The Waterbury Democrat., 1938-03-26

SSSAAe14eA0SV officer.
 When she took command of the Labor Department in 1883, 1t was one of the most malodorous messes in Washington. Labor distrusted it, employers were contemptuous, immigrants lived in terror of it's raiding squads, and experts made ribald jests abut its juggled sta- tistics. Today the Department IS one of the most efficiently man. aged branches of the government.
 Through the appointment of such able assistants as Dr. 1sa- dor Lubin, Commissioner of La bor Statistics; the late Daniel W. MacCormack, Commissioner of Immigration; W. Frank Parsons, Director of the U. S. Employment Service; and Miss Katharine Lem root, chief of the Children's Bu- reau, Miss Perkins has completely revitalized the Labor Department.
 Its statistics are among the most valued in the government. Red- batting and terrorizing of imni- grants have been replaced with a humane handling of these prob- lems and the other functional &C., tivities of the Department are per- formed in an orderly and com- petent manner.
 AS housekeeper Miss Perkins has made 8 real success of her job. Administratively, the Labor Department is one of the bright est spots of the New Deal. BUT, IN STRIKING CONTRAST TO THIS RECORD, MISS PER- KINS' OPERATIONS IN THE FIELD OF POLICY HAVE BEEN AS SOUR AS HERBERT HOOV- FRS SMILE.
 Genius at Bulls
 Her chief handicap is a genius for mishandling, offending and antagonizing almost every group which she comes in contact.
 It is no exaggeration to say
 that no other Administration
 leader is as intensely disliked as Madame Secretary. Not even
 "Uncle Dan" Roper, mealy- mouthed and incompetent as he is, equals her unpopularity. Though people laugh at Roper, no one gets steamed up about him. But with Miss Perkins .. their explosives don't bear repe- titi0n!
 On Capitol Hill resentment against her is so super charged that several times important legis- lation has been jeopardize6 be- cause she had an interest in it. Union leaders and the press corps are no less hostile, while the few employers she has attempted to deal with take few pains to hide their antipathy.
 Most remarkable of all is that this was so completely unneces- sary.
 No member of the Roosevelt Cabinet was received in Washing ton with more freindliness and enthusiasm. A few disgrrmtled labor hacks, who had their own eyes on the post, muttered in their jowls, but no one paid any attention. The Capital was defin- itely cordial-particularly the group of newspapermen and wo- men who specialize in labor news. They had been Miss Perkins strongest boosters and had played some part in putting her in the Cabinet.
 Six months after she took of- flee it was difficult to find any, one who wasn't against her Brilliant Arrogance
 In that short time she had suc- ceeded in affronting Congress, the press, many of her New Deal colleagues, and the liberal labor leaders who had supported her appointment. She accomplished this extraordinary shut-out by one of the most brilliant displays of arrogance and stupidity on record.
 Her genius for getting in bad
 surpassed even the ill-fated Herbert Hoover's. It took sev- eral years to arouse a storm of fury. Miss Perkins did it in half 8 year.
 How she did it should be an ob- ject lesson to every budding statesman. Here are some of the lessons:
 Shortly after Miss Perkins took office, Senator Pat Harrison of Mississippi made an appointment to see her, arrived on time, and was kept cooling his heels for twenty minutes. Finally he stalked over to a clerk and asked that Miss Perkins be notified he was waiting. Returning a minute la- ter, the clerk partly announced:
 Miss Perkins is very busy and can't see you today. Won't you come back some other time"
 Pat is merely the chairman