DUBUQUE’S BLIND LAWYER-Maj. Dewitt Cram 1903

CRAM

Posted By: Cheryl Locher Moonen (email)
Date: 2/19/2017 at 21:48:47

Dubuque Telegraph-Herald, Jan. 6, 1903

DUBUQUE’S BLIND LAWYER
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The Des Moines Newspaper Discussed
The Case of Major Cram of
This City
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The Des Moines News says editorially: When you feel fate has handicapped you in life’s race you might think of Maj. Cram of Dubuque, Iowa.

About fifteen years ago Major Cram was stricken totally blind.

He was a lawyer and a good one, but he did not give up his practice because of his loss of eyesight.

Since 1882, excepting four years, he has been assistant district attorney. He has a state wide reputation as being a vigorous prosecutors and is frequently consulted by the most eminent lawyers of the district.

The secret of his success is his wonderful memory. He keeps posted on the latest decisions of the court and has the faculty of remembering any section of the statute once read to him. He appears for the government in nearly all the cases before the United States commissioner. During a trial he frequently manifests his familiarity with previous decisions bearing on the case by quoting them in full. He is a very clever examiner of witnesses. During the last year he has appeared for the government in over thirty cases.

Perhaps the secret, unbreathed prayer of every person who has had the use of his eyes in this one: “God save me from blindness!” No deprivation of this present life is comparable to this one.

Homer and Milton turned blindness into poetry, but the most of us would turn such an affliction into despair.
Brave, blind lawyer!