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Blind Man Drives Automo bile 7 Years B-ali DeWitt Smith, Operator of the Tefhrphoue Substation at the Kim ball House, Won’t Cross the Street Alone; He says It’s Too Dangerous (By Angus Porkerson, in Atlanta Journal) tk-Witt Smith, who has been stone bi nd since he was sixteen years old, 1;x.% Arisen an automobile for the last tc- ten > ears. T reel's ago he changed a tire witVi ul help. *1 don’t like to do that,” he said, ine xlialeii another number in the sub-station at the KimbalJ Hra-e. '“When I jack up the car I ITS my bands ro darned greasy.” He stopped for a moment and S rovig fl. *'] v ;.nt to remember that num ber," he explained. “I have to keep a record of all the local phone calls through this station. I can keep as ma ty as twenty in my mind at a time, IV and ‘J’s’ and ‘Walnuts’ and the test, but that’s the limit. They seem to spill out after that.” Far ? welve years DeWitt Smith has beoji operator at the Kimball House y-b-7.‘jjie.K>n, and in that time has be t (ami • rye of the best known figures !a At! an la—a blind man who can do anything. “1 l.cX the -ar out of my garage •nearly every morning,” he added. *”Fhat’s at my home, 438 South Pryor street, and I drive when I have ecrr.eune with me who isn’t nervous and is a good band at seeing things and telling me how the road lies. Sixth Sente *'You’ve no idea how my ears help Ten*. 1 can hear things that you cr.uMn’t detect at all except by see ing; and Pm convinced* I have a sixth seront. Every blind person has. I 5w T f know what it is—something in si.V. that lets you know what your eyes can’t see.” *l>d you have trouble walking on the streets?” I asked. “‘i don’t do that. I think it’s dang *w>nDeWitt Smith laughed at fcnnsrff. “It IS more dangerous for mv ftrtm driving an automobile,” he ißrxrM med. “I never take the wheel ixriii - 5 here’s sombody> there to tell x.n. ?mtV. ahead, and I don’t -peed. Speeding is what causes accidents, fitft now on the other hand when I start walking I can’t help hurrying. Fiji naturally nervous and when I sot out Tor any place I want to get there, '(ne first thing I’d do would be to bast out across the street and run right over somebody’s flivver. Then 1 wiV/ht ffiave to pay him damages.” The h'lcnd operator sits at a desk i* a 'iitfifce Toom withdrawn from the lebhy 3 the Kimball House. He titoiMed toward the two rows ©I chairs facing each other and stretching up and down the lobby— ehjarn iihat haven’t been empty in t3ie tmnmry of man. “That”*, where all the laws are raadr,, or talked about,” he “‘Ev vtj great question, from how to run s one-horse farm to the plan of sal nation, iis settled right out there.” Sound of Human Voice* “You know the thing I like most alxut this job, this work, this place?’* , I* asloed suddenly. ‘‘lt’s people. What 1 get most out of life from is knowing folks. I had lots rather be bkrtd than deaf and dumb, because there you are cut off from people aud from sounds. There isn’t any thing sweeter than the voice of a person you know and like, is there? “To me, the two best things in the world are music and good conver aatmm. You can’t beat them. I’ve m notion there is too much reading in this world and not enough good talk. 1 mean real conversation where peo ple say something. “1 don’t know just hundreds of people, 1 know thousands of them. I believe I know somebody in every ceunty in Georgia, and a lot of places h other states. They come here to calls, or I get to know them os-er the phone.” ‘Tunny things happen over the patent?” was suggested. ‘*‘l -guess so, but I never listen to telephone conversations, except when Wp* Chinamen get to talking. That’s kwprpvned a dozen times in my mem wry. You never heard anything like SL* Tte '{Tinned and scratched his head,! &ZEtQe&, moved his glasses further ws> j Ms nose, and twisted his body zb ’h* K?hair. ’“lwb -won’t believe this,” said De- Witt, “1-ut it happened. A man came i and I looked up as I always zud asked him if he wanted a umVr. He didn’t say anythng, but started writing on a pad. I could twtatr Mm. 1 hear lots of things. I Mm again, and he kept on "writing. By that time I began to mad, I though somebody was trying to play a joke on me, and it struck me as a poor joke. I asked him again, and then I said: ‘Darn your soul, if you’re trying to poke fun at me, you’ve come to the wrong man. Me and you are goin’ to have it all over this office in a minute. Now, do you want a number?” Just then a friend of mine—l could recognize him by his footsteps—came in at the door, and he started chuckling. ‘De- Witt,’ ha said, ‘this man’s deaf and dumb, and lie’s getting just as sore as you are. He thinks you’re trying to'get funny with him.’ ” Recognize* FooUtep* The blind man who sits at the switchboard in the room off from the Kimball House lobby, leaned back and laughed, humor and good health in every line of his face. ‘‘lf my friend hadn’t come in I be lieve me and that deaf and dumb man woulu have had it out right there,” he declared. “Neither one of us was going to stand for the other making fun of him.” “You say you recognized your friend by his footstep?” I asked. “I can do that,” he answered se riously. “I can tell my friends by the touch of -heir hands. I can tell them if they only come into the room and stand still and I feel their presence. I have distinct impres sions of things that come to me, I don’t know how. “There is a mental picture paint ed on my brain of all the people I know well, and I am sure that if my eyes could be opened suddenly I would recognize them the minute I saw them, even before they spoke. It must be that sixth sense I told you of before. Nature, or something, tries to compensate us for the things we have lost. When our eyes are gone, othei senses, and even anew one, try to take their place.” Paul Donehoo, blind coroner, who walks the streets alone, crosses even at crowded corners and boards street cars when he chooses, has similar theories. He told me once that he can hear inanimate objects. “Hear*” Lrick Wall. “I can hear a telephone post or a brick wall, and through hearing I can avoid bumping against it," he said. “That sounds queer? Well, I believe there is a sensible expjana tion. We know that all matter is made up of molecules constantly in motion. A post is standing still, but iho molecular parts of it are always nu in . My hearing, abnormally de veloped, makes me aware to an ex tent of this motion—enables me to HEAR the post.” DeWitt Smith, in answer to ques tions, went back to the accident that destroyed his eyes. “That was in 1904,” he said. “A stick kicked out jn a planing mill and hit me over the left eye, destroying the sight. I went blind in the other eye later. For a while after that I did nothing, went to moving picture shows mostly.” “What could you see there?” “A rather good deal of the pic ture,” he declared, leaning forward to explain. “You’d think that a movie could moan nothing to a blind per son. But it isn’t only with your eyes that you -see; your whole body takes in things. With someone to tell me | about what’s happening and with the music, I get it practically all. I SEE the picture. ‘‘l do believe,” he added, “that I get more of a thrill out of baseball. I used to play baseball, and the crowd and the noise and the smack of a bat against the ball give me all the fun I want. “I’d like to hear Bobby Jones hit a golf ball,” he mused. “I don’t know much about golf, but I imagine he whips the club into the ball. Rath er a crack isn’t there when he hits one three hundred yards. I’d see him all right; yep, I’d see him.” He dialed another number and made change for the customer. “I handle twenty to twenty-five dollars some days,” he said, “and make ! change all the time. I have no | trouble with silver money, and no- I body yet has put over a bum nickel I on me, but 1 can’t tell about bills." He must have read something that was in my mind. “I hold my head up high, don’t I?” he agreed. “That’s because when I was a boy I noticed that so many blind people, particularly when they were walking, seemed to go with their heads down. I’m never going to do that. When I walk I try to hold my head up as though I had a million dollars. A man has got to accept the inevitable and make the most of it. He’s got to keep on be ing a man.” “Well,” he got up and “looked around” for his hat. “Have to be going. Think of taking a little ride this afternoon. There isn’t anythin? like an automobile, is there, the wind i hitting you in the face and the road sliding by under you? There isn’t but one bad thing about automobiles, and that’s changing tires. I hate it. It gets my hands so darned greasy.” SOME FACTS ABOUT THE ELLIS HEALTH LAW AND THE NEED OF COUNTY HEALTH WORK, The actual resblts of a full - time Commissioner of Health are Just as certain of returns for your money as iny Investment that you can make. The law Is a local option one, and Is effective only In counties where :wo successive grand juries recom mend It. We cannot command the work too highly to our citiz ns, as ihe following statement of tin work accomplished will demonstrate: 1. The adoption of the Ellis Health f-aw means the employment of a spe cially trained medical health officer who devotes his entire time to the business of looking after her* h and sanitation. The law also provides for the employment of public health nurs es and sanitary Inspectors as assist ants to the health officer where de sired. The nurses assist with the school medical inspection, help to ar range for the correction of defects, and, with the health officer, reach mothers and Infants, especially among the poorer classes, through the me dium of child centers, mothers’ classes and home visit*. 2. About 70,000 school children re ceived medical inspection during 1925 through the operation of thiß law ; 13,162 children found with handicap ping defects received corrective treat ment, and 11,222 children were treated for hookworm. 3. The commissioners of health, op erating under the Ellis Health Law, gave free of charge anti-typhoid vac cine to 104,2 V) people in the years of 1924 and 1925. 4. In the state of Georgia, in coun ties having a full-time health service, typhoid fever was reduced 18%, while in other counties without health ser vice, the rate was reduced only 3%. 5. During the past four years. 9.903 sanitary privies were installed by the commissioners of health. Dysen tery, hookworm and summer diar rhoea of Infants will not be controlled by any other method in the rural dis tricts. 6. There Is annually in Georgia a great sacrifice of human life on the altar of Indifference. During 1925, 667 deaths were caused by typhoid fever, 220 by diptheria and 428 by malaria. In 1925, 1,183 infants, under two years of age, died of dysentery and diarrhoea. During their hours of heroic effort to establish new life in this world, more that. 500 would-bo mothers made the supreme sacrifice. 7. These and many other lives might have been saved if well-organ ized health departments, well manned by a well-equipped personnel, had been established in each county of the state. 8. COST? This in dolalrs and cents is about one-tenth of the actual amount it saves the people. 9. A low death rate is much more to he desired than a 10-w tax rate, be cause health work will make growth more perfect, decline less rapid, death more distant, and life stronger and happier. 10. Write to the State Beard of Health, Atlanta, Georgia, for further information. VOTE FOR HEALTH Onr people are most earnestly urged to vote for the constitutional amend ment this fall to permit the collection of births and causes of deaths. This amendment was made necessary by a ruling of our Supreme court. The re cent General Assembly passed the necessary law healing this, and it now comes up for ratification by the peo ple. Every citizen should work and vote for this amendment. Unless Georgia has a vital statistics law, none of our statistics can be counted by the Cen sus Bureau. Tell your neighbor to vote for the vital statistics constitu tional amendment, thereby putting our state in the rog'atration area. SWIMMING POOLS Many swimming pools are not clean and sanitary. They can be made so; It might require some money to make them so, and owners of pools some tlires run them for profit and are. therefore, not anxious to speud any more money than they are compelled to to get by. A dirty swimming pool is a danger to the community; a num ber of diseases might be contracted from using them. All users of swim ming pools should know if the water in which they bathe is clean. If in doubt about a public pool write and ask the State Board of Health, At lanta, Ga., abont it. Every citizen should vote! it la his duty to do so. It is also his to put Georgia in the vital statistics reg istration area, therefore be sure to vote in favor of the constitutional amendment for vital statistics. Have your physician use the typhoid vaccine now. Tlie Fourth of July Picnic THE Fourth of July sees the picnic season well launched. The nation’s greatest holiday is the signal for a locking of doers and departure for the seashore, the woods, lakes, and fields. Into the car goes the family group and away to join the long lines of automo biles headed out of city and town in every direction. No way of preparing a picnic meal is simpler or more productive of results than that of using canned foods, heating them in the cans and serving on plate3. A large ket tle, taken along, is filled with hot water. All the cans go into it and are heated to boiling or at least until very hot. Anew type of ran opener makes it possible to lift the can out of the water, open and empty it without touching it with the hands. I Among tfce canned foods that TOOMBS COUNTY CITIZENS BACK LANKFORD FOR PUBLIC SERVICE (RAILROAD) COMMISSION I Lyons, Ga. —(Special.)—A large number of citizens of Toombs county have swung the campaign of George W. Lankford, of Lyons, Ga., candidate for public service commissioner, Into real aetion by perfecting an organi sation for the purpose of carrying his campaign to the voters throughout the State. In this organization S. J. Henderson, of Lyons, prominent banker and farmer, also president of Toombs County Fair Association, is chairman of the Lankford Toombs county campaign committee. They present Mr. Lankford,to the voters of the state as a man of out standing merit and ability. Mr. Lank ford is a lawyer by profession, but is also the largest farmer and land owner in Toombs county. On his farms at this time there is in culti ■ vation 1,000 acres of cptton, 80 acres of tobacco and a large acreage in corn, potatoes, etc. He is president of the Georgia Sweet Potato Growers’ Association, and has always been active in the civic affairs of this section of the state; is now chairman of the board of trustees of, the Lyons consolidated schools, is di rector and attorney for the Toombs County bank, county attorney, has served eight years in the house and two years in the senate of the general assembly of Georgia. TRAIN SERVICE TO AND FROM ATLANTA SEABOARD AIR LINE RAILWAY Leave Jefferson G. M. 9.03 a. m. 4.53 p. m. Arrive Athens G. M. 10.10 a. m. 5.50 p. m. Leave Athens S. A. L.' 2.45 p. m. 6.15 p. m Arrive Atlanta S. A. L. *4.10 p. m. *B.OO p. m Leave Atlanta S. A. L. *6.10 a. m. Arrive Athens S. A. L. 10.00 a. m. Leave Athens G. M. 11.15 a. m.(Ex. Sunday) Arrive Jefferson G. M. 1.00 p. m. ’Atlanta, Central Time For further or other information, write or call on C. G. LaHATTE, T. P. A., S. A. L. By., At lanta, Ga. H. E. PLEASANTS. Asst. Gen. Passenger Agent. S. A. L. Ry., Atlanta, Ga. WEDDING GIFTS When you need anything for the June Bride, call and see us. We have a good assortment of silver ware, china and glass at reasonable prices. > M.F.FICKEIT JEWELRY CO. Jewelers-Optometrist* 224 Clayton Street Athens, Ga. SCHOOL TIME Four Years High School In LITERARY ARTS, HOME ECONOMICS, AGRICULTRE AND MECHANICS Cheapest Boardng School ip the State. Fall term be gins first Monday in September. This is your opportuni ty. Wrte for our new catalog. NINTH A. & M. SCHOOL Clarkesviile, Ga. lend themselves particularly well to this delightfully simple method, are baked beans in their several varie ties, spaghetti with tomato sauce, succotash, a picnic favorite of many years ago, since the Indians are credited with first preparing it. Ta males are delicious and another dish that is sure to meet with favor on such an outing is clam chowder. With the beans and succotash, Boston brown bread, also to be ob tained in cans, is most acceptable. Gherkins are a good relish, and if purchased in cans will be fresh and firm. Preparation of the basket takes a few minutes, rather than the hours needed for sandwiches. There is no burden of work on anyone, and none starts the day’s trip half tired from putting up the lunch. Yet the result is a tempting and delicious meal. ■BKL../, GEORGE W. LANKFORD, Outstanding Candidate For Public Service Commissioner. In this service he was always activo in the important measures coming Ire fore the legislature during his ten ure. • ANNOUNCEMENTS JOE COLLINS FOR CONGRESS To People of Ninth District: I am a candidate for Congress subject to Democratic primary. ’ Born in log cabin in Union county poverty compelled doing without edul cation or making my way. Takin? provisions from home, I did my cook ing and laundry nearly three year,* at Hiawassee. After graduating there, at Mercer and Virginia Uni versity, have practiced law in Gaines ville since 1902. I have never held office except 8 years ago I carred 8 of 9 counties for Solicitor General, served f OUr years, retired without asking re election. I favor more Federal aid for roads. I favor bettering farm conditions and labor. I believe Congressmen from South could exert more influence on National legislation by being mow outspoken. Will appreciate your help. Joseph G. Collins. FOR CONGRESS To the People of the Ninth Con gressional District of Georgia: I am a candidate for Congress from the Ninth Congressional District of Georgia, subject to the primary to be held in September. My candi dacy for thi3 high office is based up on my experience in farming and business, and upon my record as a citizen and legislator. I was born and reared in the Ninth District. It Was the home and birth place of my father and mother. I am bound to this district by ties of interest and affection which can never be broken. It is the desire to serve my people and to advance the welfare and pros perity of this district which prompts me to seek the honor and privilege of representing you in Congress. If I am given this opportunity of service, I shall discharge the duties of the of fice faithfully and conscientiously, always having in view the best in terest of all the people. I shall ap preciate your vote and influence. Respectfully, Herman P. DeLaperriere. FOR CONGRESS To the People of the Ninth Dis trict: In announcing my candidacy for the Democratic nomination to Congress, to be determined at theJ polls on September the Bth, I wish to say it is my purpose to visit all the counties in the district at as early date as possible and give an account of my work as your public seryant. I must at the same time keep up with my official duties, which I have never neglected. It will be a pleasure to me to meet all the peo ple, and shall make it a point to do so. In the meantime, I shall appre ciate very highly anything done by the people in behalf of my re-elec tion. If re-elected, the pehple, one and all, may depend upon me to continue my offorts for them in all matters in which they are interested, and to do my duty in the future as I have in the past. Sincerely yours, Thomas M. Bell. FOR REPRESENTATIVE I hereby announce my candidacy for Representative of Jackson coun ty, subject to the rules and regu lations of primary election Sept. Bth, 1926. lam serving my first term as Representative, and hope that mv record and experience will be re garded by the people of the county as entitling me to an endorsement, by re-election, which is usually accorded officials who have served only one term. In this connection, I wish to express my gratitude to the neople of this county for their kindness, co operation and help during my term ot office. Your interest and continued support will be highly appreciated. Respectfully, W. B. Rice. FOR REPRESENTATIVE I hereby announce my candidacy for re-election to the next Geneia Assembly of Georgia from Jackso county, subject to the action of tn Democratic primary. Having ser\e only one term, and having given my best efforts for the interest of tne county, I am asxing for an endorse ment. My experience in the session of the , present General Assem > have fitted me for greater and more effective service to the people, anu if elected I pledge to look caref after all questions that touch up the welfare and Economical admmi stration of State affairs. Respectively, Homer Hancock. FOR REPRESENTATIVE Having been urged by friends, anc having a desire to be of service t< my people, I announce myself * candidate for Representative of eon County, subject to the action ' ° the Democratic primary to be "e.c September Bth, lft26. Earne. soliciting the votes and influence o the good men and women of Jacxso county. I am, yours for service, *i?; , , J.E.J.Lo rd *