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Notable New     Yorkers
Select     Notable New Yorker

Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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of the Philadelphia type. They were in some very new buildings built by some very progressive people. I know the Hoe Printing Press Company had one when it was on Grand Street or one of the streets on the lower East Side just before it ran into the river.

The fire insurance companies don't insure life. They insure property. I may say that I gained at that time the greatest respect for the intelligence and, on the whole, reasonable good will of the fire insurance companies. They gave us the most valuable people free, gratis, for nothing, to serve with us as inspectors, as guides, and as teachers. Many of the fire insurance companies appeared at legislative hearings, or before the Committee on Safety, or before the commission, recommending and assenting to these measures that were for the protection of life, even though they were not for the protection of property. They would point out that the existence of a fire wall and a fire-proof door would automatically reduce the fire insurance rates against the loss of property because it would prevent the spread of fire, and that any fire-proof window would also reduce the insurance rates because it prevented the spread of fire from one floor to the other of a building.

The occupancy device had nothing to do with the fire insurance rates. They would point out that there was a





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