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groups in connection with the administration of laws pertaining to the blind. That is the first type of bill.

The second type of bill is to establish a temporary national commission to study the problems of the blind, blind persons, and to make recommendations based upon that study.

As I see it, there is no conflict in the two approaches and I just wondered whether or not, having expressed yourself about the first concept whether or not you might think the second idea would be good for blind people also.

Miss SWANSON. When you say temporarily, does that mean until they have so organized themselves that this is not necessary?

Mr. ELLIOTT. The national commission, according to the terms of the bill, would be in effect only as follows: The word "temporary" refers to the prospect that it would be in effect for only a certain length of time we will say 12 months-the commission would have to make its study of the problems connected with the blind and report back to the Congress or to the President within a period of 12 months. Miss SWANSON. That seems perfectly normal, a natural request. The bill would certainly not be harmful but could protect their own interests.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Miss Swanson, the ranking minority member of this committee is Mr. Stuyvesant Wainwright on my right here. I recognize him now to ask any questions that he may have.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. Let me say first, Miss Swanson, that it is a great honor for this committee to have someone like you before us.

Miss SWANSON. Thank you, sir.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. I have just been wondering whether, either in Pasadena or in Hollywood or at anytime in your past life, you had worked in any charitable organizations for the blind that are of the kind being attacked here today?

Miss SWANSON. Actually, I have not been connected with organizations for the blind but I have been in some other endeavors which are again more or less parallel.

Again, as I say, they start off with an intent and then they get so bogged down or they get too large so that the personal element goes out of them.

That again goes back and reverts to the cause in itself, that they are able to say what they mean, the people themselves. That is my only point.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. But actually, you yourself have not participated in the work for the blind.

Miss SWANSON. That is correct.

Mr. WAINWRIGHT. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Now, Mr. Lafore, of Pennsylvania.

Mr. LAFORE. I have no questions, Mr. Chairman.

But I do want to say, Miss Swanson, that I, for myself, appreciate having you as a witness.

Miss SWANSON. Thank you very much.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Now I believe Judge Daniels of New Jersey has some questions, Miss Swanson.

Mr. DANIELS. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

First, let me say we are very glad to have you here, Miss Swanson. As I see it, you are in favor of both bills pending before this committee.

Óne is for the Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare to consult with organizations of the blind, and the other is for a study of the problem.

Miss SWANSON. Yes, I am. Thank you.

Mr. GIAIMO. I have just one question, Miss Swanson.

Mr. ELLIOTT. This is Mr. Giaimo, of Connecticut, Miss Swanson.

Mr. GIAIMO. Miss Swanson, do you agree with what Mr. McDonald said earlier?

Well, let me rephrase the question: Do you feel that organizations I which are not "of" the blind but "for" the blind should not have any say in these problems?

Miss SWANSON. Again, there must have been some objection to the fact that perhaps the things that the blind people wanted themselves were not being considered as much as they should have been. I heard only a part of Mr. McDonald's testimony and since I have not had the experience in this particular work I again am only paralleling it with what I have had. I have seen it happen so many times that the original intent is lost that was had when something was started off. And the first thing you know we are far afield from it and the people themselves who wish to benefit from it are not benefiting and you have to bring them back into the picture again.

Mr. GIAIMO. Thank you.

Mr. ELLIOTT. We thank you very, very much, Miss Swanson. It has been a great honor to have had you before this committee. Thank you for coming.

Miss SWANSON. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Again let me say, "Thank you."

Mr. LIBONATI. Mr. Chairman, may I introduce at this time Mr. Robert O'Shaughnessy, president of the Illinois Federation of the Blind. Mr. ELLIOTT. Mr. O'Shaughnessy, we are happy to welcome you back in response to Mr. Libonati's introduction earlier.

But first let me say in behalf of the Subcommittee on Special Education of the House Committee on Education and Labor that we are very happy to have you before us, Mr. O'Shaughnessy. You may now proceed in any manner that you desire.

Mr. ELLIOTT. I assume that you will probably want to summarize your statement, Mr. O'Shaughnessy. If I am correct about that, then let me say to you that your complete statement as it is included in the volume and page mentioned by Dr. ten Broek will be carried in the record at the end of whatever statement you care to make.

But perhaps that is a rather involved way of putting it. What I am saying is that your full statement will follow whatever remarks you want to make now for the record.

So if you will have a seat there, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, you can rest assured that we are very happy to have you before us this morning. Mr. LIBONATI. If I might, Mr. Chairman, I would like to add that Mr. O'Shaughnessy has appeared before many committees in the State Assembly of Illinois where I have served for 22 years in the

State of Illinois.

That is, he has appeared there together with his other groups. What I want to say, Mr. Chairman, is that Mr. O'Shaughnessy's interest in his own affliction and the affliction of those like him has never begged the question. They do not resent any pity or any lack of understanding among those who are in their normalcy; they accept

their problems with a sympathetic view. The blind man or the blind woman is very independent and conscious of that independence to carry on if they are only given an opportunity and a chance to do so.

The entire attitude of the State Assembly of Illinois has always been to listen to the blind groups with respect to their desires and wants and to listen to whatever solutions they might place forward before us at that time.

I might say that that is not as a pressure group. That seems to be the onus of criticism of the present legislation before us, that they would develop into a pressure group and become all-powerful. But it is from the sympathetic viewpoint that they make appeals to the legislatures, both national and within the States.

That viewpoint has been proved both in Massachusetts and in Illinois, where they do have a significant standing before the assembly when they come authoritatively forward and place before that assembly the feelers and the advancements and presentments that are theirs through their study.

Mr. Chairman, I thank you and the subcommittee also very much for permitting me to take up your time at this time.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Thank you, Mr. Libonati.

Before proceeding with the testimony of Mr. O'Shaughnessy, Mr. Libonati, let me say that I am aware that you are the sponsor of one of the bills before the committee on this subject matter. Let me also say that we are happy to have you before us and to have you bring your friends to testify, as you have done this morning. You have demonstrated your very deep concern and interest in this field. Mr. LIBONATI. Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ELLIOTT. And now, Mr. O'Shaughnessy, you may proceed in any manner you see fit.

STATEMENT OF ROBERT O'SHAUGHNESSY, OF PEORIA, ILL., PRESIDENT, ILLINOIS FEDERATION OF THE BLIND

Mr. O'SHAUGHNESSY. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and members of the subcommittee.

I would just like to say in behalf of Mr. Libonati that he has always been a person that we felt we could go to with our problems in Illinois and we have felt that he is a person that is honest and fair. We have always felt of Mr. Libonati, that if we went off on a tangent or went off the deep end, that he was not afraid to tell us, that he would guide us. Mr. Libonati certainly helped our organization along with the other assemblymen.

We have tried not to be a pressure group but to act in the interest of the blind citizens of Illinois and it was men like Mr. Libonati that helped us get some of our progressive legislation through.

I think that history will show that Mr. Libonati's service to our country in Congress will be as good as it has been shown to be in the State of Illinois. Let me say that it was certainly the country's gain and the loss of the State of Illinois when Mr. Libonati came to Washington.

Now let me introduce myself. My name is Robert O'Shaughnessy. I am president of the Illinois Federation of the Blind. I am active in organizations of the blind both in the State and locally in my own community of Peoria, Ill.

I am a vending stand operator and have been so for the last 7 years, in a Federal building there in Peoria. Organizations of the blind are not new in Illinois. We have had them since 1898. Of course, through the years their purpose and objectives have changed. Our purpose first was primarily social. We had such organizations as alumni associations and social groups gathering just for the purpose of social activity. It was not until 1935 that we actually had a State organization.

At that time we took in about six existing local organizations and they primarily joined together to further their promoting of what at that time was called the pension law of Illinois.

In 1948 the Central Committee of the Blind was organized into an organization called the Illinois Federation of the Organizations of the Blind. At that time it started to become an effective group. We had 15 local affiliates and the push was now on to further our cause and promote our cause for blind people in the State.

I might say that at that time I was still in school. I came out of school in 1950 and attended my first convention in 1952, at which time the name, Illinois Federation of the Blind, was changed to the Illinois Federation or, actually, it was the Illinois Federation of the Organizations of the Blind. In 1952 we changed our name to the Illinois Federation of the Blind.

Today we feel the federation is truly the representative voice of the blind of Illinois. We have 23 local affiliates. We have more than 1,500 active members. We are an integral part of the National Federation of the Blind, which is a vital factor in the lives of all of us who belong to the State organizations that work on problems of blind people.

One of our locals in Illinois operates a boarding home for blind women. Another has different types of planned recreation such as bowling.

One of our locals where I happen to live, in Peoria, Ill., built a building here several years ago which we call the Peoria Area Blind People's Center. It is where we have our planned recreation such as bingo and card parties, dances, bowling, dinners, and Christmas parties.

It serves as the Federation's meeting place where the Federation's two local affiliates meet.

That just shows you what people can do if they join together.

We are not a workshop there at our center; it is not meant to be that. But let me tell you that in November of last year we received a contract to fill 20,000 Christmas stockings from a local wholesale house there in Peoria. It was more a matter of therapeutic value rather than the actual money involved, but there were 16 blind people who worked on this order and they received about $48. It took them about 12 days to do the job. You may not think that is too much, but let me tell you that five of these people are over the age of 70 and three of them had never earned a dime in their lives.

So we feel that through the cooperation of all the blind people in the community, through their working together, our center certainly serves a purpose both from the recreational standpoint and also from the standpoint where we can work to get contracts such as this to help those people that need the help so that we feel we are serving a purpose in our community.

The Illinois Federation of the Blind has been and is a key factor in bringing the blind people of Illinois to a position of independence and equality in society. And that is a point that I would like to make, and I would like to make it very emphatically.

In Illinois we have good cooperation with our State agency and have every reason to believe that this relationship will continue.

Now I would like to deviate a little bit here, Mr. Chairman.

I would like to tell you about one of the members of one of the most powerful committees in our State organization, our education and welfare committee, which deals with problems concerning legislative improvements and so forth for our blind people.

One of the members of that committee happens to be the chief of our division of vocational rehabilitation. He is a man with partial vision. I think they call him industrially blind. But we have been able to convince him that the cause of the organized blind in Illinois is for the good of the blind people, and he is willing to sit down with us to develop our program. He is not a henchman for the agencies, yet he is not a person that we can control. He represents agencies and the dignity of an agency, and he represents the blind people as they would like to be represented.

In other words, that man can go and talk to the highest person in Government and make an impression on him. Yet, he can come down and talk to the person who is blind, who perhaps depends on public assistance as his only means of livelihood, and he can get to that person. We feel that this man has been a tremendous person to have on our committee. He has helped us gain stature for our State organization.

I feel that when we have agency people such as that, credit certainly go to a man such as Mr. Nowatski, chief of the division of services for the blind in Illinois.

We have other excellent relationships. We had a meeting here just a few days ago with our public aid commission, which takes care of the whole aid program in Illinois, and part of it relates to the blind. We did not get too far the other day with the head of the public aid commission but we are not going to stop there. We are going to go back and hammer away. We feel that through negotiation and through proper legislation we will eventually get further than if we should go out and become too much of a pressure group, although at certain times it is necessary to become that.

But we have found that through negotiation-through a diligent application of diplomacy, that we can get further than we could possibly get by raising a great deal of cane. Sometimes people have a great deal of animosity toward you because they don't understand your problems.

We feel that because of our own relationships with agencies, that there should be no possible question of the right of the blind to organize. This is a right as old as America itself. We feel that, in view of the action of some of the State officials, that these rights should be specifically recognized and protected by an act of Congress.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Mr. O'Shaughnessy, let me say we have been very happy to have heard you.

I will now recognize Judge Daniels of the State of New Jersey, a member of our subcommittee.

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