700 of 2,200 Workers Peacefully Return to Kannapolis Cannon Towel Mill, Aug. 17, 11921

Cannon Plant Begins Work This Morning. . . No Disorder

By Brock Barkley

Kannapolis, August 17—Textile unionism sustained a shattering blow when more than 700 operatives, a third of the normal enrollment of employes, went in the giant towel mill of the Cannon Manufacturing company at 7 o’clock this morning. Their return to work was in defiance of their leaders’ orders, and consequently, a virtual renunciation of the union.

Seventy members of the Winston-Salem military company stood guard as line after line of operatives entered the several gateways leading into the plant. Not so much as a shout came from the small band of “irreconcilables” which occupied a street corner and watched silently their neighbors return to work. The crowd of onlookers numbered barely 200, and it was the most orderly gathering of strikers which has assembled in the strike center since the first steps were talk towards the reopening of the mills.

“Every department of the mill is in operation,” C.A. Cannon, a vice president of the company, announced to newspaper men. “I am perfectly satisfied with the response of the people to the offer of the company to resume operations. We expect the number of employes to increase tomorrow and on subsequent mornings.”

Not Even Fist Fight

Although 3,500 people here went on strike 11 weeks ago, today not so much as a fist fight has occurred as the direct outgrowth of difficulties. The Kannapolis people have been unusually orderly. Orders were issued last night by union leaders against the establishment of picketing lines and “anti-scabbing” demonstrations.

The Cannon Manufacturing company’s plant here is the largest towel mill in the world and employes normally 2,200 people. The giant plant is more than two miles in circumference and a dozen buildings occupy the property.

Troops were scattered over the property and silently patrolled the roadways around and through the plant. Every glance of the eye caught the dim figures of a khaki-clad trooper through the dense fog of the early morning with gun and bayonet silhouetted against a dull sky. On the roof of one of the tallest buildings near the lant were stationed a detachment of soldiers on watch from a vantage point.

Everybody was kept on the move. Except at the street corner, crowds were not allowed to gather, and, for that matter, no crowd attempted to assemble. Any one was at liberty to enter the mill, his entrance through the gates signifying that he proposed working.

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From the front page of The Charlotte News, Aug. 17, 1921