Labor Reforms

Re “Sweatshop Fire Led to Changes in the Workplace,” Sept. 28: The true credit for initiating the labor and social reforms after the Triangle Shirtwaist Co. fire of 1911 should go to New York Gov. Alfred E. Smith. Smith was the son of Irish immigrants who rose from meager beginnings to become the first Irish Catholic governor in the U.S. As a child growing up on Manhattan’s lower East Side, he knew all too well the horrors suffered by the labor force at that time. Although FDR continued these reforms at both the state and federal level, it was Smith who built the model for the modern-day workplace.

JACK COLLINS

Sherman Oaks