memorandum, giving me a rough idea of your hospital bills, and I shall defray same for you."

There was an ecstatic reply from Helen saying that the vacation would be doubly appreciated because Mrs. Macy would have to have a cataract operation on her other eye in September. There was also a postscript:

It is most dear of you to ask about our hospital bills; but we shall not send them. You may have heard of a golden windfall that dropped into our unexpectant hands in the shape of a bequest from our lifelong friend, Mrs. William Thaw. It will take care of the hospital bills and quite a budget of other obligations.

In October the Major received a long, friendly letter from Anne herself, telling him how much improved she was in health and spirits after the cruise and spending the balance of the summer in the Adirondacks. "It's time to say how much I thank you for all your goodness to me," she ended. Three months later, however, she sent him a bitter letter of grievance. It differed from her previous outbursts only in that she now drew a distinction between Migel's personal relations with Helen and herself and what she described as the Foundation's "niggardly treatment of Helen." The Foundation, she said, "has not the slightest conception of the labor" entailed in Helen's work for the blind.

Helen is a slow, painstaking worker. She makes many mistakes she does not know of until the letter is brought to me, then she must write it all over herself, as we have no stenographer. … Sometimes a letter has to be rewritten five or six times before it is ready to mail.

I am sure also that the trustees do not know how much time we three give each day to Foundation business—opening and reading letters, telephoning, autographing books and photographs, wrapping and addressing and mailing them … and taking them to the post-office—there is no one to do this mechanical labor. … Over seven hundred books have been autographed here in the past three months! It is necessary for either Miss Thomson or me to stand over Helen, keeping the line straight while she writes the inscription with painful slowness. All this standing and trying to see the words between her fingers is a terrible strain on my eyes.

Anne might have stopped right there; she had made her case. But she was in a mood to lash out and went on for five pages with passionate criticism of the Foundation's work and of its staff, even threatening to send an open letter to the press "showing up the treatment one blind person has received from the Foundation." The letter also voiced some hyperbolic claims: "It is Helen who has interested the public in the Foundation—put it on the map, so to speak. … Without Helen's name the Foundation could not exist, unless you personally financed it."

The clue to this extraordinary communication was contained in another letter to Migel, written the same day, from Helen herself. As always, she knew exactly what Mrs. Macy had written because she, Helen, had typed the letter. (She was always the household typist. Polly Thomson, who was called her secretary, could neither type nor take shorthand; even her handwriting, bold and dashing, was nearly illegible.)

"There is no disguising the fact that things are going very badly with my teacher these days," Helen wrote.

She has not been able to read even the headlines of a newspaper for more than a week. She is very nervous, and naturally discouraged. … Please, dear Mr. Migel, try to be patient with our complaints and difficulties … these days we are living at high tension, and all around us is uncertainty and the dark. And what are friends for, if not to worry them a little?

Migel's reply to Helen reflected the forbearance he had learned to exercise toward the Forest Hills menage: "As to being impatient with you, my dear, that I shall never be—you know how I feel toward you all, although occasionally Teacher does try one a little."

His reply to Anne took the form of prompt action. At the next executive committee meeting a new financial arrangement was executed, giving Helen a salary of $6,000 a year plus a $1,200 allowance for clerical help. For this, Helen would write appeal letters to wealthy individuals and form letters for use with the Foundation's now large mailing list of members and contributors. She would testify on behalf of the Foundation at legislative hearings when indicated and would take on such other special assignments as would benefit from the use of her undeniable influence.

This new setup satisfied everyone. Helen wrote Migel a long and charmingly contrite reply to the letter notifying her of it. She cited Victor Hugo's parable about the man who tried to prevent a bee from dashing itself to death: against a window pane. Attempting to capture the confused insect so as to free it through an open window, the man was stung for his pains.

Now it seems to me we have behaved very much like the bee. You have always been our friend; but we have conducted ourselves in the manner of the stupid, suspicious drone. … Our narrow views and individual preoccupations have obscured the inner vision, so that we could not see your effort to befriend us, and plunged ahead into rash things. Like the bee, we have dashed ourselves against obstacles that didn't exist!

Now, she went on, "we are … feeling a little stunned and foolish, but grateful to you for having saved us from the consequences of our rashness. We hope we may prove ourselves worthy of your magnanimity."

It was almost the end of the cross-purposes and misunderstandings that had intermittently punctuated the relationship of Helen Keller and her household with the Foundation and its president. There were to be future differences of opinion and occasional angry explosions, sometimes from Anne in the five years of life that remained to her, sometimes from Helen herself. But neither Helen nor her teacher ever again questioned the genuine devotion of their friend, M.C. Migel, and he never ceased to give evidence, in ways large and small, of his unending concern for their welfare.

He sent them liberal checks and imaginative gifts at Christmas, at Easter, on Helen's birthday, and on numerous other occasions. When Midstream was published, he not only bought dozens of copies to give as gifts to his friends but underwrote the purchase of 2,500 copies of a low-cost edition to be sold by blind vendors at a profit to themselves. When Nella Braddy's biography of Anne Sullivan Macy appeared, Migel was again a large-scale buyer. He also arranged for the Foundation to send thousands of letters to agencies for the blind, praising the book and promoting its sale.

Nothing was too much trouble. When Anne was convalescing from her final eye operation, she was disturbed by street traffic. A park was being built in Forest Hills, and the heavily loaded construction trucks rumbling by in a continuous stream were literally shaking their house's foundations. Migel wrote to Robert Moses, then chairman of the State Council on Parks, explaining the situation and making a forthright request: "I am wondering if you would be good enough to order the rerouting of these trucks for a month or two, until Mrs. Macy recovers." Commissioner Moses cooperated; a member of his staff wrote Migel that as much of the hauling as possible would be diverted to a parallel street.

The most significant change in relationship took place at the end of 1932, when Anne finally yielded to Migel's urging that the management of Helen's financial affairs be put in charge of a three-man committee of trustees: himself; the banker Harvey D. Gibson, who was president of the Manufacturers Trust Company and a trustee of the Foundation; and the industrialist William Ziegler, Jr., also a member of the Foundation board.

It was not an easy decision for this proud woman to make. But Anne was by then nearly seventy years old; the sight of one eye was gone, only 10 percent vision remained in the other and this, too, was ultimately to be lost. She could no longer be at Helen's side in public appearances; that role had now become Polly Thomson's. Her sole remaining obligation toward Helen was to insure her against want. With a mixture of reluctance and relief, she transferred that obligation to the man she had finally learned to respect and trust. When death came to Anne Sullivan Macy on October 20, 1936, it found her serene in the knowledge that her affairs, and Helen's, were in order at last.

There remained Helen, never a docile soul, who had inevitably absorbed much of her teacher's determination to stick with whatever course she set out upon, no matter what. For Helen, the period that began during the mid-Thirties was one of steadily broadening horizons as she gradually modified her fixed ideas. One of the first to go was the notion that the endowment fund could only be completed through innumerable small donations. Although she had vehemently protested, "I am not gifted with the magic of charming large donations out of the coffers of the rich," she was extraordinarily successful at it.

The next barrier to crumble—although this took repeated assaults—was her insistence that her public and private appeals be made solely for the purpose of completing the endowment fund and not for current program needs. Curiously, she fought hardest of all against involvement in the drive to launch the Talking Book, one of the landmark achievements in services to blind people.

It was only when Helen finally conceded that the raising of that magic $2 million was not to be the only star in her crown of accomplishments that the second and more constructive phase of her work for the blind really began. Once she had shaken loose of the endowment obsession, she was free to pursue a more diversified program of service, using her talent with words, her winning personality, and the magic of her name in all the areas where they could make an impact: testimony before legislatures, personal appearances, national and international tours, letters and visits to men in high places. In this many-sided role she remained on the staff of the American Foundation for the Blind (and later also on that of the Foundation's sister agency, the American Foundation for Overseas Blind) for the rest of her life.

For the rest of her life, too, she remained under the solicitous stewardship of the personal trustees who served as her financial counselors and ultimately as the executors of her estate. The three original trustees predeceased her; they were replaced, one by one, by other men affiliated with the Foundation, which maintained a guardian account for her and ultimately became her residuary legatee. At the time of Helen Keller's death on June 1, 1968, her trustees were Jansen Noyes, Jr., then president (later chairman of the board) of the Foundation; Richard H. Migel, younger son of the Major and then treasurer (later vice-chairman of the board) of the Foundation; and James S. Adams, a banker and a Foundation trustee (later retired).

At no point did Helen's trustees see their responsibility as limited to shielding her from fear of privation. They took over management of all her affairs. They stood by her during the prolonged final illness of Polly Thomson, who died in 1960 at the age of seventy-five. Under their supervision, the Foundation's executive director (first Robert B. Irwin and, after 1949, M. Robert Barnett) saw to it that her household was staffed and run smoothly, that her house and grounds were kept in repair, that she had adequate clerical help for her work and proper nursing care during her last years. The trustees and the Foundation executives went beyond their official obligations. They behaved as friends, and because they took a personal interest, Helen Keller lived out her days in the comfort and dignity that her beloved teacher had spent a lifetime struggling to insure.

To do justice to the rich and varied texture of the latter half of Helen Keller's life would require the full biography that will surely be written one day. Many of the major milestones of those final forty years will emerge in the context of succeeding chapters. However, even as sketchy an outline as space in this volume affords must include mention of one other friendship that grew out of her work for the Foundation.

Gustavus A. Pfeiffer, the farmer's son who started life as half-owner of a drug store in Parksburg, Iowa, and ended as head of what became the billion-dollar pharmaceutical and cosmetics firm, Warner-Lambert, Inc., first encountered Helen in 1929 when he received one of her fund-raising appeals in the mail. It was a form letter, but he did not treat it as such. "Your letter goes right to the heart and opens the purse," he wrote her, enclosing a $500 check. Her personal note of acknowledgment produced a series of other, increasingly generous, contributions. These were sizable enough to prompt M.C. Migel to seek the acquaintance of this new benefactor of the blind, and the two struck up a warm friendship. Pfeiffer was impressed by what the Major told him of the Foundation's accomplishments and of its goals for the future; in due course, he agreed to serve on the board of trustees.

Pfeiffer was a devoutly religious man and when he met Helen in person he was struck by her spirituality and her intimate knowledge of the Bible. He wanted her to meet his nephew, Robert, who was a professor of Semitic languages and history at Harvard University and a man who had done intensive research on Biblical literature. A bond of mutual interest and affection developed and "Uncle Gus," Robert Pfeiffer, and other members of the family became close friends of Helen's household. When, following her teacher's death, Helen mentioned that she would like to leave Forest Hills and live in the country, "Uncle Gus" and his wife invited her to occupy one of the houses they had built for the use of artists and writers near their country estate in Westport, Connecticut.

Helen was charmed with the idea of Westport and said so, whereupon Pfeiffer decided that none of the existing houses in the colony was quite suitable for her. Instead he donated four acres of land to the Foundation for a residence to be built tailored to her particular needs. Helen's trustees saw to the disposition of the Forest Hills house and arranged for the financing of the new structure; "Uncle Gus" contributed not only the land but much of the cost of building and furnishing. His thoughtfulness extended to ordering a miniature model of the ten-room colonial-style building, so that Helen's fingers could familiarize her with the layout of her new home before she even moved in.

When the house, which was named Arcan Ridge, was almost totally destroyed by fire while Helen was abroad in 1946, Pfeiffer promptly cabled to reassure her that he would have it rebuilt. It was at Arcan Ridge, in its original and rebuilt versions, that Helen spent the last thirty years of her life, secure in the knowledge that she could safely devote all of her energies to the welfare of others, and it was from Arcan Ridge that in June 1968 her ashes went to their final resting place in St. Joseph's Chapel of the Washington Cathedral.

*Dr. Conrad Berens was an eminent eye surgeon who was head of the Eye Clinic of the New York Lighthouse and prominent in the work of the National Society for the Prevention of Blindness. He was not only Mrs. Macy's physician but a close friend of the Keller household.