nonspeaking deaf person – a deaf-mute – a concept and a population that the oralists were trying to make obsolete:
The meeting was called the National Convention of Deaf-Mutes, and that’ s that. If oral magicians, who yank educational rabbits out of silk hats and pearls of speech out of the mouths of those who have never heard, choke over it, why bless‘ em!
He was the National Association of the Deaf’ s seventh president, from 1904 to 1907, and from 1907 to 1910 – the first to be re-elected. Oralists hated and feared him. Even in the Deaf community, he was a controversial figure – regularly lambasted in the LPF for being power-hungry and unscrupulous, and meddling in partisan politics.
He was outspokenly critical of Alexander Graham Bell, who was treated with great deference by the LPF. In his address,“ The Future of the American Deaf,” at the Eighth Convention( Norfolk, Virginia) on July 5, 1907, Veditz denounced:
… Dr. Bell, whom his wealth has rendered the most powerful, and his hobby-riding propensity the most subtle, because he comes in the guise of a friend, and [ is ], therefore, the most to be feared enemy of the American deaf, past and present.
Two of Veditz’ s notable achievements as NAD President were helping to get the regulation barring deaf applicants to Civil Service( where they were classified with criminals, mentally incompetent, and insane) rescinded, and spearheading the establishment of the NAD’ s Moving Picture Fund, ably administered by Roy J. Stewart.
On August 7, 1913, Veditz met with President Woodrow Wilson at the White House( their interchange conducted through writing), and brought back Wilson’ s handwritten pledge to the 1913 NAD Convention in Cleveland:“ Please give my warmest greetings to the convention and assure them that I shall do all I can to see that the utmost justice is done the deafmutes.” It was another unprecedented event.
On the cover of the Proceedings of the NAD Convention, St. Louis, August 1904
Source: Deaf Life, August 2011, p. 37
Fearing that sign language, in its beauty and grandeur, was being corrupted by the growing influence of oralism and would be lost to future generations of deaf people, Veditz solicited funding from the community for an ambitious and revolutionary project: preserving examples of what we now call ASL, as used by master deaf and hearing signers, in the new medium of motion pictures. He raised $ 5,000 for the project – a considerable sum, especially for the Deaf community.
Veditz’ s 14-minute address,“ The Preservation of Sign Language”( 1913), is to Deaf culture what Lincoln’ s Gettysburg Address is to American history. It is a seminal visual document, impassioned, poetic, urgent, and timeless in appeal. It concluded with these stirring words:
“ A new race of pharaohs that knew not Joseph” are taking over the land and many of our American schools. They do not understand signs for they cannot sign. They proclaim that signs are worthless and of no help to the deaf. Enemies of the sign language, they are enemies of the true welfare of the deaf.
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The Power of ASL 8 Winter 2017 – Issue 8