These must show a big advance in the coming years over what has been done in the past. More attention must be secured in the national magazines of every kind, both general and special. In particular, should the "Survey," the organ of the social service workers of the country, be brought to a realization of the significance and scope of rehabilitation. It could play a very great part in getting the message over both to a specialized and a general group. State meetings, such as may be held in connection with a State organization for rehabilitation, will also be found helpful in bringing about publicity. They secure a personal contact with the work and they also secure attention in the press much more than does the ordinary routine of rehabilitation service.

Chairman FAULKES. In concluding this session, I just want to say a word for what we have done in this conference. I want to assure you that your chairman has not done all of the job. I have had excellent cooperation from everybody. When I have asked for help nobody has turned me down.

This plan of meeting with the National Safety Council at their invitation was developed in order to bring our work in contact with this large group of employers. I feel that the earnest service on the part of the general manager of the safety council, Mr. Cameron, and the assistance that he rendered us through his various workers in his office enabled us to put this program across. I am very glad that it has been a success.

The meeting is now adjourned.

SIXTH SESSION

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 2, 1925, 10 A. M.

Chairman: TRACY COPP, Civilian Vocational Rehabilitation Agent,
Federal Board for Vocational Education

Chairman COPP. The final session of the National Conference on Civilian Rehabilitation will come to order. This morning we shall consider first one of the practical problems in connection with work of rehabilitation. Frequent reference is made to the difficulties in placing our trained disabled men. We are to hear first from our good friend Mrs. Tippet, of Wisconsin. Mrs. Tippet.

PREJUDICES ENCOUNTERED IN THE PLACEMENT OF DISABLED PERSONS: OBSTACLES PRESENTED BY EMPLOYERS

Mrs. MELBA ROACH TIPPET, Rehabilitation Agent, Wisconsin

Madam Chairman, members of the Federal board, coworkers, and visitors: As I have been sitting and listening to all of the good things that have been said this week, I feel rather humble coming before you this morning pretending to say anything at all. And as I am about to inflict upon you the last straw that broke the camel's back, I believe perhaps all of us can share the exasperation and I am sure the subtle humor of the situation that the mother of three sets of twins must have experienced when she named them "Kate and "Duplicate," "Pete" and "Repeat," and "Max " and " Climax," as applicable in this instance.

As I view them, there are three main obstacles presented by employers in taking on disabled employees. The first to be discussed seems to me the greatest, and the most difficult, because of its intangibility. I refer to a certain state of mind that exists among employers, and when I say employers, I am including the public in this, because the public represents potential, if not actual, employers. There is a certain state of mind that exists expressing incredulity as to the possible usefulness that disabled persons represent. We in our superior way have built walls around our minds as to the possible accomplishments of disabled persons, and then we have set up hurdles over which they must jump in order to prove to our "doubting Thomas" minds that they can perform.

To me this sort of feeling must give way to a recognition of the actual economic value that disabled persons represent. The disabled

can't do it themselves. It seems to me that that is our direct challenge; that we have a real task and responsibility to set these people right in the minds of their and our so-called normal neighbors who are apt to have very mistaken ideas about the ability, the aptitude, the ambition, and the economic status that a disabled person presents. It seems to me that we must discard the antiquated measuring stick of economic appraisal which has been used to date, that of one's outward appearance. We can not judge ability by outward appearance. I believe that all of you have been deceived with whole fellow workmen. I think very often we have thought persons quite brilliant when upon closer examination they were really stupid, and people who had the appearance of stupidity have really been quite brilliant upon being put under the microscope of closer examination. We need to be more fair in our measurement of the value, of the ambition, and of the integrity and of the spirit of the disabled person than we have been in the past. It is very intangible, it is very difficult, to put your finger upon it and analyze it and define it, but because of that, it presents the greatest challenge that we have to meet.

At least two ways in which we can set about to meet and defeat this state of mind appear. The first is that we must open up a greater number of job possibilities to the disabled person. That calls for a study of vocational and occupational opportunities. Does it seem quite enough to discover that a one-armed man, for instance, may become a good milk or acid tester, or that the one-armed man perhaps (who is our biggest problem) can paint well. By that I mean automobile painting, sign painting, furniture finishing, and all that sort of thing. It isn't sufficient for us to find five or six things that he can do and then say "Do it " to the rest of them, because the chances are they won't. This department, this great gathering of people here to-day, who represent a great part of the students of this field of thought in the Nation to-day, should represent a research laboratory on job possibilities in order to widen the range of service to the disabled.

After we have done that, it seems to me that we must train them for the things that we have found that they are able to do. And after we have trained them (I believe in training) then we can present to the employer intelligent sales arguments as to the feasibility of the employment of disabled persons.

Employers always have been and always will be interested in the employment of competent labor. It seems to me that a trained disabled person represents competency, efficiency. He represents efficiency because one of the fundamentals of efficiency is stability, and we have found in our experience that when a disabled man is trained to perform the job, he is the most stable employee that the employer

has. He does not add to labor turnover costs. He knows he can't afford to be transient. He represents stability; he represents an investment. By way of example, the Dennison Co., who make the tags and labels that you are accustomed to use at Christmas time, have estimated that it costs them $50 to replace a worker. The Milwaukee Electric Light & Railway Co. has estimated it costs $219.79 to replace trainmen. If we can have a trained workman who knows his job and we know that he knows his job, we can go to the employer and knock on the door and say, "We have something that we can sell that you can use, and we will guarantee that after you use it you will want to buy more," then the problem of replacing disabled people isn't going to be much of a task. However, we must know that he can perform, and we must believe that he can perform, in order adequately to sell his services to the employer on the basis of efficiency and value received.

Suppose that we have opened up the possibilities of employment o disabled persons and suppose that we have used intelligent sales arguments to put it across to the employer, and suppose the employer agrees with you; the second obstacle and the next big hurdle that we have to jump is the fear of the possible second injury, with accruing compensation costs. That phase of the thing has been so well discussed that I am not going to go into it, but it seems to me. that that is a second challenge to the rehabilitation people and no other group of persons can furnish such wonderful ammunition, such sparkling fireworks for the necessity of protecting the employer against his real or actual fear of the possible second injury and giving the disabled person his chance to compete with the whole worker. I was glad to see in the resolutions yesterday that that has been adopted as one of the policies of this great body of people.

Suppose that that has been corrected. There is one other thing that I have come across that seems to alarm me good deal, and that is the physical examination. Court room pathology has taught the employer that skull injuries lead to epilepsy; that back contusions lead to traumatic hysteria; and compound fractures lead to amputations, etc. It is not surprising that he has set up this great wall of physical examination over which the disabled person must hurdle in order to get within the gates. We must be lenient with him, and until legislation has been provided to offset his fear of the possible second injury—that is, the hazard of the second injury— we shall find employers who still raise that barrier of physical examination. I maintain that that is again an invitation to the rehabilitation people to break down this last wall, for to me a physical examination should not be a bar to employment, but an index to intelligent, wise placement.

And so it would seem that after we have done all of these three things: First, trying to break down this state of mind expressing incredulity as to their ability; second, after legislation has been enacted removing the fear of added compensation costs accruing from the possible second injury; and third, when physical examinations become an aid to wise placement, rather than a bar to employment, then these great hurdles and these great walls that have been built, must crumble and the injured person will soon come into his own. It is a big challenge, a big responsibility, which I hope we are all going to undertake with whole-heartedness. Some one has put it to us in these words:

Each man's work is born with him, and the tools to work withal, and if through man's inhumanity to man, either deliberately or through carelessness, those tools have been broken or destroyed, then it behooves us to see that they are mended, or new ones supplied, and the tools that are left are not allowed to become useless through rust and decay. Here are these people. Here is our work. It is our responsibility, it is our opportunity; more than that, it is something we can not escape. Can we afford not to do this?

Chairman COPP. Mr. Blankenship will now speak to us on the subject "Obstacles presented by disabled persons." Mr. Blankenship. PREJUDICES ENCOUNTERED IN THE PLACEMENT OF DISABLED PERSONS: OBSTACLES PRESENTED BY DISABLED PERSONS

D. M. BLANKENSHIP, Supervisor of Rehabilitation, Virginia.

I do not know how to discuss this subject except to draw on the experience we have had in Virginia in our efforts to rehabilitate the handicapped. The obstacles presented by disabled persons probably differ a great deal in different sections, due to varying social, economic, and educational conditions, as well as to heredity and environment. In attempting to present our experience we do not feel the confidence of the colored parson who announced to his congregation: "I is now gwine to splain to you de unexplainable, and unscrew de unscrutable."

One of the obstacles encountered is diffidence or lack of self confidence. It is hard for me to explain to you just why a disabled person hesitates to accept employment, unless it is due to the fact that up to a few years ago, disabled persons were not considered except as so much human wreckage, for whom society or the State must provide. They were objects of commiseration and pity; were not considered capable of performing any useful work and were consigned, by common consent, to a state of idleness and dependency. As a result of this attitude, handicapped persons have in many cases, accepted the status assigned to them and feel great hesitancy in undertaking any definite worth-while work. They lack self assur