The Radical Dissent of Helen Keller “So long as I confine my
activities to social service and the blind, they compliment me
extravagantly, calling me 'arch priestess of the sightless,'
'wonder woman,' and a 'modern miracle.' But when it comes to a
discussion of poverty, and I maintain that it is the result of
wrong economics—that the industrial system under which we live
is at the root of much of the physical deafness and blindness in
the world—that is a different matter! It is laudable to give aid
to the handicapped. Superficial charities make smooth the way of
the prosperous; but to advocate that all human beings should
have leisure and comfort, the decencies and refinements of life,
is a Utopian dream, and one who seriously contemplates its
realization indeed must be deaf, dumb, and blind.” —Helen Keller
(letter to Senator Robert La Follette, 1924) The bronze statue
of Helen Keller that sits in the U.S. Capitol shows the blind
girl standing at a water pump. It depicts the moment in 1887
when her teacher, A