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Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 731

The state was divided into districts and the city was divided into districts. Some of the big cities had several districts in them. They had not rotated the factory inspectors, which was a very bad scheme. If there are to be any shenanigans, they take place when the same factory inspector comes around over and over again. In the course of the Factory Investigating Commission's work, I had learned that in some districts they always knew when the factory inspector was coming and had everything all fixed so that there were no violations - certainly no violations of children's labor or children working on machinery. Everything was in good order when the factory inspector came.

So one of the first proposals I made was the rotation and moving around of the factory inspectors' districts without notice, which was a very good scheme. That at once turned up some very surprising things. In this Louis Havens was a great help. It had been one of the things that he had agitated for for years. He knew that it was the right way to do it. They turned up some very strange and very peculiar things. There would be a building where the card showed





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