Remarks to the President's Committee on National Employ the Physically Handicapped Week

Mr. Secretary of Labor, Admiral McIntire, distinguished guests, and members of this Committee that has done such great work for the physically handicapped:

I am very glad to be here today. It is always good to meet with you and share in your great work for the handicapped. This is the kind of work that gets close to the real needs of the people.

You know, I have always believed that service to the people is the best measure of government. This Republic can endure and grow stronger year by year only as it answers the needs and fulfills the hopes of its citizens. That has been the American tradition throughout history. And that was the idea which prompted the setting up of this Committee 5 years ago.

We recognized then that there were a lot of physically handicapped people in the Nation who weren't able to work or get a chance at jobs that they could do. So we started in to lay the groundwork for bringing millions of these people back into productive and useful citizenship.

Since this Committee was formed, a great deal has been accomplished. For this success we have achieved thus far, a large part of the credit must go to our Chairman, Admiral McIntire, and to the hard work of the executive committee and the splendid cooperation of States and communities throughout the whole land.

In planning this year's observance of Employ the Physically Handicapped Week, Admiral McIntire and I decided that the doctors of our country could be brought closer into the whole rehabilitation and employment picture. At the suggestion of your executive committee, we decided to bestow a Physician's Award annually to the doctor who had made the greatest contribution to the welfare and employment of the physically handicapped.

I am happy to announce that the first winner is Dr. Henry H. Kessler of Newark, N.I. I want to congratulate Dr. Kessler for the wonderful work he has been doing. He has done a wonderful job.

Right here I think I would like to tell you a little story about the physically handicapped. In 1943, I think it was, I was making an inspection of the Mare Island Navy Yard in the capacity of chairman of a certain committee of the Senate of the United States--sometimes they didn't like to see me come--and I ran into a doctor at Mare Island, a naval captain, who was all wrapped up in this idea of rehabilitating those men who had lost arms and legs and eyesight, and fixing them so that they could be useful citizens once more.

I went over to Brigham, Utah, and I found a colonel in the Army there who was doing the same thing. I never saw two more enthusiastic men in my life as that naval captain and that Army doctor.

I got them together, and this comes out of it.

Last year, I had the pleasure of announcing another award for the first time. I presented the President's Trophy to George Barr of Chicago. This year, I have a similar pleasure, and this time the young man is also from Chicago. His name is Nils S. Josefson, President of the Paraplegics Manufacturing Co.

Mr. Josefson's contribution in providing jobs for the handicapped has been outstanding. His firm has provided a place of employment at Franklin Park, Illinois, for several dozen paraplegics. Recently, they branched out and hired people with other disabilities. Business has been so good they have even had to hire some nonhandicapped workers. Now, that's something! You see, they are doing as they would like to be done by.

This is a remarkable story. Mr. Josefson was crippled for life when he was struck by an airplane wing tank aboard a carrier in the Pacific. But this did not damage his spirit or impair his talents as a radio technician. Together with other graduates of Hines Veterans Hospital, he formed his company in February of 1951. There were 50 wheelchair workers who pooled their resources. They began doing work on small electronic parts, principally for radio and television sets. The going was tough. Orders were few. But the men persevered, and today this enterprise is a real success. Today, the majority of the workers at the Paraplegics Manufacturing Company are stockholders in the firm and face the future with confidence and hope.

In just a few minutes, I am going to take a great deal of pleasure in giving Mr. Josefson the trophy which he has so well earned. But before I do that, I want to talk with you a little while about where we have come in the work we are doing, here in this Committee, and what lies ahead for us.

I think that all of us can take some pride in what has been accomplished these past few years. Everywhere, all over the Nation, we are meeting people and reading about people who have conquered heavy handicaps. A few years ago, many of these people were considered hopeless cases. But today, medical science and rehabilitation services have brought us to the point where the word hopeless must almost be abandoned.

We used to think that people who were blind had nothing to look forward to but years of custodial care at private or public expense. Now, the blind are being taught to perform many jobs just as ably as people who can see. Moreover, we have so extended our range of rehabilitation that today we are making progress toward overcoming other forms of disability, such as cerebral palsy, where it had been thought absolutely nothing could be done.

In special schools and training centers throughout the Nation a lot of amazing results are being achieved. Experts and skilled teachers are proving that--by patient, painstaking effort, and with modern methods--we can start the most severely handicapped child on a way of life that will enable him to play his part in society like a normal human being.

In the years since World War II, we have seen some wonderful services provided for our disabled war veterans. This has been one of the greatest accomplishments of all. At the same time, we have seen a substantial growth of vocational rehabilitation programs for civilians. We have broken down barriers against employment of disabled persons in the Federal service and in private enterprise.

These are real and solid gains.

Look, for example, at the record of our veterans rehabilitation program: Some 600,000 disabled veterans of World War II have taken training since the war, and most of them have found useful work to do. The program for disabled veterans of the Korean conflict is now getting underway and I have no doubt it will be equally successful. On the civilian side, just in the last year some 66,000 Americans were rehabilitated and restored to jobs through our Federal-State programs and the work of voluntary agencies.

Now, what kind of jobs are these handicapped people doing? They are doing everything--and they are doing it well. We surely have proved by now there is no job that can't be handled by some handicapped worker. That used to be a theory; now we know it is a fact.

The Veterans Administration has recently published a report showing that 40 percent of the disabled ex-servicemen were trained for professional or top-management jobs. Another 34 percent were trained for skilled trades. I am sure that many of them are now at work in defense industries working for the welfare of America just as they fought for it a few short years ago. Another 15 percent were trained in agriculture, and one out of every ten went into clerical and sales jobs. (I was just now made a salesman for the organization of this young man here, to whom I am going to present this trophy-he handed me a card.)

Many of these rehabilitated veterans are working for their Government.

Our Civil Service Commission has a long record of devotion to the handicapped, a record which is being made even brighter by Chairman Robert Ramspeck, formerly vice chairman of this Committee. The Commission's employment policies are good, and I am happy to say that its policies are translated into hiring practices.

Now I want to say a word for the Secretary of Labor. His organization is in this with everything he has, and between the Secretary and Bob Ramspeck and Admiral McIntire, we are getting the job done.

From January 1951 through April of this year, the Federal Government employed more than 21,000 seriously handicapped workers. By April nearly 172,000 disabled veterans were in Federal employment. Many thousands of nonveterans were also at work in the Federal Service.

In other words, we practice what we preach.

The Federal Government is by no means the only employer that has found out how handicapped workers can do a job. The record shows that private employers are increasingly willing to place qualified workers on jobs they are prepared to do. Last year, employment service placements of handicapped workers totaled 254,000. Included were 33,000 handicapped women--the largest number in any year since World War II.

These are signs of progress. They indicate that the work we have been doing and the gospel we have been preaching here in this Committee is being translated into real action--action by public and private agencies; action at the Federal level and in the States and out in local communities all across the country.

We have started something fine and good in these 5 years and I am proud of it and heartened by it. But we are still only working around the edges of the problem which we face here in this great country. The problem itself is still enormously greater than our efforts to meet it are up to now.

The trouble is that we are doing all kinds of fine work--but for far too few people. I am not talking about our work for servicemen. We are providing for our veterans, I am glad to say. But our work for nonveterans is not nearly far enough advanced.

There are thousands of disabled men and women in this country right now, who could be helped to become active, self-supporting members of society. But far too many of these people are not getting help. We have the knowledge, the methods, and the tools to restore the handicapped. But we are using these for only a fraction of the people who need them. And the people who need help--well, they are growing in number every year.

Remember, last year a quarter of a million Americans became disabled and in need of rehabilitation--and I am talking about civilians, not members of our Armed Forces. This year, we must expect the total to be just as big or bigger. And last year our best efforts brought rehabilitation to fewer than 70,000.

Of course, the first answer to these terrible figures is to cut down the dreadful number of disasters on our highways and in some of our industries, like coal mining. That is the reason I have done everything I can to promote the cause of highway safety and industrial safety. We are making progress in industry--the new mine safety law, for one thing, is a real advance--but the accident rate on the highways of this country is still a national disgrace.

And we must also step up our attack on crippling disease--polio, arthritis, heart trouble, and the rest. That's why your Government has been giving more and more attention to programs of medical research.

We must go on working to keep disabilities from happening. That is a task for all of us--for medical research and industry, for educators and public officials; everyone has a part to play. But of course, no matter how much we may do, there will still be thousands of newly disabled people every year, who need our help so they may help themselves.

We must broaden out our programs--our rehabilitation programs and our job placement work as well--until they are big enough to give the proper help to everyone who needs it. This is not just a matter of charity--not just a matter of doing good for people, only for their happiness and comfort. This is a matter of economics as well as social justice. It is not only that these people need our help. We need them. We need them as productive workers. We need them as good citizens. We need them as taxpayers.

We cannot afford to waste our human resources any more than our natural resources. We must husband them both and use them both wisely if we are to succeed in building strength and security and peace for ourselves and for the free world.

Whether or not our handicapped workers are going to be ready to help when the Nation needs them, and whether or not they, as individuals, will ever realize their own ambitions is up to us--those of us here and all of us in the United States.

We can, if we will, give these neighbors of ours a chance. We can give them a chance to become full-fledged citizens of their communities, to get jobs, to rear their families and to live lives of dignity and satisfaction. Certainly, these are the things we seek for all Americans.

We must remember that this is a problem of human lives, not just a matter of statistics. When we talk about the handicapped, we aren't dealing with figures. We are dealing with living people--with individual men, women, and children.

It is our task to help our fellow human beings help themselves to win a real opportunity for good, productive, decent lives.. This is the real crusade that we must undertake, not only here at home but throughout the world.

From our earliest days, we Americans have done a great deal of dreaming, planning, and working for equality for all the people in the country. Mostly, what we mean by it is the chance for each man, woman, and child to develop to the limit of his or her capacity. And so we rightfully place emphasis and value on the human worth and dignity of every individual--regardless of race or creed or color, regardless of social status, regardless of physical disability.

There is no better way we practice this American gospel than in our programs for the physically handicapped among our citizens. This is important work, dedicated work, rewarding work. We need lots of public participation and lots of private participation in this work. I am sure this is what we will have--in greater measure year after year.

I wish you Godspeed in this task of making our American promise come true for more and more of our fellow citizens.