Michael J. Dowling was a young man who fell from a wagon in a blizzard in Michigan when he was fourteen years of age. Before his parents discovered that he had fallen from the rear of the wagon, he had been frostbitten. His right leg was amputated almost to the hip, his left leg above the knee; his right arm was amputated; his left hand was amputated; not much future for a young lad like that, was there? Do you know what he did? He went to the board of county commissioners and he told them that if they would educate him he wouls pay back every penny.

During World War I, Mr. Dowling, now president of a large St. Paul bank, went to Europe to visit the soldiers -- to visit those who were wounded. Upon one occasion he was in a large hotel in London, and he had before him the wounded soldiers in their wheelchairs. They were in the lobby, and he was up on the mezzanine floor. As he started to speak, he minimized the seriousness of their wounds, the fact that one had lost an eye, another had lost an arm, etc., were no grounds for complaint. He got these fellows so wrought up that they started to boo him. He then walked over to the stairway and down the stairs toward the lobby, telling them as he walked how fortunate they were, and they continued booing.

Finally, he sat down on one of the steps and took off his right leg. And he kept on talking and telling them how well off they were. Well, they calmed down a little bit, but they still resented his remarks. Then he took off his left leg. The booing stopped. Before he arrived at the bototm of the stairs, he had taken off his right arm, and flipped off his left hand, and there he sat -- just the stump of a body.

Michael Dowling was the president of one of the biggest banks in St. Paul. He had married and was the father of five children; he finally died as the result of the strength he gave in encouraging the wounded soldiers of World War I.

--Matthew Cowley