LABOR: Truce at a Crisis

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Triangle Shirtwaist factory fire which burned 146 trapped girls to a crisp. That spectacle sent her to Albany to work for better factory laws. There she met "Frank" Roosevelt, "Bob" Wagner, "Al" Smith. They were friends of her reforms. Governor Smith gave her her first job in the State Labor Department. Governor Roosevelt made her the Labor member of his State Cabinet, took her to Washington March 4 as the ''best qualified woman in public life today."

Madam Secretary Perkins' ideology is simple: more pay, more comfort, more security, more peace of mind for the ordinary worker. What is a fair wage? Enough to permit a worker to call a doctor when his baby is sick without going on half rations for a month after. Unemployment insurance? "Many corporations dipped into their surpluses and reserves during the last few years to meet their dividend payments. Would it not be equally wise and just to make some of these reserves available for meeting payments in lieu of wages for employes who must be laid off from time to time?" Consuming power? "If we see the wage which goes to the investor is less because the wage which goes to the worker has got to be greater I think you'll hear all over this country 'aye' from people who will be glad to make the sacrifice." Madam Secretary Perkins sums up her philosophy thus: "It's time to treat ourselves to some civilization."

Miss Perkins tries to keep her private life strictly private. In 1913 she married Paul C. Wilson, then secretary to New York's Mayor Mitchel, now a statistician and efficiency engineer. No Lucy Stoner, she kept her maiden name in public so as not to interfere with her husband's activities. Her mother always introduces her socially as Mrs. Wilson. She has a 16-year-old daughter, Susanna Winslow Perkins Wilson. At NRA hearings Daughter Susanna was flustered by being constantly addressed as Miss Perkins. In Manhattan the Wilsons live on the fourth floor of the old fashioned red-brick apartment house at No. 1239 Madison Avenue (89th Street), keep their telephone number there secret. In Washington, Madam Secretary Perkins first lived with Mrs. Charles Gary Rumsey at No. 3304 O Street. When the Press discovered her residence she moved. Now it is reported that she makes her home at "Uplands." the Georgetown estate of Mrs. J. Borden (''Daisy") Harriman. She dabbles in water colors, likes modern art, despises the radio. Says she: "We New Englanders like to keep ourselves to ourselves."