THE "LEADERLESS" MILL STRIKES IN SOUTH CAROLINA
The "Leaderless" Mill Strikes in South Carolina Trained In Starvation by Textile Companies Rigors of Strike Prove No Handicap THE "leaderless" strikes fat the GreearrfOe area of Sooth Caroifaia...
...Before we can have real prosperity it must be widespread...
...Every average family in New York City contributes to the upkeep of Its municipality in the neighborhood of $500 a year...
...If one chain store is a good thing, is sound economically in the final analysis, men let us carry it to a logical conclusion, and make all stores chain stores...
...We've been practicing starvbtg for years...
...On the whole he concedes 'hat the chain store system is more economical than the small business enterprise but he hopes that by propaganda the middle class may be obit to retain a foothold in the social order...
...These of eaaaa are rare and tar from representative sav ditions in the mill...
...If all our business institutions followed this practice, it can easily be seen that our banks would soon be destroyed...
...The TnlntTrmm salary for Inspectors of Food in the Department of Health is still less than forty dollars a week, exposing those inspectors to the temptation of graft and corruption...
...It is perfectly obvious that these other stores will, in time, be forced to meet these salary reductions in order to meet this competition...
...Subsequent articles will deal with the Castenia Communist-led strike and with other aspects of the EUsnhethton walkout...
...Paul...
...Tickets at The New Leader, 1 East 15th Street and at the Band Behest office...
...The Stretch-Out in Operation I learned that the stretch-out system had been introduced without advance notice last fall, but with cold weather coming on the workers had no choice but "grin and bear it...
...But the small business man—and the professional man—is not prosperous...
...The cost of the Law Department has doubled...
...Paul, resulting in a large number of empty business buildings, and an alarming condition of unemployment...
...For what purpose was the budget steadily increased within the last ten years...
...Scarcely a girl works In the mills but who can claim ancestral qualifications for membership in ths Daughters of the American Revolution...
...In nearly every instance chain store organizations check out all their funds at the end of the week and remit to headquarters...
...As a rule they do give these bargains, but any salesman in a chain store whose sales volume does not include a very large proportion of long-profit Items, is quickly dispensed with...
...The problem is a social one as well as economic, because It has a most important bearing upon the future of our young men and women...
...Moreover their wages were reduced below the standard that had existed before the stretch-out system was introduced...
...The profits they take from us go to other centers...
...It permits them to undersell, because their cost of operation is less than the other stores, unless the other stores reduce wages in like proportion...
...He had been receiving a pint of milk each day from the store for his young baby, but after the strike the store refused him further milk...
...It shows the impact of the industrial revolution that is sweeping the United StaUs as it affects retail business and the professions m two important cities of the Northwest...
...if it does not show a profit it is soon closed...
...And, if it takes in more money than it pays out it must take more money out of St...
...But attar three days I was invited to come to tts first union meeting of the Poinsett workers...
...But never did he urge the manager to provide sanitary housing conditions, or lighten the burden of work...
...We ain't,strikin' for money...
...Generally speaking, they are interested only in the profits they can take out of a city...
...Dancing will begin early and end early...
...the said brief having been declared later by the Supreme Court, to be Inadequate and not pertinent Not a cent was spent by the city for the promotion of decent bousing...
...Admission SI...
...The very large proportion of these chain stores, representing mass distribution, are owned and controlled in centers other than the cities and communities in which they operate...
...Court, It had to hire an outside lawyer at the measly fee of $75,000...
...Chain store owners display little, if any, civic pride...
...When they struck the minister tried to persuade them to return and "let the manager adjust any individual complaints...
...However the deeper characteristics of the strikes are ths same...
...They have glimpsed the fruits of concerted action, and from this glimpse has sprung a new hope for freedom from Industrial feudalism...
...Chain store executives have pointed out, many times, that their advantages in buying are of little importance...
...low wages, long, fatiguing hours, and the arrogant feudalism of the management...
...But a minister who bad been hired as a "community worker" after the stretchout was established was receiving $300 a month from the company...
...They make their home in other cities and their interests are there...
...there are more than 3.000 chain drug stores, and a corresponding number of chain shoe stores, clothing stores, dry goods stores, candy stores, and practically all other retail outlets...
...If that were done, it does not take much figuring to see that all the profits derived from business in St...
...Around Greenville the stretch-out was ths immediate cause, but back of that law a smothering resentment again...
...Today we have but one shoe manufacturing firm of any size left in the Twin Cities...
...In all, several thousand St Paul people have been thrown out of employment quite recently, because the organizations with which they were connected found it impossible to continue because of the constantly decreasing purchasing power of their independent retail customers, due to chain store competition...
...But they am tha instances that the workers remessjjr with considerable suppressed bitteroea...
...Frequently she was called away from the mill on the rumor that her husband was dying...
...And, if it takes more money out of St...
...Paul...
...It is his class for which he is concerned...
...14S,000 Chain Stores There are today, in this country, more than 140,000 chain stores...
...Written ¦ few days before the final settlement with the Brandon Mill—was made, Paul Porter, field sseretarr, of the League far Industrial Democracy, in this article tells the story of this remarkable series of strikes...
...These centers expand and prosper at the expense of smaller cities and communities...
...They have sought to make the public believe that Independently-owned stores are inefficient, unclean, wasteful, and that they do not provide a merchandising service equal to chain stores...
...And, to place the present conditions in the most charitable light, we are not going forward...
...The payrolls were large and the money received by these wage earners were practically all spent in this market...
...If our city declines i9 wealth and population, property values must decrease and our unemployment problem Increase...
...Weavers told me that even on tha coldest day of last winter after the stretchout had been introduced their clothing was soaking wet from perspiration when they left the mill...
...The Socialist analysis of capitalist evolution has a forceful confirmation in this article...
...A few years ago St...
...If the boss'd only git rid of that minute-man (efficiency expert) and go back tq the old working scale with the same wages, we'd be glad to go back to work...
...A Middle Class Cry of Protest Chain Store Conquest Squeezing Small Businessmen Out of Business •JpHE following is a digest of an article appearing in the Union Advocate of St...
...The expulsion is held to be a clear violation of the constitution of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners...
...Paul and Minneapolis was the fourth largest shoe market in this country...
...Pres...
...At the present time, we have but one large wholesale and 4nanufacturing grocery firm, while a few years back there were several, also giving employment to several hundred people, many of them heads of families...
...The Board of Health gets today a smaller percentage of the budget than In 1919...
...At first the strikers were not interested in unions...
...The striken are now beginning task seventh week since they walked out They are as unified now as the day they began the strike...
...A Solemn Warning In recent ycirs we have lost two large wholesale dry goods firms, giving employment to several hundred people...
...it vitally affects every one, and, unless some concerted action is taken to counteract Its evils, St...
...A telephone service, a delivery service and monthly charge account necessarily are a part of the overhead of any business...
...This firm was at one time the largest wholesale drug bouse in the United States...
...This is not true except to a very limited degree...
...They have fostered the fallacy of immense purchasing power...
...We only want mercy," said a gaunt, loose-jointed youth...
...More than 400 other workers fined sa opposite the gates and smiled...
...On the whole, the City of New York is still the largest sweat shop employer in the country, except in cases of political plums...
...That the stretch-out was not anas, sary to put the company on a paying basis the workers emphasise by pesasaa out that the Brandon Company last yea...
...Payments to charitable institutions have increased less than 30...
...The delivery service Is maintained because there is a public demand for it the people want it and expect it If this service was dispensed with, it would mean that thousands of men would be thrown out of employment to compete with others for work in other lines of trade...
...After all the theories of economics have been expounded, here is one of the many important facts remaining which cannot be controverted': A chain store must make money for its owners...
...But quits s considerable portion of this huge Indebtedness went into public lmprovementa, which did not Improve anything sat which are of no benefit to the public...
...Now, the effect of this is that it gives these stores an unfair advantage over the other retail merchants who are direct competitors...
...Contrasted with the militancy of the A. F. of L. union fight m Elisabeth ton and the Communist-directed strike in Oestonla, these strikes have been conducted in a quiet Quaker-like fashion with no outstanding leaders, very little picketing and speech-making, and no intimidation and violence by the authorities supposed to preserve "law and order...
...they attribute their success to the merchandising methods used...
...She was given 76 more batteries te fin daring the day...
...Police Department increased by 130%, and last but not least, the cost of the Debt Services rose from a httle less than $78,000,000 to a little more than $159,000,000...
...Certain paradoxical- differences stand out in contrast between Elizabethton and Greenville...
...What benefits does the population ol the city derive from the expenditure ol tl.ese huge sums...
...Sunday afternoon will oe devoted to a discussion of "A Creative Program for such a school as Manumit" It is expected that Mr...
...A somewhat different situation exists In Green rill...
...This does not, in the final analysis, mean economy for the consuming public...
...The United States Department of Commerce has said that this advantage does not exceed 4 per cent...
...Paul and other moderate-sized cities and communities of the country...
...There is every evidence that this point has been reached and passed In St...
...The "efficiency expert" by the use of a stepwatch found that she was able te get ¦even wlnl1*** rest in a werk-day ef IS hoars...
...She fined approximately US batteries a day far a weekly wage of $1«.15...
...No concerted effort has been made to counteract this propaganda, nor has such effort seemed possible, because Independent met chants operate as individuals while chain stores operate in large groups...
...In their own quiet way they too are learning the necessity of trsdt unionism in order to make their victory stick after they have won it...
...Chain organizations do have minor buying advantages in certain lines of merchandising...
...Hundreds of children arc killed yearly in the streets of New York because of the lack of parts and playgrounds...
...For this kind of enVieney the expert received a fee at Slt.ssa, and the mill expected to am $5$,SSt a year in wages...
...I tasked to ens yeeng girt whs had keen laialijul fitting loom batteries...
...Misiesd ngPropaganda This is a serious condition, the result of what we believe to be the misleading propaganda which has been spread broadcast over the country for the past 10 years, by exponents of mass distribution...
...On Sunday morning...
...Another man I talked to had been receiving in credit a weekly wage of fl4.10, but because of illness he had gone in debt at the company store, and hadn't drawn a penny in cash for over six months...
...This also threw large numbers of people out of employment...
...Paul, like countless other sommnnit.ies throughout the country is sure to decline in a business way and in population...
...Sick people entering city hospitals and institutions sun lea that they are entering execution chambers...
...they appear "bleached-out" and'perpetually tired...
...Use Bait to Catch Customers By extensive advertising, made possible by large aggregations of capital, through obtaining the most desirable store locations, clever merchandising, the use of a number of nationally-advertised commodities upon which they quote a price below the established rate, they seek to make the individually-owned store appear to be a profiteer...
...Mrs...
...The surplus weavers were then discharged, and if any of the remaining weavers dared complain against the excess work they were told that there were plenty of others who were welling tor their lobs...
...Manumit School is an experimental co-educational school founded as a demonstration school for the Trade Union Movement...
...She lacks only the doubtful virtue of "snootlineas...
...All Elements Suffer What concerns us is the ultimate effect upon the future of St...
...Not Less Expensive The chain stores claim tthat they pass merchandise on to the' consumer for less money than the independent merchant is able to do...
...In Elizabethton where most strikers own or rent privately their own homes and trade on Main street the business community is solidly arrayed against the strikers, despite the fact that its prosperity is dependent upon the payroll of the rayon workers...
...After one eat, a* foreman approached her and said: -Jt your old man doesn't die today, jotts got to move tomorrow...
...However, signs are not lacking, as Paul Porter indicates, that the significance of maintaining a year-round fighting organization is beginning to be appreciated...
...Hutcheson of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, in dismissing the appeal of a Brookwood student, August Danielson, who was previously expelled because he refused to leave the college when ordered to do so by his local union...
...Even now the question of permanent organisation does not appear of great importance...
...Now, if the wages have risen only 50%, if the departments dealing with the needy, the sick and t the poor, have increased on the average much less than half of the general increase of the budget, why did the budget rise from 248 million in 1919 to 539 million in 1929...
...Saturday evening will be devoted to a discussion of "The Environment as a Factor in Creative Education...
...Some of them check out daily, some twice a week, and so on...
...their ambitions, opportunities, and standards of living...
...A small part of the debt was incurred try new schools and public buildings which do not manage to keep up with the growth and shift of population...
...By H. C Mathews Secretary St...
...If it makes a profit, it must take in more money than it pays out regardless of what price it may charge for its merchandise...
...12 Weekly Wage Before Strike Under the stretch-out system the weavers were unable to give proper attention to the cloth on the looms, and as a result of much shoddy material the management finally reduced the number of looms per weaver to 80...
...Contrasts With Elizabethton The Southern workers are growing conscious that the industrial revolution emus for a different type of thought and action than is demanded under an agricultural economy...
...Inferior Service Under these circumstances, certainly it is only fair that the purchasers compare not only the price they pay, but the service that is provided with it...
...Paul than it puts into St Paul...
...A sweeper in the Street Cleaning Department still draws less than $35 a week, out of which he is compelled to pay to the Pension Fund and for uniforms...
...I was told that approximately St per cent, of the workers bad signed up, and that unions were being organized la the other Brandon mills...
...They lack the virility of the Tennessee mountaineers...
...The protection of property k sttB considered a greater duty than the protection of life and the schools are sUS overcrowded, and in some cases obsolete...
...Recently, two of our large department stores, one in St Paul and the other in Minneapolis, were taken over by a large chain...
...paid $62,000 in Income taxes...
...Twofold Evil The detrimental effect of the chain stores in our midst is twofold: First they drain the city of its wealth...
...Paul...
...A considerable part of these moneys went lata new subways on which the city Is not getting a single cent in return...
...But even this was far beyond their capacity, the workers declare...
...Only the members of th~ Board of Aldermen were considerate enough to raise their own salaries from two to five thousand dollars a year...
...Lucy Sprague Mitchell, of the City and Country School will speak on Creative Geography...
...This is absolutely true...
...Start ins...
...The school operates a farm of 177 acres in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains...
...They use these items of merchandising solely as leaders, or "bait," to get customers Into the store...
...Weavers who had been hard worked tending 40 looms were given SO to 96 to operate," with an increase in pay of as to S4 a week...
...Paul Business Federation rwiHE Saint Paul Business Federation is an organization representing all classes of business men and professional men in St...
...Other departments were speeded up In a similar manner...
...Many hundreds of our people, who formerly found lucrative employment in the shoe industry, have been forced to leave St...
...When I arrived la Greenville a few days ago only six nuns In the vicinity were stffl on strike, and at two of these a settlement distinctly in the favor of the strikers was made shortly...
...He points out that the big trust magnates are as prosperous as ever but that the economic status of the middle class is becoming ever more precarious...
...A few days ago Sjm Woodruff mill, cne of the tour Braadea mills on strike, attempted to reopen...
...But, as a whole, the buying advantages of the chain stores over the independents are negligible...
...One man whose wife was afflicted with a permanent illness was told that he must bring her to work within three weeks or lose his job and be evicted from the company-owned house...
...One of our largest wholesale millinery firms is now In course of liquidation, and just a few weeks ago the only wholesale drug firm in St...
...and tht rise of the cost of conducting the Department of Public Markets from $1M,ooo to $619,000, does in no way imply better care of food distribution in tht city...
...This left idle only the four mills of the stubborn Brandon corporation...
...For instance, practically all our independently-owned stores maintain a delivery service and monthly charge accounts...
...Interest and amortization on city obligations rose by over 83 millioi dollars within the last ten years...
...This organization does not believe that it is possible or even desirable to discourage the investment of foreign capital in St...
...They are not a part of our community life...
...Particularly Is this true at Eiixabethton where a mature strike is occurring within four years after the mountaineers migrated tram their MUsMs farms Into the mffli probably the briefest epitome of the Industrial Revolution hi history...
...Nearly twenty spontaneous cotton miff strikes have occurred in this Piedmont county during the past two months, and nearly all have resulted in speedy and almost complete victory for the strikers...
...They are applying to the United Textile Workers tor a charter...
...E. C. Lindeman, of the New York School for Social Work, and Prof...
...Olander said, "We are not accusing Brookwood of being a Communistic institution...
...They tell of another instance in which a woman was supporting a husband near death and five young children on $11 a week...
...That is perfectly obvious...
...Manumit Will Hold Annual Conference The Manumit Associates have just issued invitations to their Annual Conference on June first and second, at Manumit School, Pawling, Dutchess County, New York...
...Besides New York owes close to two billion dollars for non-budgetary expenditures, a per capita debt of nearly $400...
...Miss Anna Gifford, group teacher at Manumit will discuss "Creative Activities with Animals and Gardens...
...The Staten Island Docks and the Bronx Municipal Market which have cost in tht neighborhood of 50 million dollars art conceded even by the city authorities te be perfect flops...
...Paul was absorbed by a chain organisation...
...Paul stores would be going out of the city...
...Paul...
...By Hutcheson's decision the stamp of approval is placed on the action of local 246 in expelling and depriving Danielson of his livelihood without presenting charges or holding a trial...
...as an organised re-rota against the "stretch-out" and miserable wages, the strikes soon developed a 100 per cent, solidarity...
...I heard young girls testify that the day's work had been so arduous under the stretch-out that they had to bathe their aching legs in alcohol before they could sleep...
...It is not operated or organized for profit...
...This lowers the buying power of the public, which is, in turn, evident in every line of activity...
...Taa whistle shrilled impressively, but after two hours only 12 workers had ontasg the gates, and two of these were the Sana-month community worker and ha was...
...The "Leaderless" Mill Strikes in South Carolina Trained In Starvation by Textile Companies Rigors of Strike Prove No Handicap THE "leaderless" strikes fat the GreearrfOe area of Sooth Caroifaia hare aow ended fat almost complete victory for the workers...
...Here are found mill hands of the third generation...
...Porter is writing for The New Leader...
...During those years our shoe manufacturers and wholesalers gave employment to many hundreds of men and women...
...Appropriations for the Department of *>rrection have increased only about 38...
...Let us remember that chain stores eliminate many services which the Independent stores provide...
...Freflui Flew Oat Chain stores owned by outside capital C-> not help to support oar banks and other financial institutions...
...What the writer says of the conquering of small business in distribution by the big chain corporations applies to practically all American cities...
...He received his groceries in cash, and his wages were turned over to the company-store to apply on his account...
...Tht old law tenements still constitute a permanent danger to the lives of hundreds cf thousands of citizens...
...This means a centralization of wealth—never a healthy condition...
...To Lower Wages One of the other detrimental effects of the chain store, is its tendency to lower wages and increase working hours...
...Harry Overstreet of City College will lead the discussion...
...On the outskirts of the city, beyond "nigger town" and across an expanse of swampy meadow, lay the Poinsett mill and mill village— the nearest of the four Brandon mills...
...Ths workers are fighting against abominable working condition...
...They are experiencing for the first time ths feeling at standins shoulder to shoulder In a common struggle...
...The reaction of the writer is from the point of view of the middle class...
...The article is additional evidence of the decline of small business, the reduction of the small capitalist to the status of a wage worker, and of an increasing antagonism between the greqj capitalists and the lesser type thai is being driven to the wall...
...He was told that if his baby needed milk he should go back to work...
...As a very general rule, they do not reinvest In any manner, shape or form, a fair portion of their profits in St...
...The budget of the Tenement House Department has Increased by only 60 %. Even the appropriations for the Board of Health are in proportion lower than the general increase of the budget...
...It does not take a very clever person to figure out that there is only so much water in a well, and if that water is drained out without putting more water into it, the well is certain to go dry...
...The average for the mill, according to the workers, was less than til a week when they finally decided to strike...
...Like the striking rayon workers m Elizabeth ton these South Carolina mill hands are almost wholly of native AngloSaxon stock...
...In the food industry alone, there are more than 60,000 chain grocery stores...
...The population of New York City is at the mercy of contractors and food speculators...
...I talked to one weaver of twenty-nine years experience who showed me his pay envelope for $6 JO for 4? hours work...
...Their 100 per cent, solidarity, their quiet determination to "live on grass if necessary rather than return to the stretch-out," and the quickness of their success in a month that witnessed a 30 per cent, decrease in cotton cloth sales, is all the more remarkable when it is remembered that they have had no outside leadership...
...So did the coot of ths Courts and so did even to a larger extent, the cost of the Police Department But there is just as much law breaking now as there was ten years ago and when tht Administration wished to appeal the fin cent fare to the United States Supreme...
...The average rise in salaries and wages for city employees during this period doesn't exceed 50...
...The workers declare that his only duty was to "pat us on the shoulder after the mill had worn us out...
...A new flush has come Into the "bleached-out" faces of the opermtiYes and new courage into the hearts of workers In other mills...
...Hutcheson did not produce any records to prove his assertions which are contrary to a statement of Victor Olander, chief A. F. of L. spokesman 'at the Workers Educational Bureau convention...
...Strikers Trained by Starvation Some of the stories these workers tell sound unbelievable, but they swear that they are true...
...But, it is maintained that there is a point beyond which the volume of foreign-controlled business cannot go without seriously affecting the welfare of our city...
...Bring year friends...
...I wabxed out there and chatted to some of the strikers...
...New York's Budget Rising Costs and Less Service Story Behind the Figures By B. C. Vladeck VFTTHIN ten years the budget erpendltures of the City of New York had risen over 100%, the approved budget for 1929 being way over half a billion—the largest budget of any city in the world both, relatively and absolutely...
...Miss Sarah Clegborn, at present teacher of English at Manumit but called next year to Vassar College as instructor in English, will talk on "Creative Writing...
...Although Instruction is given largely through projects, the school prepares for the New York State Regent Examinations...
...At the present time General Motors, Standard Oil, United States Steel, and other great business structures, are prosperous...
...JAZZ MUSIC lhou'd be played right And it WILL be played right at the New Leader Dance and Celebration, Thursday evening, May SSth, at the Band School Auditorium, 7 East 15th Street, The famoaa Colony Club Orchestra has been engaged...
...You know what the result would be...
...This is the second of a series of articles Mr...
...It is reliably reported that since acquiring these two stores, a number rf the older buyrrs have be >n dispensed with and wages have been materially reduced throughout the store...
...But these girls In their teens—even here in Greenville where "outside agitators" have not yet penetrated—are proud to be daughters of a new revolution, and they firmly believe that they are fighting for freedom just as much as were their ancestors...
...The average citizen of our great city still gets less for his money una the citizen of any other large city out" side of the United States...
...Hutcheson Upholds Brookwood Expulsions KATONAH, N. Y.—(FP)—"Brookwood College, according to reports, is an institution where policies, principles and theories are in sympathy with the communist organization," ruled Pres...
...But in the final analysis, would it be a good thing for the city of St Paul if the Independently-owned stores, were to eliminate these services...
...We Ain't Strikin' for Money" On the other hand the cotton mill workers of Oreenvllle live in companyowned houses, trade at company-owned stores and seldom mingle with other residents of the community, and yet many local business men have contributed freely to the strike relief fund, the local a* newspapers laws asm sympathetic with the workers, and no attempt has been made at legal aiuprsartrm Let am Marrlan scholars pants over tint if they wish, hot the iiniiss phenomena cannot be explained in strict Marxian terminology...
...it would mean that the large number of auto trucks used in making these deliveries would be dispensed with...
...Eliminate them and we not only greatly inconvenience ourselves, but we would throw thousands and thousands of people out of employment...
...The company cant starve as sat," they say...
...Turning to Trade Unionism Before going to Greenville I bad been told by Southern organisers that tts workers there couldn't be organised They had politely declined the officers of both the conservative United Textile Worksa of America and the Communist National Textile Workers Union...
...VThe problem is a common one...
...Paul or to find employment In other channels of trad...
...He says nothing about the displacement of wage workers by machines and new processes in industry...
...it would mean that the agencies which sell these trucks would suffer a serious decline in business and it would mean that the firms supplying these trucks with gasoline, tires, accessories and upkeep, would also suffer a great loss of business, And, It would mean that thousands upon thousands of our people would be deprived of the convenience to which they are now accustomed...
...Paul than it puts into it then it is a drain upon this community...
...By Paul Porter GREENVILLE, S. C. . LIKE Elizabethton the Piedmont area surrounding Greenville is one of the key centers in the growing labor unrest in the South...
...After "'"fttrsj with them lor several days I too doubted if they could be organized...
...The politicians have abandoned any semblance of Impartiality and are openly tools of the rayon company...
...Not as a rule, do they have longer hours, but they certainly expect more out of their employees—and they get it...
...Miss Nellie M. Seeds, director of Manumit School will briefly sketch the activities and achievements of the year's work...
Vol. 8 • May 1929 • No. 19
