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THE LIVING CHURCH • May 4, 2014
FrancesPerkins
The Saint Behind the New Deal
By Charles Hoffacker
A
dam Cohen, who teaches atYale Law School, recentlysang the praises of FrancesPerkins: “If American history text-books accurately reflected the past,Frances Perkins would be recog-nized as one of the nation’s greatestheroes— as iconic as BenjaminFranklin or Thomas Paine.”Perkins is often remembered asthe first woman to be a United Statescabinet secretary.She remains thelongest-serving Secretary of Labor (1933-45). More significantly, how-ever, she helped establishseveral public policies beneficial to hun-dreds of millions of people. The titleof Kirstin Downey’s 2009 biographysums up hermajor contributions toour national life:
The Woman Behindthe New Deal: The Life and Legacyof Frances Perkins—Social Secu- rity, Unemployment Insurance,and the Minimum Wage
.In theseways and others she endeavored, inFranklin Delano Roosevelt’s phrase,“to make a country in which no oneis left out.” As part of a major expansion of itscalendar of saints, the EpiscopalChurch now celebrates the feast of Frances Perkins, Public Servant andProphetic Witness, on May 13.A bi-ographical note about Perkins ap- pears with the proper for this feast in
Holy Women, Holy Men: Celebrat-ing the Saints
(Church Publishing,2010).This brief note mentions thatPerkins depended on “her faith, her life of prayer, and the guidance of her church for the support sheneeded to assist the United Statesand its leadership to face the enor-mous problems” then challengingthe country. While Secretary of La-bor, Perkins made a monthly retreatat an Episcopal convent.How did Perkins understandtheconnection between Christianity and public life?What theology, spiritual-ity, and political and economic viewslay behind her assertion that “I cameto Washington to work for God,FDR, and the millions of forgotten, plain, common working men”?In addition to the Downey biogra- phy, there is another substantialstudy of her life:George Martin’s
Madame Secretary: Frances Perkins
, published in 1976.Both aread-mirable works, but neither examinesherreligious foundation at any length.Michelle L. Kew’s paper, “FrancesPerkins: Private Faith, Public Pol-icy,”available throughthe FrancesPerkins Center (PDF at is.gd/Ozk5IW), provides a basic surveyof its sub- ject.DonnMitchell’s insightful essay,“Frances Perkins and the SpiritualFoundation of the New Deal,”ap- pears in
A Promise to All Genera-tions: Stories and Essays about So-cial Security and Frances Perkins
(2011). He sees Perkins as “steeped inthe socialist thought of British Anglo-Catholicism.This viewpoint com -binedAnglicanism’s traditionally af-
An early portrait of Frances Perkins.
Photo courtesy of the Frances Perkins Center
COMMON LIFE
May 4, 2014 • THE LIVING CHURCH
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firmative view of the state as the in-strument through which the commu-nity expresses its shared values withan emphasis on the compassionate el-ements of Catholic tradition.”Mitchell made available to methree unpublished lectures thatPerkins gavein 1948 at St. ThomasChurch Fifth Avenue, New York.Inthese wide-ranging St. Bede Lec-tures, under the collective title “TheChristian in the World,”Perkins ad-dresses at greatest length connec-tions between economics and poli-tics on one hand and theology andspirituality on the other.
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erkins points to how economicchange contributed to the startof Christian social action of a partic-ular sort in the early 20thcentury.Wealth in the United States had ac-cumulated to a point beyond whatwas required for family legacies andinvestment capital.Some peoplewho had suddenly accumulated suchwealth started to consider their moral obligation to others and to ad-dress community needs on a greater scale than the country had seen be-fore. At the same time, protest againstunjust conditions took the form of law.Measures were passed againstactual forms of exploitation in suchareas as housing and labor. Varioustypes of social insurance were estab-lishedto protect individuals againstsevere adversities.These develop-ments resulted not only from anawakened public conscience butfrom an extension of knowledgeabout how society can be organized.The earliest of these efforts wereseen to have an explicit religious ori-gin, but soon they became charac-teristic of society as a whole.For Perkins, however, the theological ba-sis remainedobvious.Because of God’s love for humanity, humanityhas infinite worth.Citing Thomas Aquinas, Perkinsasserts the right to own property butalso the obligation to use propertyin ways that promote the commongood, ways included in the move-ment of humanity toward God.Un-less people contribute to the build-ing of a just social order, they do notfulfill their true nature as human be-ings; they miss out on their own progress toward God to which theyare entitled. As an example, Perkins recountshow the Diamond Match Companygave up its patent to non-phosphorusmatches early in the 20thcentury.Manufacturing phosphorus matchesexacted a horrible toll from factoryworkers.Diamond developed a non- phosphorus match, then gave up its patent so that other firms would nolonger make the dangerous phos- phorus matches.Perkins says thatshe was present when the patentwas relinquished and that the moti- vation for doing so was a Christianconcern for the social order.Perkins even claimsthat “Chris-tians must regard entrance into poli-tics and political activity as a major basic Christian duty, and they mustenter it as Christians.” She states her belief, now enshrined in the collectfor her feast day,“that the special vo-cation of the laity is to conduct thesecular affairs of society that all maybe maintained in health and de-cency.”Before becoming a federal official,Frances Perkins had engaged in set-tlement house work, safety inspec-tions, and other local activities on be -halfof the community.She had servedin the administrations of New Yorkgovernors Al Smith and Franklin De-lano Roosevelt.In the St. Bede Lec-tures, she advocates that those whowish to promote the common goodbegin at the local level as well.Au-thority grows from engaging a small project close to home.Christians canexercise their moral judgment thereand thus develop a true authoritythat enablesthem to address prob-lems at the state, national, or inter-national levels later on.For Perkins, politics and econom-ics are part of moral theology.Poli-tics addresses the ordering of societyand economics the way people maketheir living.She repeatedly assertsthat God’s laws must take prece-dence over human law, that whatmatters is not strict adherence to hu-man interpretations of civil law butthe moral welfare and moral im- provement of actual people.Similarly, Perkins refuses to takeeconomic theory and predictions asarticles of faith.While she made ex-tensive use of actuarial science asSecretary of Labor, she asserts in theSt. Bede Lectures that economics isnot a science or even an establishedfield of knowledge: “There are wholeareas where nobody has writtendown any figures.”Would she say the same today?Perhaps not, but she would probablyavoid embracing any particular eco-nomic ideology.Perkins did not fa- vor as such a collective, cooperative,or capitalistic system of operatingthe economy.Her test for any suchsystem was not whether it repre-sents a particular ideology butwhether it provides people with thegoods they need and contributes tothe development of people “to know,love, and serve God.”
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erkins advocated several basicattitudes important for all of life,and especially participation in publiclife.She said that people, while still young, need to be “reconciled tothemselves.” One has to accept one’s particular nature, characteristics, problems, and temptations.If peo- ple do this, they can forget aboutthemselves and engage in activity di-rected to the whole of society andthose things thatassist us all on our way to God.While she made no per-sonal reference here, she appears tohave been speaking out of her ownexperience. As a public official for many years,Perkins sometimes found herself en-gaged in political conflict.She rec-ognized that Christians could reachdifferent conclusions about practi-cal politics and vote for different par-
For Perkins, politics and economics are part of moral theology.
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THE LIVING CHURCH • May 4, 2014
ties.Each of us comes to differentconclusions, she claimed, because wehave different life experiences, dif-ferent spiritual experiences.Some-one who had witnessed poverty upclose at an early age, as shehad, waslikely to take a different approach toit as a political matter than someonewho had not.Bitter partisanship often resultsfrom the failure to analyze an issueand to do so in a cooperative manner informed by Christian faith.Analy-sis of this sort does notguaranteethat everyone will embrace the samesolutions, but it helps to destroy cyn-icism and elevate the tone of politi-cal discourse.Still another basic attitude advo-cated by Perkins was thankfulness.She did not endorse “you only getwhat you pay for”as true in any as- pectof life.To someone who advo-cated that understandingshe re-sponded: “I get so much more than Iever pay for, not only out of the gov-ernment, not only from the govern-ment in its general protection of mylife and interests, but out of the peo- ple I do business with, the peoplefrom whom I buy, or who serve me inone way or another.Always, it seemsto me, I am getting a little extra.”The St. Bede Lectures include a concrete proposal by Perkins thatChristians associate together inguilds according to their occupa-tions in order to practice and im- prove their Christian life withinthose occupations.Whether peopletalk effectively, responsibly, andmorally in other ways, they tend todo so about their jobs and they do sowith their coworkers.When people“talk shop,”they usually throw them-selves into it and develop a moraland social response.These occupa-tional guilds woulddevelop ethicalcodes for themselves. Is anyone inour time promoting such a grass-roots approach to ethics?Is this anarea in whichChristians can stillminister in the world according totheir particular occupations?If laypeopleare to discharge their function in society, then they musthave a developed spiritual life andan authentic education, insistedPerkins.But we do not developenough people who can be trusted,and from that flows all manner of miseries.We need a teaching churchand a teaching clergy, but muchmore as well.The arts are an impor-tant channel for the knowledge of God.We must practice an awarenessof God’s presence.We must seek har-mony with God’s will.Perkins spoke of the need to be-come like children in a way conso-nant with what Jesus says about this:“We have to take ourselves as a youngand inexperienced person, young cer-tainly in the spiritual laws and in thespiritual nature of our relationship toGod.We don’t know; we are inexpe-rienced; we have to find out.”
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n line with classical Christian spir-ituality, Perkins understood the purpose of humanity as union withGod.And she brought out a socialaspect of this union thattoo oftenremains unacknowledged. Becausethe Christian knows God and enjoyssome degree of union with the di- vine, the Christian chooses “those patterns of behavior which make for the welfare and ennoblement and en-hancement and advance”of other people “toward a knowledge of Godand union with God.”Not everyone needs to have a mys-tical experience of union with the di- vine, according to Perkins.But if there is to be a revival of true com-munity, then union with God must
Frances Perkins
The Saint Behind the New Deal
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Photo © Bettmann/CORBIS
Frances Perkins testifying before Congress in 1942.
Photo courtesy of the Social Security Administration
Frances Perkins offers a subtle smile as President Roosevelt signs the Social Security Act of 1935.