Armless Judge Going to Europe to Aid Crippled

1915
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There He Will Arrange Plans to Help Allies' Maimed

Photo Caption: With only his mechanical arm — designed by himself — Judge Quentin D. Corley dresses and shaves himself, handles his own food, writes his own opinions and handles his own records in the County Court of Dallas County, Texas. He drives an auto, bowls, plays billiards, carries bundles and even helps his wife with the housework.

Over in Europe there are many armless men who feel they are hopelessly helpless. So the Dallas judge is going abroad to do what he can to aid war victims "for humanity's sake," as told in another column on this page.

The top picture shows Judge Corley completing his dressing operations. A contrivance, attached to a suit case, permits him to put on his collar and tie. With an almost similar machine he shaves himself. Below is a photograph of the judge bowling.

DALLAS, Texas, Dec. 16. — Quentin D. Corley, the "armless judge" of this city, will soon take up the burden of the maimed in the European conflict. On Dec. 22 he will leave for Washington, D. C., to confer with an official whose name is not known and who had told the Belgium ambassador to America that Judge Corley, the armless, does the work of a man in everyday life.

It is expected that the judge will sign a contract with the Allies to teach armless soldiers to be happy and to be useful.

The judge says any work he may do will be for the sake of humanity and not for money. "I shall only accept the same salary. I am getting now, and expenses," he says. "If they see fit to honor me if I do their men a service, I shall be glad of that, too."

Story of the Judge's Career

Judge Corley's story is a strange one. He was of a roving disposition when young, and took no qualms at satisfying it as a guest of the railroads. He was riding thru New York State on a freight train when a burly brakeman's head showed over the far end of the car. He slipped and fell as he tried to flee. The trainmen picked him up a poor, mangled youth. One arm was gone at the shoulder and the other just above the elbow.

As he lay in the hospital fighting for life, he began figuring how he would use that life once he was out again.

"I strove to invent and picture in my mind a mechanical hand, but of course I could not get anything but the open and shut movement; no one has," he says. "Then I thought that if I made an arm with an elbow joint in it, and so rigid that it would have both lateral and perpendicular movement, I had the problem solved."

A youth of 23, seemingly handicapped for all time and yet doomed by a healthy body to live a long life, Corley came home to his parents in Dallas with only his idea of a mechanical arm — and a deathless ambition to conquer the terrible odds against him.

How His Plans Worked Out

For four years he studied law with all the mental force of his brilliant mind, and at night he spent hours upon the plan for his mechanical arm. When completed, it was a steel hook made of two steel flanges, which opened and shut on cogs, a little handle which turned them being worked by his teeth. In this way he gripped things tightly, and with the hook he could handle almost anything he could lift.

From then on it was easy. He soon learned to write and then passed the bar examination. He began to practice law and to practice the use of his arm, and study means by which he could use it. His progress was wonderful. He invented other machines, to be used in dressing and sport, until today he can do almost anything a normal being desires to do.

He has a desire bordering on passion to aid the soldiers who have lost both arms in battle. There were more than ten thousand of them in the Allies' armies alone at last count.

Wants to Make Them Useful

"I know I can teach them to use my inventions within a short time, and I want to do it," he says. "I want them to get away from the terrible feeling that they are burdens upon the state and upon their families. If they'll put these men in my hands I can teach a thousand in three months to use this arm and take their places in life and seek happiness."

His friends say he can do it, too. He has pupils all over Texas who are learning from him the secrets. They invariably make good when he turns them loose.

Judge Corley has the inventions he uses patented, but does not sell them. "I have them for humanity," he says.

The plan on which the Belgian ambassador is said to want Judge Corley to work will be a school under his supervision, at which armless men will be equipped and trained by him. It will take him to Europe about four years, if the war continues a year or so longer.

—Saturday Blade, Chicago, Dec. 18, 1915, p. 5.