Out There in America
Hogan, Marcus J. Albrecht, Mark Pinsky, Kris Kridel, and Paul M.
OUT THERE IN AMERICA Labor Day in a Miners' Town St. Louis There is a famous drawing of the first Labor Day parade in New York City. The artist has recorded history—the streets packed with a...
...Once established in city politics during the 1960s, he accepted an executive position with Columbia Gas of Ohio, Inc., the state's largest supplier of natural gas...
...Research for this article was funded in part by a grant from the Southern Investigative Research Project of the Southern Regional Council, Atlanta...
...It included a promise to support better human service programs through increases in state corporate and high-bracket individual income taxes...
...For the past dozen years, the land in and around the peaceful little farming community has been bought up by such chemical and mining giants as Texas Gulf Sulphur, Kennecott, Agrico, and FMC...
...Aurora has a two-block long Main Street, one food store, and a lone policeman...
...In certain areas along the sound coast, the delicate salt water/fresh water balance that supports the shellfish can be easily and in some cases irreparably upset by chemical, freshwater, or hot water discharges from any of the half dozen other plants that line the coast...
...The added danger of pollution by fertilizer runoff is considerable, since agriculture is exempt from a number of environmental constraints...
...Jack Paden, the supervisor of the Lee Creek plant, looking out at the Pamlico River from his office atop a man-made bluff, sounds equally puzzled...
...I know Mt...
...A pack of Democratic lawmakers introduced a rate structure reform bill, strongly opposed by utility lobbyists, and it began winding its way through the committee system...
...Paul M. Hogan is reporter/host for a weekly state news program broadcast on Ohio's thirteen public television stations...
...For 300 years, these waters have been haven and highway to pirates, Civil War blockade runners, Prohibition rum runners, and, most recently, large-scale dope smugglers...
...Senator Woodland leaves politics in January and will take on full-time responsibilities with Columbia Gas of Ohio, Inc...
...Ohio's sixteenth state senate district includes the southern half of Columbus and the surrounding county, plus the sprawling Ohio State University area on the near north side...
...The head of the School of Design team, Randy Hester, accused the company of "subtle psychological warfare," citing an alleged boycott of apartments owned by Mayor Bonner's husband, Frank, himself a former mayor and now a county commissioner, and the cutting back of Texas Gulf orders from a local supplier active in town government...
...Yes, that and Mike Schwarzwalder, thirty-two, a Democratic primary opponent who faced improbable odds but would not be denied victory, a challenger who seemed not to be running a political campaign but, instead, leading a crusade...
...Woodland is not going to be going around to people's houses on a Saturday afternoon, sitting and talking," he predicted...
...Nice people here," I said to Ed...
...Pickets swarmed around the Public Utilities Commission building in Columbus, waving their intolerably high heating bills for the TV cameras...
...Their chemical fertilizers, the main product of the Lee Creek plant, were allowed to run off into local waters...
...Since Aurora is located in a 100-year flood plain, this process has caused a large number of wells in the area to go dry...
...Here an old-timer, Ed, shared some conversation...
...In the face of the victory, Mayor Bonner sounds magnanimous, saying, "All we want is control of our town...
...Ed was silent for a while but finally answered, "Never figured it that way...
...Just wanted to get some information . . . about seeing some things...
...The peninsular and sound coast of eastern North Carolina is serrated with more than 1,000 coves, creeks, and inlets, in addition to the half dozen major rivers that empty into it...
...Louis, Missouri...
...Holiday, you know— Labor Day...
...The team found that, under state law, any municipality could expand its zoning area "extraterritorially" one mile in all directions from the existing city limits...
...Central Ohio's Democratic party regulars, conservative by instinct, as well as all city, county, and state Democratic officeholders, had endorsed Woodland too...
...it overgrazed land with livestock and left soybeans in the fields to rot...
...It had to be the gas company issue...
...Said Mayor Bonner, a first term Democrat, "Every indication is that they wish the town . . . would disappear...
...Olive...
...On primary election night, while Jimmy C.arter swept to easy victory in the district and throughout Ohio, the Woodland-Schwarzwalder contest seesawed into the early morning hours...
...I know I'm going t<j win," the incumbent had boasted only hours before the election...
...Mother Jones was a saint, and that is how she is remembered by her friends in Mt...
...Consumer of the sixteenth district," the bogus gas bill listed election day under the heading of "next scheduled meter reading date," and in the block where the amount of the bill is usually printed the flyer read: "You can vote Columbia Gas OUT of the statehouse...
...Ed," I asked my elderly friend, "was this a Labor Day parade...
...The waters also have provided livelihood and pleasure for the fisher-folk who work the sounds and adjacent ocean waters...
...Much progress has been made since then...
...He was moving back to this town from Florida...
...Thank you, sir...
...capture the votes of a majority of the middle-to-low-income whites and blacks who live in his district...
...Historically, tideland communities like Aurora have been amicably inhabited by both farmers and fishermen, an unusual circumstance, and the bond between people and water is as strong as that between people and land...
...I was looking for the Miners' Cemetery...
...They were over-represented—victims of mine accidents, and labor conflicts, and war...
...They approached Mike Schwatzwalder, and he says he was impressed because "these people were not out after their own self-interest but seeking someone really responsive to the constituency, not just Columbia Gas, other corporations, big business...
...MARCUS J. ALBRECHT (Marcus J. Albrecht is a truck driver in St...
...He accepted...
...Everything is closed today...
...Addressed to "Mr...
...That was September 5, 1882...
...The man decorating the Civic Center for a coming dance asked, "What's your problem...
...By the way, are there any Labor Day activities occurring in town today...
...But, ah...
...flag and labor banners which read: "Labor Creates All Wealth," "Agitate, Educate, Organize," "All Men Are Born Equal...
...To emphasize the "conflict of interest" theme, Schwarzwalder's campaign volunteers printed thousands of blue and white flyers which were almost exact replicas of what every voter in the district recognized as a Columbia Gas bill...
...Labor Day has come to be a day of pilgrimage for me, and every year on Labor Day I try to visit some historically significant labor landmark...
...Before this, his first electoral test, Schwarzwalder's activities included partnership in a quasi-public interest law firm, community volunteer work, and a two-year stint with his wife, Karen, in the Peace Corps...
...The high school band marched by, followed by majorettes, the VFW, the Masons, the Lion's Club, the Rotary Club, the mayor, the city police, local merchants—and then it was all over...
...It is a town with character and history—a place the Howard Johnsons, Ramada Inns, and McDonald's have not yet infested...
...Hardly anyone flinched at this "conflict of interest" then, when utility bills seemed reasonable to all but the most impoverished...
...Mother Jones lived from 1830 to 1930, and during her 100 years agitated for workers from the ranks of the Knights of Labor, the AFL, the Western Federation of Miners, the UMW, and the IWW...
...With this plan came a zoning schedule that restricted the area and manner of mining in the newly Upset in Columbus acquired 6,000 acres, 4,000 of which belong to Texas Gulf...
...There the resemblance to television stereotypes ends: Aurora sits in the middle of 75,000 acres of the richest phosphate deposits in the United States...
...Head out of town—it's on the edge of town...
...Where was labor...
...MARK PINSKY (Mark Pinsky, a free-lance journalist based in North Carolina, has contributed to such publications as The Nation, The Progressive, the Village Voice, and Present Tense...
...Olive is a good labor town...
...wells owned or used by people who have moved into the land since Texas Gulf arrived are not redrilled...
...Worse, the land that had been bought or leased by Texas Gulf—ostensibly for mining—has been used for corporate "superfarms," driving off small farmers (in a number of cases the previous owners of the land) and, through direct buying from producers, hurting the business of local farm suppliers...
...We all milled over to the local park where a carnival was in full swing and there was all the beer you could drink for thirty cents a glass...
...First, Schwarzwalder had his hair and mustache trimmed to a respectable 1970s length...
...Oh, come on, let's have a drink...
...Watching these developments from the sidelines was a small band of settlement house workers, social activists, utility company critics, and liberal Democrats who coalesced around a single goal: ouster of their "senator from Columbia...
...And so they did...
...But there is a tendency for Labor Day, like all other holidays, to lose its historical significance and become just another occasion for escapism and retreatism and consumerism...
...Early on, Schwarzwalder sensed the vulnerability of Woodland's campaign...
...Schwarzwalder gained wide press attention contrasting his modest, conflict-free contributions...
...It has since resigned itself to seeking some sort of new accommodation through negotiations...
...The parade started along Main Street about 2:30...
...He walks with the swagger of a high school letterman but reasons with the analytic mind of a law school graduate...
...Mayberry' Meets the Monolith Aurora, North Carolina The tiny, eastern North Carolina town of Aurora (pop...
...Last fall, a joint venture called N.C...
...Last year I decided to drive to Mt...
...The plant, called Lee Creek after the body of water filled in to build it, has been expanded to twice its original size...
...I walked around Main Street and stopped for a bowl of homemade soup and a sandwich in a small cafe...
...Good people here, you know," he explained...
...Along the way Schwarzwalder toppled a state senate "insider," a conservative politician who dared face reelection while still in the employ of the gas company...
...Columbus, Ohio State Senator Donald Woodland, forty-five, slumped behind his desk at the Ohio statehouse the day after the June 8 primary election, a limp cigar hanging out of his mouth...
...Olive, Illinois, to visit the Miners' Cemetery and see the historic monument erected to the colorful labor organizer, Mother Jones...
...And Senator Woodland, a squat, balding former wrestling coach, had good reason to exude confidence...
...Early in the afternoon I drove to Benld, where I had time for a few beers at a tavern that used to be the headquarters of the Progressive Miners Union...
...When he was elected to the senate in 1972, Woodland kept his job with the gas company, even as he moved in legislative circles where utility corporations fueled the largest, most expensive fleet of lobbyists...
...Other than that, the town was quiet, like the place I was about to visit...
...His father, Judge Alan Schwarzwalder, was, until his death in 1971, a popular but maverick Democratic officeholder in Columbus...
...The artist has recorded history—the streets packed with a tremendous crowd watching as workers marched down the boulevard carrying the U.S...
...Indeed, all of the bills that the leadership of the million-member state AFL-CIO could write were funneled into the senate quagmire by Woodland...
...Even so, Schwarzwalder is an uncommonly liberal Democrat in an unusually conservative, even provincial town...
...671) is more than vaguely reminiscent of "Mayberry," the setting for the Andy Griffith television show...
...Gregarious, yet a polite listener, Schwarzwalder is attractive and engaging...
...Texas Gulf's Vice President David Edmiston, who has lived in Aurora for ten years and had his ears burned from corporate headquarters in New York over the bad publicity, now shrugs his shoulders and says, "I don't know what went wrong...
...fresh from Camh Ranh Bay), to build a $100 million processing plant just outside Aurora on the south shore of the Pamlico River...
...Almost 27,000 Democrats and independents cast ballots in the state senate race...
...Miners' Cemetery, oh, sure, go down to the park and turn right on Lake Street...
...In the closing weeks of the campaign, "things seemed to fall together magically," campaign coordinator Judy Zimmer recalls...
...KRIS KRIDEL and PAUL M. HOGAN (Kris Kridel is a reporter for WCOL radio news, Columbus...
...Woodland's campaign finance report was released and proved to be top-heavy with special-interest money...
...Woodland was unraveled by "the gas company issue...
...There are a few more new jobs for local high school graduates and the company has donated a science course and teachers and about $10,000 a year in goods and services...
...No, nothing here today...
...Could you help me out...
...We sang The Star Spangled Banner...
...Have to go up to Benld for that...
...I hiked out to the cemetery, passing a couple of young men drunk already—10 a.m.—and a boy and his dad on a bike...
...Schwarzwalder won the nomination by a scant but unchallengeable 962 votes...
...He put his opponent on the defensive with a pocketbook issue, assembled a remarkably effective, highly motivated staff with hundreds of volunteers on call, and proved to be, in contrast to Woodland, an appealing, articulate candidate...
...Last year was the first year it was rained out...
...Okay, thanks a lot...
...Some of the judge's vote-gathering talents seem to have been passed on to the son...
...He will face token Republican opposition in November...
...Phosphate announced plans to build a $220 million plant of its own (also constructed by Brown and Root) next to Texas Gulf's operation...
...We workers have a lot to celebrate on our day, recalling how we have fought for social justice and a better life...
...When I inquired about the parade, the woman behind the bar told me, "People in this t6wn work hard on this parade...
...Senator Woodland found himself in a tight spot...
...It was the gas issue," he said, trying to understand his narrow defeat at the polls...
...he held the key vote that would move the bill past opposition Republicans and to the senate floor for passage...
...But the lone movie theater and drugstore have closed, and now there is neither a doctor nor a dentist in the town...
...Yes, I know...
...and Mrs...
...By previous agreement, the company has redrilled some of them...
...When a newly enacted land-use law went into effect in 1975 for the coastal area of North Carolina, Aurora's leaders called in a team of young experts from North Carolina State University's School of Design to help draw up the required long-range growth plan...
...As I walked back toward it, I passed many tombstones of young men...
...The district was pieced together by a Democrat-dominated apportionment board, providing the party with a "safe" seat...
...I paid my respects and then started back to town...
...He is an active member of Teamsters Local 600 and teaches part-time at the Labor Studies Center, Forest Park Community College...
...Where was labor...
...Mayberry has met the monolith and, apparently, won...
...Yes," he answered...
...Olive...
...Yeh, nice people...
...Amid the hoopla in the Ohio press over his gas company ties, and under pressure from state senate majority leadership, Woodland took an unprecedented step: He resigned from the committee to let another member of the caucus take the seat and cast the utility rate reform vote...
...Over the entrance to the cemetery a sign reads, "This is the final resting place of good Union people...
...Towering above all the gravestones is the historic monument—a tribute to Mother Jones...
...Just before she died, at the age of 100, she asked to be buried in Mt...
...Elect Michael Schwarzwalder.'' To complement the gas bill flyer, the campaign steering committee developed a slick issues tabloid outlining Schwarzwalder's political stance...
...At this news the city fathers and mothers—including Aurora's Mayor Grace Bonner—grew somewhat anxious...
...Mister, there's going to be an Aurora here one helluva long time...
...But 1976 turned out to be the year of Jimmy Carter, the well organized outsider—the year when sincerity coupled with morality is a political plus, when voters do not necessarily consider tenure or endorsements a virtue...
...He appeared unbeatable...
...No problem," I replied...
...She loved all working people but especially her "boys"—the Illinois miners...
...I saw the police, the military, merchants, the city fathers, and high school kids...
...Aurora's residents also worry about their underground water supply...
...Turnout was high, even for a Presidential election year...
...How did this man who wears faded jeans and scuffed moccasins and laces his conversations with the idioms of the previous decade ("heavy duty," "Oh wow...
...To make it possible to strip-mine the phosphate (in trenches half a mile long and 100 feet deep, which are filled in later), it has been necessary for Texas Gulf to drain area land of ground water and thus lower the water table...
...While denying the charges, the company reacted almost hysterically to the zoning proposal—threatening to strip-mine the acreage it already owns in the center of town...
...It seems we were doing good," he says...
...For ten years the Texas Gulf people have been predicting growth and prosperity for Aurora—a twenty-five fold increase in population, new schools, housing developments, shopping centers, Yet little of this has materialized...
...Commissioners told them utility costs would continue to zoom upward under a sixty-year-old ratemaking formula which could be amended only by the legislature...
...Early on September 1,1 boarded my old pickup truck and rattled down old Illinois Route 4 north toward Mt...
...Parade or miners' strike rally...
...Olive...
...In 1965, Texas Gulf, a Canadian-controlled company worth about $1 billion, contracted with yet another growing multinational, the Brown and Root Construction Co...
...Woodland refused to cast his vote, thus threatening to stall in committee a measure his election-minded Democratic colleagues sought...
...The senator's eyes were wet with anguish, red from lack of sleep...
...By January ot this year, when Ohioans shivered in the subzero chill, many gas customers were in an ugly mood...
...At the same time, town officials went public with their complaints against Texas Gulf...
...The company, grumbled one local citizen evicted from his land, "ain't much of a farmer...
...But Binks Guilford, a sixty-five-year-old school board member and grocer, is more contentious...
...They keep trying things to erase the town...
...From the start, he spent every available hour walking through the district, meeting voters regardless of party affiliation, drawing attention to his opponent's connection to the gas company...
...As long as I have anything to do with it," says Guilford, a lifelong resident of the town, "Aurora is not going to roll over and play dead, not for Texas Gulf, not for anybody...
...People are not particularly friendly, but they are helpful to strangers...
...The leaders of organized labor, who often view Ohio's Democrats as members of their own select flock, had heartily embraced him...
Vol. 40 • September 1976 • No. 9
