The Times News

INDUSTRIAL PLANNING GOAL OF CONFERENCE IN ATLANTA
MISS PERKINS HOPES FOR BENEFITS; EXPLAINS 'SHOES FOR SOUTH' TALK

ATLANTA, Dec. 13.—(UP)—Secretary of Labor Perkins opened the first of a series of regional labor conferences here in the hope that out of these conferences will develop desirable minimum standards for labor, industrial legislation and administration. 'Co-operation between the states and the United States Department of Labor and the different state departments in matters affecting labor and industry is the aim of the conference,' she said. She predicted all states would share in benefits from increased purchasing power gained through putting people back to work and shorter hours.

'I believe that out of this initial meeting will come a real significant accomplishment in the way of planning for the future.'

Secretary Perkins foresees 'a steady and continued improvement' in national economic conditions as a result of the National Recovery program, she said at a dinner in her honor here last night.

Pointing to increased purchasing power of wage earners and other signs of better business already manifest, Miss Perkins said the recovery program sought an economic balance to benefit farmers, wage earners, consumers, business men and industrialists alike.

The secretary took occasion to explain that the speech she made in New York last spring had been misconstrued to give the impression that 'I thought the South was in dire need of shoes.'

'Please accept my assurance that such a thought never occurred to me,' Miss Perkins told her southern audience.

She said the misconstrued remark that brought wide protest from the South at the time occurred when 'I made the point in a speech that increased purchasing power would permit people all over the country to buy more of the products of the factories and farms.'

'I used, by way of illustration, that if wages went up the South would be able to buy more shoes from St. Louis and Rochester. I was speaking in a shoe-manufacturing state at a time when wage increases in cotton textiles under the code were being discussed. In the utmost sincerity, permit me to tell you that my reference was in no way intended as a slur upon this wonderful section of the country.'

'In making the point I did, I might just as well have said that increased buying power would enable

(Continued on page three)
INDUSTRIAL PLANNING
GOAL OF CONFERENCE
IN CITY OF ATLANTA
(Continued from page one)
It will enable New England or the West to buy more shoes, just as it would permit every section of the country—South, North, East and West—to buy more clothes, more furniture, more food and more of the commodities which many of us did not purchase during the depression as extensively as beforehand.