Radio Broadcast - 1925, February - 113 Pages ... - VacuumTubeEra

Some Experiences With the Blind
and Radio
BY CHARLES T.
have got
WEFANS the impression,
no doubt, that everybody
in the United States knows
about radio at least, knows a
the metropolis.
In such a large
county I expected
that there would be
a hundred blind persons.
Much to my
surprise, after making
every effort to
find every blind or
near blind individual,
I discovered that
there were only about
twenty. Each one
of these people
I
visited, and had some
tragic experiences.
For instance, approaching
a brokendown
old house,
with debris of all kinds spread in every
direction from the front door, the old man
who opened the door kept his foot carefully
in possession of the opening so that I
could not break in. When I told him that
1 wanted to give his son a grown man of
thirty or forty who has been blind for twenty
years a radio, he was very wroth. After
some conversation he said that if I
brought
the radio machine, he would take it out in
the backyard and chop
it to pieces.
Here the conversation would naturally seem
WHITEFIELD
panying article describes ho\v the Wind in
a certain county were made more happy
by the gift of a radio set. The gift
was made complete, with batteries, head
Boy
phones, and loud speaker, and the local
Scouts agreed to install and inspect the sets
monthly. There is much that radio can do
for those unable to get out in the work-a-day
world, and it is
good to know that concerted
effort is
being made to see that the wounded
veterans have receivers. This latter is
being
handled by the S;;-Roxy Fund in New
York. Another fund now being raised nationally
by the American Radio Association, 50
Union Square, New York, is to buy radio
sets for every blind person. The Association
will undoubtedly welcome independent aid
of the sort outlined here. THE EDITOR.
to end; but I asked him if 1 could not see his
son, who still at eleven o'clock in the morning
was lying in bed with nothing to do except to
think of his own misery. The son took a more
little but 1 have recently had some experiences
which have caused me much surprise. been told about the radio, but had never ac-,
cheerful point of view, and said that he had'
which contains about tually listened to one.
After some persuasion
I live in a county
125,000 people, and in a moment of bravado
that if I would
I
got the old to agree
I offered to provide all the blind people in the send a machine, with a Boy Scout to put
it'
county with a suitable radio receiver, so that up. he would allow it to be introduced; but
they might listen in
he reiterated a dozen
to the concerts in
times that he
New York and get
wouldn't
Is It Not True
pay a cent,
the benefit of all the
and I had the greatest
good things that were
That most of our happiness comes from
difficulty in con-
going on within a making others happy Here's a chance for vincing him that I
few hundred miles of you to do a great deal of real good for the was
blind in your neighborhood. The looking for
accom-
money.
Some of the other
cases were not quite
so successful as this.
For instance, I visited
an old man who had
canned chairs and done
other things, but in
his weakness had had
to give up even this
occupation. He was
taken care of by two
or three sisters who
lived in the house
with him, and I
thought
it was an
ideal place for a receiver.
After broaching
the matter with
as much delicacy as I knew how, he made
to the effect that he had
a violent speech
already heard the radio once, and he never
wanted to hear it I
again. still
urged that
perhaps this radio was better than the one,
he had heard and that his sisters might
enjoy it with him; but he ended up by stamping
his feet and saying that he was prejudiced
against the radio and would not have one.
1
hope to live long enough to go back with a
portable set and make a convert of him, but
the incident is closed for the present.