The Washington herald., 1920-10-31
MAY BE ONLY
BLIND MEMBER
Representative Schall Of
Minnesota, Likely to Hold
y Honors for Sightless.
BY LABERT ST. CLAIR.


With Senator Gore out Of the run
! ming, there is left only one blind
candidate for Congress this year. He
is Representative Thomas Schall, of
Minnesota, a Progressive Repub-
lican. II looks as IL Schall will sue
ceed himself, all right, as next year
there probably will remain only one
blind man in Congress besides the
blind chaplain Of the House, the Rev.
Cowden.
Schall went out into Minnesota,
the other day, to campaign for the
national Republican ticket and to
make a few speeches for himself. He
will not campaign very hard in his
own behalf. for In his district, where
he got about five votes to one for
his opponent in the recent primary,
1t is not necessary for him to do
much work. But he will work hard
for Harding principally because he
Is unalterably opposed to the league
of nations.
Despite his blindness, Schall is one
of the livest wires in the House.
Ever since he came here, during the
old Progressive days, he has been
very active. He Is a member of the
rules committee, he cast the decid-
ing vote for Champ Clark when the
Missourian last was elected Speaker,
and. during the European war, he
went abroad and visited the battle
fields.
Schalfs visit to the battlefelds
came about in an odd way. 1t was
thought that some member of the
Naval Affairs Committee, of which
he was one, should go abroad in the
interest of the House, but, because
OF the danger from submarines. all
save Schall declined to go.
III go, II you'll let my secretary
go along" he said.
The committee readily agreed to
this plan and Schall took his wife
along as his secretary-a position
which she fills regularly. When
the War Department issued a per-
init for SchaIrs secretary to go
across. 1t did not realize that she
was a woman, and the officers at
New York tried to hold her UP, but
IL was too late. So she and SchalI
made the trip. He later submitted
an interesting report to Congress
on his trip.
Ever since Schall FIRST ran for
congress. his enemies have made it
not for him up in his district On
one occasion, when he was sched-
uled to speak at the State fair, his
enemies got his meeting called off
He therefore went downtown and.
with his wife, stood on a promi-
nent street corner and for five hours
told how he had been deprived of
the right of free speech in the fair
grounds. Every time Mrs. SchalI
saw a new group of voters coming
down the street, she would tell her
husband to start talking, and he
would.
An accident with an electric cigar
lighter caused SchaIl to lose his
syesight. But the accident never
caused him to lose any of his op-
timism-
One of the youngest men running
for the governorship of any State
this year is Arthur Koontz, of West
Virginia He is in his 30s. He is
wealthy. his father. s country mer-
chant, having made money when oil
was struck near his place. The
Republican party is split two ways
over the governorship in West Vir-
ginia and it is said that koontz
may squeeze in.
A riproaring, snorting Southern
Democrat dropped into the Chicago
headquarters of the Democratic
national headquarters a few days
ago. and said:
IF Senator Pat Harrison says
for me to bet on a certain State
(name deleted) going Democratic,
I'll do II in a minute" =
Whereupon, just to oblige, one of
Pats friends wired him in New
York the full circumstances, and
Pat wired back that it was per
fectly safe to bet the money. A
few hours later the Democrat bet
| upwards of several thousand dol
lars on Cox and then went home.
Aren't you afraid to bet just
,, on the word of one man." someone
asked.
We'll. Pat never has lied to me
yet" the Senator's friend replied.
land I'll take a chance on him
again"
When former Representative
Doremus. of Michigan, heard of
the incident, he wiped away a bit
ter tear and allowed that such
| confidence in Senator was too
1