A textile worker’s home is just a portion of the mill, or a corner of the weave room, so to speak, according to the statements of ‘Squire Alexander in His Honor’s court last Monday in the ejection cases of G.C. Myers, J.C. Sawyer, and C.J. Gann. Myers and Gann had been discharged, and it was claimed by the company that Sawyer quit his job. Ejection proceedings were brought against the trio, and the hearing was held Tuesday. Jake F. Newell represented the workers, and C.W. Tillett was attorney for the Highland Park Manufacturing company.
Attorney Newell was endeavoring to show that a man’s home is his home in the eyes of the law, whether that person be a textile worker or a railroad president. The court ruled otherwise, however, stating that mill houses are a part of the mill property and that a man living in one of the mill houses might as well lock up his job in the weave when he is fired as to stay in the house in which he had been living.
In other words, a textile worker has no home. His home is a manufacturing property, just the same as the mill building, or a room in the mill building.
Counsel for the mill company endeavored to establish (words obscured) the cotton mill as being superior to the laws of the state, so Attorney Newell contended. Mr. Newell insisted the laws of North Carolina applicable to any and all tenant houses people rented as homes applied to the houses in the mill villages. This contention was resisted by attorney for the mill company, and he, at each and every turn, went back to the “custom” that had been followed by the mill companies.
“You cannot substitute cotton mill custom for the law of North Carolina,” Mr. Newell thundered.
But the mill company won the decision, despite the pleading of Mr. Newell.
An appeal was taken, and then came an interesting event of the trial. The houses had been renting for 25 cents a room per week, with water and lights at additional cost. The total was about $6 a month. The court named the rental at $25 a month, on the grounds, he stated, that the houses were not now being used for the purpose for which they were erected. The lawyer for the mills asked $35 a month. Mr. Newell contended that the same amount the workers have been paying should be the amount named. He cited decisions from the Supreme court in an endeavor to substantiate this contention. After making a lengthy statement, ‘Squire Alexander named the amount at $25 a month. The court said there is a prejudice against the mill works that makes property undesirable for renting purposes in a mill section. The court regretted, it was asserted, that such prejudice does exist, yet it is a fact. The court declared that cotton mill workers are just as good as anybody else, in the court’s estimation, and there should be no feeling against them. Yet is exists, nevertheless, and therefore he could not place as high valuation upon the property as he could were the houses not located in the mill village. Many spectators were surprised when the court said $25, after the very frank statement had been made as to the manner in which the general public feels toward the textile workers. It was stated by several who know the property that $25 a month would be a good rental for the houses if they were located in any part or section of the city. They are unscreened, no baths, very ordinary, old, according to Superintendent Anderson. Therea re no basins, water being piped into house, with toilets built on back porch.
Two weeks ago a similar trial was held when Col. T.L. Kirkpatrick defended Will Young in an ejection proceeding by the same company. Both Col. Kirkpatrick and Mr. Newell brought to light the handicap under which the textile worker lives and labors. He at the absolute mercy of his boss. Superintendent Anderson of Highland Park Mill No. 3, who is also superintendent of the Sunday School in the North Charlotte Methodist church, stated on oath that the mill workers are hired by the day and their houses rented to them by the week. All of which goes to show the quarrel this paper, and right thinking people everywhere, have with the cotton mill system in the South, where the employer not only controls the lives of the workers in the industry, but has also absolute control over the workers in their homes. For any or for no reason whatever the workers can be fired and not only fired but kicked out of their homes on a two-days’ notice, thanks to the laws of North Carolina. In addition to this, a deputy sheriff, said to be armed at all times, is ever and all days about the workers when on their jobs.
A home rented by the week, a job of a day’s duration at a time, according to the superintendent of the mill, an armed “officer” of the law always on hand, presents a danger to North Carolina that is more threatening by far than all the “red” agents that ever came from Russia or Southern Europe. The mill workers have no guarantees whatever as citizens of a community. Going to work with the rising sun, they know not whether their job will last until the setting of that sun. It all depends upon how the employer feels toward the worker. He plants potatoes on Monday, in the little lot behind the rough mill house, and he knows not whether he will be in that home any later than the following Saturday night!
Any state, having for its great, dominant industry, an industry upon which practically every business in the state depends either directly or indirectly, is building upon a very unsafe foundation, upon sand instead of stone, so long as the workers in that dominant industry are forced to live the uncertain life that the textile workers are living today. It must be remembered that the textile workers constitute the second largest group of people in North Carolina. A job by the day, a home by the week, for this great group of necessary workers whose labor creates most of the wealth of the state, presents a fertile field for the sowing of radicalism. The “custom of the mills,” as so often referred to by that great corporation lawyer, C.W. Tillett Jr., cannot be expected to remain forever above the laws of this state, as pointed out so forcefully by Attorney Newell and Attorney Kirkpatrick.
People who have a real regard for North Carolina and her future, and who think of the citizens of the state as citizens, not confining their thoughts to Myers Park and like residential sections, but look upon every man and woman and child as the state’s assets, as the state itself, would do well to lend their aid to the great purpose and plan to stop this one-day job and one-week home business. People whose homes are considered by law as a corner of a weave room in a cotton mill, cannot have any great regard either for the state or the state’s laws.
The One Big Union, a branch of the Industrial Workers of the World, which is itself a part of the aggregation of law-hating and state-hating bunch having its main headquarters in Moscow, have organized in Durham, this state. The one-day job, the one-week home, armed “officers” of the law standing about the workers in the industry—all combine to make such places a ready and responsive field for the hellish work of the Moscow agents.
This is 1923. The “customs” that have prevailed in the cotton mills in the past cannot prevail much longer in North Carolina. Some of these customs have been changed. A short time ago it was the custom to work 8- and 9-year-old children in the cotton mills. That has been stopped. This one-day home business is going to stop, too. No one can tell how it will be stopped, but it is going to be stopped, and the textile workers are going to have a voice in their wages, their hours of labor, and their working conditions. The textile workers of North Carolina are going to stand on an equal plane with the other workers of this state, in spite of all the “customs,” all the side-issues, and officers and peculiar construction laws. No one knows just when this will be an actuality, yet it is coming, just as sure as God is just, as sure as Jesus Christ gave Christianity to the world.
Christianity cannot condone, nor will a just God long permit, this one-day job and one-week home for His children.
From the front page of the Charlotte Herald, August 24, 1923
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