Workplace Safety Quotes

There really is a close competition between the canned good industry of this state and that of other states, and that while the canners of other states are operating under general exemptions from the labor law provisions, it will produce a harsh, if not destructive, competition to compel the New York canner to attempt to operate under strict regulation as to the hours of employment.

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“Conditions in Canneries”, Memorandum of the New York State Canners’ Association. By John. F. Connor, attorney for the canners’ association. Only date available: 1913.
401201/01/1913 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

Excited persons rarely accomplish anything…No new laws are needed.

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The New York Times tended to be very pro-business during this period. After the fire, but before the launch of the Factory Investigating Commission. Only date available: 1911.
398101/01/1913 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

But the majority of [buildings] you go in are unkept; they are dirty; they are unclean; their stock is strewed all over the floor. Where they use machinery there are no passageways whatsoever….In a great many cases there is only about one door on that loft you can get in. Goods are piled up in front of the windows, in front of the doors, and you have got to use a battering ram to get into any of them.

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Retired New York City Fire Chief Edward F. Croker. 1913
415001/01/1913 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

If in the candy business, people engaged in this line in other states who come to New York for their product are unable to receive it, they will take their trade away from the State of New York and give it to other states where this work can be produced in greater volume possibly at a reduced price.

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Alfred J. Talley of the Confectioners Association for the State of New York. Only date available: 1913.
401001/01/1913 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

[On why they don’t have medical inspections of their workers] In every case where the men have claimed to have been infected or affected by the lead they were intemperate men…[Meaning:] A man that drank a good deal of beer. …the other men who worked longer at it, who don’t drink, are not affected by it.

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Clarence F. Shipman, foreman at the Splitdorf Magneto Company (lead).
402103/01/1912 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

The only tendency toward illness comes to men who are intemperate in their habits. In every case of poisoning I have heard of, the man was an exceedingly hard drinker….Where the men are temperate in their habits I never found a case…

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Arthur S. Summers, a manufacturer of dry colors.
402003/01/1912 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

They are not over-intelligent…They formed habits of living that they carried with them to their work, and that made it very difficult indeed to correct them.

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Arthur S. Summers, a manufacturer of dry colors.
401903/01/1912 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

You are putting a lot of people out of business and perhaps raising the price of bread….things are getting a little bit better [without “drastic” reforms], slowly, and I am not certain whether or not that would not be a pretty drastic remedy, not against the worst ones, but against the best of that class.

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P. Tecumseh Sherman. Attorney, and previously held the position of Commissioner of the Labor Department of New York. Only date available: 1912.
399301/01/1912 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

This night work has been rendered necessary largely because of the Government’s perfectly unreasonable attitude towards large corporations, which has made it impossible for managers of large concerns to know whether….they could expand their plans to keep up with increasing demands or not.

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George W. Perkins, director of the Harvester Company.
399908/22/1911 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

We have laws that in a crisis we find are no laws and we have enforcement that when the hour of trial comes we find is no enforcement.

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Rabbi Stephen Wise, 1911
415204/01/1911 | Full Details | Law(s): Triangle Factory Laws

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