Vandiver Brown to S. A. Williams on New Jersey's Silicosis Commission (1933)

A two-page memo of February 20, 1933, from Vandiver Brown of Johns-Manville's Legal Department to S. A. Williams, a J-M vice president, with a copy to E. M. Voorhees. The New Jersey Legislature had adopted a resolution creating a commission to study silicosis and pneumoconiosis and prepare a bill for the session of January 1934. Brown recalled that a year earlier, when J-M discussed its position on a bill to make pneumoconiosis compensable, "the chief argument advanced against our supporting such legislation was that we desired a little more time in which to set our house in order."

What it shows

Brown wrote that "we are now assured of an additional year within which to do whatever may be necessary," which he recalled was the time "specified as adequate by those most familiar with the situation at Manville," J-M's large New Jersey plant. The memo shows that J-M had declined to support a 1932 bill to bring lung dust disease under workers' compensation, and that the delay was tied to conditions at Manville. It does not say what setting the house in order involved; S. A. Williams's memo of May 1933 describes J-M's spending on dust collection at Manville and other plants.

In Johns-Manville's chronology

Johns-Manville's own chronology of what the company knew describes this document as follows:

Vandiver Brown to S.A. Williams, 2/20/33, cc: E.M. Voorhees "it will be recalled that about a year ago when we discussed the position Johns-Manville Corporation would take in regard to the bill then pending in the Legislature that would have made pneumoconiosis a compensable disease, the chief argument advanced against our supporting such legislation was that we desired a little more time in which to set our house in order." (Reference is to Manville plant.)