The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1920-02-03
TOPEKA STATE JOURNAL
Information Bureau
FREDERIC j. HAsKIN. Director.
Washington, d. C.
MITE MoRKMEN.

Washington, d. C., Jan. 81. - The
theory that the individual who has
suffered some misfortune and lost
some faculty which seems indispensa-
BILE to industrial usefulness is not a
good buy on the labor market has
again been disproven. One of the big
rubber companies in Akron, o., has
placed on its payroll six hundred peo-
pie who can. neither hear nor speak,
and these handicapped individuals
have demonstrated that they are as eff
ficient as any other group in the entire
organization.
About this group sfNactual workers
is gathered as many more of their
kind, dependents upon them, and thus
there has developed at Akron the larg
est conlony of "silents" that is to be
found in Industrial life of the ma
ton. They take their places as indie
pendent self-reliant citizens, who ask
no more indulgence than do the best
equipped members of society.
The successful employment of this
group of mute workers is an additional
proof of a theory that has been de-
veloping in the west in the past few
years-a theory that there are places
in Industry into which handicapped
they will serve as efficiently as tho
they were in every way normal.
The handicap bureau of Chicago
gave this theory the best demonstra-
l1OIh 1t peISudueu employers TO look
over their plants and find the places
into which one-legged people. blind
people, and old people would fit as
well as the young anA-strong. It sup
piled these Handicapped persons for
these special positions. The handi-
caps were SO earnest in their attempts
to make good, because it was almost
matter of life and death with them,
that they often proved better work.
men at certain tasks than normal
workers.
This is found to be true of the mutes
at Akron. In a big plant there are
many posts in which hearing and
speech are unnecessary. The person
without hearing escapes annoyance
from the noise. The person without
speech is less likely to be diverted
from a task which required concen-
tration, if he cannot join in the talk
about him.
The lack of speech and hearing does
not necessarily diminish mental or
physical alertness. On the contrary
such deprivation may be conducive to
even keener mentality, a finer degree
of sensitiveness and a higher SENSIBLE
ity, all of which inherent traits make
the deaf mute unusually efficient and
highly desirable for certain kinds of
industrial work.
As strikingly corroborative of the
IIidI d IllRH OeBTeS OF gen.
eral mentality is found among deaf
mute employees, are records showing
that in the psychological tests given
in this factory, similar to the army's
psychological tests, deaf mute men and
women in the factory and main offices
in Akron attained higher average
grades than any other group of
workers. al
Recently officials of the company
were persuaded to give deaf mute fac
tory girls a chance at office work
Skeptical at first. they were agreeably
surprised ,at the rapidly with which
the deaf mute girls grasped details
and successfully overcame their handi-
caps. So mentally alert, so quick to
grasp ideas, so painstakingly. efficient
and so determined to succeed was one
of these deaf mute girls. that within
two weeks she was performing unas-
sisted and in a highly satisfactory
manner, work which it had taken her
immediate predecessor, a girl who
could both speak and hear, nearly
seven weeks to master. And this holds
true in cases of nearly all deaf mute
girls transferred to office work.
: Since establishment of the rapidly
growing silent" colony in 1914, the
deaf mutes have proven themselves
among the steadiest and the sturdiest
of all off the company's twenty-eight
thousand employees. Their experiences
in tire building especially has demon
strated that their affliction does not
constitute a serious physical handicap,
and that it increases, rather than d.
n1inishes, both mental and physical
alertness.
These deaf mutes now have their
own club house, their own church
service, their own public and private
social gatherings, and their own
-I,or
in business contact with them, do
they leave the sphere of their own
little colony to mingle socially or
otherwise with speaking people. They
are musical-even to the extent of
having a twenty piece brass band
which has gained fame as one of the
most unique musical organizations in
the world. The deaf mute musicians
play in perfect tune and perfect time,
and display such keen sensibi1ities as
to be able to discern whether or not
an instrument is in tune, merely by
the vibrations they catch thru chairs.
or other objects. They have their
own dramatic club and literary So
ciety. They are great movie addicts
and frequently attend legitimate plays
and musical comedies with an inter-
prefer. They are now raising funds
for erecting their own church edifice,
upon completion of which they expect
to employ a deaf mute minister to
preach to them in the silent language
of the finger alphabet. Many of the
men are active members of the Akron
Chamber of Commerce, while many
also are stockholders in the company
for which they work, and home
owners.
The remarkable degree of commun-
lily or colony spirit now existing among
these "silents'' has been built up by
the work of Mrs. Arthur Shawl for
merly of Cincinnati. Born of parents
both deaf and dumb. altho herself
possessed of the full faculties of
speech and hearing. Mrs. Shawl has
made welfare work among the deaf
mutes her chosen vocation. She does
this work not thru any degree of SYM
pathy, for she claims the deaf mute
needs no sympathy. but because, as
she states, she likes life better in the
mute colony than among people who
have the faculties of hearing and
speech.
Mrs. Shawl until recently was Miss
Nellie CsiIfeSnieg She married. Artbfrr