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Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 731

He was an upstate small manufacturer of plows.

I had criticized in great detail the whole workings of the Industrial Commission. Into my mouth had been put all the criticism that any political scientist, or any labor people, or any reformers had, as well as my own observations as to what the end results of their administration had been. I had been the spokesman. Some of the things I spoke of were my own knowledge. Others I heard, and spoke of, as the report of those I knew to be truthful and accurate observers. I had been the bitter critic.

Even after the Factory Investigation report was in, after the laws had been passed, after there had been laws passed that prohibited the locking of any doors and required the Industrial Commission to enforce it there had been a factory - the Diamond Candy Factory in Brooklyn - which had had a bad fire with a loss of six or seven people. It was a small factory, but in that case there was a locked door. There had been also a great many other violations of the law. I had said in testimony and publicly - a publicity statement - that the members of the Industrial Commission had knowledge and that they should regard themselves as having had guilty knowledge; that they had not taken any steps toward instructing the factory inspectors and the Factory





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