E. H. Jeffords to Sumner Simpson on Cutting Statements from the Public Health Service Dust Study (1937)

A four-page letter of May 26, 1937, marked "Personal and Confidential" and sent by registered mail, from E. H. Jeffords, general manager of Raybestos-Manhattan's General Asbestos & Rubber Division at North Charleston, South Carolina, to Sumner Simpson, the company's president, with a copy to Julian Mitchell, the company's Charleston attorney. Jeffords sent Dr. R. R. Sayers's letter of May 20 and the U.S. Public Health Service's report on the plant, "A Study of Dust Control Methods in an Asbestos Fabricating Plant," and noted that the officials had examined the plant "but did not take any X-ray pictures of our employees." He called it "a very worthwhile examination" but wrote, "I do not think it would be well to publish this report in its present form," and listed the statements he wanted deleted first.

What it shows

Jeffords's first objection was to the report's account of shutting off the exhaust fans for an hour, when dust concentrations rose steadily to about 50 million particles per cubic foot. He wrote that "it would be very bad to publish this report" with those statements, "for most of the individuals, who have brought suits against this Company, were working at this plant prior to the time we had succeeded in bringing our dust elimination system up to its present state of efficiency," and he asked that they "be eliminated from this report, if same is to be published." In the same passage he told Simpson that "nothing was known of the asbestos dust hazard, in this country, prior to 1929."

He also wanted cut the report's remark that stock rollers wearing respirators climbed into the bins to "tread-down" the stock, which he blamed on the habits of "our colored labor." He explained that the twisting machines were still unexhausted, as agreed with Mr. Fehnel of Metropolitan Life, because no one knew a way to exhaust them, and he read the report's conclusion as saying it was not yet settled what exposure "would cause trouble." The letter shows the plant's manager weighing a government study against the company's pending lawsuits before the company answered Sayers's request (Sayers to Jeffords, May 20, 1937). Jeffords began by recalling Simpson's letters of the fall of 1936 that allowed the survey (October 31 and November 5, 1936).

In Johns-Manville's index

Johns-Manville's attorneys indexed the Sumner Simpson Papers. Their index describes this document as follows:

Transmittal of letter from Sayer dated 5/20/37 and USPHS report "A Study of Dust Control Methods in an Asbestos Fabricating Plant." Jeffords outlines various portions of the report he feels should be changed or deleted before permission to publish the report is granted.

Related documents

• Dr. R. R. Sayers of the Public Health Service to E. H. Jeffords on Publishing the North Charleston Dust Study (1937)
• Sumner Simpson to E. H. Jeffords on X-Rays and Fear of Suits (1936)
• Sumner Simpson to E. H. Jeffords Allowing Public Health Service X-Rays of Workers (1936)
• Dr. A. J. Lanza to Julian Mitchell on the Public Health Service Survey of the Charleston Plant (1936)

About this copy

This is document 03317-03350 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.