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After visiting Europe in search of machinery for printing braille which might be suitable for the production of a magazine for the blind with several thousand subscribers, he returned to the United States, took the matter up with manufacturers in this country, and developed a high-speed cylinder press especially adapted for printing in raised type. This machinery was unlike anything then used, either in this country or abroad, and its quality is attested to by the fact that today it is still in operation and turning out braille printing of high standard.

Mr. Holmes decided to bring out the magazine in both New York Point and American braille. After consultation with Mrs. Ziegler they agreed upon charging ten cents a year subscription price. They felt that while any blind person might write in and ask for the magazine, whether he ever read it or not, he might think a second time about sending a ten cent subscription fee. On the other hand, it was felt that the subscription fee would not exclude anyone because of the difficulty of raising a dime. Later, the ten cents part of the transaction was eliminated in order to take advantage of the postal law permitting magazines for the blind to be sent through the mails postage free when no subscription charge was made.

The Ziegler magazine was a tremendous boon to blind people. At last, a periodical resembling that received by their seeing friends was coming into their homes each month. The mailing list soon climbed to upwards of 10,000, an unheard-of number for a magazine for the blind anywhere in the world.

From the beginning Mr. Holmes made up his mind that he would issue a journal which would be within the intellectual range of the blind man and woman of the most modest educational attainments. This magazine, from the beginning, contained a digest of the month's news, a short story, a popular scientific article, a little verse, a few jokes, and some article of encouragement to the blind people themselves. It never allotted any great proportion of its space to organized work for the blind, but for many years it contained a department variously called "Suggestions for Success," "Experiences and Suggestions," and "Successful Blind." These were usually letters from blind men and women who had overcome their handicap of blindness in a modest way and were making a modest living. In this section Mr. Holmes deliberately gave little attention to the attainments of brilliant men and women. He felt that the ordinary, garden variety of success would be more stimulating to most of his readers, as what such people had been able to accomplish, others with moderate talents could also do.

The magazine also endeavored to keep blind people abreast of the development of special appliances for the blind which may be useful in everyday life. Because of the ephemeral nature of the publication the management always felt that it could experiment with various ways of presenting embossed type, such as interpointing, interlining, etc., and even sometimes with modifications of the braille code. If the experiments proved unpopular or unsuccessful, little harm was done, because the magazine would be thrown away, and, after a month or two, forgotten. It would not be turning up time and again in the libraries to plague future readers, as would be the case with volumes of standard literature.

Perhaps the most interesting and influential department in the Ziegler magazine is the editorial column which Mr. Holmes in his tenure called the "Publisher's Chat." This column consists of a page or two of homely comment by the editor which is read systematically by thousands of blind people who perhaps seldom read the rest of the magazine.

Mrs. Ziegler was true to her word and met all the expenses of operating the Ziegler magazine throughout the balance of her life. When she died she set up a foundation of upwards of three-quarters of a million dollars, the income from which is used to meet the cost of running the Ziegler magazine, though the terms of the charter would permit the use of the income for almost any purpose beneficial to the blind.

Mr. Holmes, who started out on a modest salary on a half-time arrangement, refused to accept very much of an increase in this salary for the rest of his life. Throughout his editorship of the magazine, which continued until his death on February 7, 1946, Mr. Holmes was deemed the most beloved worker for the blind in America. He understood the common man and woman without sight and always had time to stop and discuss personal problems with any blind person who called at the office. He was patient and genial with everyone and sincerely interested in everything that bade fair to further the welfare of sightless people.

The Ziegler also started supplying special watches for the blind at wholesale prices or less, and for many years it has supplied typewriters and alarm clocks marked for touch reading and other especially useful items at substantial discounts under the retail price, and has given many hundreds of radios to blind people who could not afford to buy them.