THE BEATING OF BOB BEAME
Abbott, William
THE BEATING OF BOB BEAME by WILLIAM ABBOTT Robert Dixon Beame stared after the man who was disappearing into the stiff night air. "Fired for wanting a union!" he thought bitterly. "Here's a guy...
...No one will bother you," said the officer after Beame told him the story...
...The sheriff...
...Sometimes it takes hours to persuade one man to sign a union card, and only when the union gets a good majority of cards signed does it petition for an election to represent all the employees in the mill...
...At Dahlonega, Georgia, Beame stopped and telephoned Adolph Benet, first vice president of the Hosiery Workers' Union...
...So the fired union sympathizers got their jobs back and the company was ordered to cease and desist from any further anti-union activity...
...The officer refused...
...You gave me your word...
...Hosiery Workers President Andrew Janaskie wired the FBI and got in touch with the McClellan Committee investigating unethical practices in the labor and management field...
...Numb and bleeding, the organizer knew this was the last chance he would ever get...
...Out he zoomed toward town...
...That's not the way to Asheville," Beame protested...
...Then he turned to face the mob...
...He, Beame, and the mob leader went over to a building...
...We'll put your clothes on," a man, apparently the leader, said...
...Arms grabbed at his legs and forced his trousers on...
...Men cursed and threatened mutilation if they ever caught Beame again...
...The mob leader motioned to the unionist to start up and follow a car starting down the motel driveway...
...All right...
...Hands grabbed him from behind...
...the unionist wondered...
...At top speed Beame roared into Franklin, the other cars at his tail...
...All right...
...There must be some escape...
...WILLIAM ABBOTT is assistant education director of the United Rubber Workers of America in Akron...
...This was all he could do...
...Let me talk to him," demanded Beame...
...We don't want you around here," the man said...
...But Beame was an experienced driver, and he gradually pulled away from his pursuers...
...Would you call the state troopers for me...
...The man said yes...
...An organizer has to contact mill workers personally...
...Four men exploded into the room shouting obscene determination "to get rid of you...
...A big hand pushed the organizer into a chair...
...A man came up to meet them...
...Here's a guy who gives all he has to a company—the best years of his life—and then gets canned because he wants a little self-respect...
...Their leader slammed the car door and hopped up to the unionist and police officer...
...To watch a lynching...
...He got their point, he said...
...There was just enough room for him to jerk his car hard and fast to the right...
...Where are your car keys...
...Where do you want to go...
...It's not one of this group," the man in the sheriff's car replied...
...When Beame saw this, he felt sure the local authorities were in cahoots with the company...
...Take me to the sheriff," cried Beame...
...He fought back sleep as he stumbled from his bed...
...At last they arrived at the Georgia state line...
...He saw automobiles waiting motion-lessly for a red light to change...
...He was a union organizer for the American Federation of Hosiery Workers...
...Most workers have families to support, and losing your job in a region where factory jobs are scarce is serious business...
...Mayor," he said, "I have a man here who was driving at an excessive rate of speed and ran a red light—and the boys are after him...
...People started getting out of their cars...
...He would leave town...
...The organizer was hemmed in by five cars...
...He did...
...Franklin's police chief, Sidney M. Carter, sent back Beame's brief case, but missing were the names and addresses of union sympathizers at the mill...
...We represent the workers," the second man said...
...Beame jumped out and ran up to a city policeman...
...Beame asked desperately...
...Beame saw black as hard knuckles crashed his skull...
...A few of Franklin's "better citizens" expressed disapproval of the beating, but town sympathy generally seemed to be on the side of the mob...
...It must have been a little after seven the next morning, February 10, 1959...
...He only knew the loud pounding at the door wouldn't go away...
...The policeman telephoned the mayor...
...Beame got into his car...
...They were smiling...
...The cars of the mob drew up...
...They could stop now...
...The banging grew louder...
...A committee investigator visited Franklin, filed his report, and that was the end of it In December, 1959, a National Labor Relations Board trial examiner charged the company with a list of unfair labor practices including discharging workers for union activity, attempting to create a labor spy network, and threatening to close down the plant if workers formed a union...
...Heels and toes ground into his ribs, deep into his groin...
...The cars behind him sped their motors and raced in pursuit...
...Beame shrugged...
...Benet met him in Dalton, Georgia, at the courthouse and took the battered organizer to Chattanooga, Tennessee, where a doctor put Beame in the hospital...
...Stick close to me...
...Let me use the phone...
...A man with fear doesn't lightly sign a union card...
...He noticed the cars of the mob started up and began to trail him...
...A group of employes at the Franklin (North Carolina) Hosiery Company had asked the Asheville Central Labor Union for help in organizing their plant...
...None of these cars are to follow me," said Beame...
...Beame, we want to see you," demanded a voice beyond the motel room door...
...Beame tried to get up...
...Again Beame felt arms lift him into a chair—heavy fists pounded his brain, his body...
...He said he could go to the city limits with the unionist...
...The policeman finally agreed...
...It seemed to Beame that the whole town had turned out to watch the show, like a huge crowd of festive spectators turning out to watch a pack of hounds and men pursue a hapless fox...
...It was a stranger's voice...
...The man driving the sheriff's car turned to the mob leader and told him to get the other car back across the state line...
...The organizer felt blood gush out of his mouth...
...That's the way you're going...
...He said he "heard" a few of the boys "got with" Beame over at the motel...
...When we get to the highway, you follow the car ahead and turn right...
...He noticed no one made a move in his defense...
...The Franklin Company was owned by the huge Burlington Mills Industries, an organization with a long, grim history of hard-fought battles with the union...
...Have you got radio communications...
...He stayed with them while they went to a booth to make a call...
...Already the workers at the mill had heard about Fouts...
...Beame estimated there were between thirty and fifty at that time...
...Then—whackl A fist smashed into his face...
...Yes it is," insisted Beame...
...The company would try to prove Fouts deserved the discharge, yet the fact remained that firing a man for union activity was against the law...
...The man said no...
...And the union...
...he would see...
...Sheriff Harry Thomas told a Chattanooga Times reporter: "I don't know of any disturbance—only what I've heard...
...The two men stayed up late that night going over the case...
...They would start wondering who would be next...
...A man before him brought a slamming blow to his head...
...Another man's fist cut into his jaw...
...As the lead car started down the highway, Beame saw his chance...
...Anyway, this was how Beame figured it...
...Finally the man Beame assumed was either the sheriff or one of his deputies agreed to take him to the county line...
...The unionist noticed one of the mob's cars break out fast and rush into the neighboring state...
...The man agreed...
...Of course, pro-unionists in the shop are also busy talking union, and Beame didn't know everybody...
...The men gave him a push into the front seat...
...Beame wasn't sure...
...A grand jury refused to indict any members of the mob despite a signed confession by one of its members naming the participants...
...The beating of Bob Beame took care of that...
...There are more than a hundred outside now," the men said...
...As the procession of Beame, the sheriff's car, and the mob drove by the plant he had been trying to organize, the unionist noticed police cars in the company driveway...
...Beame had to get the man's job back...
...His foot slammed the accelerator...
...The officer refused again...
...The sheriff's car waved Beame on...
...And fear in some men leads to hate...
...This was something...
...The law authorities didn't seem distressed over the incident...
...When we go out of here, other cars will be out there...
...He shook it vigorously at the unionist...
...He jerked the car to a halt...
...Quickly he locked the doors...
...They weren't concerned...
...Beame told him...
...He began shaking the fog from his head...
...I need protection," the organizer insisted...
...He hit the floor...
...He whizzed on by and then cut in front of what he thought was the city hall...
...At least let me put my clothes on," he pleaded...
...What do you want me to do...
...What have they come for...
...Somehow, he managed to stay conscious...
...He struggled for words...
...I'm not going to leave your protection with that car up there waiting for me," he called out...
...The policeman listened...
...the leader asked...
...A prisoner, Beame had no choice but to follow the command...
...The leader of the mob went back to his own auto where he picked a piece of rubber hose off the front seat...
...Beame felt a hand belt him on the ear...
...He opened the door...
...Where you want to go...
...He added that workers in Franklin "just don't want a union...
...Several policemen were leaning on their vehicles talking to somebody inside the gate...
...Next, they were dragging him out of his room into the daylight Through puffed eyes, Beame made out a large group of people standing across the road...
...There is no union...
...He told him what had happened...
...Every muscle strained as Beame raised himself and shoved the man out of the car...
...Mr...
...Thomas said he was home at the time of the beating...
...A man begins to wonder whether a union can offer any protection at all...
...At last Beame lit out for Georgia...
...By this time Beame knew most of the union sympathizers...
...Asheville...
...In his rear-view mirror he saw cars of the mob take off after him...
...No union here," the men said...
...His life depended upon what he did in the next few seconds...
...Beame saw one of the men begin to crawl into the driver's seat...
...Things were going well up to now, but if he couldn't check this company move, the drive was as good as lost...
...The man who had just been fired was Dolphia Fouts, a knitter at the mill, and Beame regarded his discharge as a company declaration of war...
...The union man stopped alongside the sheriff's car and rolled his window down...
...At least he was still alive and alone in his own car...
...To make sure trie unionist got the message, the men slashed him hard...
...Atlanta...
...Tires screeched...
...then he said: "You say let him go...
...The central labor body, in turn, got in touch with Beame, who came down from his home in Greensboro to give his professional service to the mill workers...
...you promised you wouldn't let this group follow me...
Vol. 24 • September 1960 • No. 4
