Report of the Factory Investigating Commission Volume 2-3 (Paperback)

This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1913 edition. Excerpt: ...I would have to submit that to lawyers. I think it would not be. I doubt whether you could use the police power of the State to that extent. I think you would have to exempt all buildings. In answering the question of Mr. Smith a little more fully, I would say this: That you would do very little to relieve the people by this bill as far as overcrowding is concerned. As far as any tenement house is concerned, they take lodgers in and they crowd up the rooms, and we cannot enforce the existing law as to overcrowding. People are living three or four or five in a room, instead of four hundred cubic feet, even two or three hundred. Commissioner Williams can use about two hundred more inspectors and then he will have hard work to enforce the law. He can more readily enforce the law than the Tenement House Commissioner can, however, for this reason: That you hold the manufacturer-responsible, you can prosecute him more readily, and he can put the cost upon the consumer, which he will do, and I must differ somewhat from your counsel in stating that this will put an additional burden upon the consumer and increase the cost of living. ' Miss FRANCES PERKINS here resumed the stand. Commissioner PHILLIPS: Miss Perkins, has there been any improvement in factory conditions here as regards fire, since that Miss PERKINS: I think any improvement in conditions in regard to fire safety has been-inconsiderable. Commissioner PIIILLIPS: What are conditions now with rogard to fire safety in factories? Miss PERKINS: We have found in our inspections lately, conditions exactly duplicating the conditions which were present in the Triangle fire, and which, according to the first report of this Commission, were the main causes of death. In a recent inspection of a...