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Dr. Graham Bell Repeats Blind and Deaf Girl's Message.

PLEA FOR INTELLIGENT HELP

Lack of Senses Never Aided Genius to Blossom, She Says, but It Shone Forth Despite Infirmities.

Phrase by phrase, for the most part, but often in an enthusiasm attended by little expressive pathetic gestures, delivering whole sentences before the tapping fingers of Dr, Graham Bell could restrain her, Helen Keller spoke a message out of her inner world to the inventor of the telephone, who in turn transmitted it to the audience crowded into the Waldorf-Astoria ballroom last night at a meeting held by the New York Association for the Blind.

On the platform behind Miss Keller, listening as intently as any in the audience leaning out of boxes and crowding forward on chairs, were Dr. Lyman Abbott, Richard Watson Gilder, Bishop Greer, a blind Superintendent of an industrial home for the blind, a blind musician and composer, and Mrs. John A. Macy of Boston, who, as Miss Sullivan, has long been known as Miss Keller's teacher.

Miss Keller's voice was sweet, low, and clear, but her vowel sounds were those of many Romance tongues, making her accent vaguely foreign without allowing it to be distinguished as either French, Italian, or Spanish.

When, as the last speaker on the programme, Dr. Bell had guided Miss Keller forward to a point on the platform where for a moment she stood in tremulous uncertainty, he said with feeling:

"I knew Miss Keller as a little girl, and now when I come here to take the place of her teacher for the night I find her a young woman. I came from Washington, where I had other engagements, but I couldn't resist her telegram saying that she needed me."

Then Miss Keller, standing beside Dr. Bell in her pink evening gown, made a graceful little bow.

"It is a great pleasure to me to speak in New York," she began, so that those who were near her in the audience could distinguish her words, which were repeated at once by Dr. Bell. "The men and women for whom I speak are poor and weak, in that they lack one of the chief weapons with which the human being fights his battle. But they must not on that account be sent to the rear."

Miss Keller made a wide-handed gesture backward, and smiled as she finished the sentence. The faces in the audience while intent were varied in expression. Not a few women put their handkerchiefs to their eyes while many men coughed uneasily. A moment later when Miss Keller said:

"It is a blessing to the strong to give help to the weak, otherwise there would be no excuse for having the poor always with us," with a peculiar downward inflection which held an infinity of pathos, people smiled or laughed hysterically, nervously, as they dried their eyes.

A practical plea for the blind was developed by Miss Keller. The State could teach the blind to work, but their fellow-citizens should furnish the market and give encouragement. Many had bought foolish things because the blind made them, but under an intelligent system of education the blind had been taught to make articles which were desirable for their own intrinsic merit.

"Education does not develop in the blind remarkable talent," said Miss Keller. "Like the seeing, the blind man may be a philosopher, a mathematician, a linguist, a seer, a poet, a prophet. But believe me, if the light of genius burns within him. It will burn despite his infirmity, and not because of it. The lack of one sense or two never helped a human being.

"We should be glad of the sixth or the sixteenth sense with which our friends, more generous than nature, endow us. To paraphrase Mr. Kipling, we are not heroes and we are not cowards either. We are ordinary folk, limited by an extraordinary incapacity. If we do not always succeed in our undertakings, even with assistance from friends, we console ourselves with the thought that in the vast company of the world's failures is many a sound pair of eyes."

A voice speaking from the rear of the ballroom called out to Dr. Bell: Louder! We cannot hear back here."

While Dr. Bell was replying to this request, his hand, which on Miss Keller's wrist had spoken to her directions from time to time, was now for a moment raised. This disconcerted Miss Keller to such an extent that for a time she was unable to continue. Finally complete harmony was restored between the two, and Miss Keller continued.

"I appeal to you to give the blind man the assistance that shall secure for him complete or partial independence. He is blind and falters. Therefore, go a little more than half way to meet him. Remember, however, brave and self-reliant as he is, he will always need a guiding hand in his."

She ended, and while applause was sounding that she could not hear and handkerchiefs were waved that she could not see, she laid her head for a moment on Dr. Bell's shoulder, tired out with this slow delivery of nearly 1,500 words-unheard by her. Once early in the speech Miss Keller lost the thread and passed by a sectIon of several hundred words. This, however, she inserted later, (before her conclusion,) fitting It in an appropriate place.