The Redwood gazette., 1919-04-09
mike" Dowling
Makes Best Speech
10 SAYS JUDGE CHAS. HUGHES
AFTER TALK IN NEW
YORK HIPPODROME

AOANA n1TIODnOME
Frank Whitney, former Marshall
boy, writes the following account OF
a recent Red Cross meeting in the
New York Hippodrome at which
Mike" Bowling of Olivia and the
United States, was one of the big at
fractions.
That's the best American speech /
ever heard" and Judge Charles Evans
Hughes, recent presidential candidate,
former New York governor and JUS
tice Of the Supreme Court, slapped
the table with his hand to enthusias-
ideally emphasize the statement he
shot at the big audience, as the ap-
plause subsided when mike Bowling
sSeeturned to his chair. And the audi
ence evidently egreed with him, for
they responded with another hearty
burst of applause.
1T was last Sunday afternoon. in the
big New York Hippodrome. The oc-
casion was complimentary meeting
to "Our Disabled Soldiers and Sailors"
under the auspices of New York
Chapter of the American Red Cross
following a four days session of the
international Reconstruction Confer
ence held in New York. Hon. Charles
Evans Hughes was chairman of the
meeting.
And because you may not hear of it,
I'm tellin' you.
The Hippodrome has 5,697 seats.
There may have been ninty-seven
vacant seats; they were not noticea-
BILE, for there were more than five
thousand soldiers and sailors and war
workers, with few of their friends
in the big audience. Outside, on side
streets were long rows of Red Cross
ambulances which had brought wound
ed soldiers and sailors from the hos
pitals, every ambulance driven by a
gray uniformed, leather -putteed wo-
man driver. with an attendant sim
ilarly uniformed. Inside were hun
dreds of wounded soldiers and sail
ors, on crutches and in wheel chairs,
Ssome with a leg gone, some with an
Sarm gone, accompanied by Red Cross
nurses. Tt was for them that the
meeting was held, for them that the
international Reconstruction Confer
ence had been in session, to aid and
encourage them in meeting the new
conditions in life imposed by their
physical handicaps.
Handicaps, to be sure. But their
serious faces lighted up as Dowling
shouted his concluding sentence at
them, "handicaps are the spurs with
which to tickle the ribs of the great
American Thoroughbred, Opportunity,
and urge him under the wire to VIC
tory" and the speaker was the per-
sonal exemplification of his, assertion,
as he paused with uplifted wooden left
arm and a stump of a right hand with
out fingers or thumb, then turned and
walked on his two wooden legs to his
seat.
On the stage, back of the speakers,
,on raised seats, was chorus of
Thousand voice three-fourths of them.
women garbed as red cross nurses.
On the right of the stage was a large
delegation of women ambulance driv-.
ers; on the left a delegation of Red
Cross hospital attendants. With the
speakers were delegates to the Inter
national Reconstruction Conference
from Great Britain, Canada, France,
Italy, Belgium, and the United States,
including men of note, and many in
officers uniforms. Many of them are
leaving this week to work among the
hospitals and Institutes for vocation
al instruction to crippled and disabled
soldiers in France and England.
The demonstrations by crippled men
were wonderful Lew Young has one
arm off near the shoulder. the other
off between the elbow and wrist, yet he
came swinging jauntily on the stage,
carrying a big travelling bag, with an
overcoat under his arm, tossed them
on table, swept his hat off, and be-
gan to tell the boys what he could do
without arms. He opened his bag, dug
into it with the stump of his right
arm slipped, a leather wrist-band on his
stump, with which he held various
small implements as wanted, lighted
a cigarette, unbuttoned one shoe, un-
laced and laced the other, brushed his
clothes. said he could dress and un-
dress himself, but drew the line at
trying to tie his four-if1-hand tie,
ksRlich he said was a two-handed job.
Charles Weibell claims to be the
champion one-legged buck and wing
dancer, and the worlds highest kicker.
He wears a peg leg and does break
neck dance that ought to get him a
two-legged job in any show. He took
his leg off and spent about fifteen
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