ory Mr. Ford also employs other handicapped men, and has
machinery especially devised for their use. He believes that all large
factories should employ a certain percentage of handicapped workers, as
its contribution to the rehabilitation movement, and it is to be hoped
his example may be followed by employers all over the country. The
Light-House for the Blind in New York City, the Cleveland Association
for the Blind in Ohio, and other similar associations are doing splendid
work in arousing the interest of the public, and in finding employment
for blind men and women, both in their homes, and in shops with sighted
persons. Mattress making and upholstering have been found particularly
adapted to the blind, and in Boston thousands of mattresses are made and
renovated yearly by blind workers employed in the shops of the
Massachusetts Commission for the Blind. Folding towels in laundries,
wrapping bread, packing catsup bottles and fruit cans are some of the
things being successfully done in the East. And the increasing shortage
of labor will induce employers throughout the country to see the light,
and realize that what the blind operative loses because of lack of
sight, he makes up by increased concentration and faithfulness to duty.
In the West, the people have very little faith in the ability of the
blind, but in time we hope the social consciousness will become less
lethargic, and that the mental and physical needs of this class will be
given the consideration accorded to them in the larger cities throughout
the East. The San Francisco Association for the Blind, a
privately-maintained institution, is doing good work in arousing public
interest, and in its shops the men are taught to make brooms and reed
furniture, and the women to weave rugs and make baskets. It is in
constant search for new fields of endeavor, and this spring it induced
one of the largest canneries to employ over twenty blind people to sort
asparagus, and the same cannery has selected a number of the best
workers to cut fruit in its orchards in the Santa Clara Valley. All this
is very encouraging, but it is only a beginning, as there are hundreds
of blind in this state who should be contributing to their own support.
This is why an enlargement of the plant of the Industrial Home for Adult
Blind in Oakland is so urgently needed, for, after all, the state should
assume the duty of providing its handicapped civilians with employment,
instead of caring for