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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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Part:         Session:         Page of 731

had been a terrific mismanagement in some of the offices. It was just terrible. It wasn't graft or corruption either. It was just non-feasance. It was not malfeasance; it was non-feasance. It was anything to get rid of the work - all those reports, just dump them. A lot of this came out in the investigation.

We had a general shake-up. We turned everything inside out in every one of the district offices. We had new people and new programs. We established the practice not only of these factory inspectors meeting regularly - once a quarter anyhow, but we established the practice of conferences of the referees in workmen's compensation. We found that there was the greatest difference in the way the Workmen's Compensation Law was applied and interpreted. Different referees would do different things. Each one was a law to himself. There was never any central program or central pattern. He went out and heard a case and decided it just as he chose or as he happened to think about it at the time. That was terrible.

Also there was stimulation to a man who wanted to do a good job and who wanted to make liberal and expanding decisions under workmen's compensation. There was no encouragement for him to do it because he was never told





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