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(2a) In discussing the word needy, there are three things chiefly to be considered:

(1) The question is the person needy for reasons that can be made up for by money alone.

There is probably no one of its who has to go outside the circle of his own relatives to realize that there are sad and tragic conditions which, when you truly know about them, you know money alone cannot remedy. It is necessary to face the fact that a certain proportion of the candidates for pensions are of this group, and that those who urge pensions probably overestimate the numbers of "helpable." Miss Sherwin, President of the Cleveland Society for the Blind, in her recent report at San Francisco, on Ohio pensions, makes clear how large a proportion of these cases are on the list for other causes than that of blindness. She says: "If old age pensions were added to the others we should find -- I am convinced -- that about half of those drawing blind relief would more properly have the old age pension, for it is not blindness which has put these people into the position of asking for help, but the infirmities of old age which so often include blindness. In the same way if our states provided adequate accommodation for the feeble-minded we should be relieved of an appreciable number of pensioners, for it is not blindness but feeble-mindedness which makes them a menace to society and only that should be considered in caring for them."

(2) Is the blind individual alone needy or his whole family, and why? and is the aid to the blind individual going to be lost in a sea of family needs?

(3) Is the pension going to prove a means of relieving the family of legal and moral obligations towards the blind member?

An instance of misuse of pensions given on a technicality has been reported as follows:

"Our law provides that anyone is eligible to receive the relief who would otherwise become a charge upon the public or upon someone not under legal obligations to care for them. Now, take the case of a girl twenty-five years of age living in a fairly comfortable home with her mother and step-father. She makes the plea that, while her family seem fairly willing to take care of her, she will be much more welcome in the family were she able to contribute $150 towards her clothes and board. Certainly, her stepfather is not under legal obligations to care for her. We granted her $150. During the past six months she has saved up $75 and made it as a first payment on a Victrola costing $150. I wish that the county might buy me a similar machine, as I can hardly afford to buy it myself."

(2b) The word blind has raised many technical difficulties in Ohio, and would be likely to here in Massachusetts if the some law were made operative. Definitions of blindness are suddenly thrown into prominence when this handicap is made one of the tests of eligibility for a pension or relief. The only condition for relief should be need and whether this need is caused by blindness or other physical handicap, by mental defect or disease, by sickness, or by bad habits, is relevant only in deciding the form the relief should take. It is not by any means to be taken for granted that with blindness is associated need. In fact, the classification as dependents given to the group of blind by such legislation only serves as an added handicap to the self-respecting blind who are struggling to forget their, handicap and have it forgotten, as they seek a recognized place in the economic world. That blindness as a qualification for public pensions also raises practical difficulties may be illustrated in a variety of ways from the Ohio experience. Apropos of the much-debated definition of blindness for example, upon which the size of the State's budget depends, Dr. Stricker says: "I have adhered closely to what I conceive to be a true definition of what medically and not economically constitutes blindness. Otherwise there would not be money enough in the treasury of Ohio to satisfy all of those who feel they ought to receive compensation."

An illustration of the difficulties of determining the true facts about vision comes from another source, as follows:

"There is another case of a woman whose husband is incapacitated to work. The family is more or less dependent upon the Associated Charities. She is also alcoholic. We had her eyes examined, and while the eye specialist was unable to find any serious defect, she seemed to have very little vision. I recommended against her receiving the relief on the ground of her being an alcoholic. I was overruled. A few days ago, an agent of the Society for the Blind called in this house and found her in bed sick, but her husband had gone to work. About her bed was strewn a number of ink-print magazines with which she was whiling away the day. When cornered in this way, she admitted that she could read them."

(3) "Red-Tape" -- the regretable thing about red-tape is that it is so necessary. The numbers of the blind are limited and except for the cost to taxpayers, it really makes very little difference to the sighted how the blind are aided, so long as it is satisfactory to them, but without "red-tape" two things happen: more money is expended than need be, and, what is more important, great injustice is done the blind. It is a very serious thing within that group -- in the education of blind youth and in the struggles of the self-respecting blind for industrial independence -- if indiscriminate aid is given to the blind population -- if the form of their aid is not just as discriminatingly decided as in the case of the sighted. It is because the blind share the same troubles in common with the rest of humanity, the troubles known as drink, dope, immorality, feeble-mindedness, etc. that "red-tape" is necessary in this work. Without it we help create homes that should never exist; we promote forms of occupations that are an injury to the cause of the blind and to society, and keep people from having institutional care that would make their lives safer and perhaps happier. This we do -- even if we also do good -- when we have relief not expertly administered. The point here, in relation to most pension bills is that they make no provision for administration by persons acquainted with the blind or the administration of similar work for the sighted. I am perfectly familiar with the argument often made by blind people at this point that what we who oppose pensions want is that a large number of paid positions may be created for sighted persons in the administering of the affairs of the blind. I have met that argument steadily from the day I first came into the work. Let us speak frankly and have no illusions. The waste of inexpertly administered laws is not only larger than the cost of carefully, administered laws, but it is actively injurious. I know that dependence of any kind is the hardest part of blindness, but we shall not as an eminent blind man pointed out at one of the London conferences, gain by avoiding the fact that the sighted can get on without the blind, better than the blind can get on without the sighted. Let's face it and do the handsomest teamwork we can. For any who are still troubled by the number of sighted workers necessary to carrying out organized work for the blind in general, let me say that it is not the fact of blindness so much as it is our vast and complicated society of the sighted, in which sighted and blind people together must work to blaze a way for the blind, that calls for skill and experience. If there is any consolation in it, let me assure you that so far as I know, there is no sighted person employed in work for the blind in this state, public or private, who could not command as good or better positions, elsewhere. They are in it because they want to be. Blind people who want to share in the work for their group unselfishly most equip themselves to compete with sighted workers doing similar work, if work for the blind is to hold itself to the standards of the time. I speak at length on this point because I find one of the most popular arguments for general measures like the pension measure rest on the idea that "red-tape" is not necessary and that any sensible person can do the necessary work.