A REMARKABLE WOMAN

Southland Times, Issue 23228, 17 June 1937, Page 15

A REMARKABLE WOMAN

“First Lady” in American

Politics

Frances E. Perkins is a name not unknown to New Zealanders. It has often appeared in the news, and has more recently come to the front in connection with the sit-down strikes in the dispute between the American Federation of Labour and the Committee for Industrial Organization. Frances Perkins is a remarkable woman. As the United States Secretary of Labour and the first woman member of a President’s Cabinet, she has worked steadily for mutuality and co-operation in industry. Miss Perkins was not appointed by President Roosevelt because, nibbling his pen, he said to himself, “Now, I must put a woman into my. Cabinet; who shall it be?” She was named because she was an outstanding person for the job, and she got it on her record and not because of a particularly insistent demand for a woman, but rather in spite of her sex. Her record has given her a balanced point of view, a perception of problems and an ability to deal with them on the broader aspects of what is best for all people. She has won her spurs on an impersonal basis, and she intends to maintain that impersonality. GLIMPSES OF HOME LIFE Few people think of the side of Frances Perkins which can make apple pie, and indeed little seems to be known of her home life. She married Paul Wilson when he was secretary to Mayor Mitchell, of New York City, and when she was a lobbyist for labour legislation in Albany. Because her position might involve possible embarrassments to Mr Wilson’s career, she retained her own name. Their home is in New York City, and they have a daughter, Suzanne. But little beyond this is heard of her home life, and perhaps this is because Frances Perkins will not —she determinedly, absolutely will not —be exploited as a woman. She conducts herself very much as a man would do in similar circumstances. RESPONSIBILITIES, NOT PRIVILEGES Miss Perkins is not interested in the privileges of women, but in their responsibilities. For instance, she thinks that college graduates ought not to undercut other women in industry and commerce, and that when they do so they are making a poor return for what has been given to them. She is quick to give gratitude to the generosity of older women who guided her, and to the men who have enabled her

to try out her ideas. She says she has not come to her present position entirely through her own efforts, but because many others have helped her. She is sure “if people will only look at things realistically and sit down at a conference table there would be amazing unanimity even between employers and labour.” SENSE OF HUMOUR Marjorie Shuler, in The Christian Science Monitor, writes, “I saw her sense of humour called into play a number of times and watched her counter insistent demands with sallies which set everybody rocking with laughter, at the end of which it was evident that the programme to be adopted was pretty much the programme which the secretary deemed wisest.

“And I discovered,” the same writer says, “that what seemed a pretty strenuous day was a mere idling of time for this woman who toured Pennysylvania steel mills under a hot sun, addressed a mass meeting, and when she found that anti-company workers had been denied admission and that her proposal to talk with them in the park was refused by the city authorities, gathered up the whole group and led them to the United States post office for a hearing of their grievances. Then the secretary’s party got on the midnight train for the steel mills at Sparrows Point. The man who told the story said that with some difficulty he climbed out of his berth the next morning to be admonished by the porter that he had better hurry up, Secretary Perkins already was eating her breakfast at the station lunch counter.”

Miss Perkins looks at the United States Department of Labour not as an ornament, but as a service with a responsibility to all. Her philosophy might be summed up in these, her own words:—“There must be mutuality and co-operation between Government and common behaviour if the American people are to enter into the rewards of the destiny which flows to a free people. It is the people who are the nation. The common people in every country are the basis of its civilization. The individual worker is helpless to look out for himself. Without guarantees by government the real genius of the working people will be wasted. With guarantees They can bring their contribution into the general culture and mode of living and then, civilization will go forward to boundless attainments.”