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THE PENSION QUESTION IN MASSACHUSETTS (1)

By LUCY WRIGHT,
General Superintendent Massachusetts Commission for the Blind

Editor's Note -- So much interest is being taken in the question of providing financial relief for the needy blind in different states that we feel it very desirable that our readers should acquaint themselves with the point of view of workers for the blind in as many states as possible. Furthermore, it is of the utmost importance that we should all realize that the conditions are not the same in all states. We do not mean by this that the blind are less needy in one state than another, but that organized charities, both state and private, vary in different states. For example, in Massachusetts there are many resources relief and public outdoor relief is more closely organized than in many other states. It is interesting for workers for the blind to note that the foundations for co-ordinating the work of public charities in Massachusetts were laid as early as 1866 in the days when Samuel Gridley Howe was Secretary of the then new State Board of Charity. In addition to this, the Massachusetts Commission for the Blind has been in active operation since 1906, and the agents of this Commission are constantly endeavoring to secure through existing agencies financial and other relief for blind individuals who come under their notice.

At the present time much attention is being given, especially among the blind, to the question whether or not they shall support a bill now before the Massachusetts Legislature to provide "Pensions for the Needy Blind, in form similar to those laws now existing in Ohio, Illinois and Maine. A conference of the blind and workers for the blind was held at which Miss Lucy Wright, General Superintendent of the Massachusetts Commission, presented, informally and unofficially, the line of argument given in the following paper. It should be clearly understood that the friends of the blind in Massachusetts are just as anxious as those of other states that worthy, needy blind persons should receive adequate assistance. There is no controversy relative to the fact that there are blind people who do need monetary relief. The real question is how this relief can be given for the best interest of the beneficiaries and also the community. Miss Wright's thoughtful and careful analysis of the subject should be studied by all those who are concerned with this problem.

Shall we work for Pensions for the Needy Blind

or

Shall we continue to work, case by case, and group by group, for Extension of Industrial Aid and Public and Private Relief for the Blind, through the central bureau of information, field work and aid, already established by the Commission for the Blind?

These are the alternatives before us. Some of us here believe in the first and some in the second plan. We may be in exactly the same position at the end of the hour, but I hope that I shall have at least made clear why I am for the second alternative, and that in doing so, I may have helped arrive at an understanding of why we differ; made clear the real difficulties of the subject which we must all face in common, whichever side we are on; and brought out a number of points upon which we agree. One thing is certain, at the start, we all want done whatever can be done to relieve the needs of blind people and, as Mr. Allen expressed it at the annual meeting of the Association, "We recognize the tragedy that exists when poverty and blindness enter the same household."

You may ask why must we choose. Are these real alternatives? I think they are for both practical reasons and as a matter of principle. The practical reason is that either plan costs so much it is not likely our fellow-citizens will at the some time give adequate support to both. The difference in principle of the two plans I hope to make clear as I go on.

The immediate issue before those who are concerned about the cause of the blind as a whole is whether they will lend their support to a general measure like the pension bill or whether they will support the State Commission in building up step by step a more varied and substantial means of helping the blind. To decide, anyone needs to know both the facts and principles involved. Whoever takes the responsibility of supporting one plan or the other, without so informing himself, is not a true friend of the cause.

How are we to know? Some of the tests that may rightfully be put to any measure are:

Is it a hasty one or the kind that promises the best in the long run?

Is it a plan capable of giving a maximum of good and a minimum of abuse?

Is it going to bring out the best human qualities in the group for whom it is planned?

Is it just to the social whole as well as to the specially considered group?

The plan for pensions on the basis of blindness and a certain degree of need, seems easy, quick and helpful. I wish I could believe it so, for relief for the needy blind is inadequate (though not as inadequate, I believe, in Massachusetts, as supporters of the pension bill believe), and if I turn down your remedy, I must show you a better one.

I want this afternoon to line up, as far as possible, the arguments for and against pensions. I may not do it very well for, as you already know, I believe there is something better than pensions, but I shall try, and I claim the right to an opinion, for I have been for ten years working with others no get things done for blind people. I have known something in that time of the life-stories of more than 8000 blind people. I have known much more closely between 2500 and 3000 people without sight, and I have always a continuous and close personal acquaintance with hundreds of people who are blind. I have the disadvantage, in speaking to you of having had only the experience of seeing, but I have had my share of being twitted, scolded and blamed, as well as befriended. helped and encouraged by blind people for ten years. I know what it is to make appeals to sighted people on behalf of the blind as individuals, or in groups, and to be stared at as understandingly as though I were speaking Choctaw; and I know what it is, too, to make appeals that are warmly received and answered. I claim experience as a background for what I have to say to you, both with the blind, and with relief problems.

The arguments for pensions as I get them are somewhat as follows:

1. A pension bill of the type submitted to this legislature and operative in Ohio provides immediate relief, without "red tape" to a group of people who need it.

2. Ohio and Illinois have pensions for the needy blind.

3. Public relief in general as at present administered is often inadequate; is not available to all who need it or the conditions on which it is given are often not acceptable to applicants.

4. Private relief is entirely inadequate and is often especially conditional.

5. The things pensions would cover that are not now adequately provided for are as follows

(1) Pensions would aid some blind people industrially, and industrial aid through the Commission for the Blind reaches only a limited number and is usually given on special conditions.

(2) Pensions would help compensate for the double expense most blind individuals are put to in securing guidance, and providing car fares whenever they go abroad for business or pleasure.

(3) Pensions would provide that small regular income which would "make many aged or otherwise inefficient blind persons welcome in the homes of friends or relatives who would otherwise be very unceremoniously pushed about from family to family until they filially land in the county infirm.

(4) Pensions would help provide for the "extra services about the house which all but the cleverest blind housewives must hire others to do" or they would supplement the small earnings of a blind bread-winner.

I want to know every single argument in favor of pensions for the needy blind, and I shall be grateful to any one who will help me complete this list. I have one argument of my own in addition, which I think a very important one and rarely mentioned; but it applies only to people with consciences, -- that is the serious effect of worry over the uncertainties of income when, for example, a self-respecting bread-winner, with dependent children, is overtaken by blindness, or when self-respecting aged people who have struggled all their lives for independence, are condemned to live in uncertainty as to their support during their remaining years. The factor of anxiety of this kind has been entirely underestimated, but it does not apply to all, for some among the blind, as among the sighted, have no consciences.

1. In reply to the first argument for pensions, let as consider the Pension Bill for the Needy Blind as presented in Massachusetts last year or as recently enacted in Illinois. It seems simple and direct, and only experience warns us there are underlying questions yet to be answered.

(1) What is the principle of pensions? How does it apply to the blind?

(2) Who are the needy blind? It is necessary, as the experience of Ohio has shown so clearly, to define very closely both needy and blind.

(3) Why do people object to "red tape" and why is it necessary?

I will try briefly to outline my answer to these difficult questions.

(1) Pensions -- a pension is "a stated allowance to a person in consideration of past service." I know of one or two groups of the blind only to whom pensions or compensation in this sense rightfully belong: Soldiers blinded in the service of their country and men and women blinded through no fault of their own, in industry. Both these groups are already recognized in Massachusetts; the first, as is well known, through U. S. pensions and state aid, and the second is the Workmen's Compensation Act of this state, perhaps not adequately as yet, but the principle is accepted and being worked out case by case, of compensation for various degrees of eye impairment from total blindness to and including loss of 1-10 vision. In addition, it should be noted that the Ohio law does not, as a matter of fact, allow pensions, this being declared unconstitutional under their state laws, -- but the regular aid is granted as relief in lieu of all other forms of public relief and so reported. This is not in the least understood. I think, when the Ohio work is quoted here, but it is made very clear by Dr. Stricker in his recent detailed report: "As has already been indicated, the constitutionality of the present law rests on the need, and when two disinterested persons swear 'that unless relieved under this act, the applicant will become a charge on the public or those who by law are not required to support him' by this declaration are practically taking a pauper's oath, and places the beneficiary in the same category as those accepting 'outdoor relief.'"

(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.

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

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:

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.

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.

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:

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

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

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

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

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.

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

One writer says:

"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."

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

"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. * * *

"I recall that many parents with blind children entertain the hope that a pension would be granted such children, and I am reluctant to admit that two such cases refused operative treatment for children with congenital cataracts on the basis that they were securing a pension for the child. While a clause in the state law was intended to prevent this possibility, as a matter of fact it did not in many cases, as not all blind children are enrolled in the schools for the blind in the State and the clause to which I refer definitely stated that the pensions was expected to be in lieu of any other State aid * * *

"On the other side, I could quote you pages of instances in which we found pensions to be a very great comfort and assistance to blind people. I recall many instances in which capable and able-bodied blind people, under fifty years old, were able with a pension, ranging anywhere frosts $50 to $150 a year, to supplement such income as they could make, either through their independent efforts or through industrial work under the Commission, and maintain themselves in comparative comfort."

Still another writes:

"For my own sake, I wish you to realize that I appreciate only too fully the tremendous problems which confront anyone who is making an honest effort to devise a wise method for the distribution of financial relief. My four years' observation in Ohio has taught me what a serious undertaking it is, and the only thing that is very clear in my own mind is that there is a real need of some form of pension or outdoor relief for the blind. How to give this and secure the largest amount of benefit with the least abuse is not an easy matter at all."

Dr. Stricker in his printed report, says:

"The importunities of those in great need and who do not strictly fall within the scope of this law are many, and if sentiment and not reason is permitted to prevail, the amount of money expended will be out of all proportion to what it should be."

3. The remaining arguments I should like to take up together:

(1)The inadequacy of public and private relief for the aiding of aged and inefficient blind in their own families, -- the supplementing of the family income in poor homes, when either the housewife or bread-winner is blind; and

(2) The inadequacy of industrial aid, as at present provided for, meeting the double expenses of many blind who need it in industry in competition with the sighted.

The points are justly taken and should be answered. My point is that they cannot be answered by any one means like pensions. Personally, I believe that the plan for pensions is very much like a plan to give any popular patent medicine to a large group of sick people whether or not they have pneumonia, scarlet fever, mumps or bad colds. It's not enough for some; it is too much for others; it doesn't hit the mark, it does harm because it keeps them from getting what they do need; it's wasting the medicine which after all has cost a good deal, and most important of all, something better was possible, even if not as quick and easy to get. Can I prove it? Let as see. What have we already to work with?

EXTENSION OF PUBLIC RELIEF

Those who propose a pension system for Massachusetts similar to that in Ohio, do not, I think, realize what we already have. Existing resources for public and private relief may need doubling and may need qualifying, but Massachusetts certainly does not need or want a new system of public relief applicable to the blind alone. There are two main points, I believe, upon which we should focus at this time in relation to public relief for the blind. First, we should see just how far under present laws and by the existing organizations of the State Board of Charity and local Overseers of the Poor, the interests of the needy blind are already being looked after. To that end the Commission has this year introduced House Bill 56, "an act to provide for exchange of information in certain cases between the State Board of Charity, Overseers of the Poor of Cities and Towns, and the Commission for the Blind." This legislation is needed to discover what is actually being done now, and to provide a basis for further co-operative work for the needy blind looking towards systematic and uniform action throughout the State. It will necessitate assigning one of the Commission's workers to the task of looking after the relief interests of the blind in co-operation with these agencies. This worker can probably be so assigned if the legislature grants the increased annual appropriation asked for by the Commission. If you believe this is a move in the right direction you will support the Commission in its request for the full amount of its estimates, and also in asking that House Bill 56 be made law. Only by taking these two steps can we get into a position where we can intelligently decide whether present relief laws of Massachusetts need modification with special reference to the blind. For two years the request for an appropriation for this purpose has been refused by the legislature. Personally, I think there is need of certain modifications of the laws with reference to certain distinct groups, but I cannot prove this to anyone without some preliminary "try-out" of existing laws, as I have proposed. I believe, for example, that all outdoor aid to the blind should be non-pauperizing. I believe that self-respecting needy blind should not be ineligible for public aid of this kind on the technicality of owning a bit of property, etc.

It seems highly probable that it will be best economy for the State, and best serve the interests of the blind, to work out a co-operative plan of the kind proposed rather than to either turn the Commission for the Blind, which is organized largely for industrial work, into a relief-giving centre; or to inaugurate an entirely new system of public relief through counties, especially for the blind, as proposed in the pension bill. There seems no reason to doubt, for example, that the Mother's Aid can be made applicable to all suitable families with minor children where there is need of supplementary aid, either because of the blind housewife or the blind bread-winner. I could cite repeated cases where the State Board of Charity and Overseers of Towns, have been glad and willing to give outdoor aid to blind persons, upon recommendation of the Commission for the Blind, when convinced that the Commission had done or was doing its proper work in relation to the case. The whole thing needs to be carried much further and authority, workers and necessary appropriation are needed. It seems incredible, that when in Ohio, more than a quarter of a million is being expended annually in the so-called pensions alone, we should question here in Massachusetts the necessary steps for the intelligent, economical working out of our local relief problem.

Beyond these immediate steps, which should be taken without any question this year, we, who are interested in the blind should join hands with others towards working out a system of health, unemployment and old age insurance in which those who become blind shall have their appropriate share of consideration. The notable thing to be considered here is that a large proportion of the blind of Massachusetts have, as in Ohio, become blind late and already succeeded or failed in life as sighted persons; for this reason, the question of their relief should be considered as that of other citizens of like age and circumstance is considered. That the Commission for the Blind shall undertake to see that appropriate benefits are secured for blind persons, even if it does not administer relief directly, seems a sound, co-operative, and economic proposition, as both relief and educational and industrial aid should be given with due regard to each other.

EXTENSION OF PRIVATE RELIEF

The part which private funds have played from the start in every form of work for the blind in Massachusetts will be appreciated when you know that the total of the State budget for the blind does not yet equal the total annual private budget for the blind of Massachusetts. If the Commission gets what has been asked this year in its estimates and the added $15,000 for an occupational colony, the State's total of $125,000 per year, for school, home teaching and commission work, will for the first time almost equal the private annual budget of something over that amount.

The activities of the Massachusetts Association for the Blind during the past ten years are a guarantee that consideration is given adult blind by private donors, though not as yet to any such extent as it has been given to children through the Nursery and School. The opening this year at private expense, of a social centre for blind men; and the private funds for the support of Woolson House, and for loans and gifts, largely through the Association for the Blind, which have this year passed through my hands, totalling $12,000.00, are concrete indications of private interest in this work for adults whose needs we shall continue to commend for private as well as public interest, as we have in the past.

EXTENSION OF INDUSTRIAL AID

Perhaps the most important distinction to be made in work for the blind is the difference between the principle of relief and of educational and industrial aid. Failure to make the distinction causes great confusion in every discussion of relief. The one, relief, is given to individuals on the basis of need, the form of the relief to be influenced by the cause of the need, be it blindness, sickness, insanity or had habits. Educational and industrial aid cannot he given on the basis of need alone, and its form is not determined by need but by the character and ability of the applicant. In the case of the blind, industrial aid is designed to equalize their chances, in competition with those less handicapped. It classifies the blind by their abilities, and varies in its forms, to meet their abilities whether by subsidized non-resident shops; a residential occupational colony; industrial aid in the form of guidance, music transcription or other form.

The special form of extension of industrial aid to the blind upon which we are concentrating this year, in addition to the annual appropriation asked for is the occupational colony for blind men. If you believe with us in working out appropriate ways of aiding the blind case-by-case and group-by-group, you will help us in support of House Bill 57, which is an act to provide an occupational colony for blind men. Two entirely different forms of industrial aid for the gradual development of which we ask increased appropriation this year are the new willow industry, in the established, non-resident, subsidized shops and the extension of industrial aid to blind persons working in competition with the sighted.

The latter form of industrial aid to blind persons working in competition with the sighted, is of necessarily slots development, because of the practical difficulties of keeping any form of supervision and check upon the uses to which such aid is put, if for example, it is given in the form of guidance for canvassers and others in their own business. We heartily believe in industrial aid to blind persons working in competition with the sighted, and when it is given in such a form as assistance in music transcription, there have been most satisfactory results. It will be extended in proportion as the appropriation is increased and as blind people who want it for independent purposes co-operate in proving that it can be properly used, and not abused.

I submit then, as an alternative to pensions, what I believe to be a far broader, more flexible plan, suited to the varied needs of a very varied blind population, and better suited to the economic conditions and methods of organization of Massachusetts work. Looked at quite selfishly, I believe it will bring more and better returns to the blind than the pension system. I know it will take a little longer to work out than more the casual plan but not too long, if the legislature will provide us step by step, as we see the way, with the necessary funds. I know it is bard when we need someone to appreciate a thing that does not touch us personally. "What care I how fair she be, if she be not fair to me!" is a very human sentiment but even so, I think when you truly understand what I have learned from the day's work of many years, and tried to share with you in this short space of time, you will agree with me that the drawbacks of the pension plan are so many, and the prospects of my alternative so much hitter in the "long run," that you will, with me, choose the "long run." To describe adequately the past work, and immediate and future plans of the Commission for the Blind, which is in reality necessary to an understanding of the details of the alternative to pensions, would require more time than we have today, but could be provided for in another conference if you so desire.

See Vol. 9,.p. 45, 53, 68; Vol. 7, p. 79, 80, 82, Vol. 3, p. 163; Vol. 2 p. 51, 58, 101, 108, 188, Vol. 1, p. 12, 131.