 And I just want to introduce myself. My name is Walter Wojcicek. I am the past president of the NFB chapter here at the Irish Park Apartments. And that's the great Portland chapter of our organization. Last year, Herb Adams, who is one of our honorary members and certainly a person who has contributed a lot over the past few years to our chapter entertainment and so on, he's done some talks on Portland, the Great Portland Fire. He talked about the sea battle that we had here in the War of 1812 and a lot of other things. And he started talking about Helen Keller. And does anybody know that today Helen Keller is 138? I don't know. I don't think I'll be around at 138. But I think that certainly it's something that you can look back upon. Because she did a great many things. And she meant a lot to a great many people. And when you hear what Herb has to say about her reactions and her interactions and her friendship with people here in Maine, particularly with William Ryan, who started this organization. And they called that the institution for the blind. But they don't put blind people in institutions anymore. So they changed the name. And now we call it the Iris Network. And dealing with the part of the eye that makes it possible for you to see. You know, there was a story that reminds me of the man that was setting up his building and so on. He said to one of the carpenters and people that were doing the doors in that particular building. And he said, I want you to put restroom in as many different languages as you could find. And so they said, OK, fine. And they looked around. And they found restroom in French and Italian and Spanish. And they came up with some pictorial things. And that was Chinese. And so they thought that was fine. But one day, several years later, a man who happened to be from China and who was a businessman came up. And he said, that's an interesting restroom marker, marker you have there. So the owner says, well, yeah, we wanted to mark that, particularly so that people from many different background and language would know that that was the place. And he says, yeah, that's true. He said, do you know what that Chinese marker stands for? Or pictogram? And he says, no. He says, that's Chinese relief. So we are here tonight. And I'd like to welcome everyone that is here. I don't have a complete list, but Regal tells me that we have some from our staff. We have several of our directors here. I didn't. I was hoping that we'd have someone from 207, but I think they came in. Did they come up? No. That's too bad. OK. So they'll miss it. But we know that we'll see them again sometime, too. But really, this is an important occasion because about a year ago, when Herb had given his talk about Helen Keller and her interaction with the legislature here in Maine, and we said, maybe we should have the whole thing sort of summed up. And they said, yeah, that would be a good thing to have. And someone in the chapter said, well, maybe we can get this arranged and then we can give this as a gift to the Irish network so that they can refer to it in their publicity and so on. And people any place in the world can see what Helen Keller meant to Maine and how she influenced a great many people in that particular part of our country. So here we are tonight. This is a combination of the fact that we are making a gift to the Irish network of the fact that Helen Keller made such an impression and had such a close relationship with people here in Maine that caused this institution to be here. This building, built by William Ryan, was certainly something that she championed and she helped in many ways. And this is how we are here today, 138 years after. And this is what immortality is all about, by the way. Immortality is that you are remembered far beyond your own lifetime. And that's what we hope to have. And all of us hope to do for other people that we see every day, that we try to go on and be part of the life in the future. And that's why we're here. We're going to have Herb's talk at this point and it will be videoed. So he has about an hour to do that. And then we have a few minutes for questions. I have some extra copies of the letter that Helen Keller wrote. And that letter, I guess, is downstairs printed up on the wall in a frame. And that's a very important letter. And just imagine when you read it, and Herb will refer to this letter as well, when you read it, you know that even back in 1905, that people still had the same needs as we have today. And it's still the same tasks that we have today to help each person who has special needs to have them fulfilled. And that's why the NFB is here as well. Thank you, Walter. And distinguished guests, presidents, vice presidents, residents, and fellow Portlanders, it's a real honor to be asked to come here tonight to speak on what is the 138th anniversary of the birth of Helen Keller, who appeared in our own state of Maine and had much to say about the future of those who are challenged and the care of those who face the uphill march of life and about how Maine was behaving and what we were doing within those frames. I can tell you for sure that Helen Keller visited the state of Maine at least in 1891, in 1939 and 1945, and quite possibly on the vaudeville stage here in Portland in around 1921. Now, something about each of those will follow here in Maine and Gardner and in Brunswick and Augusta, Lewiston, Kittery, and Portland. Each of those visits was at a different phase of her life. Each were at a different phase of American life. Each were at a different phase of how we understand and rise from the challenges of life. As we speak tonight, down in her birthplace of Tuscumbia, Alabama, there is a multi-day program going on devoted to her life and to her work. Helen Adams Keller was born on the 27th of June, 1880. She passed from among us on the 1st of June, 1968. What an incredible span of change within those 88 years. We know many, of course, of her distinctions by heart. She was the first deaf and blind person to graduate from college. She graduated with a Bachelor of Arts from Radcliffe College, the sister college to Harvard, in 1904. What we may know less about her is that she was outspoken. She was politically active. She was very opinionated. She was very pointed in her opinions and in her politics. Helen Keller was a socialist. She was a Swedenborgian. She believed in immortality. She was a card-carrying member of the IWW, the Radical Industrial Workers of the World, the Wobblies, the most radical labor union of her time. She campaigned for votes for women, for labor rights, for social reforms, for birth control, for women's equality. She was a pacifist. She disliked the, for his day, very progressive president, Woodrow Wilson, because he opposed, at first, votes for women. She liked President Franklin Delano Roosevelt very much, because he was for the working man. And she enjoyed his company. She always voted for Eugene Debs, the socialist, for president, until the days of the New Deal. And even then, she had voted for the Progressives candidate for president in 1924. It was considered quite a shock that she would be for FDR, because she came from a parents and a background that was, at least at first and at times, very wealthy. Helen Keller, through her family, knew rebellion. And that was part and parcel of her makeup. Her father had been a captain in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. Her mother's father had been a general in the Confederate Army in the Civil War. He was Charles W. Adams, hence Adams her middle name. Her grandmother had been a cousin of Robert E. Lee. She had sight and she had hearing till the age of 19 months. When some mysterious disease, and it's argued among scholars today, perhaps scarlet fever, perhaps a touch of meningitis, deprived her of those senses. From that point on, less than two years of age, she fought in the silence and the darkness. She was considered a wild, ungovernable little child. Her parents called her the Little Bronco, quote, unquote. Until, as we know, her teacher at the famous Perkins School in Boston, Ann Sullivan, broke through that silence and that darkness by spelling into her hand the word water while she poured water over little Helen's hand from the pump at the Perkins Institute. W-A-T-E-R in the manual alphabet again and again till Helen understood that the water was a thing and that things had names and that you could spell the name you could not hear and could not see. In an instant, as she said later, the light broke. She learned 16 more words that day. She was so thirsty for knowledge. Helen Keller learned to read braille without being able to hear or ever see a written word. She could communicate by hand spelling. She could type and very quickly on her braille typewriter. She could write her name very clearly, her autograph spell cell for large sums of money today. She could write longhand with a ruled wire guide device, very clear handwriting. I have seen it. She was a great fan of good music. She could listen to the vibrations of music through her fingers placed on a tabletop if the music was played loud and nearby. She had definite favorites, many of them classical. She liked rag time because of his heavy syncopated beats, like the maple leaf rag or the entertainer. She was Alabama born but not a sweetie at all, not a southern sweetie at all. She was very much her own person. Mark Twain and his friend the standard oil multimillionaire, Henry H. Rogers, raised the money that funded her education. But she turned down money from Andrew Carnegie because she says, I want to make my life on my own. In that life, she wrote 12 books, including the story of my life, which appeared in 1903 when she was 23, and her very favorite lecture, which is happiness that appeared in 1916. Her self-assessed strengths were curiosity and imagination. Those, she says, were the greatest gifts and love of useful work, which loops back very much to the story of the Iris Network. She always regretted that she was never able to speak what she would call normally or clearly. Tonight, if you go home and bring up her voice recordings on the internet, you can hear her speak. But it is a bit atonal and hard to understand. And it was one of her great regrets in life that she could not break through that final barrier. Her parents, when her blindness and deafness were evident, had hoped for a cure. Her father, Captain Keller, brought her to Boston to meet the most famous American associated with, perhaps, assistance for the deaf. And that was Alexander Graham Bell. She met him in 1886. He was six years old and a little unknown girl. And he was famous and already retired, wealthy from the patents on the telephone, and well known for his experiments with helping the deaf to hear. His own wife was deaf. And that was one reason why the telephone was such to him an important invention. To his regret, he could not do much for her hearing. But he did find her fascinating. She sat on his lap that day. And her hands, quote, like little mice, unquote, ran all over his big nose, his big beard, his big tummy, and his big watch, which he made chime and vibrate for her. She scrambled off his knees and began a restless tour of his library, curiosity about her world. In a sense, that tour of the world never stopped. And the curiosity never dulled. And that world before her always expanded. It was Alexander Graham Bell who led her to the Perkins Institution of Boston, the first American school for the blind and for the deaf. And at the Perkins Institute, it was where she was led to a 20-year-old former pupil of that school, Ann Sullivan, who she, all her life, called teacher, the first person I ever loved. And always regarded as her spiritual birthday, the day she met Ann Sullivan, March 3, 1887. Mark Twain knew both of them and called Ann Sullivan the miracle worker. And hence, the name of the great play, which we all know, the book and the movie and our memories. Incidentally, Mark Twain, to her delight, treated her just like any other person. There are two stories about him and Helen Keller that are too good not to tell. And here they are. Whenever Helen Keller would visit Mark Twain at his homes in Connecticut, he would always send up to her guest room the two things he thought were absolutely essential. Number one, a bottle of whiskey. And number two, a box of cigars. Mark Twain actually offered to teach Helen Keller how to play billiards, you know, the pool game. And Helen Keller said, oh, Mr. Clemens, it takes sight to play billiards, says Mark Twain, not the kind of billiards we play around here. No. Now in Boston was that pioneering Perkins Institute, founded by a pioneering educator. The famous, the outgoing, the unparalleled, Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. He was known for his good works as the Lafayette of Boston. Now he is important to us for two reasons. His wife was Julia Ward Howe. And at the famous Perkins Institute, young Helen often played with their granddaughter. A little girl her own age, Rosalind Richards, known as Rosie. It works this way. Julia Ward Howe, who was famous around the world for writing the battle hymn of the Republic in the Civil War, had a daughter named Laura Richards, who lived in Gardner, Maine. Rosie was Laura's daughter. And we're going to circle back to that relationship in a while. Helen Keller met Julia Ward Howe herself at Christmas 1890 at the Perkins Institute Christmas Party. She found Julia Ward Howe a little bit aristocratic and a little bit Tony, but she enjoyed all her life. A friendship with Rosie that brought her to Maine and to Gardner in the year 1891. It was Helen Keller's first visit that I know of down east, so far as I have ever been able to find in her 11th year. That house that she visited in Gardner would remain very strong in her memory for all the rest of her life, as we shall see. Helen Keller read and loved the works of our Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. She could finger spell and recite two of her favorite poems, Flowers and the Psalm of Life. Sadly, she never knew and did not meet Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. The poet had died in 1882 when she was less than two years old. But she did know and did write to and did visit the last of the great writers of his generation, Oliver Wendell Holmes and John Greenleaf Whittier. And they corresponded with her often and she visited them often. How she always wished she could have known Longfellow. She did visit in 1893, the World Columbian Exposition, which was in Chicago. It was a one year late, the anniversary celebration of the arrival of Columbus in the New World. It took place in an artificial city of plaster and lights built by the lakes in Chicago, lit for the first time by electricity and by fireworks and by fountains. She wrote about it in the family publication, St. Nicholas magazine in December, 1893. And with lengthy and lovely descriptions of that which she experienced but could not see, dazzled the world. She's just a girl, but she at 12 and 13 is able to write remarkably. She came very close from that description to the quadrant of the fair where the main state building stood. Now I cannot tell from reading what she wrote if she went through the main state building but, and I tell you this, because you can go visit the main state building. It still exists up at Poland Spring Main. It was disassembled after the fair and brought here bodily and reassembled. It's one of the last of the buildings that she could have visited that you yourself can go visit. Now, in the year 1918, 1908, I beg your pardon, she published The World I Live In, a book about blindness, a book about achievement, and a book about herself. She had a lot more to say and burned to say it and Alexander Graham Bell agreed. It's a fascinating book, a glimpse into a young girl's life like no other young girl had written before. In the glimpse you give us into your own world, it is so fascinating, wrote Alexander Graham Bell that I would love to hear what you have to say about the things outside you. Well, in 1909, she had plenty to say. Helen Keller spent the summer of 1909 in Brunswick, Maine in the shipbuilding area of town called Penelville. The house she stayed in is still standing. She loved being near the sea, she loved salt air, her sense of smell and touch and taste were excellent, of course. She enjoyed very much that summer there. In 1909, it was an important year. The same year she came out as a socialist. She was 29 years old, she was very independent and she paid very highly for that declaration in principles as a socialist. It's the same year she actually considered, according to one of her biographers, Joseph Lash, moving permanently to Maine because it had a lower cost of living. Before that, before she came out as a socialist, newspaper editorials had hailed her as a, quote, brave and dearing young girl, unquote. After that, some called her brassy, quote, unquote, and easily misled by others, quote, unquote. People were surprised that she could be so outspoken and was so opinionated and was no wallflower. She was a famous challenged person and the public was sometimes surprised that a person so challenged could make up their own mind and speak up their own mind whenever they chose. Perhaps some of us in this room have had the same experience, I ask. 1909 is a good year to pause and reflect upon a remarkable letter to Maine that Helen Keller wrote and reflects upon the meaning of life. The letter was sent to one of our own, William J. Ryan, who lived from 1864 to 1936 in whose building, named in his honor, we sit today. W. J. Ryan was an early advocate for blind services, blind medications and blind work in the state of Maine. At a time when the word shut-ins was often the word attached immediately next to the word blind, Ryan was secretary of the Maine Association for the Blind. It was, he was the first, quote, special agent. He had some sight, but he had great powers of persuasion and great powers of persistence, more important. He believed that the blind needed, number one, a worthy home, and number two, worthwhile work to occupy their days. His first monument, 1905, was the Maine Institution for the Blind. It was incorporated that year by the legislature. 1907, he helped secure a legislative appropriation of $20,000 for that institution. It would be between $200,000 and a quarter of a million dollars today. It's a very strong start. In fact, it is the start of this structure in which we sit today. The very home we are sitting in was pictured for the first time that I can find. In the December 1908 Portland Evening Express shows you a picture of this building and the big house where we live and where we enjoy our meals covered with boards and scaffolding all set to open in the spring of 1909. Mr. Ryan appealed to Helen Keller for help and here is a transcription of the letter that Helen Keller wrote to William Ryan in response to his request. It is this letter that Walter has been so kind as to bring us copies tonight. It is this letter which Regal has made sure it is posted on the wall downstairs. It was written in Rentham, Massachusetts, February 7th, 1905. Helen was 24 years old. How many people do you know at age 24 who could write the letter I'm about to read to you? And we may be proud that Helen expressed these thoughts to a fellow manor. She writes to William J. Ryan Esquire, Secretary for the Maine Association for the Blind. Dear sir, I read your letter with applause and congratulations. I'm delighted that Maine has gone so far forward in the work for the blind and I regret that I cannot come to help you with the Honorable Committee of the Maine Legislature to tell them how good is our cause and how practical the need for which you have worked. This cause is dear to my heart. I am blind and I can feel the needs of the blind. I am blessed with abundant opportunity to work and I know what a deprivation it would be not to work. Opportunity to work is what we ask for the blind, not charity. To get the most out of life, we must work. In work, mankind has his highest dignity and his happiness. The man who loses his sight does not you lose the rest of his faculties, his desires, his nature, his mind and his heart remain unchanged. His has been the upright strength of American citizens who ask of their fellow man no more, no boon except a fair chance. The blind are able and eager to work. The blind do not ask for your charity or for your pity. They do not ask you to accept inferior work from their hands. They ask you to train them in order that they may become producers instead of burdens upon the community. We are always hearing of things that extend, she writes, from Maine to California or from Maine to Texas. And from when I was a little girl, I used to think of Maine as a pivotal point, like a fixed star from which the rest of the universe measured all time and distance. Maine is the starting point of many a great idea and many great careers. Shall the work of the adult blind not move in the mighty wave from Maine to California and give that phrase new meaning? Oh, it is a new distinction to the state. I wish, Mr. Ryan, I could speak with my own voice and with my teacher and Sullivan beside me to that worshipful committee on whom hang all our hopes and whose hands the purse strings of the state reside. Not to be with you is a disappointment I regret, but I have every hope that you will succeed in the noble work you have undertaken. If you do not succeed now, you will at no distant day with highest regard sincerely yours, Helen Keller. Now, indeed applause indeed for such thoughts. After 1909, Helen Keller, though very young even yet, wrote seven more books, Song of the Stonewall in 1910, Out of the Dark in 1913, My Religion in 1927. Lots of trouble did that book get her in too. She was a Swedenborgian, a fascinating and almost mystical faith, but her family were all high Presbyterians and did not appreciate the controversy this brought upon their family. She wrote another book, Midstream, My Later Life in 1929. It is a wrenching book when which she really talks about her stricken and lonely youth. She wrote it four times in Braille before it was worked over into the printed page. It was such a huge amount of work indeed, Sarah. Four times in Braille she said, no more books. Well, in fact, she did. Peace at Eventide in 1932, Helen Keller in Scotland 1933 and Helen Keller's Journal in 1938. Now, I have brought her to the edge of her meeting with the governor of Maine in the late 1930s, but I have to tell you that in the 1920s, there is the chance. My research indicates that Helen Keller and Ann Sullivan may well have appeared in Portland on the vaudeville stage. Helen Keller did not want to do it, but money problems left her with few other options, but to reluctantly accept an offer as the quote, wonderful girl with the unconquerable spirit, quote unquote, to appear upon the live vaudeville stage at $2,000 a week. Now, she did 20 minute shows twice a day. It was a bit like those of us that can remember the old Ed Sullivan show. Acts of all kinds just cascaded over you as you sat in the theater. She played from February 1920, at least to the spring of 1922 on the Orpheum slash Keith Albee circuit. Now that had a large theater here in Portland. The entrance door to that theater still stands on Proble Street in Portland, the big arch door with glass. Helen Keller actually liked performing on stage. Sophie Tucker herself taught her how to do her own makeup, and Helen Keller did after that. She was a headliner with Ann Sullivan, with other acts like Carl Sandberg playing the guitar, singers, dancers, jugglers, trained seals, monkeys, cross-dressers, the black heavyweight champion of the world, Jack Johnson, and the American champion frog eater, he ate live frogs and birthed them up alive too. Until he was put off the stage said one reviewer as a because of cruelty to animals and to audiences. Helen Keller would take questions from the audience and reply through the manual alphabet to Ann Sullivan who hated being on stage but did it. And I was able to find part of their act. Would you like to hear it? All right. Some of the questions that Helen Keller would be expected to answer. How old are you, Miss Keller? Answer, there is no age on the Bodville stage. Does Miss Keller think of marriage? Answer, yes. Are you proposing to me? Miss Keller, does tire a talking tire you? Answer, did you ever hear of a woman who was tired of talking? Miss Keller, do you close your eyes when you sleep? Her answer, I guess I do, but I never stayed awake to find out. Miss Keller, what do you think of politicians and President Arding? Answer, I have a fellow feeling for him. He seems as blind as I am. Who is your favorite hero in real life? She answers Eugene V. Debs, the head of the American Socialist Party. He dares to do what other men are afraid to do. Miss Keller, who are the three greatest men of all time? Her answer, Charlie Chaplin, Thomas Edison, and Lennon, who are your best friends? Miss Keller, answer, books. What is your conception of light, Miss Keller? She says, it is like thought in the mind, a bright, amazing thing. Do you see colors in your dreams, Miss Keller? She says, yes, I perceive colors. Sometimes I feel blue and sometimes I see red. By 1937, over 30 of our United States had passed some version of a commission for the blind. Helen Keller served on the very first state commission of that kind in Massachusetts. Maine did not have one. And so it was announced in February 1939 that Helen Keller would speak in Maine at the Maine State House in the legislative chamber as part of the national tour on behalf of the American Federation for the Blind. There were a number of legislatures all around the country that were considering bills that had to do with the blind in one respect or another. We must remember that the consciousness of what was a need in those days began and ended with words like cripples and disabilities as they then said. Challenges, we would say today, you can overcome a challenge, but the idea of that was in its infancy then. Once the idea of challenges did loom large after the Civil War in which her father had fought when so many elderly wounded veterans of the war were still living among us. But that generation passed on and was replaced in Helen Keller's young middle age with World War I veterans, a very different war, a very bittering experience. And in 1939, she's in the midst of the Great Depression. It was a very different day than ours. March 3rd, 1939 had been named National Helen Keller Day to quote, coordinate a new attitude and a new set of thoughts on the part of the public, unquote. We would call it today probably good PR or a consciousness raising. After all, at that point, she'd been a national figure for two thirds of her life. On Wednesday, March 8th, 1939, the governor of Maine greeted her with his own car at the Augusta train station. Her arrival was front page news in all the papers of Maine of that day. She was met with her secretary and her friend, Polly Thompson, the woman that succeeded Ann Sullivan as the one who would spell to her and relate Helen Keller's responses to the world and deal with all the other matters of her life. They were driven straight to the Blaine House, the home of Maine's governors, which is a beautiful white mansion of the Victorian sort that sits right next to the state capital building. There, of course, in those days, women would always have a tea. And at 4.30 p.m. in the Blaine House with the, quote, Maine Women's Legislative Council, unquote, wives of prominent politicians, they'd only been about four women who had ever served in the Maine legislature up till 1939. She received tea. The wife of the state senate president, Sumner Sewell, soon to be governor, served the tea. The wife of the speaker of the house, Donald Philbrook, Philbrook, excuse me, served the tea. Mrs. Barrows served the refreshments. And according to the papers assisting, was Ida Hearst Gifford, the field representative for the American Federation for the Blind. Now, note how few of these women I can relate their own names. In that day, you were Mrs. So-and-so, your Mrs. Husband's name. I can tell you very few of the first names of the women themselves. But something very interesting about Helen Keller, not content, said the Kennebec Journal, the Augusta paper, with meeting everyone at the tea, Helen Keller wanted to know all the members of the household too, meaning she wanted to meet the cooks, the housekeepers, and the waitresses from the kitchen. So Mrs. Barrows, the governor's wife, took Helen Keller out to the hallway, and there they had another informal reception with all those other people brought out from the background so she could meet and shake hands and speak with each and every one of them while the big wigs went on with the tea in the lounge. How very Helen Keller. Now, she spoke in the main house of representatives, the largest chamber in Augusta, at 8.30 p.m. that evening, because it is not actually a session of the house, the Novrabadam transcript of her remarks were taken down, but there's ample coverage in the newspapers of the day. The hall was more than full to capacity, as was the standing room behind the glass that separates the back of the house and the front up and down the aisles of it and the balcony. The Portland Press Herald reports her words in big headlines the next day, Maine has not done much to aid the blind, declares Helen Keller in very bold headlines. More than capacity in that crowd, Helen Keller declared that, quote, nothing constructive or adequate has been done for the blind of Maine, quote, unquote, except for the three month old Andrew Scoggin Association for the Blind, and quote a small private institution in Portland, unquote. This one we're sitting in now, the Iris Network. Not so small, really, but young even then. Helen Keller advocated for an annual $25,000 state allocation for the rehabilitation, vocational guidance, and training of the blind. Now, those are words and ideas familiar to us today, but they're new and completely unknown to society, to politicians or to policymakers back then. The bill that would have granted that $25,000 was tabled in the Maine State Senate, awaiting action on either report. I can tell you from having been there, that's where you don't want it to be. State senators are all aristocrats, you know. I was a member of the House. Helen Keller was referred to by the papers as the famous advocate for improving the conditions of the blind, or the former wonderful blind girl, quote unquote. There's a good deal of both respect and of a diminution in that. But not in what she had to say. She bluntly stated, quote, the cruelest misery endured by the blind is not lack of sight, but idleness, monotony, and dependence on others. I am surprised by the medieval ignorance with which Maine seems to have displayed all these things concerning this vital subject of preventing blindness in the first place, unquote. Now, everybody in 1939 would have understood her code there. Helen Keller was referring to her outspoken campaigns for legal birth control, for women's healthcare, and prevention of the diseases, notably venereal disease, which could cause unhealthy children at birth and even blindness to both mother and child in untreated cases. Now, this is all unspoken and unspeakable stuff in public in 1939, yet Helen is brave enough to do it. The Press Herald continues, the meeting overflowed emergency seating facilities, the house floor and the balcony and the crowds stood in the state house corridors to glimpse Miss Keller and her companion, Miss Polly Thompson. Helen Keller could feel the applause and the large numbers of people in that crowd by the vibrations of the floor beneath her feet. The Governor of Maine, Louis Barrows, introduced Helen Keller, the Speaker of the House, Donald Philbrick presided, and introduced Philip Tingley of Holton and John K. Fogarty of Scowhegan District Governors of the Maine Lions Clubs, which sponsored Helen Keller's visit here. I note, and we're with pride, that a member of the Lions is here tonight because the Lions Association with light and with sight dates to that long ago and continues to this day. Before Helen Keller's speech, Polly Thompson explained the course of training, how Helen Keller had learned to speak and spell by the use of her teacher and Sullivan's fingers in her hand. Helen Keller did address the Maine legislature briefly. Miss Keller says the press arrows spoke softly and with obvious effort, but by keeping her sensitive fingers against the throat and her thumb upon the lips of Miss Thompson, Miss Keller followed her companion's speech, which Polly Thompson delivered, but Helen Keller had written. A state, she wrote, is not civilized or progressive. If it fails to safeguard as far as possible, the health and faculties of all its peoples and rehabilitates the stricken ones, no, says Helen Keller. It cannot be in the heart of Maine to deny its blind a measure of independence and happiness. By passing this bill, you will lift them from despair to self-reliance and to usefulness. And wrapping the podium, she said, it must be done. Now, the bill, of which I have a copy, would have provided for marketing program employment facilities and medical and social benefits. Helen Keller argued, quote, favorable action would raise 1,252 needy blind to cheerful self-reliance and usefulness from a condition of being a burden upon the state and an economic loss. A state is not civilized or progressive that fails to safeguard them in so far as possible. To the legislators, she said, you too may have to go the long dark way before your life journey is ended. If that happens, do you think you would be content just to live on a pension with nothing but the dark staring back at you? Wow, strong words. Helen Keller paid tribute to the Lions for their work and all other states in Maine and all other states. And she's hoped that the gathering that night would, quote, be a precious opportunity to set forth the problems of the blind in a straight forward and striking way, certainly. The applause when she was done, she could feel through her feet, but it shook the building according to the newspapers of that day. The next day, March 9th, 1939, a Thursday, she returned to the house she had visited all those years before. Yellow House, that's what it's called, still stands in Gardner, Maine. It was the home of Rosie Richards that she had visited way back as a little girl in 1891. Laura Richards was her mother, remember, the daughter of Julia Ward-Howe. That house still stands. It was the home of Laura Richards. Helen Keller ran her sensitive hand over the gate post and after more than 50 years, she said, I can still remember it from her girlhood. She sat and had tea with Laura Richards and announced she had read all of Laura Richards' books. Laura Richards would remember it in her own day as the author of Captain January, one of the first novels to be made into a silent film, and a biography of her mother, Julia Ward-Howe. Laura Richards was the first woman to win the Pulitzer Prize for a biography, that of her own mother. Thursday, that evening, the 9th of March, 1939, Helen Keller then spoke in the Lewiston Armory as a fundraiser for the Andrew Scoggen County Association for the Blind. 12 Boy Scouts from Auburn were her ushers, eight Girl Scouts from Lewiston Auburn were her escorts down the broad aisle of applauding people to the great stage, a young man named Paula Valley of Lewiston, who is blind but a fine accomplished pianist, played for the group accompanied by the Lewiston High School Orchestra to open the program. Judge Manser, president of the Andrew Scoggen Association, introduced Helen Keller and Polly Thompson related Helen Keller's speech, much as she had done to the legislature, and much of what she had to say was similar to that which she'd presented in the House Chamber. But I find this wonderful little addition in the newspapers. Says the Lewiston paper, Miss Keller appeared gay and smiling. She joked with her secretary and acknowledged the cheers of the children before her when Miss Keller announced that although she had dearly loved the study of philosophy as a girl, she was always a dunce at math. And the little kids all cheered her for that moment. And she exclaimed with delight at the flowers that were presented to her at the close of her address. Now I haven't forgotten. What happened to that $25,000 that she was looking for? What did the politicians do about it? Well, this is what they did. On the 31st of March, 1939, Helen Keller having long since departed from the state of Maine, the Maine State Senate, quote, voted goodwill to Helen Keller, quote unquote, says the Portland Evening Express, which means this. It refused to accept the original committee report that was ought not to pass. In other words, don't give $25,000 to this cause. So they rejected the rejection. But then they referred the whole matter to the next legislature by a vote of 18 to seven. It's merely a gesture, said one state senator. In other words, they did not say no, but they did not exactly say yes. And they kicked the can down the road to the next legislature. Nothing has changed in politics since. Not a bit. Now, which legislature, so that you may know, did pass a $5,000 grant for the year 1940 for blind education and training and healthcare. And another $5,000 for 1941. Indeed, now $5,000 then would be for sure worth about $50,000 now. On the other hand, it's quite a come down. It's nice, but no big cigar. Right. And after 1941, there was a war on. And many things then took a back seat. But not Helen Kelly. Shortly after FDR's reelection in 1944, she accepted an invitation from the American Foundation for the Blind to set off with Polly Thompson, her secretary, translator and friend, on a coast to coast tour of 70 United States military hospitals. Full of the wounded returning from Europe and the Pacific. It was one of Helen Keller's most moving experiences, the source of many touching stories about encountering so many, many veterans, many of them gravely wounded and coping with the realization that their lives, though they were so young, were going to be altered forever by new burdens. Often, they were astonished to see Helen Keller enter their wards. Often they didn't believe it was her. To them, Helen Keller was sort of a legend. You know, they'd heard about in school. And here she was, this tiny, Ren-like, real woman. One asked her, what gives you the courage to go on? One wounded veteran asked. The Bible, she says, and philosophy and poetry. But he asked, how do you feel when God seems to have deserted you? Her answer, I have never had that feeling. What does a wounded man expect of his country now? A reporter asked, as her picture was taken beside three young men in wheelchairs, missing all their legs. Quote, said Helen Keller, they do not want to be treated as a class apart, she explained. They do not want to be treated as heroes. They want to live naturally. They want to be treated as human beings. And in return, she told the New York Times Magazine, their good wishes have been to me a benediction that I shall treasure forever. Now, we should remember, Helen Keller in a sense is a granddaughter of the Civil War, a father fought in the war. But what she said then about those veterans is true of the Korean, the Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan. The words remain just as true. The technology of treating wounds and replacing limbs has expanded remarkably, but the psychology is the same. In November, 1945, on the 24th of November, she visited Kittery Naval Hospital on that Goodwill tour. She met with the governor of New Hampshire, and one of the first main servicemen she met with was aviation mechanic Kenneth Allen of Stanwood Street in South Portland, Maine. And she was able to give a very fascinating and lengthy conversation with him. Of the Marines, Helen Keller said, much of my admiration is based upon the corps' stern tenacity of purpose, which the Marines have been instructed to hold to their tasks, no matter how futile the task may be. The fact that they do this, never knowing whether they could win or not, is typical of their lives, and in a sense, think of it, typical of our own life, manifested in the lifetime struggle of courage against darkness and deafness. That afternoon, Helen Keller went aboard the United States submarine at Kittery, the Tuna, her first visit down into a submarine. The Press Herald pointed out she'd been aboard other warships, first time she ever been on a submarine, she astonished the newsmen by climbing right down the hatchway and going through the control and engine rooms of the ship. She appeared immensely interested in the mechanisms, including the periscope, and said that for the first time in her life, she was able to visualize what a submarine is. The Tuna was credited with sinking 15 enemy vessels and three Japanese warships. The executive officer was Lieutenant Thomas Gardner, United States Navy, son of the former main governor, William Tudor Gardner. Also aboard, I was delighted to discover, was crewman, sea man second class, Lauren Brett of Oxford, Maine. My mother was in school with his sister, I was able to discover. Helen Keller thought the Tuna visit was one of the greatest experiences of her life. She then went down aboard the German sub, U873, visited below decks and said, you know, those Germans not given much attention to the comfort of their crews when designing their submarines. What about blind servicemen returning home as a result of the war? Said Helen Keller, I tell them to realize how bravely they have fought against their handicaps and how they have banished fear. At the same time, they have acquired the finest kinds of courage and the highest of morale. These boys have acquired new arts, new skills, and are looking forward to self-reliance and independence. You must welcome them just as in the old days of their normal life and you will be surprised how comforted you will be. Now that's typical Helen Keller. She is saying to those who give understanding to the afflicted, those who give shall receive and the unexpected comfort will go to the families that are opening their hearts. Oh, Helen Keller had a very long life still to live ahead of her. I used to think when I was a very small child, before I learned to read, she said, that everybody was always happy and at first I was grieved to know that pain and great sorrows exist, but now I understand that if it were not for these things, people would never learn to be brave and patient and loving. The best and most beautiful things in the world cannot be seen or even touched. They must be felt with the heart. In Sullivan, her beloved teacher always spelled with a capital T. Had passed away in 1936. She had spent 49 years with Helen Keller. Helen Keller never got over the loss. Her beloved secretary and assistant, Polly Thomas, Polly Thompson, Scottish-born, spoke with a delightful burr. You can hear her on the internet if you go and listen to her voices. Had a stroke in 1957 and died in 1960. Helen Keller took it very hard. It was another lifeline to the world that was gone. In 1957, Helen Keller had the experience of seeing the first stage production of The Miracle Worker about Anne Sullivan and herself. Helen Keller played by Anne Bancroft and by the young actress Patty Duke. She did not entirely approve of the play, but in a sense was glad it was done. In 1961, Helen Keller had her first stroke and retired from public life. She continued, though, as a public figure in legend, about her interest in communicating with the outside world diminished. She often seemed back in the days with Anne Sullivan and her travels. Those being the happiest days of her life. Other strokes followed and the complication of diabetes and it led her to a wheelchair. In 1969, President Lyndon Johnson awarded her the Presidential Medal of Freedom, the highest civilian honor possible in the United States. Those around her were never sure she was even aware of the distinction. She passed quietly and in her sleep on Saturday afternoon, June 1st, 1968, approaching her 88th birthday at her home in Connecticut. Helen Keller read the Braille Bible every morning of her life. She especially enjoyed psalms and her favorites were the 90th psalm, the 93rd psalm, the 100th psalm and especially the 23rd psalm, the Lord's Prayer. I'm sure Walter can probably dictate every one of those to us. And that's a lot as nice as that, Shepherd. That is correct. And then the one in the psalms, 90th, he that draws in the secret place of the most high shall abide in the shadow of y'all. The, thank you, Joyce, so that the tape may catch that. The 90th psalm says that he that abides in he that draws from the secret place of the most high shall abide in the shadow of the almighty, unquote. You can see why she would pick up that and remember it always. Thank you. Helen Keller had smiled at her reputation as an American saint. We shouldn't forget she was a real person with all that meant and she often reminded folks. She was high strung, she was opinionated, she was passionate. She liked her martini before supper, sometimes liked too. She liked life with spice. She loved hot dogs. She would say, don't forget the mustard, unquote. She would not speak, she left us the tradition of talking books which she didn't like at first but later came to embrace and was key in helping establish that talking book program. Walter was reminiscing with me how they were large vinyl records in huge 12 by 12 packages that used to arrive in the mail and were played on bulky record players in those days. Today they're cassettes and very, very different. I think she would be proud of and use, I bet, today's optical scanners and computer access to the world in all its forms and all of its distance, instant information for all the senses available by computer. You know, her world was large, today it would be even larger and you know she still is part of our world today in a real sense. The highest result, she said, of education is tolerance. When indeed we learned that we were all related to the other, each of us, that we were all members of the same family, she said. Perhaps in a world so technologically different than her, we're still not really aware of our own human fragility. The only lightless dark, she said, is the night of ignorance and insensitivity. We differed the blind and the seeing, one from another, not in our senses, but in the use we make of them in the imagination and in the courage of which we seek within wisdom beyond the senses, unquote. We as Mainers were very fortunate, she found some pleasure here and purpose among us. So we now present these moments to the world as it were, your gift using Helen Keller's thoughts, flashes of light during her time with us, flashes of light in the darkness. Well, within these we will search for meaning and we will search for more of these moments. Tonight, Helen Keller turns 138 years old. Tomorrow, her story marches on. In reflecting on her life, let us close with our eyes open to that tomorrow. Here are words from our own Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, who she so much hoped she could have met. It's from Sam of life, which once long ago, the 12 year old Helen Keller related through manual language to Alexander Graham Bell. Lives of the great all remind us, we can make our lives sublime and departing, leave behind us footprints on the sands of time as she did. Thank you very much. But I can take one or two questions, certainly, and answer others if you have them afterwards. Yes, I saw it, yes, Joyce. That what you read of that poem of Helen Keller, was that taken from footprints in the Satan? The poem I just read? That was from Longfellow's Sam of life. I believe she prints it as an inspirational poem to her in her book of inspiration. And I think you're quite right. I did not bring that book with me. Instead, I brought the one about the vaudeville routine. Sorry. But that's a good question, Joyce. Yes, yes. My wife couldn't be here tonight, but is there a particular book, a biography? I mean, something obviously went through a lot of reference materials. Is there one or two that somebody that's not here in the room could read that would pick up some of the her life's mission and accomplishments and philosophies? Question is, yes, I shall tell you that. The question is, for the sake of the tape, are there a couple of books perhaps that we could reference you to follow up on that refer to her philosophy, interactions in life and her hopes for what people that we are? Yes, there is a book called Helen and Teacher about 800 pages by Joseph Lash, who knew Helen Keller. He's famous for writing the book, Eleanor and Franklin, for which you got the Pulitzer Prize. And there is another book that just came out at the turn of the century, Helen Keller, A Life by Dorothy Herrmann, which is very interesting in looking backwards, so to speak, through the other end of the telescope at her life and her conflicts. And for the first time getting into some of her papers at the Perkins Institute, and those are for colleagues and friends that are both at the Perkins Institute, which is no longer in Boston. I think it's out into Watertown. Yes, and certain other things that have only recently become public. Not all of them cheerful, you know. It was a life like any life, just remarkable in certain ways that she overcame. Yes, Mr. President. Oh, Vice President. I'm in trouble already. There goes my ambassadorship, right? That's all right. Mr. Vice President Lain. He was born a lot later. I just wonder if she would ever have experienced TTY. If Helen Keller had been born a little later, would she have experienced the TTY? For those who don't know, it's a telecommunication device for the deaf. Mr. Vice President, there may be some watchers who don't know. I think, but it's only my guess, she would have loved all that stuff and would have learned it and conquered it and enjoyed it and probably been a midnight user of it all the time. I do think so. That's a good question. Yes, yes, Randy. Do we ever find out if there were any records of her ever visiting the Iris? Do we have any records or proof that she visited the Iris Center? Right, because I know at one point you had said you were looking into that. That is correct. Randy Belivance asked, is there any proof, any records that she visited the Iris Center? And as of yet, I have not been able to prove that either way. I am still looking. If I couldn't prove that she was here in Vaudeville days where there would have been advertisements and that surprises me. I can trace her to Boston, but I can't seem to get any further. Then I'm not surprised, though I am disappointed that I can't prove either way yet. But that means we have something more to look for and by Christmas we'll have a different speech to make. Yes, thank you. Good question, Randy. Yes, Regal. I understood from, I thought I read in a newspaper article in the archives, I mean historical archives, that she, there was a letter that she wrote and a coin from the day buried in a time capsule on the other side of the building. So I do, I have heard of that. That's one of her writings was buried here. But not that she was physically here. Regal points out again for the sake of the film because your question may not have come through the mic. Regal believes that she has read in a news article preserved at Maine Historical Society that when the cornerstone would have been laid in the main building where we enjoy our meals and live, that a coin of that day and a letter from her was placed in that cornerstone. Now that's worthy of looking into. I found the first photo ever taken of this place in the December 1908 article in the Evening Express. But finding about the laying of the cornerstone would add one more thing to her story. I just to add to that, I understood that she ran a fundraiser for us and raised $1,000 with the Gorham Dames. That is true. Regal points out that Helen Keller ran a fundraiser with the Gorham Dames, more on that in a moment, and raised $1,000, which would be readily worth, oh goodness, $10,000 today. I don't mean dames in the Damon Runyon sense, or in the Chicago Gangster sense. They were the Gorham Society of Colonial Dames. That's what they call themselves. Although the blue bloods descended from those people that fought in the revolution or rose to the top in the Colonial Society later. That would really be nice, wouldn't it, to be able to trace. I'll be speaking out at the Colonial Dames headquarters, in fact, near the end of the month of July, and I will ask them and see what they have to say. Mr. Vice President Landry, do you have your hand up again? Yes, I'm not sure if this is related, but you were talking about how she was in this building when she was here. Well, I- Does this technically mean that this building is a few years older than, say, what, re-living? Well, what I believe, Mr. Vice President Landry asked, did I reference the fact that she'd been in this building? I believe what I referenced was that this building was named for William J. Ryan, and that she had endorsed its creation and establishment. I certainly cannot prove and would love to, Mr. Vice President, that she was here, and I'm gonna follow this as fast and as far as I can. And then we'll keep on here. That's right. That's right. We'll keep right on me, Randy. Maybe you buy her 140th for us. 140th, that's right. Yes, right in the front row. Please. Yes, John. Hi. To point out, building across the way, William J. Ryan is named after William J. Ryan, but building across the way before it became what is now known as Iris Park Apartments, was known as the Barter Memorial Building, and it was dedicated in 1914. I want to be able to repeat the good things that John is saying. He believes that what I refer to as building across the way, where indeed is today the Iris Park Apartments and where we enjoy the meals, was dedicated in 1914 as the Barker Building, and that being what I would call the main quote, unquote, MAIN building, unquote. Now there, too, is the thing we should make sure that we nail down exactly so that I can... If Helen visited that particular building, it would be interesting to find out because the only thing we have is that she communicated with Mr. Ryan, but we don't know if she communicated with the Barker person. Who is this Barker? I believe that Mr. Barker was one of the early directors. If my file is here, I'll bring that out for you. And what John and the Vice President Landry have just pointed out, it would be interesting to know if she ever went to that building or communicated with the director, Mr. Barker, at that time. Now, these are all good things. We gotta find more, don't we? It's another speech for another time. I got my work cut out for you. I got my work cut out for me. And it was one more question. Then we should, I can hear the cookies singing to you. Who? Blame that on my wife. Ha ha ha ha ha. Sarah Belivance has a question. Hi, Sarah. Hi. I do actually have a question. Since the National Federation of the Blind in recent years have been focusing some of their, their legislative duties on, you know, making sure that the blind and visually impaired can get equal pay. And they have, you know, made sure that in all states the sheltered workshops are closed. Do you think that Ms. Keller would actually, you know, be instrumental in, you know, helping us do that in terms of now that most of our blind population is not working? The question Sarah poses is given the fact that the National Federation now is working on many fronts of legislation in many states and that the one of their objects is equal pay for equal work as with other sighted people. And that many of the quote sheltered workshops have been closed all around the country. And that many people who are blind or other abled are not working now. What would Helen Keller's position on it be? Well, one can never know because she's not here and didn't deal with exactly the situation. But don't forget, she was all for labor rights, all for women's rights, and all for equal rights. I think it's safe to say she would have supported equal pay for equal work without a question and would have been pounding the podium in Augusta or wherever for that. Definitely so. It doesn't take much reading in the books about her and the books she wrote about herself to see that she was quite outspoken. If she was able on the vaudeville stage to make a joke about the president of the United States and say that Lennon was one of the greatest living human beings, you can imagine she didn't pull any punchers in her books. So Sarah, I think she would be for that short list. The long list is something you'll have to answer when you're in your own heart by reading her stuff. Well, folks, I guess we've asked questions and I thank you. Helen would be so pleased, I believe. Before we take off and do refreshments, there is one other thing I'd like to point out for those on the listening on the Facebook. This is related to the talk we have just had tonight. Helen advocated, because she was both deaf and blind, for I'm sure the needs of both at one time or another many times in her life. What we are doing today, or what we are doing these days, and I am its interim president in this state, is we at the National Federation of the Blind of Maine are forming what I'm calling a dual sensory impaired chapter. And again, I have said I am its interim president until a proper government can be formed. If you're listening on YouTube, no of any blind, deafblind, or dual sensory impaired individuals in our state that would like to join us in our effort to advocate for those individuals here in this state. By all means, let us know and reach out to us. For our next meeting is the 19th of July at 7 p.m. over at the Iris Park Apartments. Thank you, John. And I think that we have come to the conclusion of our program, but yet not the end, but the beginning of where we are going. Thank you very much. And if anybody has further questions, I will be happy to answer them in the next few minutes. Hey, I have something to say. I was going to say that one of Helen Keller's quotes was, given a miracle, which would she take? Her sight or her hearing? And she always said her hearing. You can communicate better with your hearing than you can with your eyes. And Helen Keller wrote a beautiful essay called Three Days of Light. If she was given three days to be able to see and to hear, what would she do? And it's a very touching essay. I would suggest that you look it up. Thank you, folks. Thank you very much.