George S. Fabel and John L. Spivak, Letters in the Philadelphia Record on the Southern Asbestos Company (1935)

Pages from the Philadelphia Record of September 2, 1935, carrying an exchange of letters between George S. Fabel, president of the Southern Asbestos Company of Charlotte, North Carolina, and the reporter John L. Spivak, whose article on conditions in Charlotte's asbestos mills Fabel called "misleading propaganda." Fabel denied a "stretch-out" of mill work, said every worker was given a respirator free of charge, and wrote that workers "will not contract asbestosis from lint." Spivak replied with a quoted inspection finding that workers in the operations before asbestos spinning and weaving were "subjected to extremely large quantities of dust," and wrote that making a worker sign to use a respirator served "only for the legal defense of the employer."

What it shows

Fabel dismissed the testimony of a Black worker quoted by Spivak in openly racist terms, and blamed "walking delegates" like Spivak for "instilling unfounded fear" in workers' minds. Spivak answered that the agitator was "the mill owner who forces his workers to labor under conditions which are a shame to this country," and asked how many compensation actions had been brought against the company. The exchange shows that by 1935 the dust hazard in Southern asbestos textile mills was a matter of public argument in a big-city newspaper. The rest of the seven pages is unrelated advertising and features.