Schall was born in Reed City, Michigan, and moved with his family to Campbell, Minnesota, in 1884.

As he was legally blind, he was granted, by House vote, a full-time page to assist him with his work.

Johnson would challenge Schall's election, leading the blind Senator to infamously label him "a marionette who kicked and waved his hands and opened his mouth according to the tension of the string."

Long noted as a vitriolic and personal campaigner, Schall would emerge as a leading opponent of the New Deal, going so far as to compare Franklin D. Roosevelt to Satan and claim his reform program was communistic in nature.

"[3] Schall was struck by a hit and run driver while walking across the Washington-Baltimore Boulevard, now known as Bladensburg Road, in Cottage City, Maryland, on December 19, 1935.