The Montgomery advertiser., 1902-11-16
oKLAHoMA's BLIND ORATOR.
He is in Great Demand at Democratic
Meetings.

The drawing card in the late political
campaign out in Oklahoma was T. p.
Gore of Lawton, the Democratic nominee
for the Territorial Senate in the district
composed of Caddo and Coma ache coun-
ties, both thrown open to settlement only
a year ago. Mr.. Gore is blind, and has
been since he was eleven years of age,
when he accidentally, with an arrow
gun. shot his right eye out at Jackson.
Miss. At that time he was a page in
the Senate. Theree years before play
mate, while in boyish passion. had
blinded his left eye with a stone.
The reputation of the blind orator had
become such that he was in great demand
and went travelling with Mr.. Cross, nomf-
nee for delegate to Congress, over all of
Oklahoma a Territory the size of the
two speeches a day. Great crowds came
out to hear the man who handles the
English language as Blind Tom did the
piano. In the meantime the confidence of
his friends was such that work in his
Senatorial district was abandoned.
This sightless young man had won lau-
rels in politics before that campaign. A
page at eleven, nominee for the Legisla-
ture at 10, Populistic elector-at-large in
Mississippi three years later, unanimously
selected in 1900 for Congressional stand
ard-bearer' by the same party in Texas,
while absent in South Dakota speaking
for the fusion ticket-sucn is the political
history of Thomas Pryor Gore. But al
ways he was defeated, never having held
office since his pageship: His character
is best portrayed by snre esat instances;
prepare to attend school for the blind.
he replied:
Il will go to the school here. A blind
school will furnish neither the books nor
the opportunity l seek"
And he did. Charles Pitman read his
books to him in the normal school. and
he took first honors in his class. T. l..
Lamb was his amenuensis In the law
hOf In in at he
All through the normal school and uni
versity, memory was young Cores reli-
ance.
The acute memory defeated Congress
man Money, now a United States Senator
from Mississ ppi. The Congressman was
to speak in Hohenlinden, a small rural
town. Gore. twenty and blind, requested
"a division of time. Money, who had
heard him, rudely replied:
Il will speak as long as l please; you
are at liberty to do the same"
He haDangued the voters for three
hours. never dreaming that young Gore
would reply. But he had reckoned with
out his host. The younger man waited
patiently until his time, and then enter
tanned the rural. crowd for four hours
He quoted the Congressional Record, page
by page, on his celebrated antagonist,
ridiculing him numerically. At the close
the thoroughly enraged Congressman in
sultingly remarked:
IF you were not blind, would debate
with you in another way.
Quick as a flash came the reply:
Congressman, blindfold yourself and
march out l will defeat you in that way
the same as l have on the rostrum." But
the challenge was unheeded.
His first forensic effort of legal ma
ture was the defence of his boyish friend
Reuben Smith. charged with murder. At
that time Gore was attending law school,
Hearing that his neighbor and friend was
In serious trouble, he wrote:
Il trust | may defend him. He is too
noble to have murdered any one.
And stranger than fiction is the fact
that the same day young Gore wrote this
letter, the boy in Jail. far away had said
TO the father of that student:
Young Tom must speak for me. His
eloquence will save me-
And II did.