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Frances PerkinsFrances Perkins
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people who were on the side of the angels. They wanted the right things done.

The Solvay process, of course, is a very extraordinary process of reducing from crude materials sodium bicarbonate and then a great variety of other chemicals based on that. The Solvay process was purchased by the Hazards from a Belgium company a great many years earlier. It's a process of doing something that previously had been very hard to do and now became with sufficient capital investment, easier. They had a great many other chemicals that emanated from that too. The line has gone on and on. I don't know how big it is now.

There are certain parts of the process that are hazardous, explosive and so forth. From them we always had the greatest cooperation. We never had, I think, in the years I was there, but one bad explosion at Solvay. It was one of the things in which you said to yourself, “This really is the way that people ought to behave.” They were quicker than we were on the investigation, more apprehensive, looking into more possibilities, either of carelessness on the part of an individual or carelessness on the part of the rules and regulations of the company with regard to how things should be done. They were extremely good. I think there were only two men killed in the explosion, but it was a mighty explosion. That was largely due to the fact that





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