FEDERAL COMMISSION FOR PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED

THURSDAY, JULY 14, 1949

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES,

SPECIAL SUBCOMMITTEE OF THE

COMMITTEE ON EDUCATION AND LABOR,

Washington, D. C.

The subcommittee met at 10 a. m., Hon. Augustine B. Kelley (chairman) presiding.

Mr. KELLEY. The committee will please come to order. We have as our first witness this morning the Federal Security Administrator, Mr. Ewing. Mr. Ewing, you may proceed.

STATEMENT OF HON. OSCAR R. EWING, FEDERAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATOR; ACCOMPANIED BY G. LYLE BELSLEY, COMMISSIONER FOR SPECIAL SERVICES; THEODORE ELLENBOGEN, OFFICE OF GENERAL COUNSEL; JAMES J. BURNS, DONALD DABELSTEIN, AND LOUIS RIVES, OFFICE OF VOCATIONAL REHABILITATION

Mr. EWING. Mr. Chairman, I should like to introduce Mr. Belsley, who is Commissioner for Special Services of the Federal Security Agency; Mr. Donald Dabelstein, who is in the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, and Mr. Theodore Ellenbogen from the Office of the General Counsel. Also Mr. James J. Burns and Mr. Louis Rives, from our Office of Vocationl Rehabilitation.

Mr. KELLEY. You may proceed.

Mr. EWING. Mr. Chairman and members of the subcommittee I represent the Administration in support of H. R. 5577, a bill to expand and improve the services to the handicapped of the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, a unit of the Federal Security Agency.

This is a bill we have worked out in cooperation with the Bureau of the Budget and other agencies of the Government, and with the advice and assistance of the State agencies which have primary responsibility for operating the program. It was introduced early this week by Mr. Lesinski, and has been endorsed by the Director of the Bureau of the Budget as being in line with the President's program.

This bill, and all of the measures now before your committee, have the same fundamental objective. The aim of every proposal here is to do the best possible job for the handicapped. We may disagree as to methods, but I am sure that we have no disagreement as to purpose. When we get into the question of methods, I am strongly opposed, in principle, to the approach that is taken in H. R. 3095. I have filed an official report with your committee, analyzing this and the other identical bills. In addition, Mr. G. Lyle Belsley, Commissioner for

Special Services in the Federal Security Agency, who has administrative responsibility for the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation, will testify on this subject in more specific terms. I should like to give special emphasis to my reasons for supporting the Administration measure, H. R. 5577.

This bill is in full accord with the fundamental principles of good executive management as laid down by the Hoover Commission and supported by all authorities on public administration. The Hoover Commission recommended, among other things, that the number of Government agencies be drastically reduced. It urged that all activities be grouped into departments, as nearly as possible in accordance with major purposes. The Office of Vocational Rehabilitation is now located cheek by jowl with the other Federal services with which any program to rehabilitate the handicapped must, of necessity, have the closest working relationships. Chief among these are the Public Health Service, the Office of Education, and the various programs of the Social Security Administration. It is impossible to divorce the job of vocational rehabilitation from problems of health, for in 9 cases out of 10 you start out with a health problem. It is equally impossible to divorce it from problems of social security. In most cases, disablement itself creates problems of individual or family security, and before you can go very far toward putting a disabled breadwinner on the road to physical recovery and fitting him to be self-supporting in a new job, you have to make some provision for his family's security. Neither can this function be divorced from problems of education, for the very heart of the job-once you have overcome the health problems and provided a measure of security-is educational. That is why the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation was placed where it is, in the Federal Security Agency in close touch with services in the fields of health, social security, and education.

On this point, I should like to quote from a report in 1946 of the Subcommittee on Aid to the Physically Handicapped of the House Committee on Labor, which studied this problem.

It is administratively sound—

that report said

to place the responsibility for complementary services in the same department, since one program tends to reflect the efficiency of another. For example, the physically handicapped who are not successfully rehabilitated make demands upon the public-assistance program; failures in the preventive programs are shown in the applications for rehabilitation, and so on. It is important that the administration of health, rehabilitation, and educational services should be kept closely related because a high degree of coordination is necessary if the services are to be fully effective.

That report anticipated the fundamental recommendations of the Hoover Commission by 4 years. The bill I urge for your consideration, H. R. 5577, is in full accord with it.

It seems to me that other bills before your committee violate this principle. They remove from the Federal Security Agency and set up in a brand new, independent commission, a going program whose function is directly related to the other major programs in the Agency. In my opinion, it would result in duplication and waste.

We in the Federal Security Agency have been at work on this problem of aid to the physically handicapped for a long while. In my report to the President in September 1948, entitled "The Nation's Health,

a 10-Year Program," I devoted an entire section to this subject. One of the goals I set up in that report, which we should strive to achieve, was this:

To rehabilitate the 250,000 men and women who become disabled through illness or injury every year so that they can be restored to the most nearly normal life and work of which they are individually capable.

The way to achieve that goal is by building strongly on the sound foundation we already have. The same conclusion was reached by the Subcommittee on Aid to the Physically Handicapped, in the report from which I quoted a moment ago. It said:

The growth of the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation since 1943 indicates that it is a sound base upon which to begin the building of a gennine service to the handicapped.

The subcommittee referred here to the need for new legislation to make it possible for the existing Office of Vocational Rehabilitation to do a more adequate job. In the same report, the subcommittee said:

The Office of Vocational Rehabilitation should be authorized to make its services available generally to the physically handicapped; it should be authorized to offer a much wider range of services; its work should be supported by increased appropriations as rapidly as the program can be expanded; it should carry out its work, as it now does, jointly with the States; it should become in reality a service to the handicapped.

Within the limits of the authority and the funds at our disposal, we have built solidly on a firm foundation. A great deal remains to be done, but we need more authority and resources with which to do it.

As you know, the State-Federal partnership program of services for the handicapped was expanded in 1943. In 6 years, the program has rehabilitated for useful work approximately 280,000 men and women. That is more, by about 70,000, than had been rehabilitated in the previous 23 years. During the fiscal year just ended, more than 60,000 disabled men and women were restored to self-sufficient employment a new record for the second straight year.

Already this program has returned truly remarkable dividends to the Nation. By far the most important are its returns in human dignity, in greater happiness, in individual and family security. But in addition to all this, it has paid very large dividends in dollars and cents. The men and women aided by this program in 6 years already have increased their earnings and the Nation's purchasing power by more than $900,000,000, and have paid into the Federal Treasury in income taxes alone more than $67,000,000. To put it another way, every dollar we spend through the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation in the Federal Security Agency returns $10 in Federal income taxes, and that is the least of its many benefits. Without such a program, many of these same men and women would have to be cared for through public assistance, which would cost the Nation not only in appropriations for relief, but in loss of purchasing power.

On the question of public assistance, incidentally, it seems to me that the proposals contained in H. R. 3095 are fundamentally unsound. As you know, the President has urged the amendment of the Social Security Act, to assure the disabled more adequate benefits under the regular State-Federal program. The proposal is being considered now by the Ways and Means Committee. That, it seems

to me, is the proper approach. H. R. 3095, on the other hand, would set up a separate, independently administered program of grants to the disabled needy who are "unfeasible" of rehabilitation. This not only would create administrative duplication and waste, but would place these unfortunate people in a special, segregated category of relief recipients. It is important, I think, that we keep our administrative machinery and our State-Federal relations as simple and effective as possible. It is equally important that we do nothing that will emphasize and call attention to the disabilities of men and women who have burdens enough already. If I know anything about the psychology of the handicapped, it is that they want most of all to be treated as nearly as possible like normal human beings.

We have proved, it seems to me, that the present approach is right. We have proved that the job can be done. All that is needed now is adequate support for the present program, and the authority and funds required to expand and improve the program to drive ahead toward the goal of rehabilitation for all the handicapped who can take advantage of it. Today we are able to serve only one-fifth as many as become disabled every year. Under the administration bill, if approved by this committee and enacted into law, we can achieve the 10-year goal we have set for ourselves. No program, regardless of how soundly it is organized, can achieve that goal without adequate congressional support.

Let me outline for you some of our objectives, which are provided for in this bill, H. R. 5577.

First, we want adequate rehabilitation centers wheer therapy can be combined with training and guidance, and we can direct all of our efforts to the single end-a rehabilitated man or woman, self-sustaining and self-reliant. No one who knew the story of what is happening at the Woodrow Wilson Rehabilitation Center at Fishersville, Va., would be quick to say that any man or woman is "unfeasible" of rehabilitation. They have about 120 of the most severely disabled men and women there, and they are fighting their way back. They are proving that they can be rehabilitated. Paraplegics, some on their backs unable to move for years, are getting up and walking and learning new jobs that they can do and do well. One even went deer hunting after 4 years of immobility-and he got a buck. Youngsters just on the verge of adult life and others who have only a few years of working life ahead of them-some paralyzed, some with both legs off, most of them severely disabled in one way or another-all of them are showing that they can succeed if given the chance. They are demonstrating that there are very few men "unfeasible" for rehabilitation. That center is operated by the Virginia Division of Vocational Rehabilitation, with the Office of Vocational Rehabilitation making financial and other contributions. We want enough of such centers to be available to all of the disabled who need the services that are provided there, and all it takes is enough money and authority to set them up and operate them. The operation, I might add, is relatively inexpensive, considering the services. Unquestionably it is much less expensive than allowing the disabled to be nonproductive burdens to themselves, their families, and their communities.

We want adequate workshops for the blind and the severely disabled, where those who can return to competitve industry can develop the work tolerance and the speed which will enable them to compete, and