1
00:00:02,000 --> 00:00:07,000
Downloaded from
YTS.MX

2
00:00:08,000 --> 00:00:13,000
Official YIFY movies site:
YTS.MX

3
00:00:16,689 --> 00:00:20,000
[braille typewriter clanking]

4
00:00:33,103 --> 00:00:37,758
- [Helen Keller] It is Helen
Keller who salutes you.

5
00:00:37,793 --> 00:00:42,241
- [Polly Thomson] It is Helen
Keller who salutes you.

6
00:00:42,275 --> 00:00:45,413
[braille typewriter clanking]

7
00:00:53,137 --> 00:00:57,517
- [Helen Keller] You are
not familiar with my voice.

8
00:00:57,551 --> 00:01:01,344
- [Polly Thomson] You are not
familiar with my voice.

9
00:01:01,379 --> 00:01:04,517
[braille typewriter clanking]

10
00:01:09,896 --> 00:01:13,275
- [Helen Keller] I have
written from my soul.

11
00:01:13,310 --> 00:01:16,724
- [Polly Thomson] I have
written from my soul.

12
00:01:32,551 --> 00:01:35,137
[door creaks]

13
00:01:39,206 --> 00:01:41,862
[paper rustling]

14
00:01:54,620 --> 00:01:57,206
[file cabinet drawer closing]

15
00:01:58,551 --> 00:02:00,827
[tearing envelope open]

16
00:02:02,344 --> 00:02:05,482
[braille typewriter clanking]

17
00:02:20,482 --> 00:02:24,344
[Russian choral singing]

18
00:02:36,655 --> 00:02:39,413
[rustling winds]

19
00:02:48,551 --> 00:02:50,275
- Yeah, well, if
you offer me dinner

20
00:02:50,310 --> 00:02:52,758
like you did so
nicely, I'll take it.

21
00:02:52,793 --> 00:02:54,965
[woman laughs]

22
00:02:55,000 --> 00:02:56,931
But if you had said,
well, time to go.

23
00:03:00,551 --> 00:03:01,413
Mm, well.

24
00:03:08,965 --> 00:03:11,655
There's no way I can have
two side by sides here.

25
00:03:11,689 --> 00:03:13,724
I guess I can, if
I take this off.

26
00:03:13,758 --> 00:03:15,517
- [Man] Right, but you're
gonna have to take this off.

27
00:03:15,551 --> 00:03:16,413
- Yeah.

28
00:03:24,379 --> 00:03:25,310
Tuscumbia...

29
00:03:26,862 --> 00:03:28,413
"Socialism," she replies,

30
00:03:28,448 --> 00:03:31,172
"I am a socialist because
I believe in fair play.

31
00:03:32,034 --> 00:03:33,827
"What active socialistic.

32
00:03:33,862 --> 00:03:35,965
"What active socialistic
work are you doing now?"

33
00:03:36,000 --> 00:03:37,896
follows the reporter.

34
00:03:37,931 --> 00:03:39,413
"Talking."

35
00:03:39,448 --> 00:03:42,551
No, "Talking." Helen quickly
responds with a laugh,

36
00:03:42,586 --> 00:03:45,862
"But wait till I get a
chance, then I'll be doing.

37
00:03:45,896 --> 00:03:48,310
"Then, I'll be doing.
The highest ambition

38
00:03:48,344 --> 00:03:50,655
"of my life is to
help my fellow men.

39
00:03:50,689 --> 00:03:53,448
"To make them see
and hear as I do."

40
00:03:53,482 --> 00:03:56,206
[clears throat]

41
00:04:18,620 --> 00:04:22,758
On February 6, 1913,
Helen Keller delivered her

42
00:04:22,793 --> 00:04:25,344
first talk before
a general audience.

43
00:04:25,379 --> 00:04:27,862
She was 32-years-old.

44
00:04:27,896 --> 00:04:30,344
Though she'd already
given occasional addresses

45
00:04:30,379 --> 00:04:33,034
at private gatherings in
conjunction with her work

46
00:04:33,068 --> 00:04:35,586
on behalf of the blind and deaf,

47
00:04:35,620 --> 00:04:39,344
her spoken voice was deemed
largely unintelligible,

48
00:04:39,379 --> 00:04:42,034
necessitating someone,
more often than not,

49
00:04:42,068 --> 00:04:44,689
her life-long teacher,
Anne Sullivan,

50
00:04:44,724 --> 00:04:48,931
to repeat, sentence by
sentence, what Helen said.

51
00:04:48,965 --> 00:04:50,655
The fact that she
could speak at all

52
00:04:50,689 --> 00:04:52,758
was regarded to be a marvel,

53
00:04:52,793 --> 00:04:56,931
as much a miracle as were the
first reports years earlier,

54
00:04:56,965 --> 00:04:59,034
transmitted around the world,

55
00:04:59,068 --> 00:05:01,655
that a seven-year-old
deaf blind child

56
00:05:01,689 --> 00:05:05,827
from Tuscumbia, Alabama, had
learned to read and write.

57
00:05:08,448 --> 00:05:10,517
Speaking to a group of reporters

58
00:05:10,551 --> 00:05:13,344
in her hotel the night
before her lecture,

59
00:05:13,379 --> 00:05:17,000
Helen is asked what her
latest field of interest is?

60
00:05:17,034 --> 00:05:19,034
"Socialism," she replies.

61
00:05:19,068 --> 00:05:22,862
"I am a socialist because
I believe in fair play."

62
00:05:24,448 --> 00:05:26,655
"What active socialistic
work are you doing now?"

63
00:05:26,689 --> 00:05:28,586
follows the reporter.

64
00:05:28,620 --> 00:05:32,103
"Talking!" Helen quickly
responds with a laugh,

65
00:05:32,137 --> 00:05:36,379
"But wait till I get a
chance, then I'll be doing.

66
00:05:36,413 --> 00:05:40,655
"The highest ambition of my
life is to help my fellow men,

67
00:05:40,689 --> 00:05:43,931
"to make them see
and hear as I do."

68
00:05:46,068 --> 00:05:49,758
Despite nearly two years
of private vocal training,

69
00:05:49,793 --> 00:05:53,551
Helen privately approaches
the event with trepidation,

70
00:05:53,586 --> 00:05:56,965
regarding her voice, as she
would for the rest of her life,

71
00:05:57,000 --> 00:05:59,827
to be "defective and halting".

72
00:05:59,862 --> 00:06:03,862
Once the lecture gets underway,
stage fright sinks in.

73
00:06:03,896 --> 00:06:08,482
"I felt my voice soaring and
I knew that meant falsetto,

74
00:06:08,517 --> 00:06:10,827
"frantically I dragged it down

75
00:06:10,862 --> 00:06:14,000
"till my words fell about
me like loose bricks,"

76
00:06:14,034 --> 00:06:17,137
Helen later described
the experience.

77
00:06:17,172 --> 00:06:21,068
At the end of her talk, Helen
leaves the stage in tears,

78
00:06:21,103 --> 00:06:23,448
convinced she has failed,

79
00:06:23,482 --> 00:06:26,103
feeling the lecture to
have been an ordeal,

80
00:06:26,137 --> 00:06:29,034
"A pillory where I stood cold,

81
00:06:29,068 --> 00:06:32,896
"riveted, trembling, voiceless."

82
00:06:32,931 --> 00:06:36,482
For Hattie Schlossberg, a
reporter who heard Helen Keller

83
00:06:36,517 --> 00:06:41,413
speak in 1913, the experience
is altogether different.

84
00:06:41,448 --> 00:06:44,137
"I was not prepared
for what did come.

85
00:06:44,172 --> 00:06:47,482
"The effect of her first
words was startling.

86
00:06:47,517 --> 00:06:50,137
"It sounds weird and
uncanny at first,

87
00:06:50,172 --> 00:06:52,034
"but this feeling passes away

88
00:06:52,068 --> 00:06:55,000
"as soon as one gets
accustomed to the tone.

89
00:06:55,034 --> 00:06:57,034
"Her voice is indescribable.

90
00:06:57,068 --> 00:07:01,034
"It seems to come from
somewhere in the depths of her."

91
00:07:01,068 --> 00:07:03,758
Thus would begin a
nearly 50-year run

92
00:07:03,793 --> 00:07:05,793
on the lecture circuit.

93
00:07:05,827 --> 00:07:09,758
As is the case with virtually
all of her political speeches,

94
00:07:09,793 --> 00:07:12,896
no film, photographs,
or recordings survive

95
00:07:12,931 --> 00:07:16,172
of the first talk that Helen
Keller delivered that night

96
00:07:16,206 --> 00:07:20,172
inside the Hillside
elementary school auditorium.

97
00:07:20,206 --> 00:07:23,206
She entitled her talk,
"The Heart and the Hand,

98
00:07:23,241 --> 00:07:26,034
"or the Right Uses
of Our Senses."

99
00:07:26,068 --> 00:07:29,689
A speech she would deliver a
month later under the title,

100
00:07:29,724 --> 00:07:33,965
"The Heart and the Hand,
or True Socialism".

101
00:07:34,000 --> 00:07:36,068
These were her words that night.

102
00:11:39,793 --> 00:11:42,206
[rain pouring]

103
00:12:03,517 --> 00:12:06,724
[slow gentle music]

104
00:13:02,448 --> 00:13:05,586
Writing in the "Ladies'
Home Journal" in 1907,

105
00:13:05,620 --> 00:13:08,275
Keller takes the bold
step for the time

106
00:13:08,310 --> 00:13:11,137
of addressing how mothers,
unknowingly infected

107
00:13:11,172 --> 00:13:13,931
with syphilis by their
philandering husbands,

108
00:13:13,965 --> 00:13:17,137
were inducing ophthalmia,
the most common cause

109
00:13:17,172 --> 00:13:21,034
of blindness, upon
their newborn infants.

110
00:13:21,068 --> 00:13:24,068
While medical science could
provide a remedy if promptly

111
00:13:24,103 --> 00:13:27,896
and properly administered,
Keller writes how poverty,

112
00:13:27,931 --> 00:13:31,137
lack of education, unequal
access to medicine,

113
00:13:31,172 --> 00:13:33,620
and overall lack of
institutional support

114
00:13:33,655 --> 00:13:36,034
hindered such initiatives.

115
00:13:36,068 --> 00:13:38,896
In an address before the
Massachusetts Association

116
00:13:38,931 --> 00:13:42,172
for Promoting the Interests
of the Blind, Keller says.

117
00:14:55,034 --> 00:14:57,413
Concurrent with Helen
Keller's research

118
00:14:57,448 --> 00:15:00,000
into the social
causes of blindness,

119
00:15:00,034 --> 00:15:04,241
in 1908 her teacher, Anne
Sullivan, passes along to Helen

120
00:15:04,275 --> 00:15:09,137
a newly published book of essays
by British author H.G.Wells

121
00:15:09,172 --> 00:15:12,551
entitled "New Worlds For Old".

122
00:15:12,586 --> 00:15:15,137
Depicting in detail
the stories of children

123
00:15:15,172 --> 00:15:18,241
and workers living lives
of grinding poverty,

124
00:15:18,275 --> 00:15:21,551
and incorporating numerous
sociological studies,

125
00:15:21,586 --> 00:15:24,275
the book argues for
what Wells called

126
00:15:24,310 --> 00:15:27,034
a "constructive
socialism" as the way

127
00:15:27,068 --> 00:15:29,413
to confront these problems.

128
00:15:29,448 --> 00:15:33,413
Additionally, as observed
by historian Philip Foner,

129
00:15:33,448 --> 00:15:36,448
"New Worlds For Old"
also pointed out a role

130
00:15:36,482 --> 00:15:39,034
Helen herself could
play in the movement

131
00:15:39,068 --> 00:15:41,517
for a new and better society.

132
00:15:41,551 --> 00:15:45,275
Over and above the promoting
of its main constructive ideas

133
00:15:45,310 --> 00:15:48,448
and their more obvious and
practical applications,

134
00:15:48,482 --> 00:15:52,034
Wells writes, "An immense
amount of intellectual work

135
00:15:52,068 --> 00:15:54,517
"remains to be
done for socialism.

136
00:15:54,551 --> 00:15:57,310
"The battle for socialism
is to be fought,

137
00:15:57,344 --> 00:16:00,586
"not simply at the polls
and in the market place,

138
00:16:00,620 --> 00:16:03,379
"but at the writing
desk and in the study."

139
00:16:04,551 --> 00:16:08,620
In earnest, Helen begins to
educate herself on the issues,

140
00:16:08,655 --> 00:16:11,344
remarking to a
friend years later,

141
00:16:11,379 --> 00:16:13,586
"Something asleep in me awoke

142
00:16:13,620 --> 00:16:16,000
"when I read the
radical literature."

143
00:16:17,379 --> 00:16:20,586
Her reading list includes
German socialist periodicals

144
00:16:20,620 --> 00:16:23,586
printed in Braille,
selected articles from the

145
00:16:23,620 --> 00:16:27,758
National Socialist and
International Socialist Review,

146
00:16:27,793 --> 00:16:31,068
Karl Marx's "Value,
Price, and Profit",

147
00:16:31,103 --> 00:16:33,482
as well as "The
Communist Manifesto",

148
00:16:33,517 --> 00:16:38,206
about which she declares, "if
it isn't imposed as tyranny,

149
00:16:38,241 --> 00:16:42,000
"it is one of the finest pieces
of literature ever written".

150
00:16:42,862 --> 00:16:45,827
She reads Karl Kautsky's
classic exposition

151
00:16:45,862 --> 00:16:49,379
of the Erfurt Program,
"The Class Struggle".

152
00:16:49,413 --> 00:16:52,724
Adopted at the Erfurt
Party Congress of 1891,

153
00:16:52,758 --> 00:16:55,620
the German Workers'
Party program argued that

154
00:16:55,655 --> 00:16:59,517
because capitalism, by its
very nature, must collapse,

155
00:16:59,551 --> 00:17:02,448
the immediate task for
socialists was to work

156
00:17:02,482 --> 00:17:05,655
for the improvement of
workers' lives rather than for

157
00:17:05,689 --> 00:17:09,586
the revolution, which, it
is believed, was inevitable.

158
00:17:10,827 --> 00:17:15,275
In an April 1911 editorial in
the Matilda Ziegler Magazine

159
00:17:15,310 --> 00:17:18,862
for the Blind, Helen urges
the sightless to study

160
00:17:18,896 --> 00:17:22,103
the economic problems
of the seeing

161
00:17:22,137 --> 00:17:24,827
by reading two popular
socialist primers,

162
00:17:24,862 --> 00:17:27,827
Robert Hunter's "Poverty"
and Edmond Kelly's

163
00:17:27,862 --> 00:17:30,241
"Twentieth Century Socialism".

164
00:17:30,275 --> 00:17:34,241
"Not for theory, as it is
scornfully called", she writes,

165
00:17:34,275 --> 00:17:37,689
"but for facts about the
labor conditions in America."

166
00:18:03,413 --> 00:18:05,655
As Helen's reading list grows,

167
00:18:05,689 --> 00:18:09,448
so too does her
intellectual curiosity.

168
00:18:09,482 --> 00:18:12,551
At one point, she requests
the National Institute

169
00:18:12,586 --> 00:18:15,482
for the Blind in London
to translate into braille

170
00:18:15,517 --> 00:18:19,482
a copy of Mikhail Bakunin's
"God and the State".

171
00:18:19,517 --> 00:18:23,344
A book that preaches atheism,
destruction of the state,

172
00:18:23,379 --> 00:18:25,310
and the embrace of anarchism.

173
00:18:26,275 --> 00:18:28,758
While the Institute
has previously offered

174
00:18:28,793 --> 00:18:32,310
to do transcripts of books
for Helen without charge,

175
00:18:32,344 --> 00:18:36,137
its Secretary General
draws the line at Bakunin.

176
00:19:06,827 --> 00:19:09,793
Despite her status as
one of the most revered

177
00:19:09,827 --> 00:19:12,275
and renowned figures
in the nation,

178
00:19:12,310 --> 00:19:14,896
Helen Keller's
forays into politics,

179
00:19:14,931 --> 00:19:16,827
especially at a time when women

180
00:19:16,862 --> 00:19:19,413
were still deprived
of the right to vote,

181
00:19:19,448 --> 00:19:23,551
are frequently met with fierce
criticism, willfully ignored,

182
00:19:23,586 --> 00:19:28,413
or pardoned as being the result
of bad influences upon her.

183
00:19:28,448 --> 00:19:30,931
States one newspaper editorial:

184
00:19:30,965 --> 00:19:34,517
"Helen Keller, struggling to
point the way for the deaf,

185
00:19:34,551 --> 00:19:37,310
"dumb and blind is inspiring.

186
00:19:37,344 --> 00:19:39,793
"Helen Keller
preaching socialism;

187
00:19:39,827 --> 00:19:43,000
"Helen Keller passing on the
merits of the copper strike;

188
00:19:43,034 --> 00:19:44,724
"Helen Keller sneering at the

189
00:19:44,758 --> 00:19:47,275
"Constitution of
the United States;

190
00:19:47,310 --> 00:19:51,310
"Helen Keller under
these aspects is pitiful.

191
00:19:51,344 --> 00:19:53,000
"She is beyond her depth.

192
00:19:53,034 --> 00:19:55,965
"She speaks with the
handicap of limitation

193
00:19:56,000 --> 00:20:00,000
"which no amount
of determination or
science can overcome.

194
00:20:00,034 --> 00:20:04,724
"Her knowledge is, and must
be, almost purely theoretical,

195
00:20:04,758 --> 00:20:07,000
"and unfortunately this world

196
00:20:07,034 --> 00:20:10,620
"and its problems are
both very practical."

197
00:20:12,344 --> 00:20:16,034
When in 1913, Helen
Keller publishes her book,

198
00:20:16,068 --> 00:20:18,689
"Out Of The Dark:
Essays, Letters,

199
00:20:18,724 --> 00:20:21,896
"and Addresses on Physical
and Social Vision",

200
00:20:21,931 --> 00:20:25,896
including articles such as
"How I Became a Socialist",

201
00:20:25,931 --> 00:20:29,344
"The Workers' Right",
"The Modern Woman",

202
00:20:29,379 --> 00:20:32,344
and a "Letter to an
English Woman Suffragist",

203
00:20:32,379 --> 00:20:36,620
it manages, in the words of her
biographer Dorothy Herrmann,

204
00:20:36,655 --> 00:20:40,241
to "practically destroy
her angelic image."

205
00:21:07,068 --> 00:21:10,275
[slow gentle music]

206
00:21:18,758 --> 00:21:21,689
♪ There's a winding trail

207
00:21:21,724 --> 00:21:24,689
♪ Through the meadow grass

208
00:21:24,724 --> 00:21:29,068
♪ And over the sunny hill

209
00:21:29,103 --> 00:21:31,896
♪ To the wildwood wind

210
00:21:31,931 --> 00:21:34,448
♪ Where a lad and lass

211
00:21:34,482 --> 00:21:39,379
♪ Were thronged at
their own sweet will ♪

212
00:21:39,413 --> 00:21:41,793
♪ A brown little lad

213
00:21:41,827 --> 00:21:44,586
♪ With a freckled nose

214
00:21:44,620 --> 00:21:46,758
♪ And a wee bony lass

215
00:21:46,793 --> 00:21:49,965
♪ Like a sweet wild rose

216
00:21:50,000 --> 00:21:52,034
♪ Over the hilltop

217
00:21:52,068 --> 00:21:55,000
♪ And through the veil

218
00:21:55,034 --> 00:21:58,344
♪ Treading the winding...

219
00:22:01,448 --> 00:22:06,448
[birds chirping]
[rustling winds]

220
00:22:54,931 --> 00:22:57,137
[fire crackling]

221
00:22:57,172 --> 00:23:01,034
- [Narrator] Founded in 1901,
the Socialist Party of America

222
00:23:01,068 --> 00:23:05,172
was by 1912, an
exponentially expanding force

223
00:23:05,206 --> 00:23:07,517
on the political landscape.

224
00:23:07,551 --> 00:23:09,517
According to official records,

225
00:23:09,551 --> 00:23:12,517
the Party had more than
1,000 of its members elected

226
00:23:12,551 --> 00:23:16,931
to political office in
337 towns and cities.

227
00:23:16,965 --> 00:23:20,137
This included 56
Socialist mayors,

228
00:23:20,172 --> 00:23:23,034
305 aldermen and councilmen,

229
00:23:23,068 --> 00:23:27,793
22 police officials,
155 school officials,

230
00:23:27,827 --> 00:23:30,034
and four pound-keepers.

231
00:23:30,068 --> 00:23:34,655
The Socialist cause was
promoted by 323 papers

232
00:23:34,689 --> 00:23:39,068
and periodicals, including five
daily newspapers in English,

233
00:23:39,103 --> 00:23:41,241
eight in other languages,

234
00:23:41,275 --> 00:23:44,206
262 weeklies in English,

235
00:23:44,241 --> 00:23:46,586
36 in other languages,

236
00:23:46,620 --> 00:23:48,206
and 12 monthlies.

237
00:23:48,241 --> 00:23:52,482
10 in English and two
in other languages.

238
00:23:52,517 --> 00:23:55,482
Total circulation of
this press was estimated

239
00:23:55,517 --> 00:23:57,172
to have been more
than two million.

240
00:23:58,103 --> 00:24:01,103
"The Appeal to Reason",
published in Kansas

241
00:24:01,137 --> 00:24:03,103
and always the most widely read

242
00:24:03,137 --> 00:24:05,241
of the Socialist publications,

243
00:24:05,275 --> 00:24:09,103
whose motto was "Socialism
is not just a theory,

244
00:24:09,137 --> 00:24:12,620
"it is a destiny",
reaches a circulation

245
00:24:12,655 --> 00:24:15,931
of nearly 700,000 in that year.

246
00:24:15,965 --> 00:24:18,724
And, in 1912, as
candidate for the

247
00:24:18,758 --> 00:24:22,241
Socialist Party of America
in the Presidential election,

248
00:24:22,275 --> 00:24:26,000
Eugene Debs receives
nearly one million votes.

249
00:24:26,034 --> 00:24:28,275
This was before women's suffrage

250
00:24:28,310 --> 00:24:31,793
and represents 6%
of the popular vote.

251
00:24:34,655 --> 00:24:37,655
[slow gentle music]

252
00:24:40,172 --> 00:24:44,034
[singing in foreign language]

253
00:25:00,000 --> 00:25:02,793
[rushing waters]

254
00:25:31,689 --> 00:25:34,931
A source of tremendous
media attention at the time,

255
00:25:34,965 --> 00:25:39,655
Helen Keller's graduation in
1904 from Radcliffe College,

256
00:25:39,689 --> 00:25:42,931
Harvard's segregated
sister institution,

257
00:25:42,965 --> 00:25:46,344
establishes her as the
first blind-deaf individual

258
00:25:46,379 --> 00:25:48,862
to ever graduate from college.

259
00:25:50,862 --> 00:25:54,655
Even before receiving her
degree, Helen's awareness of her

260
00:25:54,689 --> 00:25:58,827
class privilege and unique
opportunities is growing.

261
00:25:58,862 --> 00:26:01,068
She would come to
describe Harvard as

262
00:26:01,103 --> 00:26:04,344
"perhaps the most imposing
monument to dead ideas

263
00:26:04,379 --> 00:26:08,000
"in this country where such
monuments are numerous."

264
00:26:09,000 --> 00:26:11,965
Pressed as to why she
came to this opinion,

265
00:26:12,000 --> 00:26:15,241
she replied that, "They did
not teach me about things

266
00:26:15,275 --> 00:26:18,724
"as they are today, or
about the vital problems

267
00:26:18,758 --> 00:26:19,965
"of the people.

268
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:23,241
"They taught me Greek
drama and Roman history,

269
00:26:23,275 --> 00:26:26,034
"the celebrated
achievements of war,

270
00:26:26,068 --> 00:26:29,000
"rather than those of
the heroes of peace.

271
00:26:29,034 --> 00:26:33,241
"For instance, there were
a dozen chapters on war

272
00:26:33,275 --> 00:26:37,241
"where there were a few
paragraphs about the inventors,

273
00:26:37,275 --> 00:26:40,896
"and it is the over-emphasis
on the cruelties of life

274
00:26:40,931 --> 00:26:43,379
"that breeds the wrong ideal.

275
00:26:43,413 --> 00:26:47,206
"Education has taught me
that it was a finer thing

276
00:26:47,241 --> 00:26:51,310
"to be a Napoleon than
to create a new potato."

277
00:26:53,448 --> 00:26:57,379
Accepting an invitation years
later to speak at Radcliffe,

278
00:26:57,413 --> 00:27:00,103
Helen tells the attendees:

279
00:27:00,137 --> 00:27:04,275
"I have never attached great
value to academic fame,

280
00:27:04,310 --> 00:27:07,137
"and I am not much
interested in whether

281
00:27:07,172 --> 00:27:10,896
"or not people praise
Radcliffe's scholarship.

282
00:27:10,931 --> 00:27:15,793
"What I care about is that
every thought, every work,

283
00:27:15,827 --> 00:27:20,827
"every act should be vital with
the will to serve mankind."

284
00:29:04,172 --> 00:29:08,034
One month after delivering
her first public lecture,

285
00:29:08,068 --> 00:29:10,241
Helen Keller is invited to speak

286
00:29:10,275 --> 00:29:14,137
at the 1913 Woman's
Suffrage Procession,

287
00:29:14,172 --> 00:29:18,206
the first suffrage parade to
be held in Washington, DC,

288
00:29:18,241 --> 00:29:21,034
and strategically
scheduled for the day prior

289
00:29:21,068 --> 00:29:24,310
to the inauguration
of Woodrow Wilson.

290
00:29:24,344 --> 00:29:27,034
Firmly opposed to
the idea of women

291
00:29:27,068 --> 00:29:30,379
having the right to
vote, Wilson, a Democrat,

292
00:29:30,413 --> 00:29:33,413
takes office characterizing
those women who campaigned

293
00:29:33,448 --> 00:29:37,172
for suffrage as
"totally abhorrent".

294
00:29:37,206 --> 00:29:39,586
Organized by Alice Paul for the

295
00:29:39,620 --> 00:29:42,931
National American Woman
Suffrage Association,

296
00:29:42,965 --> 00:29:46,172
the procession draws
some 8,000 marchers,

297
00:29:46,206 --> 00:29:49,620
featuring nine bands,
four mounted brigades,

298
00:29:49,655 --> 00:29:52,965
and over 20 floats,
who lead their parade

299
00:29:53,000 --> 00:29:57,310
before thousands of spectators,
many of them, mostly men,

300
00:29:57,344 --> 00:29:59,344
in town for the inauguration.

301
00:30:00,620 --> 00:30:03,068
After proceeding
for a few blocks,

302
00:30:03,103 --> 00:30:05,965
crowds of spectators
move into the street

303
00:30:06,000 --> 00:30:10,068
impeding the ability for
many marchers to pass.

304
00:30:10,103 --> 00:30:12,482
Women are shoved,
tripped, insulted,

305
00:30:12,517 --> 00:30:16,965
spat upon, while police
officers either stand idly by

306
00:30:17,000 --> 00:30:19,620
or are seen reveling
in the commotion.

307
00:30:19,655 --> 00:30:23,241
For the next six hours,
ambulances fight their way in

308
00:30:23,275 --> 00:30:27,068
and out of the crowd attempting
to retrieve the injured.

309
00:30:27,103 --> 00:30:29,586
By day's end, over
200 people are

310
00:30:29,620 --> 00:30:32,103
treated at local hospitals.

311
00:30:32,137 --> 00:30:35,379
So exhausted and unnerved
by the experience

312
00:30:35,413 --> 00:30:38,068
and her attempts to
reach the grandstand,

313
00:30:38,103 --> 00:30:40,655
Helen Keller finds
herself unable to later

314
00:30:40,689 --> 00:30:43,448
speak at Constitution Hall.

315
00:30:43,482 --> 00:30:45,655
The following day she
recounts her impressions

316
00:30:45,689 --> 00:30:47,379
for the syndicated press,

317
00:30:47,413 --> 00:30:50,896
although few transmit the
full extent of her report.

318
00:31:48,344 --> 00:31:51,034
While Helen Keller's
recounting of the events

319
00:31:51,068 --> 00:31:54,758
of the Woman Suffrage Pageant
receives little circulation,

320
00:31:54,793 --> 00:31:57,517
her concurrent critique
of the swearing in of

321
00:31:57,551 --> 00:32:00,068
President Woodrow Wilson does,

322
00:32:00,103 --> 00:32:03,620
even leading one newspaper
editor to describe it as

323
00:32:03,655 --> 00:32:06,344
"The most remarkable
printed anywhere

324
00:32:06,379 --> 00:32:09,379
"on the inauguration in
Washington yesterday."

325
00:33:10,137 --> 00:33:12,827
[rushing waters]

326
00:33:16,448 --> 00:33:18,413
When interviewed by the press,

327
00:33:18,448 --> 00:33:21,862
Helen underscores that she
is not just a suffragist

328
00:33:21,896 --> 00:33:24,413
but a "militant suffragist".

329
00:33:24,448 --> 00:33:28,413
As she explains to a reporter
for "The New York Times",

330
00:33:28,448 --> 00:33:31,827
"I believe that suffrage
will lead to socialism

331
00:33:31,862 --> 00:33:36,137
"and to me, socialism
is the ideal cause."

332
00:33:36,172 --> 00:33:38,896
Mindful of the fact that the
right to vote was itself no

333
00:33:38,931 --> 00:33:43,586
guarantee of the fostering of
fundamental structural change,

334
00:33:43,620 --> 00:33:47,517
in her 1911 "Letter to an
English Woman Suffragist",

335
00:33:47,551 --> 00:33:51,206
she expounds further on
the nature of the problem.

336
00:36:07,379 --> 00:36:10,379
[slow gentle music]

337
00:36:43,517 --> 00:36:46,517
[insects chirping]

338
00:38:29,172 --> 00:38:33,034
Following the outbreak
of war in Europe in 1914,

339
00:38:33,068 --> 00:38:36,758
a small, vocal, and highly
influential group of bankers,

340
00:38:36,793 --> 00:38:40,172
lawyers, and businessmen
launches a campaign to persuade

341
00:38:40,206 --> 00:38:43,758
the Wilson administration
and the country at large

342
00:38:43,793 --> 00:38:47,517
that the United States needs
to prepare itself for war.

343
00:38:48,551 --> 00:38:50,620
Led by General Leonard Wood

344
00:38:50,655 --> 00:38:53,034
and former President
Theodore Roosevelt,

345
00:38:53,068 --> 00:38:55,655
the so-called
"Preparedness Movement"

346
00:38:55,689 --> 00:38:59,172
argues for an immediate build-up
of naval and land forces

347
00:38:59,206 --> 00:39:01,034
and the instituting
of compulsory

348
00:39:01,068 --> 00:39:02,965
universal military training.

349
00:39:04,206 --> 00:39:06,931
With the Socialist Party at
the forefront of opposition

350
00:39:06,965 --> 00:39:09,896
to any such build-up,
it is announced that on

351
00:39:09,931 --> 00:39:14,758
December 19th, 1915, Helen
Keller will publicly present

352
00:39:14,793 --> 00:39:17,172
the Socialist interpretation
of the causes of the

353
00:39:17,206 --> 00:39:21,724
European war and the dangers
confronting the United States.

354
00:39:22,655 --> 00:39:24,172
Sponsored by the Labor Forum

355
00:39:24,206 --> 00:39:27,655
and to be held at Washington
Irving High School in New York,

356
00:39:27,689 --> 00:39:30,827
it is further announced that,
"Miss Keller will advocate

357
00:39:30,862 --> 00:39:33,034
"the General Strike
as the speediest way

358
00:39:33,068 --> 00:39:36,068
"to end the European conflict."

359
00:39:36,103 --> 00:39:38,689
By the time the
event gets underway,

360
00:39:38,724 --> 00:39:41,827
there are an estimated
2,000 in attendance,

361
00:39:41,862 --> 00:39:45,206
and 100s more who have
to be turned away.

362
00:39:45,241 --> 00:39:49,689
Her speech is called "Menace
of the Militarist Program".

363
00:42:38,965 --> 00:42:41,137
At the conclusion
of her remarks,

364
00:42:41,172 --> 00:42:43,275
the crowd rises to its feet

365
00:42:43,310 --> 00:42:45,206
and collectively breaks out

366
00:42:45,241 --> 00:42:47,275
into the singing
of La Marseillaise.

367
00:42:48,931 --> 00:42:50,758
Exiting the school building,

368
00:42:50,793 --> 00:42:53,275
Helen is greeted
by a large crowd.

369
00:42:53,310 --> 00:42:55,413
According to a report
the following day

370
00:42:55,448 --> 00:42:58,758
in the "New York Times", when
"Miss Keller told the throng

371
00:42:58,793 --> 00:43:01,758
"that she would speak, so
great was the rush towards

372
00:43:01,793 --> 00:43:04,896
"the steps to hear her
that the police reserves

373
00:43:04,931 --> 00:43:07,896
"of East 22nd Street
Station were called out

374
00:43:07,931 --> 00:43:09,344
"to restore order."

375
00:43:10,310 --> 00:43:13,310
Helen repeats her appeal
for workers not to serve

376
00:43:13,344 --> 00:43:16,034
in the proposed army of defense,

377
00:43:16,068 --> 00:43:20,758
again concluding with a call
for a "world-encircling revolt"

378
00:43:20,793 --> 00:43:23,965
upon which there is a
concerted rush towards her,

379
00:43:24,000 --> 00:43:27,379
provoking police officers
to lift Helen off her feet

380
00:43:27,413 --> 00:43:30,206
and carry her to a
waiting automobile.

381
00:43:31,482 --> 00:43:34,137
In the days immediately
following the talk,

382
00:43:34,172 --> 00:43:36,965
pro-preparedness
groups demand that the

383
00:43:37,000 --> 00:43:39,793
New York City Board of
Education revoke the

384
00:43:39,827 --> 00:43:42,931
Labor Forum's permit
to ever again use the

385
00:43:42,965 --> 00:43:47,206
Washington Irving High School
building for public meetings.

386
00:43:47,241 --> 00:43:50,482
Going even further,
protesters declare

387
00:43:50,517 --> 00:43:53,862
"that no organization that
lends itself to furthering

388
00:43:53,896 --> 00:43:58,034
"the propaganda of disloyalty
and anarchy be permitted

389
00:43:58,068 --> 00:44:00,517
"to occupy public school halls

390
00:44:00,551 --> 00:44:03,931
"in order to disseminate
their doctrines."

391
00:44:03,965 --> 00:44:07,103
Helen is quick to
issue a response.

392
00:44:30,931 --> 00:44:33,379
Following her talk
at the Labor Forum,

393
00:44:33,413 --> 00:44:37,551
Helen leaves for a
lengthy lecture tour
throughout the West.

394
00:44:37,586 --> 00:44:40,241
Spurred by the impassioned
response Helen's

395
00:44:40,275 --> 00:44:42,379
speech received
from the audience,

396
00:44:42,413 --> 00:44:46,413
and with its aftermath still
swirling about in the press,

397
00:44:46,448 --> 00:44:49,896
the Women's Peace Party
and the Labor Forum

398
00:44:49,931 --> 00:44:53,068
jointly reach out to Helen
requesting she return

399
00:44:53,103 --> 00:44:55,551
to New York to deliver
a second speech,

400
00:44:55,586 --> 00:44:58,793
this time to be held
at Carnegie Hall.

401
00:45:00,137 --> 00:45:02,137
Enthusiastic about the prospect,

402
00:45:02,172 --> 00:45:04,517
Helen makes one stipulation,

403
00:45:04,551 --> 00:45:06,793
that admission to
the talk be free.

404
00:45:07,724 --> 00:45:10,000
All of the trade
unions in New York City

405
00:45:10,034 --> 00:45:12,413
and their members are invited.

406
00:45:12,448 --> 00:45:17,137
On January 5, 1916, a
packed audience comprised

407
00:45:17,172 --> 00:45:20,034
principally of women
assembles in Carnegie Hall

408
00:45:20,068 --> 00:45:22,620
to hear Helen Keller again speak

409
00:45:22,655 --> 00:45:26,172
on the subject of
militarism and resistance.

410
00:45:26,206 --> 00:45:28,310
As Helen takes the
stage and advances

411
00:45:28,344 --> 00:45:30,103
to the front of the platform,

412
00:45:30,137 --> 00:45:32,310
she is cheered for 15 minutes

413
00:45:32,344 --> 00:45:35,379
before she can deliver
her first words.

414
00:45:35,413 --> 00:45:38,551
Women rise to their feet,
waving their handkerchiefs,

415
00:45:38,586 --> 00:45:41,448
shouting and applauding
until exhaustion.

416
00:45:41,482 --> 00:45:43,862
For the next hour
and 10 minutes,

417
00:45:43,896 --> 00:45:47,034
Helen lays out the arguments
for resisting the move toward

418
00:45:47,068 --> 00:45:48,931
increased military buildup

419
00:45:48,965 --> 00:45:52,206
and the implementation
of conscription.

420
00:45:52,241 --> 00:45:55,068
She denounces the
tactics of fear-mongering

421
00:45:55,103 --> 00:45:57,413
being used to argue
for armaments,

422
00:45:57,448 --> 00:46:00,965
and outlines the connections
between the banking industry,

423
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:04,965
foreign investments, and
the munitions industry.

424
00:46:05,000 --> 00:46:07,965
"Behind the preparedness
propaganda" Helen says,

425
00:46:08,000 --> 00:46:10,068
"is an attempt to
divert attention away

426
00:46:10,103 --> 00:46:14,413
"from the hard realities of
economic strife at home."

427
00:46:14,448 --> 00:46:17,655
She denounces the fundamental
flaws of the system.

428
00:46:17,689 --> 00:46:21,517
She points out that, "the
ballot does not make a free man

429
00:46:21,551 --> 00:46:23,931
"out of a wage slave.

430
00:46:23,965 --> 00:46:26,931
"There has never
existed a truly free

431
00:46:26,965 --> 00:46:30,379
"and democratic nation in
the world," she states.

432
00:46:30,413 --> 00:46:35,068
"From time immemorial men have
followed with blind loyalty

433
00:46:35,103 --> 00:46:39,103
"the strong men who had the
power of money and of armies.

434
00:46:39,137 --> 00:46:43,103
"Even while battlefields were
piled high with their own dead

435
00:46:43,137 --> 00:46:45,379
"they have tilled the
lands of the rulers

436
00:46:45,413 --> 00:46:48,586
"and have been robbed of
the fruits of their labor.

437
00:46:48,620 --> 00:46:51,206
"What workers want,"
Helen declares,

438
00:46:51,241 --> 00:46:53,689
"is nothing short of
the reorganization

439
00:46:53,724 --> 00:46:57,000
"and reconstruction
of their whole lives,

440
00:46:57,034 --> 00:47:00,689
"until every individual has
a chance to be well-born,

441
00:47:00,724 --> 00:47:04,034
"well nourished,
rightly educated."

442
00:47:04,068 --> 00:47:07,103
She urges for a nationwide
strike against war

443
00:47:07,137 --> 00:47:08,931
and weapons manufacture.

444
00:47:10,034 --> 00:47:12,551
She concludes by
bidding the audience,

445
00:47:12,586 --> 00:47:17,379
"Be not dumb, obedient slaves
in an army of destruction.

446
00:47:17,413 --> 00:47:20,931
"Be heroes in an army
of construction."

447
00:47:23,137 --> 00:47:27,586
In the audience that night is
poet Anna Strunsky Walling,

448
00:47:27,620 --> 00:47:30,965
who writes of the impact
of the experience.

449
00:47:34,758 --> 00:47:38,034
"You walked forward as
if you wanted to run;

450
00:47:38,068 --> 00:47:41,448
"Eagerness was in your feet,
in the lift of your head,

451
00:47:41,482 --> 00:47:43,517
"in your brilliant smile.

452
00:47:43,551 --> 00:47:46,172
"You walked forward
and took your place

453
00:47:46,206 --> 00:47:50,413
"at the edge of the platform,
facing the great audience.

454
00:47:50,448 --> 00:47:53,241
"Impenetrable night
was around you,

455
00:47:53,275 --> 00:47:55,724
"though the light of
enthusiasm flashed

456
00:47:55,758 --> 00:47:58,310
"from thousands of
eyes more brilliant

457
00:47:58,344 --> 00:48:01,344
"than the brilliant
illumination of the hall.

458
00:48:01,379 --> 00:48:04,068
"Impenetrable
silence, though music

459
00:48:04,103 --> 00:48:08,275
"and speaking had preceded
you, and now, at sight of you,

460
00:48:08,310 --> 00:48:11,448
"the thousands
broke into applause.

461
00:48:11,482 --> 00:48:14,206
"You stood in the
dark of the night,

462
00:48:14,241 --> 00:48:16,482
"in the silence of the tomb,

463
00:48:16,517 --> 00:48:21,344
"a spear of light,
a star, a voice.

464
00:48:21,379 --> 00:48:25,344
"Oh, unforgettable
experience of my soul!

465
00:48:25,379 --> 00:48:28,034
"When first the
effulgence of your courage

466
00:48:28,068 --> 00:48:31,551
"and your youth laid
its spell upon me!"

467
00:48:42,068 --> 00:48:44,793
Though never averse to the
situational use of force

468
00:48:44,827 --> 00:48:48,655
when necessary to advance
revolutionary aspirations,

469
00:48:48,689 --> 00:48:51,275
Helen Keller maintained
a life-long commitment

470
00:48:51,310 --> 00:48:55,379
to speaking out against
military adventurism.

471
00:48:55,413 --> 00:48:57,586
Reflecting back many years later

472
00:48:57,620 --> 00:49:02,241
on the period of the
1916 Preparedness
debate, Helen wrote.

473
00:49:32,413 --> 00:49:35,586
As Helen Keller's embrace
of socialist ideas grows

474
00:49:35,620 --> 00:49:39,896
more fervent, so too does her
dissatisfaction with rising

475
00:49:39,931 --> 00:49:44,172
factionalism within the
Socialist Party of America.

476
00:49:44,206 --> 00:49:48,275
After the 1912 elections,
and following much argument,

477
00:49:48,310 --> 00:49:51,448
the constitution of the
Socialist Party is amended

478
00:49:51,482 --> 00:49:55,137
to ban membership by any who
would advocate the tactical

479
00:49:55,172 --> 00:49:57,724
use of sabotage or violence.

480
00:49:57,758 --> 00:50:00,862
In a debate with Party
President Eugene Debs,

481
00:50:00,896 --> 00:50:04,586
syndicalist organizer Big
Bill Haywood proclaims that,

482
00:50:04,620 --> 00:50:08,172
"No Socialist can be
a law-abiding citizen.

483
00:50:08,206 --> 00:50:11,344
"When we come together
and are of a common mind,

484
00:50:11,379 --> 00:50:13,482
"and the purpose of our
minds is to overthrow

485
00:50:13,517 --> 00:50:16,758
"the capitalist system,
we become conspirators

486
00:50:16,793 --> 00:50:19,620
"against the United
States Government."

487
00:50:19,655 --> 00:50:22,620
While many attack the
anti-sabotage clause,

488
00:50:22,655 --> 00:50:26,241
including Walter Lippman,
Max Eastman, Margaret Sanger,

489
00:50:26,275 --> 00:50:29,482
and others, Helen
Keller doesn't sign.

490
00:50:29,517 --> 00:50:33,206
Instead, writing in
the socialist daily
The New York Call,

491
00:50:33,241 --> 00:50:35,758
she chastises the infighting.

492
00:50:35,793 --> 00:50:39,620
"It fills me with amazement
to see such a narrow spirit,

493
00:50:39,655 --> 00:50:42,620
"and such ignoble strife
between two factions

494
00:50:42,655 --> 00:50:46,655
"which should be one, and
that, too, at a most critical

495
00:50:46,689 --> 00:50:49,275
"period in the struggle
of the proletariat.

496
00:50:49,310 --> 00:50:50,655
"What?

497
00:50:50,689 --> 00:50:52,517
"Are we to put differences
of party tactics

498
00:50:52,551 --> 00:50:55,137
"before the desperate
needs of the workers?"

499
00:50:56,379 --> 00:50:59,413
While never fully breaking her
ties with party affiliation,

500
00:50:59,448 --> 00:51:02,379
within a few short years,
it becomes manifest

501
00:51:02,413 --> 00:51:06,241
where Helen's affinities lie
when she aligns herself with

502
00:51:06,275 --> 00:51:10,482
the foremost radical labor
organization in the country.

503
00:51:10,517 --> 00:51:13,896
Known variously as the
Industrial Workers of the World,

504
00:51:13,931 --> 00:51:18,551
the I.W.W., or the Wobblies,
it is founded in 1905

505
00:51:18,586 --> 00:51:22,413
in Chicago as an international
labor organization

506
00:51:22,448 --> 00:51:26,448
united as a social class
aiming to supplant capitalism

507
00:51:26,482 --> 00:51:31,448
and wage labor with a program
of "industrial democracy".

508
00:51:31,482 --> 00:51:34,310
Even with general public
awareness of Helen Keller's

509
00:51:34,344 --> 00:51:38,551
socialist sympathies, her
joining forces with the I.W.W.

510
00:51:38,586 --> 00:51:41,275
is feared to be a tipping point.

511
00:51:41,310 --> 00:51:44,000
One week following her
Carnegie Hall speech,

512
00:51:44,034 --> 00:51:47,000
Helen is interviewed at
length by Barbara Bindley

513
00:51:47,034 --> 00:51:49,413
for the "New York Tribune".

514
00:51:49,448 --> 00:51:53,310
If Helen's recent call for
"one great world-wide union"

515
00:51:53,344 --> 00:51:55,724
and for
"globe-encircling revolt"

516
00:51:55,758 --> 00:51:57,965
hadn't made it clear enough,

517
00:51:58,000 --> 00:52:01,000
the Tribune article
would leave no doubts.

518
00:52:01,034 --> 00:52:04,827
Early in the conversation,
the interviewer asks Helen

519
00:52:04,862 --> 00:52:06,965
how it was that she
first gravitated

520
00:52:07,000 --> 00:52:09,206
toward being a social crusader.

521
00:55:38,551 --> 00:55:41,551
[slow gentle music]

522
00:56:45,896 --> 00:56:48,137
Whether because
of, or in spite of,

523
00:56:48,172 --> 00:56:51,655
having been born in
the South in the 1880s

524
00:56:51,689 --> 00:56:55,034
to a father who'd owned
slaves before the Civil War

525
00:56:55,068 --> 00:56:58,275
and who'd served as a captain
in the Confederate Army,

526
00:56:58,310 --> 00:57:01,172
Helen Keller emerged
as a public advocate

527
00:57:01,206 --> 00:57:03,793
against racial injustice.

528
00:57:03,827 --> 00:57:08,000
Paying tribute to her in
1931, African-American writer,

529
00:57:08,034 --> 00:57:11,931
scholar, and activist W.E.B.
Dubois described having

530
00:57:11,965 --> 00:57:15,241
encountered Helen as a child
when she first attended

531
00:57:15,275 --> 00:57:19,034
the Perkins Institute for
the Blind in Massachusetts.

532
00:57:20,103 --> 00:57:23,931
- "When I was studying
Philosophy under William James,

533
00:57:23,965 --> 00:57:28,758
"we made an excursion
one day out to Roxbury.

534
00:57:28,793 --> 00:57:32,827
"We stopped at the Blind
Asylum and saw a young girl

535
00:57:32,862 --> 00:57:37,896
"who was deaf and dumb and
who yet, by infinite pains

536
00:57:39,103 --> 00:57:42,827
"and loving sympathy, had been
made to speak without words

537
00:57:42,862 --> 00:57:45,586
"and to understand
without sound."

538
00:57:47,310 --> 00:57:48,827
Oh dear me.

539
00:57:48,862 --> 00:57:50,034
My hearing

540
00:57:51,310 --> 00:57:53,931
aids began to fail,

541
00:57:53,965 --> 00:57:55,137
and so they make a sound.

542
00:57:55,172 --> 00:57:56,827
And I'm sorry.

543
00:57:56,862 --> 00:57:58,655
- [John] Well, let's just start
again from the beginning.

544
00:57:58,689 --> 00:58:00,034
- Right-o.

545
00:58:00,068 --> 00:58:04,241
"We stopped at the Blind
Asylum and saw a young girl

546
00:58:04,275 --> 00:58:09,206
"who was deaf and dumb and
who yet, by infinite pains

547
00:58:09,241 --> 00:58:14,068
"and loving sympathy, had been
made to speak without words

548
00:58:14,103 --> 00:58:17,689
"and to understand
without sound.

549
00:58:17,724 --> 00:58:19,862
"She was Helen Keller.

550
00:58:19,896 --> 00:58:22,206
"Perhaps because she was blind

551
00:58:22,241 --> 00:58:25,000
"to color difference
in this world,

552
00:58:25,034 --> 00:58:27,689
"I became intensely
interested in her

553
00:58:27,724 --> 00:58:32,310
"and all through my life I
have followed her career.

554
00:58:32,344 --> 00:58:36,413
"Finally, there came the
thing that I had somehow

555
00:58:36,448 --> 00:58:41,655
"sensed would come, Helen was
in her own state, Alabama,

556
00:58:43,068 --> 00:58:47,034
"being feted and made much
of by her fellow citizens.

557
00:58:47,862 --> 00:58:49,862
"And yet courageously,
and frankly,

558
00:58:49,896 --> 00:58:52,103
"she spoke out on the inequity

559
00:58:52,137 --> 00:58:55,068
"and foolishness
of the color line.

560
00:58:55,103 --> 00:58:57,344
"It cost her something to speak.

561
00:58:57,379 --> 00:59:01,241
"They wanted her to retract
but she stayed serene

562
00:59:01,275 --> 00:59:05,137
"in the consciousness of the
truth that she had uttered.

563
00:59:05,172 --> 00:59:10,137
"And so it was proven,
as I knew it would be,

564
00:59:10,172 --> 00:59:13,241
"that this woman
who sits in darkness

565
00:59:13,275 --> 00:59:17,172
"has a spiritual
insight much clearer

566
00:59:17,206 --> 00:59:21,034
"than that of many
wide-eyed people who stare

567
00:59:21,068 --> 00:59:26,068
"uncomprehendingly at
this prejudiced world."

568
00:59:26,517 --> 00:59:28,965
[ambient nature sounds]

569
01:00:54,517 --> 01:00:59,931
[ambient nature sounds]

570
01:01:14,482 --> 01:01:19,344
On April 7, 1917, one day
following the U.S. Congress'

571
01:01:19,379 --> 01:01:21,517
declaration of war on Germany

572
01:01:21,551 --> 01:01:24,344
and formal entry
into World War I,

573
01:01:24,379 --> 01:01:27,310
an emergency meeting of the
Socialist Party of America

574
01:01:27,344 --> 01:01:29,413
convenes in St. Louis, Missouri.

575
01:01:30,103 --> 01:01:32,241
By an overwhelming majority,

576
01:01:32,275 --> 01:01:35,034
the Party denounces
America's entry as

577
01:01:35,068 --> 01:01:37,068
"a crime against the people",

578
01:01:37,103 --> 01:01:40,862
declares it a war
"imperialistic on both sides",

579
01:01:40,896 --> 01:01:44,000
and pledges "continuous,
active, and public opposition

580
01:01:44,034 --> 01:01:47,068
"to the war, through
demonstrations, mass petitions,

581
01:01:47,103 --> 01:01:49,655
"and all other means
within our power.

582
01:01:49,689 --> 01:01:52,413
"We will not willingly
give a single life

583
01:01:52,448 --> 01:01:54,896
"or a single dollar."

584
01:01:54,931 --> 01:01:58,034
Within two months, President
Wilson signs into law

585
01:01:58,068 --> 01:02:02,517
the Espionage Act, enabling
sentences up to 20 years

586
01:02:02,551 --> 01:02:04,620
for anyone willfully interfering

587
01:02:04,655 --> 01:02:07,586
with military operations
or recruitment.

588
01:02:08,827 --> 01:02:11,655
Immediately socialists
throughout the
country are indicted,

589
01:02:11,689 --> 01:02:15,655
convicted and jailed, a third
of Socialist meeting halls

590
01:02:15,689 --> 01:02:19,137
are destroyed, and
dissemination of the majority

591
01:02:19,172 --> 01:02:23,034
of socialist publications
are banned from the mails.

592
01:02:23,068 --> 01:02:26,206
On June 15th, 1917 in New York,

593
01:02:26,241 --> 01:02:29,448
Emma Goldman and Alexander
Berkman are arrested

594
01:02:29,482 --> 01:02:31,689
during a raid on their offices,

595
01:02:31,724 --> 01:02:36,034
charged with conspiracy to
"induce persons not to register"

596
01:02:36,068 --> 01:02:38,344
and sentenced to
two years in prison.

597
01:02:39,275 --> 01:02:43,000
In July, 1917 in North Dakota,

598
01:02:43,034 --> 01:02:46,172
Kate Richards O'Hare
is sentenced to
five years in prison

599
01:02:46,206 --> 01:02:49,034
for making an anti-war speech.

600
01:02:49,068 --> 01:02:53,103
On September 5th, 1917,
a national dragnet

601
01:02:53,137 --> 01:02:58,137
rounds up 166 senior
members of the IWW,

602
01:02:59,137 --> 01:03:01,137
raiding the headquarters
of the Socialist Party

603
01:03:01,172 --> 01:03:04,689
and of the IWW and
20 branch offices

604
01:03:04,724 --> 01:03:07,965
of the IWW in different states.

605
01:03:08,000 --> 01:03:11,448
Among them are many of Helen's
close friends and allies,

606
01:03:11,482 --> 01:03:14,068
provoking her to send
an impassioned appeal

607
01:03:14,103 --> 01:03:16,103
directly to President Wilson.

608
01:04:20,172 --> 01:04:22,724
Helen puts the
President on notice.

609
01:04:34,689 --> 01:04:37,068
She makes the argument squarely.

610
01:05:03,206 --> 01:05:05,689
She lays her cards
fully on the table,

611
01:05:05,724 --> 01:05:08,724
valiantly divulging
more to the President.

612
01:05:33,137 --> 01:05:35,551
[punk rock music]

613
01:05:40,689 --> 01:05:44,482
[singing in foreign language]

614
01:09:25,655 --> 01:09:29,344
When Vladimir Lenin and the
Bolshevik revolutionary forces

615
01:09:29,379 --> 01:09:33,068
seize power in Russia
in the Fall of 1917,

616
01:09:33,103 --> 01:09:35,482
in a nearly bloodless
coup d'etat,

617
01:09:35,517 --> 01:09:38,586
the enthusiasm it generates
among progressive circles

618
01:09:38,620 --> 01:09:40,482
worldwide is electric.

619
01:09:41,517 --> 01:09:43,620
For Helen Keller as for many,

620
01:09:43,655 --> 01:09:46,758
the establishment of the
world's first constitutionally

621
01:09:46,793 --> 01:09:50,551
socialist state
offers, from afar,

622
01:09:50,586 --> 01:09:53,793
the promise that the dream
of a more egalitarian

623
01:09:53,827 --> 01:09:56,379
and just restructuring
of the world

624
01:09:56,413 --> 01:09:58,724
could in fact be made a reality.

625
01:10:00,068 --> 01:10:03,068
[slow gentle music]

626
01:10:44,896 --> 01:10:47,586
[ice dripping]

627
01:10:48,551 --> 01:10:52,000
By the late 1930s, with
the arrival of reports

628
01:10:52,034 --> 01:10:55,586
on the wave of political
purges, mass executions

629
01:10:55,620 --> 01:10:58,206
and incarcerations
in the Soviet Union,

630
01:10:58,241 --> 01:11:00,862
Helen's support of
the Russian experiment

631
01:11:00,896 --> 01:11:04,103
becomes tempered,
albeit somewhat.

632
01:11:04,137 --> 01:11:07,827
Belatedly she would in
time turn against Stalin,

633
01:11:07,862 --> 01:11:09,724
though her conviction
in the promise

634
01:11:09,758 --> 01:11:11,862
of the Soviet dream endured,

635
01:11:11,896 --> 01:11:14,827
gaining new traction when
the Russian Army combats

636
01:11:14,862 --> 01:11:17,068
Nazi Germany during
World War II.

637
01:11:18,241 --> 01:11:21,517
Following a forthright dinner
discussion with a staunch

638
01:11:21,551 --> 01:11:24,827
critic of the Soviet
Union in 1943,

639
01:11:24,862 --> 01:11:27,482
Helen decides to
follow up with a letter

640
01:11:27,517 --> 01:11:30,758
hoping to clarify
any misunderstanding.

641
01:12:34,862 --> 01:12:38,965
As Helen confided to a friend
about the exchange days later,

642
01:12:39,000 --> 01:12:41,206
"Alas, I am incorrigible,

643
01:12:41,241 --> 01:12:44,206
"but what can one do when
one believes that the truth

644
01:12:44,241 --> 01:12:48,068
"is the highest compliment human
beings can pay each other?"

645
01:12:50,310 --> 01:12:52,206
- So the question is
about the Soviet Union,

646
01:12:52,241 --> 01:12:53,827
and particularly about Lenin.

647
01:12:53,862 --> 01:12:55,551
So what was Leninism?

648
01:12:55,586 --> 01:12:58,068
Well, here we have
to look at the facts.

649
01:12:58,103 --> 01:13:00,206
Now, you know, if you
look at the facts,

650
01:13:00,241 --> 01:13:02,586
I think here's what you find.

651
01:13:02,620 --> 01:13:06,103
Lenin was a right-wing deviation
of the Socialist Movement

652
01:13:06,137 --> 01:13:08,000
and he was so regarded.

653
01:13:08,034 --> 01:13:09,862
He was regarded as
that by the Marxists,

654
01:13:09,896 --> 01:13:11,586
by the mainstream Marxists.

655
01:13:11,620 --> 01:13:14,000
We've forgotten who the
mainstream Marxists were

656
01:13:14,034 --> 01:13:15,586
because they lost.

657
01:13:15,620 --> 01:13:17,586
And you only remember
the guys who won.

658
01:13:17,620 --> 01:13:20,344
But if you go to that period,

659
01:13:20,379 --> 01:13:22,758
the mainstream Marxists, were
people like, for example,

660
01:13:22,793 --> 01:13:25,241
Anton Pannekoek, who
was head of education

661
01:13:25,275 --> 01:13:28,275
for the Marxist movement.

662
01:13:29,862 --> 01:13:31,724
He was one of the
people who Lenin later

663
01:13:31,758 --> 01:13:33,758
denounced as an
infantile leftist.

664
01:13:34,758 --> 01:13:36,620
But he was one of the
leading intellectuals

665
01:13:36,655 --> 01:13:38,896
of the actual Marxist movement.

666
01:13:38,931 --> 01:13:41,275
Rosa Luxemburg was another
mainstream Marxist,

667
01:13:41,310 --> 01:13:42,241
and there were others.

668
01:13:42,275 --> 01:13:43,758
And they were very-—

669
01:13:43,793 --> 01:13:46,862
in fact, Trotsky was
one up until 1917.

670
01:13:46,896 --> 01:13:49,137
They were all very
critical of Leninism

671
01:13:49,172 --> 01:13:51,137
because of this, what
they regarded as this

672
01:13:51,172 --> 01:13:53,931
opportunistic vanguardism.

673
01:13:53,965 --> 01:13:56,379
The idea that the
radical intelligentsia

674
01:13:56,413 --> 01:13:59,275
were gonna exploit
popular movements

675
01:13:59,310 --> 01:14:01,241
to seize state power.

676
01:14:01,275 --> 01:14:03,310
And then to use that state power

677
01:14:03,344 --> 01:14:06,724
to whip the population into
the society that they chose.

678
01:14:06,758 --> 01:14:09,172
After all, the core of
Socialism was understood

679
01:14:09,206 --> 01:14:12,172
to be workers control
over production.

680
01:14:12,206 --> 01:14:13,655
That was the core.

681
01:14:13,689 --> 01:14:14,896
That's where you begin with

682
01:14:14,931 --> 01:14:16,172
and then you go on
with other things.

683
01:14:16,206 --> 01:14:18,034
But the beginning is control

684
01:14:18,068 --> 01:14:20,000
by the workers over production,

685
01:14:20,034 --> 01:14:21,275
and that's where it begins.

686
01:14:22,689 --> 01:14:25,931
Then Lenin took
power in October 1917

687
01:14:25,965 --> 01:14:26,931
in what's called a revolution,

688
01:14:26,965 --> 01:14:29,206
but in my view it ought
to be called a coup.

689
01:14:32,000 --> 01:14:33,931
And things followed that coup,

690
01:14:33,965 --> 01:14:36,344
or revolution if you
want to call it that.

691
01:14:36,379 --> 01:14:37,862
One of the things
that followed it

692
01:14:37,896 --> 01:14:40,034
was the immediate
moves to destroy

693
01:14:40,068 --> 01:14:42,034
the Soviets and the
factory councils.

694
01:14:42,068 --> 01:14:43,689
Those were some
of the first moves

695
01:14:43,724 --> 01:14:47,068
of Lenin and Trotsky, Trotsky
joined at that point,

696
01:14:47,103 --> 01:14:48,689
after they took state power.

697
01:14:48,724 --> 01:14:50,689
In fact, if you look
at what Lenin wrote

698
01:14:50,724 --> 01:14:52,344
after that period, or did,

699
01:14:52,379 --> 01:14:55,068
you'll find it's a reversion
to the earlier position.

700
01:14:55,103 --> 01:14:59,068
This sort of left deviation
is that, a deviation.

701
01:14:59,103 --> 01:15:02,689
You could ask why, in my view
it was just opportunistic.

702
01:15:02,724 --> 01:15:04,827
He knew that in
order to gain power,

703
01:15:04,862 --> 01:15:06,068
he was gonna have
to go along with

704
01:15:06,103 --> 01:15:08,172
the popular currents
that were developing.

705
01:15:08,206 --> 01:15:11,793
Which were in fact,
spontaneous, and libertarian,

706
01:15:11,827 --> 01:15:15,379
and socialist, as most
popular movements are.

707
01:15:15,413 --> 01:15:18,000
Have been in fact
since the 17th century.

708
01:15:18,034 --> 01:15:21,000
And being an astute
politician, which he was,

709
01:15:21,034 --> 01:15:22,379
he sort of went along with that

710
01:15:22,413 --> 01:15:25,137
and talked the line that
the people wanted to hear.

711
01:15:25,172 --> 01:15:27,000
It's just like when
an American politician

712
01:15:27,034 --> 01:15:28,724
goes somewhere and his
pollsters tell him,

713
01:15:28,758 --> 01:15:30,034
say so and so and he says it.

714
01:15:30,068 --> 01:15:31,862
Doesn't mean he believes in it.

715
01:15:31,896 --> 01:15:34,862
And I think Lenin was doing
the same thing without the polls

716
01:15:34,896 --> 01:15:37,862
Well, after that,
comes the view that

717
01:15:37,896 --> 01:15:39,413
all of this is Socialism.

718
01:15:39,448 --> 01:15:42,103
And why should the communist
parties take that view?

719
01:15:42,137 --> 01:15:45,172
I think the reason is
because they wanted to

720
01:15:45,206 --> 01:15:49,758
sort of exploit the
moral force of Socialism,

721
01:15:49,793 --> 01:15:51,103
which was quite real.

722
01:15:51,137 --> 01:15:53,275
You know, it's kind of hard
to remember that today.

723
01:15:53,310 --> 01:15:55,241
But at that time
it was very real.

724
01:15:55,275 --> 01:15:59,482
This was regarded as a
progressive moral force

725
01:15:59,517 --> 01:16:03,379
and by associating their
own destruction of Socialism

726
01:16:03,413 --> 01:16:04,965
with the aura of Socialism,

727
01:16:05,000 --> 01:16:08,000
they hope to gain credit
in the working classes

728
01:16:08,034 --> 01:16:12,448
and other group
progressive sectors.

729
01:16:12,482 --> 01:16:15,517
Now, the West also identified
that with Socialism.

730
01:16:15,551 --> 01:16:17,793
And they did it for
the opposite reason.

731
01:16:17,827 --> 01:16:20,275
They wanted to
associate Socialism

732
01:16:20,310 --> 01:16:24,034
with the brutality
of the Russian state

733
01:16:24,068 --> 01:16:25,965
that undermines Socialism.

734
01:16:26,000 --> 01:16:28,103
So what you had is
is that two major

735
01:16:28,137 --> 01:16:30,793
world propaganda agencies,

736
01:16:31,655 --> 01:16:33,896
for their own and quite
different reasons,

737
01:16:33,931 --> 01:16:36,034
were claiming that
this is Socialism.

738
01:16:36,068 --> 01:16:38,448
That this destruction of
Socialism is Socialism.

739
01:16:38,482 --> 01:16:40,517
It's very hard
to break out of

740
01:16:40,551 --> 01:16:42,413
the control of the
world's two major

741
01:16:42,448 --> 01:16:44,827
propaganda agencies
when they agree.

742
01:16:44,862 --> 01:16:46,827
They agreed for
different reasons.

743
01:16:46,862 --> 01:16:49,310
But they basically
agreed and that

744
01:16:49,344 --> 01:16:51,137
then became doctrine and dogma.

745
01:17:17,551 --> 01:17:20,379
[birds chirping]

746
01:17:42,137 --> 01:17:45,379
Among the 20,000 books
hurled into the infamous

747
01:17:45,413 --> 01:17:48,275
Berlin bonfires of 1933,

748
01:17:48,310 --> 01:17:51,344
an event organized by
the German Student Union

749
01:17:51,379 --> 01:17:53,965
accompanying Hitler's
rise to power,

750
01:17:54,000 --> 01:17:57,068
was Helen Keller's
"Out Of The Dark".

751
01:17:57,103 --> 01:17:59,965
In an "Open Letter to
the Students of Germany",

752
01:18:00,000 --> 01:18:01,310
Helen responded.

753
01:18:31,068 --> 01:18:33,586
[birds chirping]

754
01:18:33,620 --> 01:18:38,379
In 1946, while Helen travels
throughout war-torn Europe,

755
01:18:38,413 --> 01:18:40,000
visiting with those blinded

756
01:18:40,034 --> 01:18:42,344
or otherwise
disabled by the war,

757
01:18:42,379 --> 01:18:45,655
a malfunctioning furnace
in her home in Connecticut

758
01:18:45,689 --> 01:18:48,931
burns the entire
house to the ground.

759
01:18:48,965 --> 01:18:51,551
All of Helen's
possessions are destroyed,

760
01:18:51,586 --> 01:18:55,068
including all her papers,
letters, mementos,

761
01:18:55,103 --> 01:18:58,068
as well as the manuscript
for her long-planned

762
01:18:58,103 --> 01:19:01,137
biography of her
teacher, Anne Sullivan.

763
01:19:02,517 --> 01:19:05,068
Within a year, through
the generosity of friends,

764
01:19:05,103 --> 01:19:07,206
the house is rebuilt.

765
01:19:07,241 --> 01:19:11,586
Regarding the loss, Helen
publicly conceals her sorrow,

766
01:19:11,620 --> 01:19:14,620
simply remarking that
she is happy to be rid

767
01:19:14,655 --> 01:19:17,586
of the dangerous old furnace.

768
01:19:17,620 --> 01:19:21,206
When, eight years
later, at age 74,

769
01:19:21,241 --> 01:19:24,724
Helen finishes the re-writing
of her book, "Teacher",

770
01:19:24,758 --> 01:19:28,103
she expresses gratefulness
that the earlier manuscript

771
01:19:28,137 --> 01:19:31,034
had burned, now
convinced that she'd

772
01:19:31,068 --> 01:19:33,137
found the proper
perspective needed.

773
01:19:49,241 --> 01:19:54,241
On September 11, 2001, beyond
the catastrophic loss of life

774
01:19:55,655 --> 01:19:57,689
resulting from the attacks
on the World Trade Center,

775
01:19:57,724 --> 01:20:01,034
fiery debris falling
from the South Tower

776
01:20:01,068 --> 01:20:03,482
strikes a building
one block away,

777
01:20:03,517 --> 01:20:05,758
housing, among other businesses,

778
01:20:05,793 --> 01:20:09,413
the headquarters of the
Helen Keller International.

779
01:20:09,448 --> 01:20:13,275
Founded in 1915 by George
Kessler and Helen Keller

780
01:20:13,310 --> 01:20:16,413
and established initially
to treat veterans blinded

781
01:20:16,448 --> 01:20:20,137
in World War I, the Helen
Keller International

782
01:20:20,172 --> 01:20:24,310
has evolved into one of the
oldest nonprofit organizations

783
01:20:24,344 --> 01:20:26,551
dedicated to
preventing blindness

784
01:20:26,586 --> 01:20:30,034
and reducing
malnutrition worldwide.

785
01:20:30,068 --> 01:20:32,310
The building is
severely damaged,

786
01:20:32,344 --> 01:20:34,275
and two workers are
killed when they are

787
01:20:34,310 --> 01:20:36,689
trapped inside the elevators.

788
01:20:36,724 --> 01:20:40,137
Within the offices of the
Helen Keller International,

789
01:20:40,172 --> 01:20:42,103
fire breaks out.

790
01:20:42,137 --> 01:20:45,241
In addition to the loss of
the entire institutional

791
01:20:45,275 --> 01:20:47,310
archives of the organization,

792
01:20:47,344 --> 01:20:50,586
is an irreplaceable
collection of photos, letters,

793
01:20:50,620 --> 01:20:53,034
and books of Helen Keller.

794
01:20:53,068 --> 01:20:55,586
While virtually
all is destroyed,

795
01:20:55,620 --> 01:20:58,172
those sifting through
the rubble discover,

796
01:20:58,206 --> 01:21:02,275
singed but intact, a
terra cotta bust of Helen

797
01:21:02,310 --> 01:21:07,310
bestowed as a gift on her
first trip to Japan in 1937.

798
01:21:08,793 --> 01:21:11,310
Following the end
of World War II,

799
01:21:11,344 --> 01:21:16,344
Helen returns to Japan in
1948, sent by Douglas MacArthur

800
01:21:17,482 --> 01:21:20,068
as America's first
Goodwill Ambassador.

801
01:21:20,103 --> 01:21:22,517
With an irony that
does not escape her,

802
01:21:22,551 --> 01:21:26,206
she tours the country making
an appeal for new laws

803
01:21:26,241 --> 01:21:29,724
on behalf of the welfare
of the physically disabled.

804
01:21:31,241 --> 01:21:34,103
Accompanied by her
secretary Polly Thomson,

805
01:21:34,137 --> 01:21:36,103
she revisits Hiroshima.

806
01:23:20,793 --> 01:23:23,517
[rain falling]

807
01:23:42,275 --> 01:23:44,827
[birds chirping]

808
01:24:23,862 --> 01:24:26,448
[bee buzzing]

809
01:24:37,000 --> 01:24:39,827
[birds chirping]

810
01:24:50,758 --> 01:24:53,758
[slow gentle music]

811
01:25:47,068 --> 01:25:50,827
Toward the close of
"Midstream: My later life",

812
01:25:50,862 --> 01:25:54,793
Helen Keller's second
autobiography, is a chapter,

813
01:25:54,827 --> 01:25:59,551
part confession, part
testament, part invitation,

814
01:25:59,586 --> 01:26:03,068
entitled "Thoughts that
will not let me sleep".

815
01:26:27,000 --> 01:26:29,586
[horse huffs]

816
01:27:25,931 --> 01:27:28,758
[rustling winds]

817
01:28:00,827 --> 01:28:03,689
[birds chirping]

818
01:28:55,724 --> 01:28:58,586
[birds chirping]

819
01:29:34,000 --> 01:29:39,000
[rustling leaves]
[birds chirping]

820
01:30:59,172 --> 01:31:02,000
[birds chirping]

821
01:31:14,758 --> 01:31:17,482
- [Man] Miss Keller, I shall
ask you a few questions,

822
01:31:17,517 --> 01:31:20,448
and Miss Thomson will
transmit them to you.

823
01:31:20,482 --> 01:31:23,379
Tell me Miss Keller, I
know you will realize

824
01:31:23,413 --> 01:31:27,000
the question isn't as
impertinent as it may sound.

825
01:31:27,034 --> 01:31:29,034
Are you happy?

826
01:31:29,068 --> 01:31:36,206
- [Helen] Yes, I am happy.
Happiness comes from within.

827
01:31:36,241 --> 01:31:43,413
I have time [?] and faith,
I am happy.

828
01:31:44,068 --> 01:31:46,827
- [Man] If you could
have one wish granted,

829
01:31:46,862 --> 01:31:47,793
what would it be?

830
01:31:48,586 --> 01:31:56,413
- I would wish for light in
every eye and in every mind.

831
01:32:11,827 --> 01:32:14,206
[door closes]

832
01:32:15,965 --> 01:32:18,827
[gentle wind]