Thomas L. Gatke to Sumner Simpson on Sharing the Saranac Cost by Number of Employees (1937)

A one-page letter of February 1, 1937, from Thomas L. Gatke, president of the Gatke Corporation of Chicago, to Sumner Simpson, president of Raybestos-Manhattan. Gatke wrote that he had not meant to say he was "unwilling to go along on the dust proposition," but that each company's interest "might justly be based on the number of employees the different companies have." He did not expect his interest to equal that of Raybestos, Johns-Manville, Keasbey & Mattison "or even Thermoid," and since the agreement simply divided the cost equally, he wanted a better understanding before committing.

What it shows

Gatke's objection was to how the cost of Dr. Leroy Gardner's experiments was split, not to the experiments themselves. Within days Raybestos-Manhattan offered him the same $250 limit other small companies had taken (Judd to Gatke), and he signed on February 5 (Gatke to Judd).

In Johns-Manville's index

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

Informs that it was not his intention to indicate unwillingness to go along with proposed dust study. Believes costs of study should be pro-rated on basis of number of employees not the number of corporations participating. Requests feedback on this idea.

Related documents

• Sumner Simpson to Thomas L. Gatke Regretting Gatke's Refusal to Join the Saranac Study (1937)
• Thomas L. Gatke to M. F. Judd Refusing to Sign the Saranac Agreement (1937)
• M. F. Judd to Thomas L. Gatke Offering the $250 Share of the Saranac Study (1937)
• Thomas L. Gatke to M. F. Judd Asking That Gardner Report to Every Sponsor (1937)

About this copy

This is document 03186 of the Sumner Simpson Papers, as numbered in the collection's index.