Stammering, Its Cause and Cure Part 2

Eventually, I drifted around to the Union News Company. They wanted a boy to sell newspapers on trams running out over the Grand Trunk Railway. I took the job--the last job in the world I should have expected to hold, because of all the places a newsboy's job is one where you need to have a voice and the ability to talk.

I hope no stammerer ever has a position that causes him as much humiliation and suffering as that job caused me. You can imagine what it meant to me to go up and down the aisles of the train, calling papers and every few moments finding out that I couldn't say what I started out to say and then go gasping and grunting down the aisle making all sorts of facial grimaces.

How the pa.s.sengers laughed at me! And how they made fun of me and asked me all sorts of questions just to hear me try to talk. It almost made me wish I could never see a human being again, so keen was the suffering and so tense were my nerves as a result of this work.

I don't believe I ever did anything that kept me in a more frenzied mental state than this work of trying to sell newspapers--and it wasn't very long (as I had expected) until the manager found out my situation and gently let me out.

Then I gave up, all at once. Was I discouraged? Well, perhaps. But not exactly discouraged. Rather I saw the plain hopelessness of trying to get or hold a job in my condition. So I prepared to go home. I didn't want to do it, because I knew the neighbors and friends round about would be ready for me with, "I told you so" and "I knew it couldn't be done" and a lot of gratuitous information like that.

But I gave up, nevertheless, deeply disappointed to think that once again I had failed to be cured of stammering, yet all the while resolving just as firmly as ever that I would try again and that I would never give up hope as long as there remained anything for me to do.

And this rule I followed out, month after month and year after year, until in the end I was richly rewarded for my patience and persistence.

CHAPTER V

FURTHER FUTILE ATTEMPTS TO BE CURED

The next summer I decided to visit eastern inst.i.tutions for the cure of stammering and determine if these could do any more for me than had already been done-which as the reader has seen, was practically nothing. I bought a ticket for Philadelphia, where I remained for some time, and where I gained more information of value than in all of my previous efforts combined.

I found in the Quaker City an old man who had made speech defects almost a life study. He knew more about the true principles of speech and the underlying fundamentals in the production of voice than all of the rest put together. He taught me these things, and gave me a solid foundation on which to build. True, he did not cure my stammering. But that was not because he failed to understand its cause, but merely because he had not worked out the correct method of removing the cause.

It was this man who first brought home to me the fact that principles of speech are constant, that they never change and that every person who talks normally follows out the same principles of speech, while every person who stutters or stammers violates these principles of speech. That is the basis of sound procedure for the cure of stammering and I must acknowledge my indebtedness to this sincere old gentleman who did so much for me in the way of knowledge, even though he did but little for me in the way of results.

After leaving Philadelphia, I visited Pittsburgh, Baltimore, Washington, New York, Boston and other eastern cities, searching for a cure, but did not find it. I was benefited very little. These experiences, however, all possessed a certain value, although I did not know it at the time. They taught me the things which would not work and by a simple process of elimination I later found the things which would.

Finally, however, having become disgusted with my eastern trip, I bought a ticket for home and boarded the train more nearly convinced than ever that I had an incurable case of stammering.

Some time after trying my experiment with the eastern schools, I saw the advertis.e.m.e.nt of a professor from Chicago saying that he would be at Fort Wayne, Indiana, (which was 40 miles from my home), for a week.

He was there. So was I. But to my sorrow. I paid him twenty dollars for which he taught me a few simple breathing and vocal exercises, most of which I already knew by heart, having been drilled in them time and again. This fellow was like so many others who claimed to cure stammering--he was in the business just because there were stammerers to cure, and not because he knew anything about it. He treated the effects of the trouble and did not attempt to remove the cause. The fact of the matter is, I doubt whether he knew anything about the cause.

Then one Sunday while reading a Cincinnati Sunday newspaper, I ran across an advertis.e.m.e.nt of a School of Elocution, in which was the statement, "Stammering Positively Cured!" Whenever I saw a sign "Vocal Culture" I became interested, so I clipped the advertis.e.m.e.nt, corresponded with the school and not many Sundays later, being able to secure excursion rates to Cincinnati, I made the trip and prepared to begin my work.

The cost of the course was only fifty dollars and I thought I would be getting cured mighty cheap if I succeeded. So I gave this school a "whirl" with the idea of going hack home in a short time cured--to the surprise of my family and friends. But I was doomed to disappointment.

I took the twenty lessons, but went home stammering as badly as ever.

You can imagine how I felt as the Big Four train whistled at the Wabash river just before pulling into the Wabash station, where I was to get off.

Here was another failure that could be checked up against the instructor who knew nothing whatever about the cause of stammering. The whole idea of the course was to cultivate voice and make me an orator.

That was very fine and would, no doubt, have done me a great deal of good, but it was of no use to try to cultivate a fine voice until I could use that voice in the normal way. The finest voice in the world is of no use if you stammer, and cannot use it. The school of elocution went the same way as all the rest--it was a total failure so far as curing my stammering was concerned.

By this time, my effort to be cured of stammering had become a habit, just as eating and sleeping are habits. I was determined to be cured. I made up my mind I would never give up. True, I often said to myself, "I may never be cured," but in the same breath I resolved that if I was not, it could never be said that it was because I was a "quitter."

My next experiment was with a man who claimed he could cure my stammering in one hour. Think of it. Here I had been, spending weeks and months trying out just ONE way of cure and here was a man who could do the whole job IN ONE HOUR. Wonderful power he must possess, I thought. Of course, I did not believe he could do it. I COULD not believe it. It was not believable. But nevertheless, in my effort to be cured, I had resolved to leave no stone unturned. I made up my mind that the only way to be sure that I was not missing the successful method was to try them all.

So I put myself under this man's hand. He was a hypnotist. He felt able to restore speech with a hypnotic sleep and the proper hypnotic suggestion while I was in the trance. But like all the fake fol-de-rol with which I had come in contact, he did not even make an impression.

I will say in behalf of this hypnotic stammer doctor, however, that he was following distinguished precedent in attempting to cure stammering by hypnotism. German professors in particular have been especially zealous in following out this line of endeavor and many of them have written volumes on the subject only to end up with the conclusion (in their own minds, at least) that it is a failure. Hypnotism may be said to be a condition where the will of the subject is entirely dormant and his every act and thought controlled by the mind of the hypnotist. I do not know, not having been conscious at the time, but it is not improbable that while in the hypnotic state, I was able to talk without stammering, since my words were directed by the mind of the professor, and not my own mind. But inasmuch as I couldn't have the professor carried around with me through the rest of my lifetime in order to use his mind, the treatment could not benefit me.

I next got in touch with an honest-looking old man with a beard like one of the prophets, who a.s.sured me with a great deal of professional dignity, that stammering was a mere trifle for a magnetic healer like himself and that he could cure it entirely in ten treatments. So I planked down the specified amount for ten treatments, and went to him regularly three times a week for almost a month, when he explained to me, again with a plenitude of professionalism, that my case was a very peculiar one and that it would require ten more treatments. But I could not figure out how, if ten treatments had done me no good, ten more would do any better. So I declined to try his methods any further. Once again I said to myself, "Well, this has failed, too--I wonder what next?"

The next happened to be electrical treatments. When I visited the electrical treatment specialist, he explained to me in a very effective manner just how (according to his views) stammering was caused by certain contractions of the muscles of the vocal organs, etc., and told me that his treatment surely was the thing to eliminate this contraction and leave my speech entirely free from stammering. I knew something about my stammering then, but not a great deal--consequently his explanation sounded plausible to me and appealed to me as being very sensible and so I decided to give it a trial. I was glad after it was over that I had received no bad effects--that was ALL the cause I had to be glad, for he had not changed my stammering one iota, nor had he changed my speech in any way to make it easier for me to talk. Thus, had I found another one of the things that will not work and chalked up another failure against my attempts to be cured of stammering.

By this time, the reader may well wonder why I was not discouraged in my efforts to be cured. Well, who will say that I was not? I believe I was--as far as it was possible for me to be discouraged at that time.

But despite all my failures, I had made up my mind never to give up until I was cured of stammering. I set myself doggedly to the task of ridding myself of an impediment that I knew would always hold me down and prevent any measure of success. I stayed with this task. I never gave up. I kept this one thing always hi mind. It was a life job with me if necessary--and I was not a "quitter." So failures and discouragements simply steeled me to more intense endeavors to be cured. And while these endeavors cost my parents many hundreds of dollars and cost me many years of time, still, I feel today that they were worth while--not worth while enough to go through again, or worth while enough to recommend to any one else--but at least not a total loss to me.

CHAPTER VI

I REFUSE TO BE DISCOURAGED

After I had tried the electric treatment and found it wanting, I heard of a clairvoyant who could, by looking at a person, tell his name, age, occupation, place of residence, etc., and could cure all diseases and afflictions including stammering. So I thought I would give him a trial. He claimed to work through a "greater power"--whatever that was--and so I paid him his fee to see the "greater power" work--and to be cured of stammering, as per promise. But there was nothing doing in the line of a cure--all I got in trying to be cured, was another chapter added to my book of experience.

Following this experience, I tried an osteopath, whose methods, however good they might have been, affected merely the physical organs and could not hope to reach the real cause of my trouble. I do not doubt that this man was entirely sincere in explaining his own science to me in a way that led me to build up hopes of relief from that method. He simply did not understand stammering and its causes and was therefore not prepared to treat it.

I was told of another doctor who claimed to be able to cure stammering.

When I called to see him, he had me wait in his reception room for nearly two hours, for the purpose, I presume, of giving me the impression that he was a very busy man. Then he called me into his private consultation room, where he apparently had all of the modern and up-to-date surgical instruments. He put me through a thorough examination, after which he said that the only thing to cure me was a surgical operation to have my tonsils removed. I was not willing to consent to the use of the knife, so therefore the operation was never performed.

Since that time, however, the practice of operating on children especially for the removal of adenoids and tonsils has become very popular and quite frequently this is the remedy prescribed for various and sundry ailments of childhood. In no case must a parent expect to eradicate stuttering or stammering by the removal of the tonsils. The operation, beneficial as it may be in other ways, does not prevent the child from stammering--for the operation does not remove the cause of the stammering--that cause is mental, not physical.

CHAPTER VII

THE BENEFIT OF MANY FAILURES

I had now tried upwards of fifteen different methods for the cure of my stammering. I had tried the physician; the surgeon; the elocution teacher; the hypnotic specialist; the osteopath; a clairvoyant; a mail-order scheme; the world's greatest speech specialist--so-called, and several other things. My parents had spent hundreds of dollars of money trying to have me cured. They had spared no effort, stopped at no cost. And yet I now stammered worse than I had ever stammered before.

Everything I had tried had been a worthless failure. Nothing had been of the least permanent good to me. My money was gone, months of time had been wasted and I now began to wonder if I had not been very foolish indeed, in going to first one man and then another, trying to be cured. "Wouldn't it have been better," I asked, "if I had resigned myself to a life as a stammerer and let it go at that?"

My father before me stammered. So did my grandfather and no less than fourteen of my blood relations. My affliction was inherited and therefore supposedly incurable. At least so I was told by honest physicians and other scientific observers who believed what they said and who had no desire to make any personal gain by trafficking in my infirmity. These men told me frankly that their skill and knowledge held out no hope for me and advised me from the very beginning to save my money and avoid the pitfalls of the many who would profess to be able to cure me.

But I had disregarded this honest advice, sincerely given, had spent my money and my time--and what had I gotten? Would I not have been better off if I had listened to the advice and stayed at home? Everything seemed to answer "Yes," but down in my heart I felt that things were better as they were. Certainly some good must come of all this effort--surely it could not all be wasted.

"But yet," I argued with myself, "what good can come of it?" Stammering was fast ruining my life. It had already taken the joy out of my childhood and had made school a task almost too heavy to be undertaken.

It had marked my youth with a somber melancholy, and now that youth was slipping away from me with no hope that the future held anything better for me than the past. Something had to be done. I was overpowered by that thought--something had to be done. It had to be done at once. I had come to the turning point in my life. Like Hamlet, I found myself repeating over and over again,

"To be or not to be, That is the question."

Was I discouraged? No, I will not admit that I was discouraged, but I was pretty nearly resigned to a life without fluent speech, nearly convinced that future efforts to find a cure for stammering would be fruitless and bring no better results.

It was about this time that I stepped into the office of my cousin, then a successful lawyer and district attorney of his city, later the first vice-president of one of the great American railroads with headquarters in New York, and now retired. He was one of those men in whose vocabulary there is no such word as "fail." After I had talked with him for quite a while, he looked at me, and with his kindly, almost fatherly smile asked, "Why don't you cure yourself?"