JANUARY 1968
INKPRINT EDITION
VOICE OF THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
The National Federation of the Blind is not an organization speaking for the blind- -it is the blind speaking for themselves
Monitor Headquarters 2652 Shasta Road, Berkeley, California 9470!
Published monthly in braille and distributed free to the blind by the National Federation of the Blind, President: Jacobus tenBroek, 2652 Shasta Road, Berkeley, California 94708.
Inkprint edition produced and distributed by the National Federation of the Blind.
Editor: Jacobus tenBroek, 2652 Shasta Road, Berkeley, California 94708.
News items and changes of address should be sent to the Editor.
LEGISLATIVE BULLETIN - DISABILITY INSURANCE FOR THE BLIND--WHAT HAPPENED
SOCIAL SECURITY AMENDMENTS OF 1967
by Perry Sundquist
AGENCIES TRY TAKEOVER AGAIN
by Esther Asbill and Joe Abel
COLORADO CONVENTION
by Judith Haskins
A FRIEND AND COLLEAGUE LEAVES US
by Perry Sundquist
WELFARE HEARINGS MAY BE BY-PASSED
CITY POSITIONS BECOME AVAILABLE FOR ADULT BLIND
HADLEY IS LICENSED FOR RADIO STATION
LAW: WELFARE IN COURT
by Fred P. Graham
BLIND MAN RISKS POLISH PRISON IN FIGHT TO FREE HIS WAR-SCARRED LOVE
by Harold Martin
TWO NOBEL WINNERS DOUBT EARLY EYE TRANSPLANTS
LEADING THE BLIND--AN NFB PRODUCTION
NEW HEW REGULATIONS ON WELFARE BUDGETING, IN- VESTIGATORY PRACTICES AND PROCEDURAL FAIRNESS
by Brian Glick
OP ART NOT SO DIZZY TO DOCTORS IN CORNEA STUDY
U.S. REHABILITATION AID
by Howard A. Rusk, M. D.
COURTS PORTEND ADVENT OF NEW WELFARE ETHICS
by Jacobus tenBroek
THE PROCESS OF VOCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT--IMPLICATIONS FOR COUNSELING MALE BLIND COLLEGE STUDENTS
by Paul Sevransky, Ph. D.
COMMENTS ON THE PROCESS OF VOCATIONAL DEVELOPMENT
by Roger Petersen
ALABAMA SUBSTITUTE FATHER RULE INVALIDATED
ALABAMA WINS STAY OF COURT'S ORDER ON WELFARE ROLLS
PROGRESS REPORT--THE NFB IN THE 90TH CONGRESS, FIRST SESSION
by John Nagle
WHO ARE THE BLIND WHO LEAD THE BLIND
20 December 1967
NFB 17:67 - 17
The commonly used definition of blindness--20/Z00 etc.--was made the standard of disabling visual loss in the federal disability insurance program. This was done by the Senate-House conferees as they concluded their work on the latest Social Security amending bill very late on the night of December 8.
The Senate-House conferees rejected the other two provisions of the long-time NFB-sponsored disability insurance for the blind bill: to reduce the employment in Social Security-covered work eligibility requirement to six quarters, and to allow a blind person to draw disability insurance benefits so long as he remains blind and irrespective of his earnings.
The effect of the inclusion of the 20/200 definition of blindness will be to broaden the scope of the liberalizing provisions adopted as a part of the 1965 Social Security Amendments. Those amendments make disability benefits available to persons disabled by blindness before the age of 31 with as few as six quarters in Social Security-covered work, and to blind persons 55 and over unable to engage in their previous occupation. Both of these provisions had defined blindness as 5/200. The newly adopted 20/200 definition will now apply to these two categories of blind workers, thus permitting a greater number of such persons to qualify for disability insurance benefits.
We shall continue our battle to secure congressional approval of the remaining two proposals contained in our disability insurance for the blind bill. Throughout the 90th Congress, the NFB urged Federationists to ask their congressman to introduce a bill identical to H.R. 3064, which was put in the House "hopper" at the request of the National Federation of the Blind by Congressman Cecil R. King, California, and 40 bills identical to H.R. 3064 were introduced in the House this year. We need many more to demonstrate overwhelming House support for our disability insurance for the blind bill. We should try to secure these by next spring. The struggle for this important objective must continue until we succeed.
By the time you receive this bulletin, Congress will have adjourned. Your congressman will be in his home district probably until the middle of January. You should take the enclosed copy of H.R. 3064 to your congressman and ask him to introduce it as soon as Congress reconvenes. If he wants more information about the bill, let John Nagle know and John will call upon him when your congressman returns to Washington.
We have made a start, and part of our disability insurance for the blind bill will be public law because of our efforts. Now we must work even more diligently to secure congressional enactment of the remaining portions.
90th CONGRESS
1st Session
H. R. 3064
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
January 19, 1967
Mr. King introduced the following bill; which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Ways and Means
A BILL
To amend title II of the Social Security Act to provide disability insurance benefits thereunder for any individual who is blind and has at least six quarters of coverage, and for other purposes.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled.
That (a) (1) section 223 (a) (1) (B) of the Social Security Act is amended to read as follows:
"(B) in the case of any individual other than an individual whose disability is blindness (as defined in subsection (c) (2) (B)), has not attained the age of 65,".
(2) Subsection (a) (1) of section 223 of such Act is amended by striking out "the month in which he attains age 65" and inserting in lieu thereof "in the case of any individual other than individual whose disability is blindness (as defined in subsection (c) (2) (B)), the month in which he attains age 65".
(3) That part of paragraph (2) of section 223 (a) of such Act which precedes subparagraph (A) thereof is amended by inserting immediately after "(if a man)" the following: ",and, in the case of any individual whose disability is blindness (as defined in subsection (c) (2) (B)) , as though he were a fully insured individual,".
(b) (1) Paragraph (1) of subsection (c) of section 223 of such Act is amended--
(A) by inserting "(other than an individual whose disability is blindness, as defined in paragraph (2) (B))" after "An individual"; and
(B) by adding at the end thereof (after the sentence following subparagraph (B)) the following new sentence: "An individual whose disability is blindness (as defined in paragraph (2) (B)) shall be insured for disability insurance benefits in any month if he had not less than six quarters of coverage before the quarter in which such month occurs."
(2) Subparagraph (B) of paragraph (2) of subsection (c) of section 223 of such Act is amended to read as follows:
"(B) blindness; and, for purposes of this subparagraph, the term 'blindness' means central visual acuity of 20/200 or less in the better eye with the use of correcting lenses, or visual acuity greater than 20/200 if accompanied by a limitation in the fields of vision such that the widest diameter of the visual field subtends an angle no greater than twenty degrees."
(c) (1) The first sentence of section 216 (i) (1) of such Act is amended by striking out "(B)" and all that follows, and inserting in lieu thereof the following: "(B) blindness (as defined in section 223 (c) (2) (B))."
(2) The second sentence of such section 216 (i) (1) is repealed.
(d) The first sentence of section 222 (b) (1) of such Act is amended by inserting "(other than such an individual whose disability is blindness, as defined in section 223 (c) (2) (B))" after "an individual entitled to disability insurance benefits".
Sec. 2. The amendments made by the first section of this Act shall apply only with respect to monthly benefits under title II of the Social Security Act for months after the month in which this Act is enacted, on the basis of applications for such benefits filed in or after such month.
by Perry Sundquist
On December 15th the Congress sent to the White House a bill embodying its proposals for the 1967 Amendments to the Social Security Act. President Johnson is expected to approve the measure, albeit with publicly-expressed objections to some of its provisions. Briefly, the bill would effect the following significant changes in the Social Security Act:
I. OASDI
1. Provide a general benefit increase of 13 percent with a minimum benefit of $55 a month (raised from the present $44). The increased benefits are payable for the month of
February, 1968 and will be reflected in the checks received early in March. Almost 23 million persons will gain increased benefits.
2. Limit the amount of a wife's secondary benefit to $105 a month.
3. The special payments made to uninsured individuals aged 72 and over are increased from $35 to $40 a month for a single person and from $52.50 to $60 a month for a couple.
4. Provide for an increase from $1,500 to $1,680 the amount a beneficiary can earn in a year without deduction in his benefits.
5. Provide for the payment of monthly benefits to certain disabled widows and widowers who are between the ages of 50 and 62.
6. Provide a more rigid definition of disability whereby a person could be considered disabled only if he is unable to engage in any kind of work which exists in the national economy, even though such work does not exist in the general area in which he lives.
7. Provide a more liberal definition of disability due to blindness so that a person who is 'industrially blind' (i.e., visual acuity of 20/200 or less or a visual field of 20 degrees or less) is disabled rather than one who has visual acuity of only 5/200 or less. This liberalized definition of blindness, secured through the efforts of the National Federation of the Blind, is identical with that used to determine eligibility for Aid to the Blind. It is estimated that about 15 percent of those formerly disqualified will now qualify; that is to say, those having vision between 5/200 and 20/200.
II. Public Welfare and Health Amendments
1. Establish a new work incentive program for those receiving AFDC to be administered by the Department of Labor. A refusal to accept work or undertake training without good cause would result in termination of the welfare payment. Protective and vendor payments would be continued, however, for the dependent children.
2. Exempts earned income of each child receiving AFDC who is a full or part-time student. In the case of any other child or an adult relative of an AFDC family, the first $30 a month of earned income would be exempt for the group, plus one-third of the remainder of such income.
3. Provide that under programs of Aid to Families with Dependent Children, for the children of unemployed parents Federal financial participation would be available only for the children of unemployed fathers. Under the present law States may include children on the basis of the unemployment of mothers, as well as fathers. Also provides that the Secretary of the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare shall prescribe standards for the determination of what constitutes unemployment rather than each State. The amendments require the States to provide for the payment of assistance when a child's father has not been employed for at least 30 days prior to receiving aid, if he has not refused a bona fide offer of employment or training without good cause, and if he has had a recent and substantial connection with the labor force. Assistance would be denied if the father is not currently registered with the public employment office in the State, if he refuses without good cause to undertake work or training, or refuses without good cause to accept employment, or if he is receiving unemployment compensation. The States would have to refer the fathers to work incentive programs within 30 days after first providing them with welfare assistance. States which are now operating programs for the children of unemployed parents would not have to add any additional children or families as a result of the new provisions prior to July 1, 1969.
However, the amendment establishing criteria for persons covered would be effective January 1, 1968, and no Federal matching would be provided for persons who do not meet these criteria.
4. Sets a limitation on Federal financial participation in the AFDC program related to the proportion of the child population under age 18 aided because of the absence from the home of a parent. Federal financial participation would not be available for any excess above the percentage of children of absent parents who received aid to the child population under 18 in the State as of January 1, 1968. This limitation will be effective after June 30, 1968.
5. Expand the provision enacted in 1965 which allows (but does not require) the States to exempt up to $5 a month of any type of income in determining eligibility and the amount of assistance. Effective February 1, 1968 the States will have the option of exempting up to a total of $7.50 a month of income from any source for the aged, blind, and the totally and permanently disabled. This is a weak version of the so-called 'pass-on' provision whereby States may permit their recipients to benefit from the increases in Social Security payments rather than having those increases deducted from their public assistance grants. Very few States have elected to do this.
6. Allows 50 percent Federal matching for repairs (up to $500) of homes owned by recipients if such repairs would be more economical from the standpoint of the program.
7. Limits States in setting income levels for their 'medically needy' to qualify for medical care under medicaid programs to 133 and 1/3 percent of the AFDC payment level. Federal matching for medical care for recipients of cash payments is not affected.
In conclusion, it would seem fair to say that, on balance, the 1967 Amendments to the Social Security Act are distinctly disappointing. It is true that the amendments provide for the largest single increase in social security payments ever voted. Balanced against this, however, are the very restrictive (almost punitive) provisions applying to the recipients of Aid to Families with Dependent Children. One's over-all impression is that the Congress has failed to match the present and urgent needs of disadvantaged persons with more adequate provisions in this Nation's social security system.
by Esther Asbill and Joe Abel
The Rio Hondo Council of the Blind, Inc., after many months of diligent effort finally opened a Center for the Blind in Whittier with the generous support of the Whittier Exchange Club who agreed to finance the Center for its first year of operation. The Rio Hondo Council of the Blind, Inc., began operation in April, 1967, with a full expectation of a bright future for the blind of our area. However, by May, it became apparent that our fondest hopes were not shared by others. All through the long hot summer, we were placed in the position of defending our rights to be a member of the California Council of the Blind.
In September the Board of Directors of the Rio Hondo Council of the Blind, Inc., found it necessary to fire the Director of the Center. We were forced to take this action when told by the director that unless we disaffiliated from the California Council of the Blind, the beneficient service club known as the Whittier Exchange Club, was withdrawing its support. At this same time, the landlord of our Center requested that we vacate the premises by the end of the month. Needless to say by this time we felt pretty unwelcome in Whittier, so we moved.
We now have set up our Center in temporary headquarters in Norwalk, Calif., at 14333 1/2 Pioneer Blvd. We are still our own masters, making our own decisions, even though the task of raising funds and keeping the Center going is causing us extra work.
Those of us who are dedicated to the blind movement are even more resolved to make a success of the Rio Hondo Council of the Blind, Inc.
It now comes to our attention that the former director has now taken over the old headquarters in Whittier and formed a corporation totally unaffiliated with any state or national group of the blind. Is this not the same old pattern of paternalistic custodianism in dealing with the blind?
We thank the good Lord for those loyal blind members and our many sighted friends and associates who are allowing us to carry on our own affairs without putting a price tag on their financial and moral support. With this in mind, we shall prevail.
by Judith Haskins
On November fourth 1967 the Colorado Federation of the Blind held its thirteenth annual convention at the American Legion hall in Denver, Colorado. President Ray McGeorge presided.
The first speaker was Ernest Lovelady of the Colorado Lions Foundation who enlarged on the development of the summer camp for blind children.
Our next speaker was Dr. Parnell McLaughlin, Colorado Department of Rehabilitation, whose talk included the information that Colorado has no residency requirement for persons applying for rehabilitative services. One need only show a sincere intention to reside permanently in the state. He also spoke to us in regard to legislation to open new fields of employment for the blind.
There followed a business meeting and appointment of committees. These committees met during lunch.
The third speaker, C. E. Ronayne, Department of Special Education, Fort Collins, Colorado, spoke to us on the success of programs and changes introduced in the Minnisota School for the Blind. Then followed Allan Walker, Director of Education, International Association of Machinists, who told us of the machinists unions efforts to provide employment to qualified blind persons. Gordon Bennett, of the Colorado Library for the Blind, then spoke. The final speaker of the day was Dr. Harvey McDaniel from the Colorado Optometric Center.
Officers and board members elected were:
President of the Colorado Federation of the Blind, Mrs. Ruth Ashbey, 139 South Julian Street, Denver, Colorado; First Vice President, Ray McGeorge; Second Vice President, William Wood; Recording Secretary, Mrs. Judith Haskins; Corresponding Secretary, Marge Gallion; Treasurer, Georgia Cox; Board Members from Denver, Mr. Dana Davis and Mr. Paul Haskins, and Board Member from Colorado Springs, Mr. L.C. Crisliff.
A wonderful banquet was held at six thirty p. m. and our speaker was Mr. Sandberg, Director of the Public Expenditurers Council. The banquet was followed by a social hour.
by Perry Sundquist
As I sat at a leisurely breakfast with this man, Gysbertus Veldhuizen, in Berkeley, California the last day of September, how could I or anyone know that short weeks later I would be trying desperately to reach a fog-bound airport in Wisconsin to attend his funeral as the representative of the National Federation of the Blind?
The personality of Bert Veldhuizen came through more clearly than ever before on that day last September. I had seen this spare man with the finely chiselled features off and on over the years at NFB conventions and knew intimately of his pioneering work in behalf of the organized blind movement as Chairman of the NFB's Endowment Fund, But the man himself was so self-effacing that it took time and opportunity and the good fortune of a leisurely breakfast to discover the resources of this fine human being. He spoke quietly but persuasively. In response to my repeated questions, Bert told me of his early life and especially of the past 40 years when he became not only a highly successful business man but the proud husband of Theresa and the fond father of their two sons. He called himself a prudent man, yet he was most profligate with his kindness and help for others.
Bert and his family came to the United States from Holland when Bert was just 17 years of age. The family settled on a farm in Minnesota and Bert attended the School for the Blind in Faribault and after graduation, he taught there. Later he obtained a teaching position at the Wisconsin School for the Blind in Janesville. Bert's subject was manual arts and so practical was his instruction that many of his former pupils were able to begin earning their living immediately after graduation. It was at Janesville that Bert met Theresa and they were married, a marriage which lasted happily for over 40 years. In 1927 Bert and his young bride moved to Lake Mills, Wisconsin where they operated a variety store. In 1935, during the height of the depression years, Bert decided to ingrate a new type of business--at that time a revolutionary new phase of merchandising in this country, vending machines. Theresa drove for him and together they serviced these candy machines in various locations.
After World War II Bert decided to expand his merchandise from candy to include cigarettes, milk, ice cream, coffee and, later on, sandwiches. Moving to Watertown in 1950, Bert and his vending machine business continued to grow with the times.
Theresa and Bert had two sons, Duane and David. Today both boys are active in the Veldhuizen Vending Machine Service. But even an expanding business could not stifle Bert's interest in many organizations for the blind. He was especially active in helping other blind persons get started in the vending machine business and other enterprises. Bert has been Chairman of the Wisconsin Council of the Blind's Endowment Fund since 1957 and Chairman of the Endowment Fund of the National Federation of the Blind since 1959. He also served for more than 20 years as Chairman of the Advisory Committee to the State Welfare Department on Services to the Blind.
Bert Veldhuizen was a man with a broad range of interests. He was concerned with the what and why of life, a man with a strong sense of right. He was a teacher of youth, and this gift for informing he shared with all of us to the last. He was a man of integrity, this quality being stamped indelibly on everything he ever touched. He was a man of humor, bubbling with laughter that came out in delicate comments on the human scene. Above all, Bert was a man of concern- -of concern for his family, for his friends, and for his fellow blind.
Gysbertus Veldhuizen, in the manner in which he lived his long and useful life, exemplified the ultimate goal of the organized blind movement-complete integration into society on a basis of equality; the removal of legal, economic and social discriminations; the education of the public to new concepts concerning blindness; the achievement of the right to exercise to the full his individual talents and capacities; and to work along with his sighted fellows in the professions, common callings, skilled trades, and regular occupations.
Danaico v. California 18
Dec. 1967
Opinion of the Court
Per Curiam. Appellants, welfare claimants under California Welfare and Institutions Code §§11250, 11254, and regulation C-161. 20 thereunder, sought damages, a declaratory judgment of unconstitutionality, and temporary and permanent injunctive relief in this suit under the Civil Rights Act. 42 U.S. C. §1983, 28 U. S. C . §1343. Their complaint alleges that the statute and regulation are discriminatory and that the appellees, in administering them and in applying them to appellants, deprived appellants of equal rights secured by the United States Constitution. The three-judge District Court dismissed the complaint solely because "it appear[ed] to the Court that all of the plaintiffs [had] failed to exhaust adequate administrative remedies. " This was error. In McNeese v. Board of Education, 373 U.S. 668, noting that one of the purposes underlying the Civil Rights Act was "to provide a remedy in the federal courts supplementary to any remedy any state might have, " id., at 672, we held that "relief under the Civil Rights Act may not be defeated because relief was not first sought under state law which provided [an administrative] remedy, " id., at 671. See Monroe v. Pape, 365 U.S. 167, 180-183. We intimate no view upon the merits of appellants' allegations nor upon the other grounds not passed upon by the District Court.
The judgment of the District Court for the Northern District of California is reversed, and the case is remanded for further proceedings consistent with this opinion.
It is so ordered.
Mr. Justice Harlan, dissenting.
California's Aid to Families with Dependent Children program provides welfare assistance to mothers and children rendered destitute through desertion by or separation from the father of the children. The law requires that, unless a suit for divorce has been filed, the desertion or separation be of at least three months' duration before AFDC aid will be granted.
Appellants were informed by a social worker that, no suit for divorce having been filed, they could not receive AFDC aid before the end of the three-month period; they then brought this suit for a declaration that the three-month requirement violated the Federal Constitution. The District Court, without reaching the question whether it should "abstain" pending appropriate state proceedings for relief, and without reaching the merits, dismissed on the ground that the plaintiffs had failed to exhaust "adequate administrative remedies."
This Court, without plenary consideration and without stating its reasons, now reverses the District Court's dismissal, citing McNeese V. Board of Education, ante, p.l. In McNeese, the Court held that Negro students, seeking relief from alleged school racial segregation, did not have to pursue and exhaust certain administrative remedies available under state law before bringing their federal action. Although I did not at the time and do not now fully understand the prevailing opinion in McNeese, the net result of the case as I see it was that the right to assert, in a federal court, that state officials had acted in a manner depriving the plaintiff of clear constitution rights could not be delayed by the interposition of intentionally or unintentionally inadequate state remedies for the alleged discrimination.
If that is a correct description of the exhaustion problem in McNeese, it bears little relation to the exhaustion question here. State AFDC relief was created pursuant to the provisions of the federal Social Security-Act, 49 Stat. 627, 42 U.S.C. §601 et seq. The Federal Government pays the major share of the cost of state aid, see 42 U.S.C. §603, and in return closely supervises both how it shall be administered and what remedies shall be available to those who have complaints about its operation. Each State receiving federal assistance (which includes California) must formulate and submit to the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare for his approval, a plan of operation of its AFDC program, 42 U.S.C. §602. In particular, the plan must provide "that aid to families with dependent children shall be furnished with reasonable promptness to all eligible individuals," 42 U.S.C. §602 (a)(9), and must "provide for granting a fair hearing before the State agency [whose creation is required by a separate provision, 42 U. S. C. §602 (a)(3)] to any individuals whose claim for aid to families with dependent children is denied or is not acted upon with reasonable promptness, " 42 U.S. C. §602 (a)(4). The California plan approved by the Secretary apparently includes both California's three-month requirement and California's hearing procedure.
The Court simply ignores the highly successful federal-state working relationship created by Congress in this area. The right of these appellants to receive AFDC funds involves not only questions of state law, but also the propriety of that law under federal statutory law. For the determination of these questions Congress has specified a state forum in the first instance. Today's holding, made without benefit of briefs and oral argument and on a skimpy record, that 42 U.S.C. §1983 may be used to bypass 42 U.S.C. §602 is a disservice to both of these important statutes.
I would affirm the judgment below.
(Reprinted from News from the Berkeley City Council, Oct. 1967)
At its August 8, 1967 meeting the City Council was informed that there are 13 classifications in which blind or partially blind persons could perform. These classifications are Adult Attendant, Attorney, Camp Cook, Carpenter, Computer Programmer, Mechanic, Parking Meter Repairman, Psychiatric Social Worker, Radio Technician, Recreation Leader, Special Activities Leader, Telephone Operator, and Transcriber Typist.
When the above positions become available all interested candidates, including adult blind, will be invited to apply for the positions. If you are interested in additional information please contact the Personnel Department--841-0200, ext. 361.
(Reprinted from Wilmette Life , Nov. 23, 1967)
An amateur radio station license for station WA9WHS has been issued to the Winnetka Hadley School for the Blind to be used in a new home-study course in amateur radio.
The course will be taught by Byron Sharpe, 346 Tudor Ct., Glencoe, a volunteer at Hadley who has donated all the equipment to be used by the station. The course will help interested blind persons obtain operator's licenses.
The school provides students with a taped and Braille edition of Amateur Radio Theory as well as raised line drawings and components with identification labels in Braille.
The course is the first correspondence course of its kind designed exclusively for blind persons. It is offered without charge to students, as are all Hadley courses. Forty-five students have enrolled in the course so far.
A Hadley radio society is considering a schedule for a roundtable over the air with five licensed students. Unlicensed students will be invited to listen on their radio receivers.
(Reprinted from the San Francisco Chronicle, Nov. 25, 1967)
Senior Halfback Billy Houghton scored two touchdowns and rushed for 117 yards Thursday to lead his Ingraham High School football team to a 44-13 victory over Garfield and the Seattle Metro League Championship.
It was kind of a special Thanksgiving for Billy, who is legally blind.
"I didn't know I had a problem until the sixth grade," Billy said the other day.
Then, he was asked to read a line on the blackboard and from his back row seat he couldn't see the writing.
"So, it hit me all of a sudden. At first, I bawled about it, then I began to adjust. I found I still could play football, and that was the big thing."
Billy has only 20-200 vision, caused, his father says, by macular degeneration of the retina.
"That means the cones and rods in your eyes are dying," Billy explained.
"I see nothing, almost nothing, to the front. But I see to the sides."
And to the sides is where Billy carries the football. He's considered one of the best slanting backs Coach Tony Gasparovich has seen. He's the team's leading rusher and gained 681 yards this year.
Billy also handles the kickoffs for Ingraham.
"It's weird, but I can see it (the ball) enough to hit it right in the middle. Besides, I've got the number of steps down," he said.
by Fred P. Graham
(Reprinted from The New York Times, Nov. 1967)
WASHINGTON--Despite the time-honored admonitions that one should not bite the hand that feeds him nor look a gift horse in the mouth, welfare clients are suddenly suing welfare officials at a record clip.
Until two years ago, it was virtually unknown for a person on welfare to sue the officials who were paying for his bed and board. But since that time, in a number of test cases that have been brought in courts across the country, welfare recipients have challenged the way in which they are being treated by those who sign their relief checks.
Several forces appear to have triggered this burst of litigation: the attention that the "war on poverty" focused on the plight of the poor, the availability of Federal funds to pay lawyers for poor people, and the creation of legal research units that specialize in welfare law- notably welfare law centers at Columbia and New York Universities.
The results were apparent last week when Alabama authorities asked Supreme Court Justice Hugo L. Black to stay a lower court decision that had declared unconstitutional the state's controversial "substitute father" welfare rule.
This regulation--and similar ones in 18 other states--denies welfare benefits to the children of women who engage in extramarital sexual relations, on the theory that any man who enjoys such domestic privileges should pay the household bills.
By invoking this rule, Alabama had cut its aid to dependent children lists by almost one-fourth in three years. Now that a court has ruled that the state cannot punish the children for the sins of the parents, the state claims that it cannot meet its other welfare obligations.
It is appealing to the Superme Court, in the first high Court test of the "substitute father" rule.
A number of other welfare test cases are now before lower courts and are certain to be appealed to the Supreme Court, regardless of which side wins.
They include a claim that a welfare recipient must be given a hearing before benefits are revoked, a charge that mothers of young children on relief cannot be forced to accept full-time work, suits that challenge the right of welfare workers to pry into clients' premises and private lives, and a case that questions the right of welfare officials to make a welfare client pay back the amount of his benefits if he ever becomes solvent.
Taken together, these and other pending cases assert a "bill of rights" for welfare clients.
The theory is that although the Constitution does not require that the Government provide welfare, once a system is established, clients have a right to receive their benefits without interruption except for good cause and after a fair hearing, free of intrusion by welfare officials in- to their private lives, and without discrimination.
These are novel assertions, and as the shibboleths of American folklore suggest, are alien to the national traditions of self-reliance and free enterprise.
Yet the clients are winning almost all of their cases in the lower courts--perhaps because there are no precedents to bind the judges--and it is already apparent that, barring a stunning series of reversals in the Supreme Court, the welfare clients' "bill of rights" will be trans' formed from a theory to a fact in a few years.
by Harold Martin
WARSAW (UPI) Syzmon Szechter is a 48-year-old Jew, blind and very much in love with Nina Karsov, a 27-year-old Jewess who has been in a Polish prison for 16 months. Szechter, without citing the source of his information, claims she has been harshly treated in jail and probably will die there.
Such a charge is unusual in this Communist state, but Szechter is an unusual man. He is well-educated, writes history books, served in the Russian army and once was a member of the Communist party.
Miss Karsov is a small woman, and stooped because of a back injury suffered in 1943 when she was 3 years old. She was hurt when her parents, holding the little girl in their arms, jumped from a cattle car carrying Jews to gas chambers at the Nazi concentration camp in Treblinka near Warsaw.
She grew up as a fugitive, and a normal life for her did not begin until the war was over.
She met Szechter in Warsaw some years ago and he hired her as his secretary. They fell in love. They had much in common--religion and a love of learning. Miss Karsov is a graduate in Polish philology--the study of literature--from Warsaw University. Szechter has devoted his life to history.
In August 1966, what appeared to be a perfect relationship leading to marriage exploded. The police arrested Szechter and Miss Karsov and prosecutors accused both of possessing illegal antistate papers and recordings and preparing material for publication abroad.
Szechter was released a short time later. Miss Karsov was jailed and held for trial despite protests from Szechter that she was in delicate health and never would stand up under the strain.
Miss Karsov stayed behind bars until the trial and, according to Szechter, was treated harshly and prevented from seeing him.
The trial began Oct. 2 and ended Oct. 26 when the court convicted her of possessing material harmful to the state and sentenced her to three years in prison, less the 16 months she already had spent there waiting for the trial to start. The trial was secret.
Miss Karsov was reported to have stood mute throughout the trial, apparently as a protest against its secrecy. When the guilty verdict was announced, it was the first time the people of Warsaw knew what charges had been lodged against her.
Szechter, too, had been silent during the long months of separation from the woman he loved. But the announcement of the three-year sentence was too much for him to bear and he finally spoke out in the corridor beyond the closed courtroom doors as guards led Miss Karsov back to prison.
"Oppressors!" he shouted. "Bandits!" Court attendants restrained him from running to Miss Karsov for a farewell kiss.
"Why are you holding me?" he demanded of policemen who blocked his way.
Miss Karsov disappeared, led off by matrons. But that was not the end of the story.
Szechter had more to say. He poured out his wrath to newsmen in the corridor and later elaborated in an interview at his Warsaw apartment on the edge of the old ghetto. Poles normally are reticent about talking with foreign correspondents, particularly Americans.
He was asked about the outburst in the courthouse corridor.
"For you," he began, "it might be a strange thing that I permitted myself to make such a demonstration.
"But I think every man who goes on the bridge and sees someone drowning tries to help,
"Every decent man would try to help if he saw a child in a house on fire."
Did he not fear arrest for the things he said at the courthouse?
"I am ready for it," Szechter said, his sightless eyes partially hidden by the smoke from cigarettes he lighted one after another.
What now? "To fight for Nina," he replied. "I don't know how. Writing protests brings no results. I want to appeal to Russell, Miller, Steinbeck, Sartre. I ask them to appeal to the Polish authorities to show humanitarian feelings. I ask this.
"I haven't written to them because such letters will never reach them and I will be punished for spreading false information."
A reporter reminded Szechter legal appeal was possible under the Polish court system and that in any event Nina would be a free woman in 20 months, and he should be willing to wait if he really loves her.
"I would not say everything I am saying if I were certain that Nina would leave prison," Szechter replied.
"But she will not leave prison- -alive. I want to be there with her."
STOCKHOLM, Dec. 6 (UPI)--Two Americans who won 1967 Nobel Prizes for their work on the human eye said that they saw no possibility in the near future of curing blindness through eye transplantation.
Prof. George Wald of Harvard University and Prof. Haldan Keffer Hartline of New York's Rockefeller University told a news conference that they wound not say transplantations of human eyes were impossible.
"Never is not a suitable word in today's science," Professor Wald said. "But I can say these things will not happen in the near future."
"The trouble is, we humans are the wrong animal. You can trans- plant eyes on frogs and other lowly animals but not on mammals, he said."
Presented to THE NATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE BLIND
For many weeks prior, during and following the 1967 convention of the National Federation of the Blind, the west coast outlet of the National Broadcasting Company, KNBC, spent much time, effort and money in the production of an educational video tape which they chose to entitle "Leading the Blind."
After showing "Leading the Blind" as the feature of one of their regular Saturday evening releases, "Survey 1967", KNBC prepared a 16 -mm film transcript of the video tape and subsequently presented both the tape and film (with all rights) to the National Federation of the Blind, with the hope that ". . .it would be shown throughout the United States as an educational feature to assist in acquainting the general public with the EMPLOYABILITY OF QUALIFIED BLIND PEOPLE."
"Leading the Blind" was produced and narrated by Mr. Bob Wright who has been with the National Broadcasting Company for many years. We can, therefore, rest assured that Mr. Wright has incorporated the optimum balance of educational and human interest material. That is, the balance required to entertain the viewing audience sufficiently to hold their attention while the NFB message is presented.
The maximum benefit to the blind throughout the country will be obtained from this production if the affiliates of the NFB have it presented over local stations. Each state affiliate's president or public relations director should write for materials and suggestions as to how to approach its local TV station about showing "Leading the Blind. " Write directly to Dr. Ray Penix, 428 E. Olive Avenue, Burbank, California 91501.
by Brian Click
(Reprinted from Welfare Law Bulletin, Oct. 1967)
Transmittal 77, revising §§ 2220-2230 of Part IV of the U.S. Department of Health, Education, and Welfare's Handbook of Public Assistance Administration, restricts the procedures a State welfare agency may use to discover and verify the income and resources it must budget in conformity with Transmittals 86 and 120.
Transmittal 77 requires, effective July 1, 1967, that States adopt:
policies and procedures for determination of eligibility that. . .will not result in practices that violate the individual's privacy or personal dignity, or harass him, or violate his constitutional rights. IV-2220, item 1.
This language provides a strong basis for challenging any agency effort to investigate or regulate a client's personal life and moral behavior, especially dating restrictions, suitable home policies, and all forms of man-in-the-house rules. The new Transmittal expressly applies these principles to welfare searches and welfare agents' "contact with collateral sources."
Home Visits and Searches. Transmittal 77 directs that:
States must especially guard against violations in such areas as entering a home by force, or without permission, or under false pretenses, making home visits outside of working hours, and particularly making such visits during sleeping hours; and searching in the home, for example, in rooms, closets, drawers, or papers, to seek clues to possible deception. IV-2230, item 1.
To "guard against" violations a State must do more than abstain from committing them. It must at least direct its agents to abstain. It should also bar discontinuance or reduction of aid, or referral for fraud prosecution, based on evidence obtained improperly or on the fruits of such evidence. Improperly obtained evidence and its fruits should be inadmissible at welfare hearings.
A crucial question is the meaning of "permission", in the new prohibition against "entering a home. . .without permission. " Some welfare agencies may accept any expression of acceptance, even a "blanket consent" included in an application form. But the only reasonable reading of the new regulation would equate "permission" with the "consent" which the courts require in lieu of a search warrant. On this basis entry under threat of terminating or reducing aid clearly would be entry "without permission," as would entry "under color of office" without credible assurance that refusal to consent would not affect continued aid. See generally, Parrish v. Civil Services Commission of Alameda County 8 Wei. L. Bull. 1 (May 1967); Reich, "Midnight Welfare Searches and-the Social Security Act", 72 Yale L.J. 1347 (1963); Note, "Consent Searches: A reappraisal After Miranda v. Arizona", 67 Colum. L. Rev. 130 (1967).
Under this interpretation, a welfare agent who enters a client's home to search for evidence of ineligibility or fraud should have to obtain a search warrant unless the client freely consents after the agent makes clear her right to deny entry without risking loss of welfare aid. For a caseworker making a legally required periodic home visit to discuss a client's needs and problems "consent" might reasonably be limited to the tinning rather than the fact of entry. A client could be required--as a condition of continued aid- -to agree to a home visit at some reasonable time, but the caseworker would have to give advance notice and negotiate a date and time agreeable to the client. (Transmittal 77 retains the longstanding requirement of a periodic "personal interview" with the client, "preferably in the individual's home." IV-2230, item 5b. )
Since caseworkers apparently will retain authority to require entry at some time, the permissible scope of their investigation after proper entry will be important. Transmittal 77 expressly prohibits "searching in the home. . . in rooms, closets, drawers, or papers, to seek clues to possible deception. " If closets and drawers cannot be searched, obviously clients cannot be required to display their contents- even to establish need for particular items of clothing. (A ruling to this effect was recently obtained in an unreported New York fair hearing. ) To "guard against" violations of this restriction, States should have to require their agents to advise each client that he can cut short the agent's investigation at any point and deny access to any portion of his home and belongings without risking his aid.
Contact with Collateral Sources . A welfare client's right to have his status kept confidential and to privacy in his personal activities and associations is effectively nullified in many states by unlimited agency communication with "collateral sources." To verify a client's assertions a caseworker is required to contact current and past employers, landlords, relatives, creditors, merchants, doctors, teachers, and countless others. Each person contacted learns the client's status as a welfare applicant or recipient and sometimes other information the client has given the worker in confidence. As a result the client may well lose his job, his apartment or his friends.
States will now have to limit this practice and give clients a voice in deciding whom their welfare agency contacts. Under Transmittal 77 "[a]pplicants and recipients will be relied upon as the primary source of information about their eligibility" (§2220, item 5a), and "verification of conditions of eligibility will be limited to what is reasonably necessary to assure that expenditures under the program will be legal" (§2220, item 5c). An agency will be allowed to consider communicating with third parties only when "information provided by the individual, supplemented if necessary by information from public records" is inadequate "to determine eligibility", so that there is a "necessity" to contact other sources. IV-2230, item 5a.
Before initiating even a necessary contact with a third party about a client's case, a welfare agency will have to obtain the client's "specific consent" covering "the purpose of the contact as well as the individual or agency to be consulted" and based on a "clear interpretation of what information is desired, why it is needed, and how it will be used. " The agency will not be allowed to "rely on a 'blanket' consent" such as the client's signature on an application form.
If the client refuses to consent to a particular contact and as a result the agency is not able to determine eligibility, assistance may be denied or terminated. But aid is not to be withheld as a penalty if the client later consents or if the contact becomes unnecessary; "the individual should be told that he has the right to re-apply at any time" (§2230, item 5a). Since to require consent to a contact is to impose a "condition of payment, " a client will be entitled to a hearing to review the agency's decision that a contact is necessary, even before the agency threatens to discontinue his aid. (See IV-6331)
Transmittal 77 also sets forth three important procedural protections for clients.
1. Publication of Rules. States must "inform . . .applicants about the eligibility requirements and their rights and obligations under the program" (§2230, item 2). This obligation must logically and equitably extend also to recipients. It should be read to require publication and distribution of essential portions of State welfare manuals rather than the brief pamphlets currently used by most agencies. (HEW already requires that State hearing regulations be "publicized for the guidance of all concerned. " IV-6333. And publication of all welfare regulations is required by law in several States. See e. g., Rev. Code of Wash. §§34. 04. 040 and -.050; Mich. Stat. Ann §3560; N. Y. Const., art IV, §8.)
2. Discontinuance Based on Questions or Suspicion. Some State welfare agencies discontinue aid whenever they are uncertain a recipient is still eligible, before determining that he in fact is ineligible. See, e. g., 18 NYCRR §351.22 (c){3)(l); Ohio Rev. Code §107.13. Transmittal 77 prohibits this practice by requiring that states provide that "assistance will be given promptly and will continue regularly to all eligible persons until they are found to be ineligible, so long as assistance is being provided under the specific category. " IV-2220, item 2. Each decision that a person is ineligible must be "based on facts, " not mere questions or suspicions but "statements about eligibility requirements that have been substantiated by observation, or written records, or other appropriate means. " IV-2230, item 3.
3. Written Notice Stating the Reasons for Agency Action. The new Transmittal reiterates the long-standing requirement that clients "be notified in writing that assistance has been authorized in a stated amount or that it has been denied or terminated for a specified reason," making clear for the first time that such notification is required at "each redetermination that results in a change in the amount of assistance to which the individual is entitled" and stressing that the notice "must contain the reason why" the agency took the particular action and "provide a basis for the individual to express dissatisfaction with the agency action. " IV-2220, item 5d; IV-2230, item 5d. Reasons such as "refusal to cooperate", "failure to comply with department policies", or "insufficently disabled", which do not provide such a basis, should hereafter be unacceptable. A proper written notice should cite the regulations involved, state the findings of fact, and explain how the regulations apply to the facts. The right to receive such a notice whenever "assistance is denied" should be read to include denial of requested increases and special grants, as well as denial of applications.
(Reprinted from Chicago's American, Dec. 12, 196?)
The dizzying patterns of Op art can help doctors spot people with tilted corneas, a cause of poor vision which often escapes detection.
In reporting the new technique at a meeting of the American Academy of Optometry, a New York City optometrist said its early use indicates that off-center corneas may be a more frequent cause of blurred and dim vision than suspected.
The cornea is the window of the eye--the clear membrane covering the colored part of the eye. For clear vision, the bulge of the cornea must be lined up with other key parts of the eye, the pupil, lens, and retina.
But in some people, the cornea is displaced from birth, lying too far up, down, or to one side of the line of sight.
The new technique makes use of Op art's ripple patterns, said Dr. William M. Ludlam. When such a pattern is laid over the photograph of a cornea on which an image of alternate light and dark circular rings has been cast, the interplay between patterns shows the amount and direction of misalignment with great accuracy.
Stressing the importance of proper diagnosis, the doctor said many patients with this defect can achieve normal or near normal vision with contact lens.
The lens, in effect, create a new cornea in line with the eye's other structures, thus erasing the tilted one, the doctor explained.
by Howard A. Rusk, M. D.
(Reprinted from The New York Times, Dec. 17, 1967)
While Congress has debated for months on the size and future of American foreign aid, a small, little noticed but most effective program of such assistance has been developed at practically no cost to the tax-payer.
This is the international research and demonstration program of the United States Rehabilitation Services Administration, which is financed by "counterpart" fund§ that are in excess of the normal needs of the Government.
Our nation sells excess agriculture commodities to other nations that desperately need such commodities but have no "hard" currency with which to purchase them.
Under the Food for Peace program, the United States agrees to take Israeli pounds, Indian rupees, Polish zloties, Yugoslavain dinars and other national currencies. These currencies are then used to support the local costs of our embassies, consulates, the United States Information Services and a wide variety of other activities for which we would otherwise be spending dollars.
In some countries, such as those cited above plus the Congo, Pakistan, Tunisia and Egypt, our supply of such currencies is in excess to these "normal" needs.
When this situation occurs, the excess funds are then made available to a number of Government agencies, such as the Rehabilitation Services Administration to support research and demonstration projects.
This fiscal year the Rehabilitation Services Administration has available for this purpose the equivalent in such counterpart funds of $5 -million at actually no cost to the American taxpayer, since the dollar costs were originally to support the prices of agricultural products domestically.
Last week in Trivandrum, the southernmost city in India, a national conference was held in which representatives of 43 projects in all aspects of rehabilitation got together to discuss their projects and how they might better communicate and cooperate.
Two such projects reported on at the meeting are those in Bombay and Manipal dealing with rehabilitation of patients with burns. Because cooking is usually done on a brazier on the floor, burns are among the most common disfiguring, crippling and fatal injuries in India.
In most hospitals, burn patients--even those with extensive burns--are admitted to general surgical wards. It is quite difficult to keep infection under control and as a result there is a high mortality and morbidity rate.
These two projects are demonstrating that a considerable reduction in mortality, morbidity and the extent of crippling contractures can be brought about by isolation of such patients in units with a high degree of asepsis and comprehensive rehabilitation services.
Both units also emphasize reconstructive plastic surgery.
A number of other highly successful projects are those dealing with the blind. India has about two-million blind people, the majority of whom live in villages. Many leave the villages and go to the cities to become professional beggars.
As India is a predominantly agricultural country these projects are directed primarily toward rehabilitating the blind in their own village environments through teaching them animal husbandry and agricultural skills.
Also of extreme significance not only for India but also for many other parts of the world are a number of projects in the rehabilitation of persons disabled by leprosy.
These include the study of the surgical reconstruction of deformed and paralyzed patients, experimentation in the care and treatment of anesthetic limbs, and the development of special appliances to replace ordinary prostheses that are frequently unsuitable for such limbs.
One of the most dramatic developments in these projects is that they are bringing back into society persons disabled by leprosy whose disease is under control.
The significance of these projects is apparent in view of the fact that the World Health Organization has estimated there are 10 million leprosy patients in the world and that between one-quarter and one-half have some physical deformity or disability.
Among the 43 projects, those in which there has been the most rapid "payoff" are the nine dealing with the production and fitting of artificial limbs and braces.
Until these projects started there were but two such programs in all of India.
One was the government center for military amputees at Poona and the other the All-India Institute of Physical Medicine and Rehabilitation at Bombay, originally sponsored by the United Nations. Now there are nine new centers spread geographically throughout the country and a number of others being planned.
Particularly important is the fact that these projects sponsored by the United States have demonstrated that modern prosthetic-orthotic devices can be produced in India with local materials, thus saving sorely needed foreign exchange.
The financial support and technical guidance that the United States gives in bringing greatly increased opportunities for India's disabled is, in itself, important. Even more important is that this act demonstrates to the people of India the values that the United States places on human life and dignity.
Because of India's high death and disability rates, resulting from a wide variety of inter-related socio-economic problems, there is an old saying that "life is cheap" in India and the other developing nations of Asia, Africa and South America. Neither life or disability, however, are cheap when death or disability comes to one's own family.
There is certainly no aspect of American foreign aid that is achieving so much at such a small cost to the taxpayer as our international projects in rehabilitation financed by counterpart funds.
by Jacobus tenBroek
(Reprinted from Virginia Law Weekly, DICTA, Vol. XX No. 6 (1967))
That the greatest of evils is idleness, that the poor are the victims, not of circumstances, but of their own "idle, irregular and wicked courses," that the truest charity is not to enervate them by relief, but so to reform their characters that relief may be unnecessary--such doctrines turned severity from a sin into a duty, and froze the impulse of natural pity with the assurance that, if indulged, it would perpetuate the suffering which it sought to allay.
Thus Tawney, in his classic study of Religion and the Rise of Capitalism--which might be termed the Anglican version of Max Weber's The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism--defined the moral basis of the Elizabethan Poor Law which dominated the welfare systems of Britain and America from the age of Elizabeth I to and through the reign of Elizabeth II. First institutionalized and codified in the famous statute of 43 Elizabeth, enacted in 1601, the poor law was largely a consolidation of already existing Tudor enactments and an articulation of traditional custom with regard to care of the poor. Although it contained nothing new in substance, it provided the legal model which was to be followed with slight variation for the next three centuries--and which still persists today within the policies and programs of public welfare both nationally and among the fifty states.
The salient characteristic of the poor law, then and now, is that it formalizes a morality of scarcity. In the early centuries of its development, beginning with the Statutes of Labourers of the 14th century, nearly everything was in short supply, not only material goods and natural resources, but labor itself. The Ordinance and Statute of Labourers of 1349-1351 was designed to counteract the acute labor shortage created by the Black Death plague--the first of the four apocalyptic horsemen, the others being famine, death and war. In these exigent circumstances there was no plate for the vagrant, the idler, the vagabond and sturdy rogue; the very epithets themselves betray the prevailing attitude toward virtually all who were not hard at work including the sick and disabled, regarded with contempt as "the victims of their own vices." Men and women "able in body and within the age of three score years" were compelled by the law to work for whoever would hire them, for fixed periods and at fixed wages. Not only was begging prohibited but so was any gesture of charity or help toward the destitute. One must not give "anything to such who may possibly labor or presume to favor them in their sloth so that thereby they may be compelled to labor for their necessary living."
The morality of scarcity, once loosed upon the world, soon transcended its economic origins. Those of the poor who did not conform to the conventions of work, such as the able-bodied beggars, were accused of giving themselves over "to idleness and vice, and sometimes to theft and other abominations. "To correct these vicious tendencies there arose, in the Tudor period, the house of correction--ancestor of the almshouse, the poorhouse, the sheltered workshop. Paupers dispatched there were "to be straightlye kept, as well in Diet as in Worke, and also punished from tyme to tyme. ..." The rationale for such punishment was made clear by a Tudor statute which explained that "ydleness" was the mother &: rote of all vyces, whereby hathe insurged &; spronge & dayly insurgeth &c spryngeth contynual theftes murders and other haynous offences & great enormytes. . . . In all places throughe out this Realme. . . Vacabundes & Beggers. . .dayly do increase in greate & excessyve nonabres into great routs and companies. . . to the high displeasure of God the inquyetacon & damage of the Kyng's People &; to the marvaylous disturbance of the Common Weale of this Realme.
This equation of poverty and dependency with personal wickedness and mischief is not only a matter of historical record but of contemporary reality. Long after the obsolescence of the economy of scarcity in favor of the affluent society, the morality of scarcity lives on within the interstices of the public welfare system. In terms both of policy and administration, welfare today, specifically general assistance and the categorical aid programs of public assistance, may still be characterized as punitive, discriminatory, authoritarian, suspicious and pervasively moralistic. The corollary of the image of poverty as tne consequence of malice and sin is the image of welfare which turns it into a law of crimes, In this perspective, which David Riesman has described as that of the "indigent moralizer," there are no social, political or economic issues of poverty and injustice to be solved but only individual wrongs to be righted, personal sins of conduct and behavior to be caught and corrected. And the standard corrective, of course, is punishment in some form.
In America no less than in England, the poor historically have been excluded from the constitutional framework as subjects while they have been included within its scope as objects . On the one hand, stigmatized as indigents, paupers or vagabonds, they have not been the beneficiaries of constitutional guarantees to citizens and persons; on the other hand, by virtue of their stigmata, they have been recognized in the Constitution as proper objects for the exercise of the police powers of the states, to be regulated, controlled and suppressed. The classic illustration is, of course, City of New York v. Miln, decided by the United States Supreme Court in 1837. It is, said the Justices in that case, as competent and necessary for a State to provide precautionary measures against the moral pestilence of paupers, vagabonds and possibly convicts as it is to guard against the physical pestilence which may arise from unsound and infectious articles imported, or from a ship, the crew of which may be laboring under an infectious disease.
Accordingly the Court held valid a New York statute designed to exclude the poor from the state. The statute was found to be a regulation of police, not of commerce, and therefore within the power of the state.
By that venerable doctrine the constitutional power of the states to deal with the poor in their midst is the police power--the power that functions to preserve public order, maintain the public safety and protect the public morals. It is the safety and well-being of the prosperous community, not the welfare of the poor, which is to be maintained and guarded. To this end the laws and institutions of public welfare are replete with coercive instruments and detective methods. They appear equally at the level of the nation, the state and the local community. They are to be found in county resort ordinances, discriminatorily applied to welfare mothers; in night raids, polygraph tests and searches without warrants; in probation conditions forbidding mothers to secure public aid for their children, regardless of need or eligibility; in commands to support their children under threat of imprisonment, whatever their ability or opportunity for employment; in judicial attempts to dictate morality by ordering recipients to be "good," regardless of cultural difference or emotional disturbance.
Even the ancient stereotype of the poor as vagrant, the sturdy rogue and vagabond of old law and legend, has not yet been put to rest although the laws have greatly changed to shift him from the forefront of attention to the background of events. The vagrant has become, in one of his incarnations, the absent father so critically involved in the Aid to Families with Dependent Children (AFDC) program of public assistance surrounded by district attorneys, court orders for support, probation, contempt and prosecution. He emerges also in the "man in the home" provisions of such welfare codes as those of California, with special obligations of child support though he is not the father nor the step-father. In female form the vagrant is discernible in those resort ordinances that single out AFDC mothers for special punitive treatment in matters of sex relations. Again, the anti-vagrancy spirit of retribution, retaliation and moral opprobrium is implicit in that modern version of the house of correction--the work requirement of the welfare programs.
Even the sheltered workshops for the disabled are imbued with this spirit. A recent writer on them was able to entitle his article, "Sin, Sloth, and Sheltered Employment" and to give as their principal justification that "Idle hands are the Devil's work shop." In any event, the historic associations with the workhouse, almshouse, asylum and church of the middle ages have left conspicuous traces upon the majority of present-day sheltered shops, giving them the character of agencies for moral redemption rather than that of means to the restoration of productive capacities.
The man in the home rule dealing with the situation in which an unrelated adult male assumes the role of spouse to the mother of AFDC children and the denial of public assistance to families in which there are multiple illegitimates are legal manifestations of moral outrage even more than they are methods for reducing public costs and relieving hard-pressed taxpayers.
It should not be necessary to argue the fundamental contradiction, in principle and practice, between the authentic spirit of welfare law and that of the law of crimes. The human problems with which the programs of public assistance are most deeply concerned- -problems of economic distress, of social dislocation, of cultural deprivation, of personal rehabilitation- -call for the utmost effort of objective social science and subjective personal understanding of which skilled counselors and social workers are capable. They cannot be met, but only evaded and exacerbated by those committed to the doctrine that persons in deprived circumstances are there by their own fault and vice, and that the cure for such mischief resides in measures of coercion, suppression and punishment.
The old morality of scarcity, while still a strong and even dominant influence in the welfare system, shows signs of giving way against the counterinsurgency of a morality appropriate to the goals of welfare -- those of opportunity, equality, dignity and simple freedom. There are hopeful portents in recent actions of the courts. We may put aside with a mere mention the historic series of decisions by the United States Supreme Court which has inspired and sustained the civil rights movement of our times, though those decisions have revitalized concepts of equality and equal protection of the laws and applied them to a publicly conferred benefit. We may also pass by the courageous performance of the High Court in the area of legislative reapportionment, though in that performance the Court emphatically reaffirmed the right of all to participate in the process and machinery of government through which decision-makers are selected and decisions made that affect their welfare. We may also touch only lightly the course of decisions in the United States Supreme Court equalizing the scales of justice by granting to poor defendants the same protections and privileges that could always be purchased by the prosperous.
Moved by the same spirit of reform towards equal justice, the federal courts and state courts have recently begun to tackle some of the evils of the welfare system. Last June three-judge United States district courts sitting in Connecticut and Delaware struck down as unconstitutional the states' residence requirements for public assistance. Three years ago the Supreme Court of California, in the landmark Kirchner case, (Department of Mental Hygiene v. Kirchner, 43 Cal. Rptr. 329, 1965), struck a blow at the hoary doctrine of relatives' responsibility with regard to certain institutionalized recipients of public assistance. Only a few months ago, the California court handed down another decision equally constructive and far-reaching. In vindicating the five-year battle of Benny Parrish, a partially blind caseworker of Alameda County, the state court proclaimed that welfare recipients do not by virtue of that status abandon their constitutional rights--notably the Fourth Amendment right of protection against unwarranted intrusions into the home and the related right of privacy.
The beginning of welfare, the courts are declaring, cannot mean the end of constitutional well-being. A court in New York has ruled that the welfare laws cannot be interpreted to authorize the imprisonment of recipients who refuse to work under terms imposed by the welfare department. Any other ruling would be in violation of the Thirteenth Amendment and of the Federal Anti-Peonage Act. Meanwhile, across the state border, the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania in the Argo case ( Argo v . Goodstein, 424 Pa. 612, 1967), has found that "freedom of mobility is as much a fundamental right of American citizenry as freedom of speech" and that "even the ill and the infirm, to the extent that they can ambulate, may not be imprisoned in their homes."
It should be recognized that these are not judicial decisions merely, but moral actions. By the force of their example and the power of their precedent they suggest the advent of a new code of ethics for public welfare--a morality of abundance and equality--to replace the morality of scarcity.
by Paul Sevransky, Ph. D.
(Reprinted from The New Outlook for the Blind, Dec. 1967)
In recent years vocational psychologists have gradually shifted their emphasis from the prediction of vocational success to the investigation of vocational development. The traditional trait-factor model calling for the determination of essential job factors and the measurement of psychological traits related to these factors has been found wanting by many practicing counselors. They have found that utilizing test and occupational information does little to resolve the basic indecisiveness of the client, and the counselors have sought a more dynamic understanding of the process of vocational choice.
The term "vocational development" suggests that choice of an occupation is not a single event at a critical point in life but the culmination of a gradual process which began in early childhood and which may continue throughout the work life of an adult. Super has divided the vocational development of the individual into five major states: growth; explorations; establishment; maintenance; and decline (Super, 1957). Each stage has characteristic development tasks which the individual must fulfill if he is to continue to the next stage. Super's concept of vocational maturity reflects the degree to which the individual has successfully met developmental tasks appropriate for his age group.
Individuals differ considerably in their vocational maturity, i.e., in their readiness to make vocationally relevant decisions at a given point in time. Although our educational system requires the student to make critical life decisions at certain points in his educational career (ninth and twelfth grades, college sophomore year), many are not ready to make them. This lack of readiness frequently cannot be dealt with by providing test or occupational information. The question is not "What choice is best for the individual?" but "Why hasn't the student attained a level of maturity or stability whereby he can utilize appropriate information to make important decisions about himself?"
The determinants of vocational motivations are complex and have not been thoroughly investigated. Nonetheless, our considerable knowledge about the general developmental process provides a basic understanding of the more specific process of vocational development. Donald Super, a counseling psychologist and Erik Erikson, a psychiatrist, have borrowed extensively from general developmental theory in their writings about the vocational decision-making process. I would like to outline briefly some of their ideas and suggest implications for our understanding of the vocational decision-making process with blind persons.
Super conceives of vocational development as the process of developing and implementing a self-concept. The self-concept develops "through direct self-evaluations of experience, through the internalization of the other evaluations which are experienced, and through the selection of experiences and evaluations on the basis of identification with others." (Super, 1957).
Learning about the self frequently takes place through role playing. A child has a number of role models available to him in and out of his home with whom he may identify. While playing at these roles he learns about the kinds of behavior that meet his own needs and win approval from significant persons in his environment. Role behavior that is found acceptable to the self and to significant others is incorporated into the self-concept. Behavioral patterns not found acceptable are rejected.
The process of assuming and evaluating a variety of roles continues through adolescence and adulthood. As the person matures, the role behaviors he accepts become more realistic and more founded on specific areas of endeavor. When an individual talks about his vocational choice he is also talking about the kind of person he believes himself to be. Through the process of vocational exploration he can determine whether the role the job makes him play is compatible with his self-concept, Erikson has emphasized the important part that finding an occupational role has for the development of ego identity in late adolescence. Ego identity is defined as one's sense of inner sameness. It denotes the synthesis which a late adolescent has derived from all of his previous experience in order to be ready for the tasks of adulthood. These include significant identifications, basic psychological needs and defenses, ability developed from endowment, as well as consistent roles played.
The ego identity develops and is modified during what Erikson terms "the psychosocial crises of childhood. " The first four psychosocial crises or developmental stages are essentially a reformation and expansion of the Freudian oral, anal, phallic, and latency periods. Successful resolution of these crises will successively lead to the development of a basic sense of trust about the world, a sense of autonomy about one's behavior, a sense of initiative in expanding one's social and intellectual horizon, and a sense of industry in acquiring the rudimentary skills required by the culture.
With the establishment of a good initial relationship to the world of skills and tools, and with the advent of puberty, adolescence begins. The essential developmental task of the adolescent period is to develop a stable and consistent sense of self within a socially useful role. The successful handling of this task leads to the establishment of a stable ego identity. Lack of success leads to identity diffusion. Most male adolescents focus their energies on the establishment of an occupational identity. Inability to settle on a vocational goal indicates that the developmental task of adolescence is not complete and may reflect a basic personality disorganization in the individual.
Super and Erikson thus agree on the importance of early developmental factors for the establishment of an occupational identity. Identification, role playing, and reality testing are essential mechanisms in this process. We shall now attempt to utilize the two theories in our understanding of the process of vocational choice of blind male college students.
A substantial proportion of male college freshmen, with or without physical disabilities, are unsure of their vocational goals. For them college is a period of exploration and trial, of learning more about oneself, and reaching for roles consonant with the self-concept. The complexity of an industrial society, the limited opportunity to explore occupational duties within college courses, and the general unavailability of occupational role models all contribute to the difficulty of selecting a goal. Changing initial plans, floundering from one major field to the next, or postponing one's choice by selecting a non-occupationally relevant major are common occurrences. Despite these formidable impediments, most students manage to find an appropriate vocational objective prior to graduation.
The blind student is more likely to be found within the floundering group than is his sighted classmate. He tends to be more unsure of his goal as a freshman and has greater difficulty implementing his plans after graduation. I would like to discuss four major reasons, derived from the theories of Super and Erikson, for the greater uncertainty of the blind student. These are problems related to 1) identification process, 2) reality testing, 3) handling of pre-adolescent developmental tasks, and 4) development of a stable ego identity. It is likely that the problems are more severe for the congenitally blind person with no light perception than for other categories of blindness.
Children find it rewarding to incorporate elements of the behavior of significant adults into their own repertoire. The exact mechanism of this process is not fully known, but it seems to occur without teaching by the adult and without the full awareness of the child. Through identification, the child learns about social and sexual role behavior and internalizes the moral standards of society.
Vision is of great importance in this identification process. Congenitally blind children are unable to play skillfully at being mother or father or other adult roles. The inability to copy dress and the behavioral mannerisms of the adult emphasizes the blind child's feeling of being different from members of the sighted society.
The birth of a blind child is a traumatic experience for many parents. Child-rearing patterns of overprotection and neglect are common. Early in his life, the child senses rejection by the parents and grows to mistrust the adult world. The research of Sears, Rau, and Alpert (1965) suggests the identification is facilitated when the like-sexed parent is warm and responsive to the needs of the child. We would, therefore, expect that positive identification is less likely to occur among blind children.
Identification after childhood facilitates the development of social and occupational roles. The lack of visual means for identification as well as the unavailability of interested adults may hamper learning of social roles. When considering a professional occupation, blind students seek out blind persons who have entered the occupation. They seem to feel positive identification is possible only with other blind persons.
We learn about ourselves through interaction with the physical and social environment. The child must be aware of the demands of the environment and adjust his behavior to these demands in order to secure satisfaction. He actively experiments to learn about his impact on the environment and to develop a repertoire of behavior that will satisfy his needs.
The absence of visual feedback makes it difficult for the blind child to learn the physical and social consequences of his behavior. Blind children rely heavily upon significant adults to provide them with this information. Unfortunately, many adults do not provide accurate feedback, especially negative feedback. Parents avoid informing their blind child about the inappropriateness of certain behavior. Teachers, in their misguided efforts to be supportive, reduce scholastic requirements. As a result, many blind students enter college with distorted ideas about their achievements, aptitudes, and personality patterns.
Blind children tend to develop at a slower rate than do sighted children. This is true for physical, social, and emotional development. Although most college freshmen are chronologically in the late adolescent stage, many blind students are dealing with problems that are characteristic of individuals in preadolescent or early adolescent stages.
Two common areas of social immaturity among blind students are the establishment of independence from the family and the formation of mature heterosexual relationships. Many blind children tend to be overprotected. Blind children require additional attention because of their need for a substitute for visual stimulation and for protection against physical danger. The emotional investment required of a mother compounded by her guilt feelings makes it difficult for her to release her blind child. The likelihood that the blind child will be an only child or the last child adds to the problem. Many blind college freshmen have never lived away from home and are dependent upon their mothers for much of their physical care. As a result, the college years are spent either in extreme adolescent rebellion or continued overinvolvement with the mother.
Heterosexual interests typically begin at puberty and grow throughout the adolescent period. However, it is not unusual to find blind college students who have never dated and have limited sexual information. The blind child can not be sexually aroused by visual stimulation and has frequently been taught by his parents to repress all sexual feelings. The intense emotional involvement with the mother and the association of blindness with sexual inadequacy are additional causes of their limited heterosexual experiences. We frequently find that sexual impulses are sources of conflict and anxiety throughout the college period.
The development of a mature ego identity depends upon the successful handling of earlier development crises, the incorporation of earlier identification with adults, and the selection of a congenial vocational role. It is likely that the blind student will have difficulty synthesizing all aspects of the self because they are in conflict. In addition, parents and teachers do not provide him with a set of clear role expectations that he can respond to in his quest for an appropriate social role. The incidence of ego diffusion, thus, tends to be high among blind students.
The high incidence of vocational immaturity among blind college students and the likelihood that the immaturity emanates from basic developmental factors suggest a need for modification in existing rehabilitation programs and counseling practices. I would like to propose a number of modifications to better deal with these problems.
With the pressure for college acceptance, concern about the draft, and the increasing need for graduate training, it is rare that a student will postpone entry into college to find himself. The pressures for immediate entry are less intense for blind students. If the student has had limited experiences away from home, has disabling emotional problems, or has limited knowledge about occupations, postponement of college maybe a realistic plan. The possibility of developing a program of part-time college work together with meaningful social and work activities and psychotherapy should be explored.
Federal-state rehabilitation programs are designed to prepare an individual for a specific vocational goal. The law requires the client and counselor to agree on a specific goal prior to the student's entry into college. Yet many college freshmen are not ready to commit themselves to a specific occupation.
The liberal arts curriculum at most colleges is designed to help the student explore a variety of fields. Students are not required to commit themselves to a specific goal until their junior year. It is paradoxical that the rehabilitation regulations require the more vocationally immature blind student to make his commitment before his sighted colleagues. The basic question that should be asked of the prospective student is "Has he reached a stage of development in which exploration will be meaningful?" If he has formulated questions that are answerable during the first two years of college, we can expect that the college experience will lead to a realistic vocational goal.
It is important that the student has accurate information about his achievement level, aptitudes, and personality characteristics. Test results can provide any part of the answer. The student should have an opportunity for interacting with a wide variety of individuals who will provide accurate feedback. Group counseling or therapy with fellow students may be helpful in attaining this end.
It is essential that the blind student have an intimate relationship with an adult. Colleges should be selected that provide for after-class student-faculty contact. The student should have an opportunity to meet and socialize with blind and sighted professionals in a variety of fields.
The student should be encouraged to leave home when he attends college, or at least go away for the summer if he must attend a commuter college. He should be encouraged to participate in heterosexual social activities sponsored by rehabilitation agencies at the college. Psychotherapy should be available to cases in which early emotional blocking prevents full utilization of the growth experiences of the college years.
In recent years there has been a shift from the trait-factor approach in counseling to one that views vocational choice as an expression of ego development. Clients are not seen as devoid of test and occupational information but as lacking the personality resources to deal effectively with the task of decision-making. The writings of Super and of Erikson stress the importance of early developmental processes in the formation of a later occupational identity. The blind college student is seen as arrested in his vocational development primarily because of problems related to (1) the identification process, (2) reality testing, (3) handling preadolescent developmental tasks, and (4) development of a stable ego identity. Several modifications in existing rehabilitation programs and counseling practices are recommended to deal with the high incidence of vocational immaturity among blind college students.
December 13, 1967
Editor
New Outlook for the Blind
15 West Sixteenth Street
New York, New York 10011
Dear Editor:
I wish to comment concerning the article "The Process of Vocational Development- -Implications for Counseling Male Blind College Students" by Dr. Paul Sevransky in the New Outlook , December 1967, not only as a psychologist but as a former male blind college student.
First, while I have my doubts as to the validity of the author's model of vocational development, I am quite sure that it is irrelevent to the problem at issue, i.e., the vocational immaturity of the blind college student. The author's "application" of the model to the problem seems to depend upon a series of statements for which he cites no substantiating evidence -- for the reason, I believe, that there is no evidence. In fact, the very existence of the problem is not well documented and is therefore to be questioned. Thus, the origin of such statements as "blind children tend to develop at a slower rate than do sighted children", is not to be found, I suspect, in empirical data, but in the traditional stereotypes of blindness unchanged though dressed up in professional jargon.
Second, the few observations which the author does cite concerning blind college students are explainable in other terms more plausible than the author's developmental hypotheses. Excess dependence when shown by a blind college student can probably be accounted for in terms of improper training in alternative techniques such as cane travel, along with unhealthy attitudes encouraged not only by family members (with or without guilt for having born a blind child) but also by those agencies for the blind whose personnel have a vested interest in the dependence of the blind student on their services. Likewise, any lack of sexual information or heterosexual experience which the author may find in blind students is, from all I know of my own and my blind friends' adolescence, due not to any preadolescent lack of sexual interest or arousability, but to a combination of factors, including unavailability of information in forms accessible to the blind, mobility problems in dating in a society where the car is the accepted setting for the date, and discrimination against the blind teenager by potential dates and/or their parents.
Finally, the author's recommendations need revision in accordance with the above criticisms, as well as a view of rehabilitation ethics which holds that the blind student is normal until proven otherwise and is entitled to make his own choices from as broad a spectrum of educational and vocational opportunities as can be provided. 1. It is not true that the pressure to enter college is significantly less in the blind student than in his sighted colleague. Modern education takes long enough, without prolonging it, and unless there are specific reasons for delaying entrance to college, such as to allow for training in needed skills, I see no point in putting off college. In any case the choice should be the student's. 2. The blind college student may be allowed to discover him- self vocationally during college along with his sighted friends, within the scope of the vocational rehabilitation law, provided that his agency's policy is flexible enough to accommodate his normal changes of goals. In the experience of blind students whom I know, this is the way vocational choice takes place. Counselors may be as unrealistic concerning career possibilities as anyone else who might advise a student. 3. Choice of a college and of activities, curricular and extracurricular, should be made by the blind student on the same bases as other students' choices, i.e., the interest and abilities of the student, the financial situation of the family, etc. It seems inconsistent to point to dependence as a pathological trait characteristic of blind students and then to advocate their participation in "heterosexual social activities sponsored by rehabilitation agencies at the college." And psychotherapy, of course, should be available to anyone who needs it, blind or sighted. To imply, however, that it is especially necessary to the blind college student is without justification and probably injurious.
Cordially,
Roger D. Petersen
Assistant Professor of Psychology
and First Vice President, National Federation of the Blind
Student Division
Three Judge United States District Court
Smith V. King (Nov. 8, 1967)
The Court: This Court is clear to the conclusion that Alabama's "substitute father" regulation creates precisely the type of classification prohibited by the Equal Protection Clause. The Alabama regulation directs that Aid to Dependent Children financial assistance not be given to a class of children who meet the statutory eligibility requirements and that this financial assistance be denied for an arbitrary reason--the alleged sexual behavior of the mother; such a reason is wholly unrelated to any purpose of the Aid to Dependent Children statutes. The basic purpose of the program (Title IV of the Social Security Act, 42 U. S. C. 601 et seq. ) and the Alabama statute (Code of Alabama, Title 49, Sec. 17) is to provide financial assistance to needy children who are deprived of the support and care of one of their parents. As a matter of fact, the Alabama statute requires the defendants to furnish Aid to Dependent Children financial assistance "on behalf of any needy child who is a dependent child as defined in the Federal Social Security Act." As to this aspect of the program, the federal act defines a "dependent child" as one who is "deprived of parental support or care by reason of the death, continued absence from the home, or physical or mental incapacity of a parent." Despite this clear legislative purpose of both the federal and Alabama statutes, the "substitute father" regulation directs that aid shall not be given to a particular class of needy dependent children who are deprived of parental support or care as a result of the death, or continuous absence of their father from the home, and who in all other respects meet the statutory eligibility requirements. In this regard, the Alabama regulation sets forth three situations in which needy dependent children, otherwise eligible, are to be denied this financial assistance: "(1) When a man (not married to the mother and not the father of the children) lives in the home 'for the purpose of cohabitation' with the mother: "(2) When a man (not married to the mother and not the father of the children) visits the home 'for the purpose of cohabiting' with the mother: "(3) When a man (not married to the mother and not the father of the children) 'cohabits' with the mother 'elsewhere', i.e., outside the home." It is quite clear, therefore, that the Alabama regulation is directed at a dependent child or children whose mother has non-marital sexual relations with a man or men--or, more broadly, whose mother's conduct is immoral, according to the Alabama authorities--and is not in anywise directed to either the support or care of the children by the mother or by the statutorily created "substitute father." This simply means that through the promulgation of this "substitute father" regulation, the State of Alabama is looking primarily to the moral conduct of the mother and not to economic factors.
--Per Curiam.
(Reprinted from The New York Times, Nov. 1967)
WASHINGTON--A Federal court ruling that voided Alabama's "substitute father" welfare regulation was stayed today by Justice Hugo L. Black of the Supreme Court.
The Supreme Court was asked to stay the ruling until it received Alabama's formal appeal and decided whether to hear the case.
Justice Black gave Alabama 30 days to file its appeal.
by John Nagle
Since the opening of the First Session of the 90th Congress in January, 1967, nine bills have been introduced in the House of Representatives and eight in the United States Senate at the request of the National Federation of the Blind, and these bills, seven of which were identical in House and Senate versions, contained twenty-five separate proposals for changes in federal law.
For the third time in the past four years, the NFB succeeded in getting our disability insurance for the blind bill through the United States Senate. Senator Vance Hartke again sponsored our measure. Fifty-seven other senators cosponsored, including eight members of the Committee on Finance which has jurisdiction in the Senate over Social Security amending bills. Voice vote approval was given to our disability bill after an executive session of the Committee on Finance as it considered H. R. 12080, the Social Security Amendments of 1967.
The Committee Report indicated our bill had been interpreted so as to exclude employed blind persons with any but the meagerest of earnings from its provisions. On the floor Senator Hartke secured unanimous acceptance of a clarifying amendment so that our proposal would provide disability benefits irrespective of a blind person's earnings. Despite this doubly favorable committee and full Senate action on our disability insurance for the blind bill, we again lost out in the House-Senate Conference which met to work out differences between House and Senate-passed versions of H. R. 12080. The conferees did adopt the first provision of our disability bill making the generally accepted ophthalmological standard of blindness (20/200, etc.) as the standard for disabling visual loss under the federal disability insurance program. As a consequence of this congressional action, a larger number of persons who become blind before the age of 31 or after the age of 55 will be able to qualify for disability benefits under special provisions for the blind adopted by Congress in 1965.
The free mailing privilege originally for braille and recorded books intended solely for the use of the blind, was extended by the 90th Congress to include other persons whose physical impairment prevents their use of conventionally printed matter. This was in implementation of a previous congressional enactment which brought this new category of disabled persons into the federal Books for the Blind Program. The 90th Congress also extended the postage-free privilege to tools and devices especially made or adapted for the blind and physically impaired, and further provided that such persons may send braille, large print, and taped correspondence through the mail without charge.
Other measures which had the active support of the organized blind also received attention during the First Session of the 90th Congress. Bills to establish standards for elimination of architectural barriers in federal buildings, and to establish a blind register and mandatory reporting of blind persons in the District of Columbia, were adopted by the Senate. The House Subcommittee on Public Health conducted hearings on a considerable number of identical bills to create a National Eye Institute in the National Institutes of Health System.
Congress also passed the Vocational Rehabilitation Act Amendments of 1967, which abolish residence as an eligibility requirement after July 1, 1969, and also authorize the establishment of a National Center for Deaf-Blind Youths and Adults.
The Elementary and Secondary Education Act Amendments of 1967 which were passed on the final day of the First Session of the 90th Congress, not only provide for further extension of federal participation in state programs of education for all types of disabled children but also contain a provision authorizing the establishment of a National Center for Deaf-Blind Children.
During Senate hearings the Federation offered an amendment to the Elementary and Secondary Education Act which would prohibit discrimination by reason of physical impairment for employment in any position, teaching or supportive, in any program or activity administered under the Act. Although the amendment was not adopted, it represented the first effort of the National Federation of the Blind in Congress to assure equal employment opportunities for physically disabled persons in the field of public school education.
Finally, when the military draft act was being re-examined in congressional hearings, the National Federation of the Blind appeared before both Senate and House committees and argued that continued exclusion of blind persons from military service was discriminatory and unjustified, since many of the activities and functions in the military establishment are being performed successfully by blind persons in civilian occupations and professions. The federal draft law was not amended to meet the Federation's objections, but the response to our position was most favorable, and we were commended in Congress and throughout the Nation for our contention that equality, to us, means not only equal sharing in rights and privileges, it also means sharing in responsibilities, hazards, and inconveniences.
BRAINTREE, Mass. (AP)--Joanie Hyland, 16, checked her blue sweater and gray skirt costume, then stepped off to the sound of the band with other girls from the Braintree High school drill team at half-time ceremonies of the Braintree-Milton Thanksgiving day football game.
Joanie kept in position by counting the exact number of steps needed to go one way, then the exact number of steps she should move in another direction before turning again. During the difficult maneuvers her teammates whispered directions to her.
The pretty teen-ager needs a little extra help from the other girls -- she has been blind since birth.
"Joanie has been with the drill team all this year," said her mother, Mrs. John F. Hyland, "but I never go to see her--I'd be very nervous if she goofed. But she does have a lot of fun."
Joanie practices with her teammates every day after school but still finds time to keep on the school honor roll with a full load of college preparatory courses.
(by William F. Nicholson, from Chicago's American, Nov. 1967)
On December 17th, at the tenBroek home in Berkeley, Anna Carlotta tenBroek was given in marriage to Steven Hammond. On December 29th, Kathy and Dutch tenBroek announced the birth of their first child, a boy, who weighed in at 7 lbs. 4 oz., not counting the weight of his name: Jacobus Newel Perry tenBroek.
I desire to call to your attention that my hobby project making combination print and braille greeting cards for the deaf-blind, blind, and sighted people, is a non-profit idea of mine. This is a good time for me to let you know that I have two kinds of Easter cards, and All Occasion greeting cards in print and braille available throughout the year. All cards are very attractive for this coming year. Those who are interested please send correct name, address, and zip code to Harry A. Fribush, 27 Colonial Ave., Albany, New York 12203.
December 7, 1967, Dr. Douglas C. MacFarland received the Sustained Superior Work Performance Award from the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare, Social and Rehabilitation Service.
Manny Rubin, immediate past president of the Associated Blind of Massachusetts, was appointed by Governor Volpe to serve on the five-man advisory board of the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind.
Stephen P. Simonds has been appointed as Commissioner of the Assistance Payments Administration, Social and Rehabilitation Service, Department of Health, Education, and Welfare.
In the summer of 1940, a handful of blind men and women from seven states met at Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, to inaugurate a new and unique voluntary association. The fruit of that historic meeting was the National Federation of the Blind, the first nation-wide organization in America open to all sightless persons -- truly a federation of the blind, by the blind, and for the blind.
Since that modest beginning, the national movement of the organized blind has grown steadily in numbers, strength and influence. Today it has a membership of 37 state affiliates, and is recognized by sightless people the country over as their principal means of collective self-expression -- the voice of the independent blind.
The Federation believes that blind people are essentially normal human beings -- that blindness in itself is only a physical lack which can be met and mastered, not an impairment of mental powers or psychological stability. Therefore all arbitrary barriers and discriminations -- legal, economic and social -- based on the false assumption that the blind are somehow different from those with sight must be abolished in favor of equality of opportunity for all who are blind. Because of their intimate firsthand experience with the problems of blindness -- and because they too have the constitutional right to organize, to speak for themselves and to be heard -- the blind themselves are best qualified to lead the way in solving their own problems. But the general public should be made aware of these problems and asked to participate in their solution. These are the fundamental beliefs upon which the National Federation of the Blind bases its philosophy and programs.
Today as in the past, the Federation is fortunate in the quality of its elective leadership. All officers and Executive Committeemen are blind; all are chosen democratically by delegates to the national conventions. Brief biographies of the blind who lead the blind are set forth on the following pages. They are men and women from many walks of life, representing a broad cross-section of the blind population of the United States. But while their backgrounds and careers are varied, they are drawn together by the common bond of having encountered blindness individually and successfully in their own lives, and by their dedication to the proposition that all who are blind are created equally capable of similar success. In the story of their lives and achievements is to be seen compelling proof of the affirmative democratic faith embodied in the National Federation of the Blind.
Photo Caption
DR. JACOBUS tenBROEK Founder and President of the National Federation of the Blind and of the International Federation of the Blind. In private life an author, jurist, and university professor.
Photo Caption
KENNETH JERNIGAN First Vice President - National Federation of the Blind. Administrator of a state rehabilitation and orientation program.
Photo Caption
DONALD CAPPS Second Vice President - National Federation of the Blind. Business' man and insurance company executive.
Photo Caption
RUSSELL KLETZING Secretary - National Federation of the Blind. Attorney and assistant chief counsel in a state department of water resources.
Photo Caption
FRANKLIN VAN VLIET Treasurer - National Federation of the Blind. Electronics technician.
Photo Caption
MAE DAVIDOW Member - Executive Committee NFB. Mathematics teacher in a school for the blind.
Photo Caption
RAY DINSMORE Member - Executive Committee NFB. Businessman,
Photo Caption
VICTOR JOHNSON Member -Executive Committee NFB. Businessman, retired.
Photo Caption
ANITA O'SHEA Member - Executive Committee NFB. Medical Secretary.
Photo Caption
HAROLD REAGAN Member - Executive Committee NFB. Businessman.
Photo Caption
PERRY SUNDQUIST Member - Executive Committee NFB. Administrator of a state welfare program.
Photo Caption
AUDREY BASCOM TAIT Member - Executive Committee NFB. Orientation center director.
Photo Caption
ULDINE THELANDER Member - Executive Committee NFB. Home teacher-counselor, retired.
Photo Caption
DR. JACOB FREID Member - Board of Directors NFB. Welfare administrator and university professor.
Photo Caption
DR. ISABELLE L. D. GRANT Member - Board of Directors NFB Eudcator, retired.
Photo Caption
JOHN NAGLE Chief, Washington Office NFB. Attorney.
JACOBUS tenBROEK President
On that eventful day in 1940 when the National Federation of the Blind was formally inaugurated, it was no ordinary private group that was set in motion but an extraordinary social movement. The blind people of the United States, long immobilized in the protective custody of almshouse and lighthouse keepers, were at last on the move -- and on their own.
Starting with ten who were stout-hearted men, they soon added ten thousand more. Today they have added tens of thousands more.
The first of the stout-hearted men who met at Wilkes-Barre -- founder of the National Federation and creator of the vision which inspired it -- was a 29-year-old California professor named Jacobus tenBroek, whose own blindness had not deterred him from earning a college degree and three post-graduate degrees in political science and law (a fifth earned degree from Harvard was later to be added).
Dr. tenBroek's own successful struggle for independence stood in stark contrast to the stifling atmosphere of overprotective shelter, enforced dependency and foreclosed opportunity which everywhere prevailed among the agencies and institutions for the blind. The worst effect of this prejudice, in his view, was to isolate these sightless "wards" not only from normal society (and from their self-appointed "custodians") but even from significant association with one another -- by depriving them of the means and responsibility for mutual effort and collective self-advancement.
It might almost be said that for tenBroek the end of sight was the beginning of "vision" -- the vision of a democratic people's movement in which blind men and women would no longer be led but would take the lead themselves in their own cause, and in so doing point the way to a new age of individual independence and social integration for all blind Americans.,
Born in 1911, the son of a prairie homesteader, young tenBroek lost the sight of one eye as the result of a bow-and-arrow accident at the age of seven. Thereafter his remaining vision deteriorated until by the age of 14 he was totally blind. He did not sit long in idleness. Within three years he was an active participant and officeholder in local blind organizations in Berkeley, where he went to attend the California School for the Blind. By 1934 he had joined with Dr. Newel
Perry, Perry Sundquist and others to form the California Council of the Blind --a prototype on the state level of the National Federation which followed six years later.
From its inception the national movement of the organized blind was shaped in the image of the revolutionary approach to blindness which was preached and practiced with equal brilliance by its founder. It was preached up and down the land, in convention and conference, to blind and sighted audiences alike, in a continuous succession of memorable public addresses stretching over more than twenty years. One of the first was entitled, "A Declaration of Independence by the Blind. " Many of the speeches have been inserted into the Congressional Record, reprinted in Vital Speeches, or published as articles by welfare journals. One ("The Cross of Blindness") found its way into two college textbooks on composition, and another ("Social Security : Today's Challenge in Public Welfare") into a volume of significant contemporary speeches.
But the new philosophy of normality, equality and productivity was not only "preached" by the NFB's first president. It was also practiced. In the same year in which the Federation was founded, tenBroek received his doctorate in jurisprudence from the University of California, completed a year as Brandeis Research Fellow at Harvard Law School, and was appointed to the facility at the University of Chicago Law School. Two years later he began his teaching career at the University of California, moving steadily upward through the ranks to become a full professor in 1953 and chairman of the Department of Speech in 1955. In 1963 he accepted an appointment as Professor of Political Science on the Berkeley campus.
During this period Professor tenBroek published more than 50 articles and monographs -- plus three books -- in the fields of welfare, government and law, establishing a reputation as one of the nation's foremost scholars on matters of constitutional law. One of his volumes -- Prejudice, War, and the Constitution -- won the Woodrow Wilson Award of the American Political Science Association in 1955 as the best book on government and democracy. His other books are California's Dual System of Family L aw (1964); Hope Deferred: Public Welfare and the Blind (1959), and The Anti-Slavery Origins of the Fourteenth Amendment (1951), revised and republished in 1965 under the title Equal Under Law. In the course of his academic career he has been a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences, at Palo Alto, and has twice been the recipient of fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation. In 1947 he earned the degree of S. J. D. from Harvard Law School. He was awarded in 1956 the honorary degree of Doctor of Letters by Findlay College in Ohio, and in 1964 the honorary degree of Doctor of Laws by Parsons College in Iowa. In 1950
Dr. tenBroek was named a member of the California State Board of Social Welfare by Governor Earl Warren. Subsequently reappointed three times to the policy-making welfare board, he was elected its chairman in 1960 by the other members, and served in that capacity until 1963.
He has been president since 1945 of the American Brotherhood for the Blind, an educational and charitable foundation, which has pioneered in the provision of such notable ventures as "Twin-Vision Books" (combined braille -and- inkprint storybooks).
Professor tenBroek has served on numerous advisory committees and study commissions for state and federal governments; for example, he was a consultant to the Subcommittee on Special Education of the U.S. House Committee on Education and Labor, and was a member of the California Governor's Study Commission on Public Welfare.
After 21 years as president of the National Federation of the Blind, Dr. tenBroek resigned in 1961 only to resume the office by acclamation of the convention in 1966. In the interim, among other continuing activities, he accepted a position as the NFB's delegate to the World Council for the Welfare of the Blind. In that capacity he attended the meeting of the World Council's executive committee at Hanover, Germany, in the summer of 1962 and the quinquennial meeting of the Assembly of the World Council in New York in 1964. When the International Federation of the Blind was formed at organizational meetings in Phoenix and New York in 1964, he was selected as its president and has continued in that office to date.
KENNETH JERNIGAN First Vice President
The office of first vice president of the National Federation is held by one of the nation's most brilliant and successful administrators of programs for the blind -- Kenneth Jernigan of Des Moines, Iowa, director of the State Commission for the Blind,
In his varied and accomplished career, Jernigan has built an equal national reputation as a leader of the blind through a succession of organizational honors including the presidency of the Tennessee Federation of the Blind, the vice presidency of the National Federation -- to which he was re-elected in 1966 -- and the winning in 1960 of the NFB's Newel Perry Award (given annually to the individual considered by the organization to have made the greatest contribution to the welfare of the blind).
Totally blind since his birth in 1926, Jernigan went to work immediately after graduating from high school as the manager of a furniture shop in Beech Grove, Tennessee, for which he made all the furniture as well as operated the business. In the fall of 1945 he enrolled for a college career at Tennessee Polytechnic Institute in Cookeville. Active in campus affairs from the outset, Kenneth was soon elected to office in his class organization and to important positions in other student clubs. In 1948, at the Southeastern Conference of the Pi Kappa Delta competition held at the University of South Carolina, Ken won first prize in extemporaneous speaking and original oratory.
A year after graduating from Tennessee Polytechnic Institute Jernigan was awarded a Master's degree in English from Peabody College of Nashville, where he subsequently completed an additional year of graduate study. While at Peabody he was a staff writer with the school newspaper, co-founder of an independent literary magazine, and a member of the Writers' Club. In 1949 he received the Captain Charles W. Browne Award, presented by the American Foundation for the Blind each year to the nation's outstanding blind student.
Following his collegiate career, Jernigan spent four years as a teacher of English with the Tennessee School for the Blind. During this period he became interested in organizational work with the blind, starting with membership in the Nashville chapter of the Tennessee Association for the Blind (later the Tennessee Federation). He was elected to the vice-presidency of the state affiliate in 1950, and to the presidency in 1951.
In 1953 Jernigan was appointed to the faculty of the Oakland, California, Orientation Center for the Adult Blind, where he remained for five years prior to accepting his current position as director of the Iowa Commission for the Blind. In this capacity he is responsible for the administration of state programs of rehabilitation, home teaching, home industries and various other welfare services. The magnitude of Jernigan's achievement as commission head is perhaps best described in a sentence from the citation which accompanied the Newel Perry Award in 1960: "The task of taking on a rehabilitation program which ranked last in the nation in point of accomplishment, and within two years nearly quadrupling its number of closures while vastly improving its quality, is itself a remarkable feat of creative administration and sheer hard work." Since that date his performance in Iowa and the nation has greatly surpassed even those levels of accomplishment.
DONALD C. CAPPS Second Vice President
Few more compelling examples of personal independence and social contribution could be found among blind Americans than that of the NFB's second vice-president, Donald C. Capps of Columbia, South Carolina. During the late 1950's and early 1960's he served four two-year terms as president of the South Carolina Aurora Club of the Blind, the affiliate of the National Federation. Capps was elected to his present NFB office in 1959 and re-elected for two-year terms in I960, 1962, 1964, and 1966.
Born in 1928, Capps did not become legally blind until 1954, although he possessed a congenital eye defect. He attended the South Carolina School for the Blind and later its public schools. Following his graduation from high school he enrolled in Draughon's Business College in Columbia; and upon receiving his business diploma, joined the Colonial Life and Accident Insurance Company of Columbia as a claims examiner trainee. He has risen to his present position as head of both the Individual and Group Claims Departments.
Capps first became interested in the organized blind movement in 1953, and by the following year had been elected president of the Columbia chapter of the Aurora Club, which he headed for two years before assuming the leadership of the state organization. The extent of his contribution may be measured by the success of the Aurora Club's legislative program since its inception in 1956. During the following years the organization has been responsible for remarkable increases in the state's appropriation for cash assistance to the needy blind -- advances which were won over the strenuous opposition of state public welfare officials. Among other improvements, Capps' organization has achieved an extra exemption on state income tax and amendments to the South Carolina vending stand law making the blind priority in employment mandatory rather than merely permissive and abolishing the so-called "set-aside" -- a percentage of the stand operator's income previously appropriated by the state.
A truly major accomplishment was the successful uphill struggle of the South Carolina affiliate under Capps' leadership to bring about the establishment of an independent State Commission for the blind, which became a reality in 1966.
Capps' energies as a leader have not been confined to the performance of his official duties, productive and time-consuming as they are. Among other activities he is editor of the PALMETTO AURORAN, the quarterly publication of the Aurora Club whose articles are frequently reprinted in national journals for the blind. In 1960 Capps directed a campaign which led to construction of the Columbia chapter's $35,000 education and training center. He now serves as executive director and chairman of the board of trustees of the flourishing Aurora Center. In this role he has been instrumental in setting up a braille switchboard training facility and laying plans for its full-time operation. In addition, Capps has served for eleven years as the very successful fund-raising chairman of the Columbia chapter.
The role which Capps has played in the organized blind movement of his state, as well as of the nation, is aptly symbolized by the "Donald C. Capps Award," a cash gift presented annually to an outstanding blind Carolinian. The Capps Award was created in 1961 by Ways and Means for the Blind of Augusta, Georgia, whose president is Hubert E. Smith. In 1963 he was appointed to the Governor's Committee on the Employment of the Physically Handicapped.
In December, 1962, Capps was honored by his company with the presentation of an award "for 15 years' efficient, faithful and loyal service" in his managerial capacity. At a special Christmas luncheon signalizing the event, the firm's president, Edwin F. Avery, read a citation which stated in part: "Don has done a superior and faithful job for the Company, in spite of the vision handicap which he has overcome in remarkable fashion, and which he has never allowed to circumscribe his life, family and community activities, or efficiency in performance of his very responsible job. . . . We take a reflected glory in Don Capps--and are extremely proud of the tremendous contribution which he has made in this state, and over the whole country, toward the progress and betterment of his fellows."
In 1965 Don was doubly honored as Handicapped Man of the Year, both by his city of Columbia and by his state. In 1967 he was appointed to the Governor's Statewide Planning Committee on Rehabilitation Needs of the Disabled. He and his wife, Betty, have two children.
RUSSELL KLETZING, Secretary
In 1966 Russell Kletzing received the Newel Perry Award of the National Federation of the Blind for his outstanding contributions to the progress of his fellow blind. This honor marked the completion of four years in the presidency of the NFB. In 1966, also, he returned to the office of secretary, which he had occupied before becoming president in 1962.
In January, 1963, Kletzing became Assistant Chief Counsel of the California State Department of Water Resources - the highest civil service rank yet attained by a blind person in California. During the same month he was also presented with the State of California's Award for Superior Accomplishment in recognition of his contribution to the success of the state's complex water resources program.
He was president for three years (1959-1962) of the California Council of the Blind, of which he is presently the executive secretary and general counsel. He is also treasurer of the American Brotherhood for the Blind, and of the International Federation of the Blind.
Born in Chicago in 1925, Kletzing was totally blinded by retinoblastoma when only a year and a half old. After eight years of primary education at the California School for the Blind in Berkeley, he attended Oakland's University High School, where he was awarded the scholarship cup upon his graduation in 1942. Thereafter he enrolled at the University of California, majoring in chemistry and graduating with honors in 1945 after compiling a brilliant academic record.
While winning the SCAIFE scholarship and election to Phi Beta Kappa in his junior year at college, Russell managed to find time to take a leadership role in various student activities -- including varsity debate, membership in the Associated Students' Executive Committee, presidency of the Student YMCA, and presidency of the Honor Students Association.
Immediately following his graduation from the University, Kletzing found employment as a social worker at a wartime relocation center for Japanese -American evacuees, where he remained until the center was closed. He then went on to law school -- to the University of Chicago for one year, next to the University of California's Boalt School of Law where he received his degree in 1949. While still a law student, he published several articles in legal journals, concentrating on labor law and taxation.
In 1950, Kletzing joined the United States Bureau of Reclamation as an attorney, where he remained for the next seven years. Prior to landing this federal job he was the instigator of a case now famous in the annals of the organized blind movement. He successfully passed a civil service examination for the position of attorney, only to find later that officials in Washington had removed his name from the civil service list. Convinced that the only reason for this was that federal officialdom had discovered that he was blind, Kletzing went to the National Federation of the Blind, with whose vigorous backing he made a test case of the issue -- the celebrated "Kletzing case" through which the NFB ultimately forced open the doors of civil service employment in various fields formerly barred altogether to blind persons.
In 1959, shortly after his transfer to the California Department of Water Resources, Kletzing was promoted to senior attorney. In this capacity, and later as assistant chief counsel, he has directed the legal negotiation of water supply contracts for his state, and was California's legal representative in negotiations with the federal government leading to construction of the San Luis Water Project, through which state and federal governments have cooperatively pooled their resources to build and run the 450-million dollar enterprise. He has been chief water rights expert for his state agency -- protecting the claim to water rights of the giant state water project involving the transportation of great quantities of water for more than 600 miles and the expenditure of more than two billion dollars -- and also has had charge of the agency's legal concern with federal legislation and with interstate water compacts and other relationships.
The year 1959, in which Kletzing was named a senior attorney in the state government, also marked a high point in his "avocational" career as a leader of the organized blind. During that year he became first vice president, and subsequently president, of the California Council of the Blind; while the National Federation elected him to its Executive Committee and gave him the chairmanship of both its constitutional committee and its subcommittee on budget and finance.
Kletzing met his wife, Ruth, while speaking at a meeting which she arranged in the course of her work with preschool blind children. They were married in 1954 and have two sons, Craig, born in 1958, and James, born in June, 1963.
FRANKLIN VAN VLIET, Treasurer
Dairy farmer, musician, independent businessman, electronics technician, Sunday-school teacher, radio operator, politician -- and Federation treasurer -- these are only a few of the manifold activities met and mastered during the active career of Franklin Van Vliet of Concord, New Hampshire. In addition to his leadership role in the National Federation, he long served as president of the New Hampshire Federation of the Blind.
Born into a small New Hampshire farming community in 1922, Van Vliet lost the sight of one eye as the result of an accident at the age of seven, and gradually lost his remaining vision over the next decade through sympathetic ophthalmia. By an irony of fate, his father was for many years state supervisor of services to the blind. Franklin completed elementary schooling at Massachusetts' Perkins School for the Blind; but the death of his father forced him to leave school and go to work on a dairy farm, a job which he held for two years before moving into an industrial job with the state-operated workshop in Concord, New Hampshire. He next found employment in the field of his greatest interest, electronics, with a Manchester firm producing wartime technical equipment for the Navy. Following the war, falling victim to the mass layoffs of industry, he took a job as parts manager with the state highway department.
A lifelong desire to operate his own business was realized for Van Vliet in 1952, when he opened a shop specializing in manufacture and sale of various types of automotive upholstery and equipment. Forced out of business by chain-store competition. Van Vliet chose to turn adversity into new opportunity--by returning to school to master the intricate science of electronics. He attended the Radio Engineering Institute of Omaha, Nebraska, graduating in 1955 with a radio technician's diploma, and returned to Concord where he has since made a successful career as an electronics specialist.
Married in 1946 to Miss Gertrude Goodwin, the NFB's indefatigable treasurer today divides his "free" time between Sunday-school teaching, church organ-playing, and a vigorous outdoor life centering around the Van Vliets' summer cabin which he built.
DR. MAE E. DAVIDOW Member, Executive Committee
Ten years ago, Mae Davidow, a mathematics teacher at the Overbrook School for the Blind, was instrumental in reactivating the local chapter of the Pennsylvania Federation of the Blind in Philadelphia. As president of the West Philadelphia chapter, Mae invited people from every section of Philadelphia to participate. As the chapter grew, new leaders emerged and were encouraged to start new chapters in other sections of the city. After five years of work in building up the membership of the local groups in the Philadelphia area, Dr. Davidow was elected to the Executive Board of the P. F. B.
Mae Davidow spent the early years of her childhood on a small farm near Bridgeton, New Jersey. At the age of ten, after a mastoid operation, Mae lost her vision. She entered the Overbrook School for the Blind and studied there for several years, but completed her secondary education at Bridgeton High School. She received a B. A, from New Jersey College for Women, now Douglas College, part of Rutgers University. Temple University granted her a master's degree in 1949, and she earned her doctorate there in 1960.
In that year, under a federal grant to the Pennsylvania Office for the Blind, Mae Davidow interviewed blind professional people in various parts of the United States. She gathered occupational information that would help blind students and newly blinded persons make better vocational choices. She has been chairman of the Mathematics Workshop of the American Association of Instructors of the Blind, Mae was president of the Overbrook Teachers Association and representative of the Pennsylvania State Education Association.
As a mathematics teacher at the Overbrook School for the Blind, Dr. Davidow was instrumental in establishing the use of the Cranmer Abacus as a part of the regular curriculum. In 1964 she attended the Abacus Institute at the University of Kentucky, the first such institute ever conducted in America. For the past two years Mae has taught the Cranmer Abacus using Fred Gessoni's text. However, as an instructor of the abacus to both teachers and students, she found it desirable to have a simplified manual for their use. Thus, in June 1966, was published "The Abacus Made Easy" by Dr. Mae E. Davidow. This manual was introduced at the convention of the American Association of Instructors of the Blind in Salt Lake City. It is Mae's hope that this publication will be put into Braille and will soon be at the fingertips of every blind person.
In addition to being a devoted teacher, her social service work has been outstanding with both the sighted and the blind. She has taken an active part in leadership training at the Y. M. C. A. and through her work as adviser to teen-age girls, Mae has become adept at all the modern dances. As a vice president in a local B'nai B'rith chapter, Mae has helped to write a manual for advisers of B'nai B'rith Youth.
Recently, Dr. Davidow was elected to the Board of Managers of the Chapin Home for the Aged Blind in Philadelphia. She takes time in a busy week to visit and talk with the older citizens and brings word of progress in the field of education to several former teachers there.
Dr. Davidow is a popular speaker at luncheon and dinner meetings of Lions Clubs, Rotary, Kiwanis, etc. Her topic is usually "Preparing Blind Youth for Community Living." It is at these meetings that Mae seizes the opportunity to tell community leaders about the work done by the National Federation of the Blind.
Several years ago she was invited to give a series of lectures at Peabody College in Nashville, Tennessee, and also at San Francisco State College. She lectured on the methods used to teach mathematics to blind students.
Dr. Davidow was elected to the Executive Committee at the Louisville convention, 1966.
RAY J. DINSMORE, Member, Executive Committee
Orchestra conductor, licensed chiropractor, independent business man, volunteer social worker, member of an agency board of directors - these are some of the facets in the varied career of Raymond James Dinsmore.
Born in 1902 in the town of Elwood, Indiana, Dinsmore lost his sight through a medical accident at the age of two -- later recovering slight vision in one eye. He received his education at the state schools for the blind in Ohio and Indiana, and went on to graduate from the Central States College of Chiropractic in Indianapolis. Finding the professional field crowded, Ray went to work as a furniture craftsman until the advent of the great depression of the 1930's induced him to move to New York with his wife, Frances, and two children.
Breaking into the field of entertainment as a musician, Dinsmore organized and conducted an all-blind dance orchestra under auspices of the WPA's Federal Art Project, and subsequently found additional outlet for his musical talents in radio and in work with the Police Athletic League of New York.
During the thirties he became an active volunteer worker with the Blind Industrial Workers' Association of Brooklyn, a cooperative agency owned and operated by blind persons themselves, which included among its functions a workshop, an extensive home work program, and services of counseling and placement. In 1940 Dinsmore was elected business manager of the Association, acting as its representative to the Greater New York Council of Agencies for the Blind. He served for 20 years on the Council's legislative committee and for several years on its public assistance committee; and for 11 years was also a member of the board of directors of the statewide New York Association of Workers for the Blind. In 1955 he was instrumental in the organization of the Empire State Association for the Blind, which shortly thereafter became affiliated with the National Federation of the Blind.
In 1960 Dinsmore left New York to return to the Hoosier state, settling with his wife in Indianapolis where he started a successful commercial chair-caning and furniture repair business. He now heads up a subcontract division of the Indiana Agency for the Blind. His work consists of assembling telephone parts for Western Electric. Ray is a past president of the Indiana Council. He is currently a member of the Board of Directors and chairman of its legislative committee.
ULDINE THELANDER, Member, Executive Committee
From her initial election in 1942 as President of the Idaho Progressive Society of the Blind, Uldine Gartin Thelander has been outstanding in her service with organizations of the blind. Her service has ranged from home teacher in the Idaho Department of Public Assistance since 1941, to President of the Gem State Blind, Inc. Throughout the many years of her service, she has gained recognition as a dedicated individual and one of the foremost leaders of the blind in her state. In 1964 she was named "Woman of the Year" of the Boise Altrusa Club and, in that year also, she received a certificate from the Idaho State Governor for 22 years of meritorious service. In 1967, Uldine was elected to the NFB Executive Committee to fill an unexpired one-year term.
Uldine was born in Jordan Valley, Oregon. At the age of four she lost her sight from unknown causes. She left Oregon at the age of seven and moved to Caldwell, Idaho, where she attended public schools at the primary and secondary levels. Undaunted by her handicap, she continued her education and received the B. A. degree in 1920 from the College of Idaho at Caldwell. After college she taught elementary grades at Apple Valley, Idaho for two years. She then interrupted her teaching to move to Eugene, Oregon. In 1933, she received the B. M. degree from Eugene Bible College, now Northwest Christian College. From 1931 to 1936 she served as Director of Young People's Work in the Christian Church in Springfield, Oregon.
Upon returning to Idaho in 1936, she became involved with the Idaho Christian Endeavor Union, a statewide organization of young people and continued as its president until 1942. During the same period she joined the Idaho Progressive Society of the Blind. From 1942 to 1944 she served as President of the Idaho Progressive Society of the Blind. When the Progressive Society became the Affiliated Blind in 1948, she continued as a member of the Executive Committee and, again, in 1955, when it became the Gem State Blind, Inc. , she continued to serve until 1964. She is currently the president of the Gem State Blind and has been since 1960, being re-elected every two years.
Along with her affiliations with blind organizations she has been selected as an honorary member of Delta Kappa Gamma, a teachers' sorority, and was elected a life member in 1950. She was appointed to the State Library Advisory Board in 1967.
Uldine Thelander led the campaign to secure establishment of the Idaho Commission for the Blind in 1967, to which she has been appointed by the Governor as one of the three members.
VICTOR JOHNSON, Member, Executive Committee
Victor Charles Johnson, operator of a successful vending stand business in St. Louis from which he retired in January 1966, is a veteran leader in the organized blind movement both of Missouri and of the nation. First elected to a four-year term on the NFB's Executive Committee in 1952, he was again chosen for that office by the national convention in 1963, 1965 and 1967. He has been president and legislative representative of the United Workers for the Blind of Missouri, and has served two terms as president of the Alumni Association of the Missouri School for the Blind. In 1966 he was chosen as president of the Missouri Federation of the Blind.
Born on a Missouri farm in 1899, Victor was several months old before his blindness was discovered -- and for years continued to wear the useless glasses prescribed for him by a country doctor. Fortunately, he was encouraged to enter the state school for the blind in 1907, from which he graduated 13 years later.
After an apprenticeship as a salesman, young Vic Johnson entered a school of osteopathy in Kansas City in 19 20, hopeful of a career in one of the few professions then formally open to blind persons. Although he soon dropped out of the institute in disappointment, Johnson successfully resumed his training the following year -- this time at the American School of Osteopathy in Kirksville, Missouri, where he received his degree in 1925. It was there that he met a girl from his home county, Miss Xena Eads, who was attending the State Teachers' College. Following their marriage in 1923, Xena taught at a nearby high school while Victor completed his college training.
In the years that followed it was not only Victor who found himself handicapped professionally by arbitrary stereotypes. The Johnsons discovered that a virtual ban existed in the state schools against married women as teachers. For years both were forced to labor in other fields -- Xena in offices and stores, and Victor at his old trade of door-to-door sales. Finally the passage of the Randolph- Sheppard Vending Stand Act provided a new opportunity, and Johnson was among the first to establish a business in Missouri under the program. When he retired in 1966 his prosperous stand was still situated in the U.S. Court and Customs House in St. Louis where it first opened in 1937.
In 1922 Johnson joined Missouri's United Workers for the Blind, was elected president in 1927, and later represented the UWB at the state capitol during the legislative sessions from 1929 through 1937. He was again chosen to head the United Workers in 1947, seven years after it had become affiliated with the National Federation of the Blind.
ANITA O'SHEA, Member, Executive Committee
Miss O'Shea, a native of Springfield, Massachusetts, was elected to the NFB's Board of Directors in 1961 as the climax of a decade's active participation and leadership in the organized movement of the blind in her state. A member of the executive board of the Greater Springfield Association of the Blind since 1952, she was named five years later to the board of the Associated Blind of Massachusetts. Shortly thereafter, she became the ABM's second vice-president, attained the presidence a year later (1958), and in 1959 was elected to a full two-year term as president. Miss O'Shea is currently president of the Greater Springfield Association of the Blind. She was chosen by the NFB in I960 for a one-year term on the Executive Committee, and was re-elected for two-year terms in 1961, 1964, and again in 1966.
Educated at Perkins School for the Blind, of Watertown, Massachusetts -- where she was equally active in dramatic presentations and athletic activities -- Miss O'Shea went on to intensive preparation for a career as medical secretary, first through attendance at secretarial school and later through private instruction and self-instruction. From 1959 until 1966 she was employed as a medical secretary at the Wesson Memorial Hospital in Springfield. Since then she has been working at Providence Hospital in Holyoke, Mass.
During her tenure as president of the Associated Blind of Massachusetts, Miss O'Shea was instrumental in the launching of several new programs for the blind, notably the establishment of an advisory committee which meets regularly with the director of the state's Division for the Blind. She also inaugurated a Job Opportunities Committee which has had substantial success in informing potential employers of the vocational and professional capacities of blind persons.
In the fall of 1958 Miss O'Shea initiated a highly effective braille class for Springfield's Jewish Community Center, which has since produced an ever-expanding pool of volunteer transcribers to meet the needs of blind college students and pupils in the public schools. A number of her trainees have themselves become braille instructors, training more volunteer transcribers and recruiting readers for tape-recorded programs. In 1960 she was appointed by the Mayor of Springfield as general chairman for the 80th birthday celebration of Helen Keller. She received the Orchids Award from the Springfield Daily News in April, 1967, for her work with and for the blind on local, state and national levels.
HAROLD REAGAN, Member, Executive Committee
A long-time leader of the blind in Kentucky, Harold Reagan was first elected to membership on the executive committee of the National Federation of the Blind in 1949, a position in which he has served to date with the exception of three years. He was a prime mover in the establishment of the Kentucky Federation of the Blind in 1948 and served continuously as its president until his retirement in 1962. He has also been president of the Alumni Association of the Kentucky School for the Blind and president of the Kentucky Vending Stand Operators Association.
Blinded by a dynamite explosion at the age of eleven, which resulted also in the loss of his right hand, Reagan attended the Kentucky School for the Blind and went on to the University of Louisville, from which he graduated with an A. B. degree in history. Since 1934 he has been the operator of a successful vending stand business in Louisville.
Reagan's active leadership in the uphill campaign of the Kentucky blind for constructive legislation and improved public understanding of their capabilities was given symbolic recognition when the Kentucky Federation honored its outgoing president with the award of a braille watch for his "outstanding service to the blind" of the state.
Reagan has been a member of the Advisory Committee for the Division of Services to the Blind under the Bureau of Rehabilitation Services of the Department of Education in Kentucky ever since the Division was established in 1953. He is a member of the Kentucky Commission on Employment of the Handicapped, which in 1964 replaced the Committee on Employment of the Handicapped to which he also belonged for 10 years.
PERRY SUNDQUIST, Member, Executive Committee
Past president of the National Federation, pioneer leader of the organized blind movement in California, veteran administrator of a model state welfare division -- Perry Sundquist has played a distinguished role in the social progress of the blind over the past generation.
Born in 1904 in Minnesota, Sundquist received his early education in the schools of Canada and Washington, and later moved to California to enroll at the famous school for the blind in Berkeley -- where he studied under the late Dr. Newel Perry and first developed his interest in the educational and organizational cause of the blind. Sundquist’s severe visual impairment did not keep him from earning a B. A. degree in political science in 1928 from the University of California, plus two years of graduate study there and at the University of Southern California. In 1931 he married a college classmate, Emily Wright, now a teacher in the Sacramento public schools.
From his initial election in'-1930 as secretary of the Los Angeles County Club of Adult Blind, Sundquist has been continuously involved in the organized blind movement. For five years following its formation in 1934, he was vice president of the California Council of the Blind. From 1936 to 1941 he served as executive secretary of the American Brother- hood for the Blind, and is presently one of its officers. In 1939 he was elected president of the Los Angeles County Club. His long years of association with the National Federation of the Blind were culminated with his election to the first vice presidency in July, 1961, and his elevation to the presidency some months later, an office which he held until his resignation in July 1962 -- followed by his election to a two- year term on the NFB's Executive Committee renewed in 1964 and 1966.
Sundquist's career in public welfare work with the blind goes back to 1935, when he was appointed by the California Department of Education to conduct a state-wide study of the blind. In 1941 he became Chief of the Division for the Blind, California Department of Social Welfare--a post in which he is still serving with skill and distinction. His contributions as an outstanding administrator were given recognition in 1959, when the National Federation of the Blind conferred upon him its Newel Perry Award, and again in 1964 when he received the Citation of the California Council of the Blind. Sundquist is a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers. In 1962 he was awarded honorary naembership in the California Optometric Association. He was a past member of the Board of Directors of the California Conference of Social Work, 1951-1955, and is currently a member of the California Social Workers Organization, a registered social worker, and a member of the National Association of Social Workers and the Academy of Certified Social Workers.
During the more than quarter-century that Perry has served as Chief of the Division for the Blind, the program of public assistance for the sightless in California came to include all of the essential elements which produce maximum incentive to rehabilitation and minimum dependency. The state's Aid to Blind laws now comprise such forward- looking provisions as a minimum guaranteed grant established at a decent level; the meeting of special needs above the minimum; incentives to self-support through retention of income and liberal property allowances; elimination of liens on the property of recipients; a radical care program with broad coverage; provision for meeting the costs of attendant care and other special services up to $300 a month over and above the maximum grant of aid of $18 5 .50 a month; repeal of requirements for relatives' financial responsibility, and repeal of durational residence as a qualification of state aid. These and many other provisions preserving the dignity of the individual recipient make California's program of Aid to the Blind the most advanced in the nation.
AUDREY BASCOM TAIT, Member, Executive Committee
President of the Nevada Federation of the Blind, Audrey Bascom Tait of Las Vegas has been an active participant in the organizational struggles of the blind for a decade and a half. She helped to form the statewide association in 1952, and has been its elective head since 1957.
As the prime mover and director of the Orientation Center for the Blind in Las Vegas, Audrey has secured the warm cooperation of such civic organizations as the Lions Club and Service League in carrying through rapid expansion of the Center, obtaining a new building in the exclusive possession of the blind. Since 1966, Mrs. Tait has been a supervisor of instructors of the Orientation Center for the Blind in Las Vegas.
Born in Healdton, Oklahoma, where she attended high school, Audrey became captain of a girls' Softball team and a tournament golfer' but her greatest success was in bowling, in which she won the Oklahoma doubles championship during the 1939-1940 season, and also served as secretary of the city association of the International Bowling League.
In 1941 Audrey was involved in an automobile accident which cost her the sight of one eye and by the following year, that of both eyes. Two years later, she made a comeback both to competitive life and to competitive sports, becoming once again captain of the Boykder Club bowling team. In the past, she was active in the Vegas Valley Business and Professional Women's Club and the Old-Timers Association of the Union Pacific Railroad. Today she is an active member of the advisory board of the state Bureau of Services for the Blind and the auxiliary of the Eagles.
Among her many productive ventures, the one which gives Audrey greatest satisfaction is her achievement in gaining admission of blind children to the public schools of southern Nevada -- and later obtaining tape recordings of textbooks for these students. Hardly less remarkable has been her accomplishment in bringing about close and friendly cooperation among the organized blind of Nevada, the state's welfare department and its Bureau of Services for the Blind, and the Lions Clubs of southern Nevada.
ISABELLE L. D. GRANT, Member, Board of Directors
Famed the world over for her inspired and inspiring labors toward the education of the blind of all nations, Dr. Isabelle Grant may well be termed the unofficial ambassador-at-large of America's organized blind. For the past several years an executive officer of the California Council of the Blind and trustee of the American Brotherhood for the Blind, she was named an honorary board member by the National Federation of the Blind in 1960.
Teacher, counselor, vice-principal, writer and lecturer -- and finally resource teacher -- Dr. Grant retired in 1962 after 35 years of outstanding service in the Los Angeles city schools. Although she had lost her sight 12 years earlier, she continued her teaching career without letup -- but with a new mission and specific purpose: helping to train and rehabilitate sightless children in the integrated school program.
A native of Scotland, Dr. Grant received her education from the University of Aberdeen, the University of Paris and the University of Madrid, and later acquired a Ph.D. from the University of Southern California.
In 1959, accompanied only by "Oscar" (her cane). Dr. Grant set out on a year-long sabbatical-leave tour which took her to no less than 21 Middle Eastern, Asian and Far Eastern countries. On her journey she flew from country to country for the primary purpose of "meeting people and listening to their thinking." But she also studied the training and rehabilitation programs for the blind in each nation, and organized pioneer educational projects in many. One notable result of her contacts was that, in cooperation with the Lions Club in Karachi, the California Council of the Blind and other groups and individuals throughout the country have since sent thousands of pairs of glasses to the visually handicapped of Pakistan.
The extent of Dr. Grant's influential efforts in West Pakistan many be measured by the fact that in 1962 and again in 1963 she returned there to resume her educational project under a Fulbright Fellowship, with the full official approval both of the U. S. State Department and of the governmental authorities of Pakistan. Dr. Grant is currently engaged in a significant project of initiating and implementing libraries for the blind in Africa, Central America, the Middle East, and in several countries in South Asia and the Subcontinent. The surplus braille books are collected from libraries and schools over the United States, selected, repacked and sent overseas to blind individuals, schools for the blind and organizations of the blind. Braille paper and braille equipment are also included in the packages, numbering in the thousands, as requested by overseas blind persons and organizations of the blind. For her unique contributions to the welfare and education of the blind of the world she was the recipient of the Newel Perry Distingushed Service Award in 1964.
In 1967, Dr. Grant was awarded the distinction of being selected the International Teacher of 1967 at the annual National Teacher Remembrance Day. On this occasion, for this honor, she was the recipient of a complimentary scroll from the Los Angeles City Council.
JACOB FREID, Member, Board of Directors
Long known to Federationists throughout the country as an aggressive champion of the cause of the organized blind, Dr. Jacob Freid was chosen by the NFB at its 1963 convention to join the national board of directors. During the same convention he was also honored as recipient of the Newel Perry Award, presented by the Federation for distinguished service in the field of work with the blind.
Himself without sight in one eye as the result of a detached retina, Dr. Freid has sufficient remaining vision to read and travel independently with corrective lenses. Following his graduation in 1937 from the College of the City of New York, where he was also an Honor Fellow, he went on to earn a Master's degree in sociology from Columbia University in 1938, and later returned to the same institution to receive a Ph.D. in sociology in 1956.
During the second world war, he was head of the Moscow desk of the Office of War Information and the United States State Department, acting as information liaison between our embassy in Moscow and our State Department in Washington. The work of his desk was considered by Averell Harriman, then U. S. Ambassador to the Soviet Union, to be the most successful operation conducted by our nation in its wartime relations with the Soviet Union.
Following the war he accepted an executive position with the American Jewish Congress, which he subsequently left in 1952 to become Executive Director of the Jewish Braille Institute of America. During the same period he taught sociology at Rutgers University, where his courses included a class on "Social Welfare Agencies: Problems, Standards, Community Relations." For the past several years he has been Chairman of the Department of Political Science at the New School for Social Research, New York City, and is presently also Chairman of the Faculty -- the highest elective post at an institution of learning which numbers among its faculty some of the nation's most distinguished social scientists.
Dr. Freid is the author of numerous published writings in social science and public welfare, the latest of which is a comprehensive study of Jewish life and history entitled Jews in the Modern World. Published in 1962, the work has already been hailed by scholars as a classic of social science and "a remarkable treasure-house of information and profoundly perceptive insight into the Jewish condition of our time."
In presenting the Newel Perry Award to Dr. Freid, NFB President Russell Kletzing summed up the character of his contribution in the following words:
"Dr. Freid has been much more than a guest at each of our conventions since [1958]. He has been a very active participant, an inspired speaker, a wise confidant, and a steadfast friend. Above all, he has thrown himself and his considerable energies into the thick of our struggles -- both without and within the Federation, When the Kennedy Bill, the Federation's right to organize measure, came before a committee of Congress for public hearings in 1959, and when we were in desperate need of supporting voices to counteract the phalanx of powerful agencies arrayed against us, it was Jacob Freid who braved the wrath of agency interests to fly down to Washington and speak forcefully on behalf of the right of blind people to organize on their own. This was no mere act of courtesy. It was an act of courage, determination and devotion, for Jacob Freid is himself an 'agency man. 'These are the qualities, coupled with rare intelligence and insight, which he has consistently and conspicuously displayed in the direction of his own agency: The Jewish Braille Institute of America.
"As the executive director of the Institute and the brilliant editor of its well-known journal, the Jewish Braille Review, Dr. Freid has long been in the forefront of those enlightened forces in the field of welfare who recognize their function as that of working with the blind rather than merely for them --or against them. His attitude is part and parcel of a larger philosophy. He is a liberal in the true liberating sense: a fighter for every cause of social justice, however 'lost' it may seem; a foe of prejudice and intolerance, wherever they rear their ugly heads; a spokesman for the deprived against the depraved, and for the underdog against the overlord. In short, he is not just a friend of the blind: he is a friend to man."
JOHN F. NAGLE, Chief of Washington Office
"Be It Further Resolved that as a token of esteem and respect the name of John Nagle be inscribed in the records of the National Federation of the Blind, with the title of 'Friend of the Blind.'"
These are the final words of a lengthy resolution adopted by delegates to the 1962 convention of the National Federation, for the purpose of expressing the organization's appreciation and gratitude to Nagle "for his untiring efforts and deep interest in promoting the social and economic welfare of the blind through legislation."
The recipient of this official accolade is a blind attorney from Massachusetts who, as chief of the NFB's Washington office, has been instrumental in the preparation and presentation to Congress (as well as the subsequent approval) of much of the constructive legislation affecting the welfare of the blind enacted in recent years.
Born in 1915, Nagle lost his sight at the age of 13 and thereafter attended Massachusetts' Perkins School for the Blind, graduating in 1934 He studied journalism at Boston University for the next three years, later switched to law and received his LL. B. degree from Northeastern Law School in 1942. Four years later he was awarded the B, A. degree in Public Affairs from the American International College. Meanwhile he was admitted to the Massachusetts Bar in 1943 and to the Federal Bar the following year, and settled down to a full-time law practice in Springfield, Massachusetts, which was to claim his professional attention for the next 14 years.
During the years 1956-1958 Nagle became, successively, recording secretary of the Greater Springfield Association of the Blind, a member of its executive board, president of the Associated Blind of Massachusetts, and a member of the executive committee of the National Federation of the Blind. In 1958 he received a governor's appointment to the advisory board of the Massachusetts Division of the Blind, and in the same year was named by the NFB to its Washington staff. In 1963 he was admitted to practice law before The Supreme Court of The United States. He was also elected vice chairman of the D.C. Commissioners Advisory Council on Vocational Rehabilitation and named chairman of the Subcommittee on Legislation and Budgetary Matters.