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A Review Of The Work Accomplished By The Blind Relief Commission Of Hamilton County, Ohio

Creator: Louis Stricker (author)
Date: October 1908
Publication: Outlook for the Blind
Source: Available at selected libraries

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ALSO A CONSIDERATION OF THE CONDITIONS DISCLOSED

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*Back references, Vol. II, pp. 101, 58; Vol. I, pp.131, 12.

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By DR. LOUIS STRICKER
Member of the Commission

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Editor's Note. -- The pensions for the blind of Ohio are dispensed by unpaid county commissioners. Each of the eighty-eight commissions is composed of three persons. The care with which some of these boards are beginning their work is admirably shown by the following paper. At the same time that these "Pension Commissions" were created a State Commission for the Blind was established. The County Commissions have the single problem of relief, the State Commission that of finding employment and of ameliorating, in any way possible, the condition of the blind. Dr. Stricker clearly portrays the condition of the blind who have had no friendly organization to which to turn for advice, help, or work. Professor Van Cleve explains what the State School is doing for the juvenile blind. Mr. Charles F. F. Campbell presented a paper at the Ohio Conference of Charities and Correction to the same audience addressed by Dr. Stricker and Professor Van Cleve to show what is possible for the blind along industrial lines. Space does not permit us to print his paper, but our readers can find full information regarding the workshops for the blind in the United States at the end of the July, 1908, Outlook for the Blind, Vol. II, No. 2. In connection with the movement in behalf of the blind which is now developing in Ohio, it is interesting to consider the results of the systematic "field work" conducted by the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind, which is ably set forth in Miss Lucy Wright's paper.

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It is clear to every one that the aggregation of the indigent blind throughout the country is a result of the lack of attention in the past. The Ohio pension is an attempt to relieve the needs of this accumulated group of neglected people. One of the chief purposes of the schools, workshops, societies, and state commissions for the blind is to prevent such accumulations in the future.

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PERMIT me to thank your honorable president and executive committee for the privilege of addressing your honorable body and I beg to assure you that I am deeply sensible of the high motives which prompt you to endeavor to add to the sum total of happiness, contentment, and uplifting of those whom we designate as the dependent classes.

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There is one class of dependents which in all times and all climes has elicited the care and the sympathy of man, namely, the blind. Their infirmity is of such a nature that of necessity it makes them dependent on others. From birth the first impressions of life are conveyed to the mind through the medium of this sense, and throughout life this one sense, more than all the others combined, is the medium through which the mind receives and stores up the impressions of the outer world -- stores up the knowledge derived from that one great factor in human advancement, the printing press. The sense of sight is the predominant influence which directs us, and makes it possible to execute a thousand movements with certainty and dispatch, makes things evident which, if never seen, the mind can hardly grasp, if at all. The lack of this sense, for these reasons, makes the education of the blind such a long and tedious task, and their occupations in life become so restricted and their success the exception rather than the rule.

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To them, the aesthetic side of life, the beauties of nature, can only be described, nature as we see it has never existed or has become only a memory. No wonder the poet has said, "The eye is the mirror of the soul." It fairly drinks up the pictures which become mental impressions. 'Tis this lack of mental activity, induced by the never ending stream of images, which accounts for the vacant stare and placid face. Of all the senses, sight is the most precious; that which we value highest we are wont to compare to the apple of the eye.

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Observations such as these must be patent to you all, and have from the remotest antiquity caused governments, as well as individuals, to look with favor and extend their support to every effort which has had for its object the amelioration of the deplorable conditions of the blind. The state of Ohio has not been deaf to the appeals of those who have the interests of the blind at heart, and at various times laws have been enacted granting relief and pensions to the blind, which a wise and just supreme court has repeatedly declared unconstitutional on the ground of class legislation. The last Legislature, however, passed a bill, known as House Bill 828, and amended as House Bill 1343, April 2, 1908, which contains a clause which, 'tis said makes this law constitutional, since it grants a pension only to the blind who are needy, and who would otherwise become a charge on the state, or on those who, by law, are not required to support them. It is to be sincerely hoped that this saving clause will rescue this bill from the same fate as its predecessors. Three months of active work under the operation of the new law has convinced me not only of the great charity and benefit which this law confers on a very, worthy class, but of its dire necessity. Even as a physician and oculist, accustomed to contact with the blind and needy, the procession of 287 applicants, each in turn disclosing to me his sightless, often shrunken orbs and empty sockets, relating the details of his afflictions and pressing needs, seemed almost like a chapter taken froth Dante's "Inferno," and cast a state of gloom over me. Fully twenty per cent of these applicants, owing to infirmities incident to old age or disease, were unable to come to me, necessitating a visit to their home; and here the conditions disclosed were even more distressing and appalling, with here and there a ministering angel to assuage the suffering while sharing the burden of want with the afflicted. The truth was brought home to me that, in most instances, the infirmity and misfortune of one have dragged down with them one or more individuals.

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