A BLIND SENATOR.

Wairarapa Age, Volume XXXII, Issue 10055, 28 May 1910, Page 4

A BLIND SENATOR.

The youngest member of the United States Senate is Mr T. P. Gore, from Oklahoma, and he is quite blind. Yet he is neither helpless nor clinging. Although only in his 39th year he is one of the most prominent members of the Senate, and is one of its ablest debaters. Born in Mississippi in a family of modest circumstances, Senator Gore lost his eyesight through a boyhood accident. As the light gradually failed he called up every bit of grit in his system to meet the appalling situation. He did not let his affliction interrupt his school work for a day. In schoul his fellow-students read the text book pages to him once, and he listened to the lectures. One hearing was sufficient. At 26 he was practising iaw in Texas. He was able at 30 to marry Miss Nina Kay, a Texas girl. His experience had been that of the average young lawyer. Whin at 31, be moved to Oklahoma, the young man found his element. The territory was in process of becoming a State, and politfcs'fairly hummed. One night Mr W. J. Bryan was late for a speech, and a man named Gore was put op to hold the crowd. At midnight Gore was still hclJing that crowd, which Ind forgotten all about Bryan. In person Senator Gore is of inedium'height, broardshouldered and well-built, with a plump* youthful face, and yellow hair.

When he speaks he has a trick of holding a bit of paper in his hand, which he seems to consult. He has developed the sixth sense to such a nicety that a word in his ear enables him to reconstruct the picture or scene before him. Mrs Gore, the cenator's devoted wife, is usually at his side to supply the word.