a gencies have extended that licensing authority to include control and management of almost every detail of the vending stand enterprises. The blind stand operators under tightly controlled agency systems have no independence or opportunity to build their own businesses. Nevertheless, despite the administrative departures from the original purposes, the Randolph-Sheppard Act stands as a major achievement in the movement toward placement of the blind in competitive enterprise and redounds largely to the credit of organizations of the blind.

During the more than 20 years' operation of the vending stand program, the variety and numbers of vending enterprises in which blind persons have attained self-support have multiplied many times over. Prior to 1935, the commercial enterprises in which blind persons had achieved success were few. A number of successful blind insurance men in California had entered the field of life insurance. The United States Census of the Blind Population in 1920 reported a few blind persons occupied in a number of selling capacities: sales clerks, real estate and insurance agents, retail dealers in groceries, cigars, musical instruments and other store items. Louise Wilbur's report in 1937 on Vocations for the Physically Handicapped, published by the American Foundation for the Blind, noted only a small numb er of blind persons employed in sales vocations.

After 1936, with the growth of the vending stand program and the continued efforts of the organized blind to open up more opportunities in vending enterprises, the blind in considerable numbers have become employed in the vending of blind-made products and in the conduct of automatic vending machine businesses, as well as in a variety of retailing enterprises.

The extent to which this movement of blind persons into competitive sales is to be credited to the work of the organized blind can hardly be overstated. The typical agency attitude has been either negative or actively hostile. The agencies in the past have used many arguments to discourage the blind from entering vending enterprises, all of which reflect disbelief in the competence of the blind in this field. Even today, despite the conspicuously successful record of the blind over the past twenty years, many agencies are still hesitant to admit that blind persons are able to become successful salesmen and saleswomen.

One illustration from the past year will suffice. In Detroit there are approximately 100 blind salesmen. Most of these are members of the Association of Blind Salesmen of Michigan and have adopted a code of ethics under which the members sell only blind-made products. These salesmen purchase the products they sell from both sheltered shops and independent blind homeworkers. Last year an organization under the name of Skilcraft Products of the Blind was formed by 38 sheltered workshops. Its stated purpose was to increase the sales of these shops. To do this it adopted sales procedures not adaptable to the employment of the blind salesmen and proceeded to employ instead an exclusively sighted sales force. When this organization of sighted

salesmen of blind-made products secured a license from the Michigan Division of Services for the Blind to sell in the Detroit area, the blind salesmen in Detroit got busy. Protests were made by the Association of Blind Salesmen of Michigan, the Michigan Council of the Blind, the Michigan Federation of the Blind, and the National Federation of the Blind. Our latest word on this crisis that faced the blind salesmen in Detroit comes from Sandford Allerton, President of the Michigan Council of the Blind. It reads:

"You will be interested to know that Skilcraft has collapsed in Detroit... The various moves in opposition, the effective intervention of the National Federation, the strong stand taken by the Michigan Council and its Bulletin, the protest of the Detroit League of the Blind, Stanley Oliver's editorial, our presentation to the legislative Council, and the strenuous opposition of the blind salesmen who were threatened with the loss of their livelihood--all have combined to produce an irresistible force.... This is a victory which indicates what united action on the part of all the blind can do. It is a lesson which it would be good for all to learn."

In this instance, the united action of the organized blind was successful in protecting the blind in jobs they had earlier secured. For instance, Skilcraft was organized to do a selling job, the very kind of job that many blind persons have done with conspicuous success. Among employable blind persons more than three-quarters are unemployed. Nevertheless, Skilcraft was planned to operate with exclusively sighted personnel. Since that beginning, protests of organizations of the blind have caused Skilcraft to take on at least a token number of blind personnel.

Placement of the blind in civil service employment. Civil service regulations, state, federal, and municipal, have usually contained physical requirements that must be met by all applicants for examination. In most civil service systems these physical requirements were imposed early in the administration of the civil service law; in many, they are explicitly called for in the organic statute or ordinance. Since civil service systems generally include security of tenure and pensions of one variety or another to cover illnesses and retirement, it is reasonable and necessary that civil service systems have due regard for the physical qualifications of candidates.

Typically, however, the physical requirements contained in civil service regulations have not been confined simply to those physical weaknesses that might cause excessive sick leave, or an early retirement, or the development of an incapacitating physical condition. In addition, the typical civil service regulation has required that the applicant have certain physical attributes of the normal or average person regardless of the need for a particular attribute in the job to be filled. The most common of these attributes, generally required in civil service, has been good vision in one or both eyes.

The requirement of good vision has been for a long time an absolute bar

to blind persons securing employment in most civil service systems. In recent years, there has been a notable trend toward eliminating the requirement. The pressures of the blind themselves, acting through their own organizations, have been largely responsible for this trend.

The story of this development in the Federal civil service, and how it has come about, serves to illustrate. But for the pressures brought by the organized blind, it is doubtful that the good vision requirements of civil service would yet be relaxed, with the possible exception of those positions involving repetitive or darkroom work in respect to which blindness is not considered an insurmountable handicap.

During World War II, the labor shortage permitted a substantial increase in the employment of blind persons both within and outside civil service systems. This increase, however, occurred very largely in repetitive, routine, or darkroom occupations. Thus World War II employment of the blind did little to remove the traditional requirement of good vision from the great range of skilled and semiskilled, professional and semi-professional positions covered by civil service systems. After the War, most civil service regulations contained the same "good vision" requirements, and applied them to the same broad categories of positions, as before the War.

In the early 1940's, the National Federation of the Blind began to seek legislation to prevent the federal Civil Service Commission from excluding the blind from appointments on the ground of blindness alone. In 1948, this effort culminated in the passage of an amendment to the federal civil service laws which read, in part, as follows: "No person shall be discriminated against in any case because of any physical handicap...with respect to any position which, in the opinion of the Civil Service Commission, may be efficiently performed by a person with such a physical handicap." (U.S. C. A., Title 5, Sec. 633[2] 9.) In reporting this amendment, the House Committee stated: "Under the proposed legislation the Civil Service Commission will be given the authority and responsibility for seeing to it that physically handicapped persons are not rejected for Government positions merely because they do not meet the minimim physical standards, if such employees can perform the duties of positions for which they are being considered." (House Report No. 109, 80th Congress, 1st Session, Series No. 1122.)

In the spring of 1949, the Civil Service Commission gave examinations for beginner positions in the fields of law, economics, and editing. Despite the extremely wide category of job positions intended to be covered by the se examinations, the Civil Service Commission continued its traditional practice and required "good distance vision in one eye." As of that time, and for some years thereafter, the United States Civil Service Commission had not admitted blind persons upon any of its registers calling for a college education or its equivalent. In 1946 the Civil Service Commission had reported that it had found in the federal government "small groups of positions in sheltered environment, involving repetitive work... to have placement potentialities for the blind"

As late as 1953, the Civil Service Commission adhered very largely to this sheltered-shop concept of employment for the blind.

In 1949, a young blind man in California, Mr. Russell Kletzing--a graduate of the University of California and of the University of California Law School was permitted by the regional Civil Service Commission office in California to take the examination for beginners in law, economics and editing. Kletzing passed the examinations and his name was placed upon the civil service registers until the Washington office of the Civil Service Commission noted his blindness. Thereupon, Kletzing's name was removed from the registers and his administrative appeals for restoration were unavailing.

The National Federation took up the Kletzing case in an effort to lend practical force to the 1948 anti-discrimination amendment in the civil service law. An action was commenced in the United State District Court for the District of Columbia to have Kletzing's name restored to the registers. Shortly before this case came to trial, the Civil Service Commission abolished the last of the registers in issue so that the case was rendered technically moot. Nevertheless, the National Federation pressed the Kletzing case to a final decision in the United States Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. Though this Court action, decided in February, 1954, failed to restore Russell Kletzing to the registers, the prosecution of Kletzing's case coincided with a turning point in the attitude of the United States Civil Service Commission toward the placement of blind persons in federal service.

While the Kletzing case was in the Courts, 1950-1954, the National Federation urged the Civil Service Commission to reexamine its use of the "good vision" physical standard. In August of 1953, a member of the Civil Service Commission concurred with the National Federation in the conclusion "that certain liberalization can be made in the civil service rules and regulations to permit blind applicants to compete on a more equitable basis for positions in the Federal service." In October 1953, for the first time in civil service history, a general examination for beginning positions in the professional and managerial careers in the federal government was opened to the blind. Finally, in July, 1954, the Commission took a major and far reaching step "to further the employment of the blind" in the federal service. The Commission issued a list of substantial numbers of positions in respect to which, it stated, "there are likely to be some positions... suitable to the blind." These positions included not only the beginner openings in law and editing, from which Russell Klet zing had been excluded, but many other professional and semi-professional, skilled and semi-skilled, positions.

From this point forward, the United States Civil Service Commission has been in the forefront of the movement to place blind persons in the government service. The Examination Division of the Commission has investigated methods of adapting its tests to the examination of blind candidates. As of now the Commission has many varieties of examinations suited to be administered

to the blind. The Medical Division of the Commission has made notable progress in removing the visual physical requirements from increasing numbers of positions as the blind have shown their capacity to perform the jobs. At the present time the list of position titles that the Medical Division has found suitable for consideration of qualified blind persons contains approximately 200 titles ranging over large areas of employment opportunities in the federal service. There is every indication that this list will continue to grow as the Civil Service Commission and the public become more and more aware of what blind persons are doing and are able to do. Moreover, under leadership provided by the Civil Service Commission, the several departments and agencies of the federal government have recently instituted coordinating procedures to further employment of the blind, as well as other handicapped persons, in the federal services. These actions have already brought about encouraging results. In the District of Columbia alone, it is estimated that the federal and district governments are now employing approximately sixty blind persons. Their positions range from manual and clerical to legal, editing, administrative and technical. This marked improvement in the opportunities of blind persons for employment in government service is an accomplishment in which both the United States Civil Service Commission and the organized blind may take pride.

Other stories of accomplishments and frustrations might be told about a number of other civil service administrations at the state and municipal levels. Organizations of the blind have typically directed a portion of their activities toward improvement of placement opportunities in public service. The employment policies of government departments and agencies--federal, state, and local--tend to influence the attitudes of the general public and of private employers, Frequently a government department or agency, by affording a blind person the opportunity to prove himself in government service, encourages similar opportunities in competitive industry. The federal government's employment policies are, of course, especially significant both in influencing other employers and in opening great numbers of employment opportunities to the blind.

In Illinois, the organized blind have for many years backed a project to employ blind persons as telephone switchboard operators, using an attachment designed by one of their own members, Mr. Hugh D. Watson. The achievment of Mr. Watson and his fellow blind of Illinois stands in itself as a major accomplishment in the employment of the blind. As a result of their work, the State of Illinois now regularly employs about 60 blind persons on some 25 switchboards located in state institutions and agencies. Several industrial plants in various parts of the country have employed blind switchboard operators. Two centers at which blind persons may acquire the skills needed for this position are presently in operation,

In the fall of 1958, the United States Civil Service Commission announced for the first time that blind persons were eligible for positions as telephone switchboard operators in the federal service. Thus more than two and one-half years of joint effort by the National Federation of