THROWING AWAY THE CRUTCH
McDermott, William F.
Throwing Away The Crutch By WILLIAM F. McDERMOTT NINE years ago George Barr, a young chemist working for a firm in St. Paul, lost a leg and then his job. Unable to land another position, he...
...Mitchell knew a deaf mute girl who wanted a job, and she was hired to label the bottles...
...As they work they gossip or wisecrack with each other...
...Three months later he lost a leg in an automobile accident...
...Experts of employment bureaus for the handicapped from several states have approved the Barr company's procedure...
...For all but the blind, movies and pingpong furnish the main attraction...
...Now each makes from $20 to $50 a week, being paid full wages averaging 62V2 cents an hour, plus bonuses...
...She still works for the company and is now Mitchell's wife...
...Absenteeism is only one half of one per cent...
...Suddenly the realization came over him that a man needed only one leg to press the pedal...
...Our little factory has taken 30 people off blind pensions...
...My dad was walking through the park the other afternoon and saw a dejected looking individual hunched over a seat," he replied...
...If he couldn't work for someone else he'd work for himself...
...The contagious atmosphere of the plant reflects the buoyant personality of its 32-year-old founder and president...
...For two months he got nothing, then the business was able to pay him $5 a week, the same amount George got...
...Twice a week Barr throws an informal party after work hours for his employes...
...Then, quite by chance Barr discovered that he could employ other handicapped people...
...The presentation was made by an Army private on crutches, who had lost his leg at Anzio...
...Multiply that a few thousand times, and you really have something...
...Barr has 60,000 square feet of floor space, and plans a new building of 100,000 square feet when peace comes...
...In your tour of the plant you observe 15 men and women who have lost an arm or a leg...
...four epileptics: many who have lost an eye or fingers...
...correctly placed, he will do more work than a normal person...
...that saves Illinois more than $10,000 a year...
...He developed a formula for a hair wave set, made it at night and sold it to beauty shops and drugstores in the daytime...
...When you visit G. Barr & Company, George warns you to check your pity at the door...
...One corporation with 10,000 employes which has never employed the crippled is about to open its doors to them...
...How George Got Started George Barr was graduated from the University of Wisconsin with honors in 1933, took a year of graduate work, and then went to work for a chemical firm in St...
...Much of the plant's present production is devoted to war contracts for medical supplies...
...Employes are on the job "on time, and all the time...
...At the end of four years the concern manufactured a number of drugs and cosmetics and had 18 employes, all deaf mutes...
...These people don't need it or want it," he explains with a grin of pride...
...It's amazing how many jobs can be satisfactorily filled by the crippled," he told me...
...Moreover, the company has not had a single rejection in all its war shipments...
...but civilian business on its 35 different items has doubled in the last two years...
...After a year or two George and Mitchell needed another helper...
...I asked Barr where he got him...
...They insist that if industry will give the handicapped not charity but a chance, they'll prove their usefulness...
...A legless man operates a tube-filling machine...
...I put him to work...
...Today he has his own cosmetics and medical supply company in Chicago which does $5,000,000 in business annually, earns a handsome profit, and employs 147 men and women—130 of whom have such serious physical handicaps that they once seemed doomed to a life of dependency and idleness...
...Bring 'em in," Barr says, and he does his best to give them jobs...
...Moreover, if the handicapped have to live in idleness they're a burden to relatives or to the state...
...A man who uses crutches develops strong arms and shoulders and can feed a heavy machine with greater ease than an ordinary man...
...Then you notice a pair of crutches in the corner...
...Firms who employ such people will make as much money or more than they would with ordinary workers...
...But watchful eyes and ready hands are always nearby to give them guidance and help over the adjustment period...
...They operate machines, work on assembly lines, weigh, measure, pack and ship products, and do office work...
...A 32-year-old woman, born blind, started to work three months ago and now makes $26 a week...
...Employes who know of crippled people unable to find work- speak to the boss...
...A handicapped person is usually not versatile but does well when limited to a routine performance...
...Barr's labor turnover is less than one per cent...
...Unable to land another position, he launched out for himself, making and selling a hair lotion...
...At another long table are 30 deaf mutes with similarly flying fingers...
...He promptly hired a man who had lost a leg, and from that time on made it his policy to hire handicapped persons...
...Well fitted with an artificial leg, Barr walks without a limp and goes about his job like a whirlwind...
...After learning how to use an artificial leg he stumped the streets of St...
...As he roams through the plant he talks enthusiastically about his working crew of 72 men and 75 women, white and colored...
...The plant's safety record is excellent, for the crippled have learned to be careful...
...A 35-year-old factory worker who lost his sight three years ago now earns more than when he could see...
...The blind lad made the speech of acceptance, which was translated into sign language for the benefit of the deaf mutes...
...10 victims of infantile paralysis...
...Paul and Chicago looking for work, but doors were slammed in his face because of his handicap...
...Barr told me that in quality and quantity, their work is equal to, and frequently above, that of the average non-handicapped employe...
...a spastic...
...A deaf mute can do better work requiring finger dexterity, while a blind person, used to reading P>raille and feeling his way about, can do better where sensitivity of touch is required...
...At the Barr & Company switchboard is an alert, smiling girl who apparently has no handicap...
...A Chance, Not Charity George shows you with pride the Army-Navy "E" award which his company won last June for keeping production up to standard and meeting all quotas—an honor given to less than four per cent of all firms engaged in war work...
...Barr's employes believe that their experience points the way to self-support and happiness for thousands of maimed war veterans...
...Moreover, being among their own kind gives them a feeling of normalcy which is lacking when they are among fully active people...
...Barr refused to be doomed to pencil-peddling...
...You aren't in the shop long before you understand that, for the place is electric with cheerfulness...
...A jobless deaf mute, Mitchell Echikovitz, offered to wager his time against a future paying job if George would take him on...
...He couldn't find work and didn't think there was anything to live for...
...Barr has found it easy to maintain a high morale in his factory because handicapped workers gain a sense of confidence and gratification through being usefully employed and earning money...
...It looks as if George Barr and his employes had already proved their case...
...He is planning new products and expect3 to increase to 200 employes, taking on as many handicapped war veterans as possible...
...The "E" awarding ceremony itself was unique...
...There are plenty of opportunities for peacetime industry to give every handicapped person a self-supporting job," Barr said...
...Strictly On A Merit Basis Every handicapped person who comes to work for Barr is informed that he's there strictly on a merit basis...
...The company bought a labeling machine, which operated by pressing a pedal, and George was running it...
...Two deaf mutes, a blind boy, and a girl who had lost an arm received the award on behalf of the company...
...Plant's Contagious Atmosphere At one assembly line are 25 blind men and women whose fingers fly fast and sure in their operations...
...it's the first job she ever had and she's as happy as a child with a new toy...
...He asked the man what was wrong, and the fellow said that a stroke had left him partly paralyzed...
...I asked about a middle-aged man whom I guessed to be a newcomer from his hesitant manner...
...This is to overcome one of the worst difficulties of the handicapped—the feeling of helplessness foisted on them by hovering parents and friends...
...The sightless enjoy the juke box...
Vol. 8 • November 1944 • No. 45
