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Our Horizons

Creator: E. Arthur Whitney (author)
Date: October 1945
Publication: American Journal of Mental Deficiency
Source: Available at selected libraries

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This idea of regimentation has been fostered in a number of states. New Jersey, Maryland, New York and others have worked out employment classifications with salary ranges for each classification. All agreed that in theory the idea was excellent. What was the result? To quote again from the Letchworth report: "The Feld-Hamilton Act struck a cruel blow at the welfare of the inmates and patients committed to the care of the state. Uniformity and standardization of positions, titles and salaries is a laudable goal in administrative departments, in clerical and other positions in governmental offices but what is best for the patient should be the goal to be sought in our state hospitals and schools."

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"The unrest, dissatisfaction and resistance which has resulted from putting into effect classifications worked out by bright boys in Albany offices, seeking to reshuffle positions in order to make unrelated services fit into comparable categories without considering the effect of their actions on morale and the ultimate good or ill of the patient has been heart-rending and bodes no good as far as developing incentive, attracting ability and raising the standard of care and treatment."

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Dr. Storr in his report says of the Feld-Hamilton Act; "The changes in titles, the abolishing of certain positions, the disappointment of a large number of most dependable employees in their classification and salary almost completely disrupted the morale of the institution."

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We know that many states are seriously considering the extension of civil service laws to include institutional personnel. I would heartily recommend to all such legislatures and civil service Zealots that they read, learn, mark and inwardly digest the contents of the 36th Annual Report from Letchworth Village.

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For further enlightenment on the question of civil service I would heartily recommend that the article "Shall we go back to the Spoil System?" condensed from Harper's Magazine in the November, 1945, issue of The Reader's Digest. It is, to be sure, headed with the caption "A not unbiased report on the civil service by one who has struggled for seven years in its red tape." Nevertheless it throws a good deal of light on the serious inadequacies of the "vaunted federal civil service. It is a truism that the lower down in the political scale one goes the poorer the civil service. If the federal civil service is as bad as the Reader's Digest pictures it then we can not expect state, county and city versions to be as good.

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This brings us to the question of central control. A great deal has been said and written for and against central control of institutions. Just what is in store for the institutions in this connection is anyone's guess. Yet the history of the growth and development of institutional services for the mentally retarded should be thoroughly studied before complete central control is considered. That history gives us such dynamic, rugged individualists as Seguin, Kerlin, Wilbur, Fernald and Little without whose keen insight and vision few of our institutions could be what they are today. Their contributions are real and lasting.

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With the growth of centralized control the Boards of Directors have been stripped of much of their legal authority and value. This is unfortunate. A conscientious Board of Directors is the biggest asset a superintendent of an institution can have. The Board should in the future be again made more potent in power and still be kept free from political stigma or domination. As such they can again truly represent the public in the control of the institutions as well as to aid, support and direct the superintendent and his staff. Their personal direct control and interest is of far more value to the state than the indirect bureaucratic impersonal supervision of a centralized agency. It is to be hoped that the future will bring to institutions more autonomy and less bureaucracy.

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Those of us who are charged with the care and welfare of large numbers of mental defectives are almost uniformly wholehearted advocates of selective sterilization, from the standpoint of preventive medicine. In the August, 1943, Medical Woman's Journal, Dr. Frances I. Seymour of New York City raises the question "Can this Nation afford Hereditary Disease?" She presents her thesis as an original report of a Family of Hemophilics but goes into considerable detail regarding hereditary disorder, one of which is mental retardation and states in 1928 it cost this nation $1,002,097,145.00 to care for hereditary types of institutional cases and states further: "This figure has become greater since 1928." She concludes by stating: "My stand on this subject is, that if we can afford the perpetuation of hereditary disease, then we must be prepared to support the offspring in a humane and suitable manner."

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And so, my Fellow Members, I have tried to visualize with you a few of the horizons that lie in front of us. That there will be changes in many phases of our problems is to be anticipated. To make these changes really worthwhile as well as real improvements, instead of mere changes, will require the thoughtful guidance and leadership of members of this association.

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