Deaf American Prose 1830-1930

Pro and Con

228 James F. Brady James F. Brady (unknown birth and death) James Brady’s contribution to the Deaf community of his time is his authorship of a series of articles for The Silent Worker in the 1920s. Brady served as the secretary of the Philadelphia Division No. 30 of the National Fraternal Society of the Deaf, and worked as a printer. He was reported to be an alumnus of the Pennsylvania Institute of the Deaf (also known as the Mt. Airy School). Although he called himself an “average deaf person,” Brady self-identified as an oralist. He was able to read lips and write, and he held a fairly positive view of sign language and the Deaf community, criticizing the tendency of oralists to undermine the rights of Deaf people. Dates of his birth and death are unknown.29 c Pro and Con I HAVE A NEIGHBOR—an university graduate—who never came into contact with deaf-mutes till we became acquainted. He had the general conception and impressions of us as a class and very frankly he stated that when he discovered he would live near us he had misapprehensions. He witnessed me and Mrs. Brady conversing in signs. Then he became puzzled when he heard us speak to our children and to those of our hearing people coming to visit us. Still some more perplexed when we resorted to writing to other people. In the course of time we became friends. His wife decided to try speech with Mrs. Brady and was pleased to find it was no trouble. Then she dragged the Mr. into it. It was easy enough to understand him and he was a good “guesser” and most of the time “got” me. 29. James S. Reider, “Philadelphia,” The Silent Worker 33, no. 5 (February 1921): 156; James F. Brady, “Thoughts as They Come,” The Silent Worker 35, no. 1 (October 1922): 31; James F. Brady, “Confessions of an Oralist,” The Silent Worker 35, no. 7 (April 1923): 270. “Pro and Con” is from The Silent Worker 35, no. 8 (May 1923). Pro and Con 229 Naturally enough he asked me later on why Mrs. Brady and I used signs when we could talk. From then on we engaged in many colloquies touching on most anything under the sun and beyond. The most interesting, to him, has been the subject of deaf people. I let him have all the papers and magazines for our people and he came into contact with many of my deaf friends and has made friends with them. I will give in dialogue form the points we touched upon. This is intended to supplement and make clearer my ideas as set out in “Confessions of an Oralist” in last month’s issue. For the sake of typographical appearance I will omit quotes unless necessary. My neighbor asks questions and I answer. So there will not be any trouble on the part of the reader determining who is saying this and that. Why do you and Mrs. Brady use signs when you both can talk all right to other people? We know our limitation in the way of lip-reading. We do not speak perfectly and our pronunciation is not good. We have to rely on people like you to understand a few words and make up the rest. You have the advantage of hearing sounds that approximate words we may be speaking. To us too many words are alike when spoken. When we talk to each other we want to be sure we are understood perfectly, hence our use of signs. Do you mean to say that when we speak to you, you do not understand every word and have to rely on your judgment as to what the words are? Yes, but it is more of a guesswork helped by a nimble [mind] with much the same as you yourself have to do when I speak to you. I understand now, still if you have to do that with us why do you not do the same with Mrs. Brady? We do not have to do it so long as we have a better way and that is by signs. I guess by your question that you think we should practice speech and lip-reading and do away with signs. If we are getting on pretty well in this world in spite of signs I do not see where our ability to speak fluently and read lips better will get...