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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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compensation to every tuberculosis case. The industry couldn't possibly stand that. That was the great plea of the Associated Industries and all the great manufacturers, and others - it would absolutely sink the manufacturers. Every tuberculosis case would be claimed as a silicosis case. They would have to pay for it. Nobody desired to have that done, but where there was a real silica exposure and a real precipitation of silica dust in the lungs, whether there was a pre-existing, but not discovered and non-disabling tuberculosis, that ought not to matter, something had to be done. There were a number of cases where no tuberculosis could be found, even though there was silicosis.

Silicosis was not covered in our law and it was a very serious problem, because we began to have more and more cases, who would claim, believing that they were right, that the dust had made them sick. The chief literature on the subject was South African. I think we either brought a man over from South Africa, or else he was in England and we got him to come over here. I think that was it. He was the greatest living authority on silicosis, as they had had it in the diamond mines almost from the beginning. There they used native Kafirs labor. The thing that had called it to their attention originally was that these boys from the jungle came in all healthy and perfectly all right. Nobody gave them a





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