American Woman Cabinet Minister Considers Women Workers

Southland Times, Issue 23586, 13 August 1938, Page 16

American Woman Cabinet Minister Considers Women Workers

LONDON, July 15. The Hon. Frances Perkins, United States Secretary of Labour, is the first woman to hold a Cabinet office in America, and she has spent the past 27 years working for the improvement of conditions for the working classes. She is visiting London now. Talking to her one gains the impression that she conceals dynamic force behind a somewhat mild exterior. She is short, and quietly dressed but she flashes a keen eye while she expounds a point. “Women in America,” she said, “enjoy taking an active part in public life.” She was annoyed when I suggested that as a woman she might find herself at a natural disadvantage in her capacity as a Cabinet Minister. “I’ve always been a woman,” she retorted, “and I can’t tell you whether I should find things easier if I were a man. But Ido know this women should learn to lose their self-con-sciousness in professions. I consider that we are as fitted for most work as men. Nowadays, if we have a job of work to do we do it.

“Have you never noticed how many

women continue the work on farms when their husbands die? In the war it was the same. Women were doing the most heroic tasks. There is no reason why we should not be fitted to occupy any post involving brain work.”

Miss Perkins is in London to meet labour leaders and Mr Ernest Brown, the Minister of Labour. There is one problem that is occupying a great deal of her time at the moment, and that is the method of settling labour disputes without strikes or lockouts. “In England,” she said, “you settle these disputes by law, habit or custom. When you have strikes they are long ones because they are well-organized, but at the same time they are rare. In the United States they are going on the whole time. We just can’t settle ours, and we want to know how you do it.” Miss Perkins Is also interested _in housing problems and she is visiting London County Council housing estates in order to gather some ideas for the solution of the slum clearance problem in America. “We have had plans ready for some time,” she said, “but somehow we just cannot get them under way in sufficient volume to stimulate industry. I consider that the new housing system in England was primarily responsible for your industrial recovery.”