The well-paid executive of one great agency for the blind in New York City states repeatedly that to consult the blind about policies affecting their welfare is as absurd as consulting the patients in a mental hospital. I hope he repeats this if he appears before this committee later in this hearing.

Some of those who are opposing this legislation have tried to maintain the thesis that its language will compel State and Federal agencies for the blind to abide by the advice they receive from the organized blind. This is so obviously untrue that I feel sure you will not ke taken in by such claims. The language of the proposed measure says nothing of the sort and only the most tortured and farfetched interpretation could possibly give anyone the notion that it does. If any such claim is made later in this hearing, I ask you to examine the language and judge for yourselves,

These two statutory advisory committees of the blind in Wisconsin serve as an effective liaison between the organized blind and the State agency-interpreting each to the other. The mutual understanding thus brought about has resulted in the avoidance of friction, intolerance, misunderstanding, and mutual distrust which has occurred in so many other States, where those entrusted with the administration of programs of services to the blind have been less enlightened. In far too many States these administrators (however good their intentions may be), still accept, and are largely motivated by the ancient stereotype, the outworn concept of the blind man or woman as a helpless, pitiable, incompetent, and utterly irresponsible ward of the State, who must be kept alive by a meager subsistence grant and perhaps taught a few simple, repetitive tasks, but who need never, under any circumstances, be consulted on matters affecting his own welfare.

There are also some State administrators of programs of services to the blind (fortunately, only a very few), who oppose this legislation because of fear. They fear that, if the blind become too strongly organized and are consequently able to bring the real facts to the attention of the general public, they themselves will suffer a loss of prestige and personal power. There is a still smaller, but highly vocal group of State administrators who fear, with good reason, that a strong organization of the blind will be able to expose to public scrutiny their own slothfulness and incompetence. There are some States where the vocational rehabilitation program for the blind is practically nonexistent, so far as results go, despite the expenditure of much State and Federal money and those responsible for such a situation have good reason to fear exposure. Their opposition to the bills now before you is quite understandable.

Much of the opposition which has come from certain powerful and heavily staffed private agencies has a somewhat similar motivation. These same agencies have traditionally been hostile, either openly or covertly, to all legislation the result of which would tend to make the blind more independent and selfsufficient. Independent and self-sufficient blind people have less need for the services which these private agencies claim to provide. As the need for their alleged services decreases, and this becomes known to those among the public who contribute the money, these agencies will be forced to contract the little empires which they have so painstakingly built up and, worst of all, many wellpaid jobs will be lost. Human nature is such that mighty few of us can ever be expected to admit that the work for which we are being paid a fat salary is no longer necessary. We resist anything and everything that poses a threat to our own job security.

I may possibly have given some of you the impression that the only thing the organized blind people of my State do is to give advice to their State agency. This is far from being the case. We have five statewide organizations of the blind in Wisconsin, with a combined membership of somewhat over 1,000. All five are federated together to form the Wisconsin affiliate of the National Federation of the Blind, and this federation is known as the Wisconsin Council of the Blind. The council itself is made up of elected delegates from each of the five component organizations, plus seven delegates at large, who are elected every 2 years by all the blind people of the State, regardless of organization membership, through mail ballots. The council itself conducts a legislative campaign and carries on an annual educational and fund-raising drive during National White Cane Week, May 15-21. It also supplies a full and exact accounting each November to every contributor. In this last respect I believe we are unique among all organizations which solicit financial support from the public.

No member or officer of the council or of any of the component organizations receive any pay. We are all to contribute our time and energy. Both the council itself and all of its affiliated organizations are incorporated and have been granted tax-exemption certificates.

The Wisconsin Council of the Blind has always sought to supplement, never supplant or duplicate, the services offered by the State agency. For example, long before Federal vocational rehabilitation money was available, and before our State agency had taken the first step toward obtaining competitive employment for our blind citizens, the council hired its own placement counselor who demonstrated conclusively that there were competitive jobs which competent blind people could fill and secured an amazing number of these jobs. Some of those for whom he obtained employment are still working at the same jobs. This placement man was himself blind and that proved a great advantage because he could go into a shop and personally demonstrate what a blind man could do. The demonstration was so convincing that our State agency hired this man as its own first employment counselor. He is now one of the top job getters in the Illinois vocational rehabilitation program and, incidentally, he has been the elected treasurer of the National Federation of the Blind ever since its foundation in 1940.

Another example: In Wisconsin, as everywhere else in this country, blind children who are homebound by reason of an additional handicap such as cerebral palsy or the various spastic conditions-are shamefully neglected. They are rejected by the orthopedic schools because these institutions have no specialists in the education of the blind. They are rejected by the regular schools for the blind because these schools have no special facilities or personnel trained in the care of the crippled. As a result they grow up in complete neglect to become human vegetables. Eventually many of them are shunted off into asylums for the feeble minded, where they languish for the rest of their lives, the concern of no one. For several years the council maintained a field worker of its own, whose sole duty was to search out these cases and bring at least some degree of help to them and their bewildered parents. This devoted worker was able to rescue at least a few of these unhappy children. The need is still largely unmet but our pioneering work has focused the attention of a good many people on this problem and a number of pilot projects are now in the planning stage.

Except for a few dollars retained each year to meet unavoidable administrative expenses, the council devotes all of its revenues to its own projects and to those of its affiliated organizations. It offers modest scholarships each year to promising blind university students. It maintains a free clinic in Milwaukee where those with partial sight may learn whether or not they can be benefited by the new low-vision optical aids which have proved such a boon to so many partially sighted persons. Approximately three-fourths of all those who have applied to this clinic have discovered that one or another of these new aids can provide them with more useful vision. The council provides travel and maintenance for those who wish to visit this clinic but who cannot afford the trip.

The council contributes, to the extent of its financial ability, to a number of braille magazines which are distributed free to the blind of the whole country. It also contributes to the Hadley Correspondence School for the Blind (whose services are provided without charge to the blind everywhere), and to the American Foundation for Overseas Blind.

Each of the five affiliated organizations carries on its own constructive projects-largely financed through council allocations of money—and here are just a few of them.

The Alumni Association of the Wisconsin School for the Visually Handicapped (which was founded way back in 1890), began in 1920 to build up a revolving fund from which blind persons should be able to borrow in order to get started in a business, trade, or profession. Such a resource was desperately needed because bankers, like others, were convinced that blind borrowers constituted a poor risk by reason of their all-around incompetence. The revolving fund was started with the nickels and dimes of the blind themselves. At first the little fund was used mostly to purchase broom corn and other raw materials needed by blind craftsmen, thus giving them the benefit of quantity buying. Three percent interest was charged and this proved sufficient to balance off the very few defaults caused by death or sickness. The fund grew with discouraging slowness but after a time a few well-to-do sighted people realized its potentialities and came forward with a limited amount of help. By 1938 (when the council was formed), the fund had reached $7,000. From the very beginning of its own existence, the council has allocated each year as much as it could possibly spare to this revolving fund. At the present time it has passed the $40,000 mark and more than 200 blind citizens of this State have become economically independent because they were able to get a start through loans from this fund. The speaker is proud to be one of the number.

The Badger Association of the Blind (another council affiliate) has operated the Badger Home for the Blind since 1921. This institution is unique in a number of ways. It receives no subsidy from State, county, or community chest. From the beginning it has been operated by the blind themselves, without help, hindrance, or interference from the outside. It has provided a comfortable and congenial home for 57 blind men and women, at rates far below those which they would have had to pay elsewhere. About half the residents are engaged in productive employment in competitive jobs. Rigid health standards are maintained but the residents make their own rules of conduct and abide by them. Preference is given those who would otherwise be homeless or whose home conditions are not good. The annual operating deficit is astonishingly small and is made up, in substantial part, through annual allocations of funds from the council.

The Mid-West Association for the Blind (about 25 percent of whose members are sighted), engages mostly in what is usually regarded as "direct welfare" activities. It distributes free white canes and provides prosthetic appliances, hearing aids, radio sets, wheelchairs and similar items, where the need is great, as well as food and clothing. Its meetings are rotated around the State so that almost all of its 500 members are able to attend at least some of its meetings. In addition to the three major organizations discussed briefly above, there are two smaller ones which are in the nature of blind trade associations.

The North Central Automatic Vendors was formed in 1940 and its members are all blind vending machine operators. These members are independent businessmen, owning their own equipment and asking odds of no one. Their equipment consists of automatic merchandising machines-candy, cigarettes, collee, milk, soup, bakery goods, sandwiches, etc. None of these operators have anything to do with coin-operated amusement or gambling devices. These blind operators have never had any form of governmental or other supervision. They have been on their own from the start and they have made good in one of the most competitive occupations to be found in America today.

The Blind Concessionaires of Wisconsin is an organization of blind vending stand operators. About half of them own their own stands and operate independently, without supervision. The rest are under the State-Federal program. Wisconsin was the first State in the country to adopt an enlightened law permitting blind people, operating under the Federal-State program, to purchase their own equipment and thenceforth operate independently. Among those who have availed themselves of this opportunity there has not been a single failure. Our State agency has placed no obstacles in the way of those wishing to purchase their own stands, despite the fact that the most profitable stands were always the ones to be purchased and the showing which the agency was able to make was thus rendered much less impressive.

Both these little blind trade associations exist primarily so that their members can exchange trade knowledge and be of help to each other in many other ways. The members of both have extended financial help to assist new operators to get a start.

In conclusion, may I say that the bill you are considering is not needed right now in my State of Wisconsin. Nevertheless, every last one of our blind citizens is wholeheartedly and enthusiastically in favor of its enactment into law. For one thing, we are keenly aware that conditions anywhere can change almost overnight. Some bad political appointments to our agency for the blind could conceivably destroy the harmonious relationship which now exists between that agency and the organized blind of our State. We are also well aware that such a law is desperately needed in a number of other States, whose blind citizens are not as fortunate as ours.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Thank you very much, Mr. George Card. We appreciate your testimony. It has been very helpful.

Now I recognize the gentleman from Pennsylvania, Mr. Lafore. Mr. LAFORE. I enjoyed the testimony very much, Mr. Chairman. If I was correct in what I heard, I believe at one point Mr. Card expressed the opinion that the average individual member of his group was about as articulate as the next person, and I would say at this time that my observation of the witness today would be that that is a very severe understatement.

Mr. ELLIOTT. The gentlewoman from Oregon, Mrs. Green.

Mrs. GREEN. I have just one question. I am asking for information. I have heard some comment that if we set up a commission to study the problems related to blindness and so on, it is liable to be composed of people who will be evaluating their own programs, and the alternative proposal was made that it perhaps might be better for a House committee or a congressional committee to study the problems related to blind people. What would your comment be on that?

Mr. CARD. I am inclined to think that the House and Senate ought to be represented as they are on the proposed nine-member commission and that the rest of the personnel should be scrutinized very carefully to see that those who are allegedly carrying on programs of service to the blind are not overrepresented, so that, as I said, we would end up by having these people evaluating their own programs. That is something that has to be watched very closely.

Mrs. GREEN. Your preference, however, would be for the Presidential Commission?

Mr. CARD. I think so, yes, with representation from Congress.
Mrs. GREEN. That is all.

Mr. ELLIOTT. The gentleman from New Jersey, Mr. Daniels.
Mr. DANIELS. No questions, Mr. Chairman.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Thank you very much, Mr. Card.

Is there another witness who must catch a plane or train? If so, we will be glad to hear him at this time.

Dr. ten Broek, do you know of anyone else who needs to finish up this afternoon?

Mr. TEN BROEK. No.

May I suggest that you now take in order John Polston, Jack and Alma Murphey, Unvia Ticer, and Stanley Oliver.

Mr. ELLIOTT. First, may I say we are happy to have Mr. Polston of California.

Mr. Polston, will you come around?

Mr. ELLIOTT. Mr. Polston's written testimony will follow in the record in full after Mr. Polston has made his oral presentation. Mr. Polston, we are happy to have you and you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF JOHN W. POLSTON, JOURNEYMAN ELECTRICIAN, EMPLOYED BY BAUM ELECTRIC CO., GARDEN GROVE, CALIF.

Mr. POLSTON. My name is John Polston, commonly known as Jack. I am 34 years old and I am a journeyman electrician.

I am working out of local 441 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers in Santa Ana.

I have been an electrician for the past 15 years and a resident of southern California all my life.

Mr. ELLIOTT. How long have you been an electrician?

Mr. POLSTON. For the past 15 years.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Have you been blind all that time?

Mr. POLSTON. Since 1955, in December. When my blindness first occurred I thought I was finished as an electrician. So did my union, my employer, and all who knew me. Yet I have been back on the job now for a year and a half, working full time for a regular contractor doing all I ever have done, at union wages of $4.15 an hour.

Mr. ELLIOTT. What is your production, if that is a good word to use, for electricians, now, as compared to the days when you had your sight, Mr. Polston?

Mr. POLSTON. I think probably I could compare that best by maybe explaining that I do electrical construction work. I work out in the field wiring houses or any other type of construction work. I do not work in a factory assembly line or anything on that order.

I suppose that I could say that my production schedule could be shown mostly by my continuous working in this past year and a half. I am not sure how I can actually evaluate how much I do now compared to how much I did 2 years ago, or anything like that.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Is it substantially the same now as before your blindness, Mr. Polston?

Mr. POLSTON. I would say "Yes." I would like to substantiate that, by saying that the contractors who hire me hire me because I am producing for them and making them money. There is no one who is going to have somebody come on their payroll because they feel sorry for them at $4.15 an hour, not steady.

Mr. ELLIOTT. You don't want to be hired because somebody feels sorry for you anyway, do you?

Mr. POLSTON. No, sir; I do not. If I cannot produce I do not want

to stay.

Mr. ELLIOTT. That is a wonderful record. I think you are the first electrician I have ever met who was blind. I think it is wonderful that you can carry your work on. It is enlightening, I am sure, to everybody to know that even the field of electricity does not hamper one who has lost his sight insofar as making a living is concerned if he has, as I suspect, the determination which you have and that is the real ingredient of your success, do you not think so?

Mr. POLSTON. I am flattered at your comments, but I really feel I don't have any more determination than the other electricians that work out of my local union. We all of us have a day's work to do. We go each day to perform for our contractor because we want him to make money so that he will pay us the money and we will keep our jobs.

I have to apologize for myself; I really don't feel that I have extra guts or anything else other than the other men who work alongside of me.

Mr. ELLIOTT. Now, you may proceed, Mr. Polston, to present your testimony in any way that you see fit.

Mr. POLSTON. Well, if I may go back for just a minute I would like to say when I was first blinded, of course, all of my friends felt that I was finished as an electrician. My employer, my union, just about everybody. Now, repeating myself again, I have been back on the job for almost a year and a half and I have been doing all the electrical construction that an electrician does.

Now, the thing that I feel that has almost literally saved my life was my contact with the National Federation of the Blind. I would like to explain that.

You see, in 1955, in December, I was a carefree, happy man. I was married; Í had a home that I was still paying for; I had a real good job, and I had a good opportunity for the future.