Library Collections: Document: Full Text


The Pension Question In Massachusetts

Creator: Lucy Wright (author)
Date: January 1916
Publication: The Outlook for the Blind
Source: American Printing House for the Blind, Inc., M. C. Migel Library

Previous Page   Next Page   All Pages 


Page 4:

46  

2. In answer to the statement that Ohio and Illinois have pensions for the needy blind.

47  

It has been noted already that it is a misuse of words to call the Ohio relief -- pensions. You know the Alice-in-Wonderland story -- how the Hatter said to Alice so generously, "Have some wine?" Said Alice, "I don't see any." "There isn't any," said the Hatter. There are no pensions in Ohio -- only a special form of public outdoor relief. It is to be noted further that while Illinois has had a similar law optional with counties since 1903, it has been made compulsory only this year, so that it has not been fully tried out in that State as yet. The two important things for us to consider here in Massachusetts are:

48  

1. Whether these laws provide anything at all that is not as available to the Massachusetts blind as well as to the sighted now, under existing laws. I believe without any question it does not. If I understand the situation at all, the systems of public relief are entirely different in Ohio and Massachusetts. There outdoor relief is a county function: here it is not. I could cite many instances where the aid now administered to blind persons in Massachusetts through local overseers, is as regular and as large as the so-called Ohio pension.

49  

This is not saying that I am satisfied with the Massachusetts system, or that I consider it adequate. It is only saying that Ohio and Massachusetts conditions are not parallel and much now available under Massachusetts laws is not realized and appreciated.

50  

2. What have the different wordings and methods of administration of these laws about them that is significant for Massachusetts? It is clear that they reach a large number of blind. Dr. Stricker estimates their blind population at 4500, and quotes the 1914 figures for all but ten counties as 3578 blind persons aided under this law at an expense of $299,595.52. It is estimated that when the law gets to working full force the annual expenditure will be $400,000. We in Massachusetts need to know:

51  

(1) Whether conditions among the blind are the same in Massachusetts and in Ohio.

52  

(2) If so, how far our differing conditions as to relief offset the needs of the blind in Massachusetts.

53  

(3) How far our differing conditions in work for the blind offset the needs of the blind in Massachusetts.

54  

(4) In what degree the law in itself, and the administration of the law are responsible for a budget of this size.

55  

I can only give you very briefly my impressions based on visits to leading centres of work for the blind in Ohio three years ago, and recent written and printed reports from five or six different sources in Ohio. All show that, although special relief for the blind is felt to be needed in Ohio -- this law is a very seriously faulty one. Ohio workers, its general, if I understand their position rightly do not so much question the principle of pensions or relief to the blind as a class as they do the difficulties of administration, and I quote their illustrations entirely without reference to the question whether they are for or against the pension principle. Personally, I believe that, even with the best possible administration, their principle is so unsound as to do serious harm to the general cause of the blind, and that there is little provided through it that cannot by modification and enforcement of existing laws in Massachusetts be accomplished for the needy blind here.

56  

Here are quotations from some of the papers and letters I have on the subject:

57  

One writer says:

58  

"My experience with the blind relief has impressed upon me the tremendous necessity for some such aid and also the extreme complexity of the problem which the administration of this aid presents. I am at present in a rather pessimistic mood regarding this whole matter. I feel that without considerably more machinery than we now possess, no person can administer the distribution of this fund in a way that would meet with the approval of any one else in the county. As soon as we work out some general principle to which we feel that we can adhere strictly, we are cone fronted with a case which has such exceptional social complications that our general principle must be abandoned. There is one serious defect in our Ohio law. No provision is made for the expenditure of any adequate sum for administration. In a county as large as Cuyahoga (in which Cleveland is situated) there should be a social worker in the field all the time following up our three hundred pension cases, and making constant readjustments."

59  

Another writer, speaking of both good and bad points about Ohio relief:

60  

"While in X--, I found some cases in which I felt that the pension was allowed on insufficient investigation and some cases in which it was allowed on a decision which was reached from a misstatement of facts on the part of the applicant, and there were many instances in which the pension was granted to an applicant who badly misused the funds, usually spending Isis allowance in the first week at the nearest saloon and throwing himself for support on his relatives or the city charities for the balance of the quarter." I believe, however, that such irregularities are usually checked up in as thorough an investigation as the Cuyahoga County Commission have instituted and conducted effectively. * * *

Previous Page   Next Page

Pages:  1  2  3  4  5  6  7    All Pages