The cotton mill is kept running, although prices for yarn are low. But the mill management figures that if the hands can be kept employed the people of the community are provided with an income, and the trade is held to a certain extent by the sales of the product. The organization is always an important factor about any industry, and if the hands can be kept employed and on the job so that in case business picks up again some day they will be there ready to work, it will be much better than having everybody scattered.
Then Mr. Cameron figures that the community has grown up about the cotton mill and it is better to find something for the hands to do even if the mill makes no profit, than to shut down and make no profit. It is the case of the oyster when the cook asked him if he would be fried or roasted, and he said he didn’t see that it made much difference. The demand for yarn is still slow, and one reason is that the government when the war closed had on hand a large supply of cotton goods of various kinds and has been throwing that on the markets at any price and in big quantity to get rid of it. How much of that material is yet to be unloaded is not known, but it has badly demoralized trade, and is a factor in the uncertainty that still prevails.
At the mill office it is said that it is hard to make a forecast on the prospect for cotton. The mill has a big stock still in the warehouses, which it is working up as fast as it can, but it is not enthusiastic over manufacturing yarn from cotton that cost 35 or 40 cents a pound and sells in the market in competition with cotton that cost 12 cents. Trying to work off the high priced cotton in manufactured form has had an influence in lessening the demand for cotton goods. Every wholesaler who had on his hands cotton that he had bought at a high figure disliked to push it out at the present lower prices. So selling the manufacturer goods has been a slow business.
Gradually the market is taking goods that have been made from last year’s crop, and with the smaller crop made this year, which the government estimates at 8,500,000 bales, or the lowest that has been made in 25 years, it is presumed that the new cotton will be called for in the course of time. Every day the mill is using some of the stock on hand, and it must have more when that is gone.
From The Pilot, Devoted to the Upbuilding of Vass and Its Surrounding County, Friday, July 22, 1921
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The Way Out
It is the desire of the Charlotte cotton mills affected by the strike which has been running for nearly 60 days to re-open their plants. While they can make but little money under present conditions while operating, they will be better off running than to stand idle.
It is the desire of the striking employes, a vast percent of them, to return to work. While their wages are unsatisfactory, as the wages of almost everybody else these days, they are better off with a reduced pay envelope than they are without any pay at all.
The operators and the operatives, therefore, are in identically the same circumstances. Both have the same desire; both have the same relative economic standing. Both are losing heavily by the continuance of the strike.
What keeps them apart, then?
As we have been led to believe, it is upon the counsel of the president of the United Textile Workers Union and subordinate officers that the individual mill workers are not being allowed the right of exercise of their own judgment. The organization has interposed itself between them and their daily occupation, between them and food and clothing for themselves and their families, between them and what is obviously their best interest.
If the International union of which they are members and to which they have been looking for support was making good with its promises to hold them harmless while this “test of strength” is being consummated, there might be some reason, if not propriety, in holding out in hope of winning their contentions. But, manifestly, the union has fallen flat and the word of its president has not been observed.
The funds which have been sent into the communities affected by the mills are too scant to do more than touch the fringes of the suffering. We doubt if the workers are getting back, in these times of distress, anything like what they have been paying into the treasury of this organization during these years in the ways of dues. The International organization came to lead them into a realization of their demands, came to promise them sustenance and a livelihood and has left them in a condition described by non-partisans as no less than deplorable.
It is time for the mill workers in unison to exercise their own sovereignty in this matter and for all parties concerned to make an immediate end to the present impasse.
We have a notion that if the workers will indicate their determination to return to their posts, they will find the mill managers in a gracious mood of acceptance. It is a glorious fact that but very little ill-feeling has been provoked. The operatives have conducted themselves in splendid orderliness and their community is not unmindful of this behavior. The mill owners have done nothing to aggravate the situation and are hoping that when, at length, relations are re-established, operations may be carried out without an unpleasant recollection of the present situation.
And while the mill operatives have a duty to perform in connection with their return to work, the mill owners have one no less imperative. The present day wages among cotton mill employes are too low to enable this class of our citizenship to live the sort of life they ought to aspire to live, to abide in comfort, to enjoy healthful environs and to educate their children. It is a wage justified alone by the fact that economic conditions allow no higher pay, a claim which we accept and which we believe a majority of the workers themselves believe.
When, however, conditions begin to brighten up and cotton products are selling at a price that will bring the mills reasonable profits, the wages of the workers ought to be increased. They ought to be told that such will be the disposition of the mill managers. The workers ought not to be forced to face a period of permanent wage decreases unless economic conditions are permanently to remain as they are toda,--and this is too improbable to consider. Once the workers have assurance, as definite and clear as can be given them, that they will be cared for as the markets improve, they will be more amenable to the proposition of returning to their task with better spirit and more hopeful of better things to come.
From the editorial page of The Charlotte News, Monday, July 25, 1921
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