The South Carolina Cotton Mill-A Manufac

turer's View

BY THOMAS F. PARKER

President of the Monoghan Mills, Greenville, S. C.

Cotton manufacturing began in South Carolina before the Revolution, but slavery prevented its growth, promoting agriculture to the neglect of all other industrial pursuits. Rightly to place the cotton mill of today as a social and economical factor, its surroundings and antecedents must be understood.

Few who have not suffered in the South know the depths of poverty and ignorance to which the masses of South Carolina, who constitute the cotton mill operatives, were reduced at the close of the "Reconstruction" period.* At the breaking out of the Civil War in 1860, South Carolina was third among the States in per capita wealth, and expended that year for education approximately $700,000, an amount exceeded by few. When the State brought to a successful close her desperate struggle against the so-called "Reconstruction Forces" for the preservation of civilization itself, she had lost during the sixteen years since the commencement of the Civil War more than seventy-five per cent. of her property, a large proportion of her best citizens, and nearly all means of education. The last call for troops, February, 1865, took into the field every white male from sixteen to sixty years of age, so that while the States of the North, East, and West had for the most part suffered uninterrupted prosperity, South Carolina in 1876 domiciled her surviving citizens among graves and the ruin of her former civilization. Was it any wonder that the United States Census of 1880 records South Carolina's illiteracy (white and colored) at 55.4 per cent.?

Under new and tolerable political conditions, but with resources and capital almost exhausted, and without trained manufacturers or operatives, the South Carolina survivors resumed manufacturing, urged forward by necessity and the old Southern spirit to a successful issue; and in four years they had the new movement

*The twelve years during which the negroes, led by white adventurers, ruled the State.

well under way. Climatic reasons located the mills almost entirely in the western half of the State, but Charleston furnished capital and several prominent presidents and directors; while the farseeing business methods and friendliness of New England cotton machinery manufacturers and New York sales agents provided what capital was necessary from without the State.

In 1880 South Carolina had eighteen mills with less than 2,000 looms, which were wonderfully increased by 1908 to over 150 mills, with approximately 93,000 looms; and the world was taking note that from insignificance in cotton manufacturing, South Carolina was ranking second in the United States, with mills costing over $100,000,000, of which the citizens owned seventy-five per cent., and with a mill village population exceeding 150,000 persons.

The mill movement in South Carolina found several men waiting for each one man's job, no market for land anywhere, and starvation wages driving many from the State; the following figures and statements will give some indication of how it changed these conditions during the period 1876-1908. In 1876 there were about 1,000 cotton mill operatives with a yearly wage of about $250,000. These were increased to nearly 50,000 operatives, with a wage approximately $12,000,000. In 1876 the average day wage of the operative for thirteen hours was less than 60 cents. This was gradually increased to an average day wage of $1.10 for ten hours. During this period one-fifth of the white population of the State were taken from the farms to the mills, and thereby changed from producers to consumers of farm products.*

By 1907 the mills purchased cotton to an amount exceeding $34,000,000, equivalent to eighty per cent. of the State's cotton. production. It was largely their influence on conditions in the State which enlarged the cotton crop from approximately 200,000 bales in 1870 to over 800,000 in 1900, and during the same period doubled the corn and rice crops, increased the hay crop twenty times, and the tobacco crop 570 times, producing agricultural prosperity for the first time since the war. By 1908 the pay rolls of the mills approximated $12,000,000 per annum, and

*Some of this 150,000 people were attracted by South Carolina from the mountain regions of adjoining States.

their dividends approximated $3,500,000, which rapidly built up the towns adjacent to the mills with their churches and institutions of learning.

During this period good new houses, with from four to six rooms, were built for the operatives (one-fifth of the total white population) in mill villages adjacent to the best towns of the State, and as this population has been drawn in large part from remote scattered homes inaccessible to civilizing influences, these people were profoundly influenced for good economically, religiously, and socially. The surplus population removed from the small farms and outlying districts was mostly the inefficient and uneducated portion, and this whole body of raw recruits was quickly transformed into a trained and disciplined army of wellto-do wealth producers, which is unconsciously using the present mill as a stepping stone to higher opportunities.

The immense amount of freight afforded by the mills and their large financial dealings have built up the railroads and banks. All these and other lesser causes have raised the general labor wage in South Carolina, including that on the farm, to approximate that of the prosperous sections of our country.

A visit to an average mill and then to typical places from which its operatives came, including the barren sandhills and isolated mountain coves, would give most persons an entirely different understanding of the cotton mill's influence. Some large families who come to the mill have lived in cabins, which, with their surroundings, can be described as follows: One small room with a door, and possibly one window, both of which are kept closed. during the winter and every night; an open fireplace for heat and cooking; a frying pan, coffee pot, and Dutch oven for cooking utensils; and for furniture, rough beds, chairs and a table. Not a book is in the house or even a newspaper, and the whole family uses tobacco and perhaps whiskey; ambition there is none, and only a bare subsistence is sought. From lack of occupation and mental interest the family spends a considerable part of its life in this room; the nearest neighbor is perhaps several miles distant, and the church and school during the short periods they are open are so remote as to be practically inaccessible. These conditions lead to dire poverty and disease, in extreme cases even causing clay eating.

Such a family brings all its belongings in one wagon with its members to the mill, and they often have to obtain a cash advance with which to purchase food upon their arrival, and sometimes with which to pay for their transportation to the mill. Changing to a mill and its village, with regular wages, intelligent interests, and contact with civilization, is a wonderful uplift for these people.

The class just described is the extreme, yet many such come to each mill, and there are all degrees between this and the small best class of mill comers.

An average observer, unconsciously comparing his family's occupations and home with those of South Carolina mill operatives, is really making a partial and misleading comparison. He should also contrast the past and present conditions of the operatives; and, if he does so, while he may still call attention to the mill's remediable defects, truthfulness will force him to give it credit for the great good it has done and is doing.

A factory village near a town is in a wholesome "lime light," and the living condition of its people can be easily observed, a thing impossible in their former isolated homes. Till causes have been studied, the conclusion is unwarranted that the evils observed are factory made. It is not denied that South Carolina mill managements who employ people of their own stock, and not infrequently kinsfolk of the oldest families, should follow the best twentieth century mill practices, and even lead in raising the working and living conditions of their operatives as far as is possible without jeopardizing or crippling their business, but blame not founded on fact delays improvement. And in South Carolina any statement assuming that orperatives are injured by coming to the mill immediately loses force with the mill managements and the public, for they know the contrary to be true. This new industry was not created at the expense of any values or of any other industry, but it is an embodied spirit of prosperity come to dwell in the State with gifts for all. Its achievements are those of a business effort, for cotton manufacturing in South Carolina has no claim to other purpose. But judged by the importance of its net results to the State, it will bear a favorable comparison even with the State's educational or philanthropic movements in their own field during the same period. Here is a

splendid opportunity for critics of South Carolina mills to furnish a statement concerning some other movement having their approval for comparison with the record of the mills, which in the magnitude of constructive work accomplished is phenomenal. Critics are usually ignorant of the magnificent scope of this movement, uplifting as it does a whole State, and occupy themselves with one or two of its details, which, however important, should not cause one to lose sight of the greater in the less.

Night labor in South Carolina cotton mills can be said to have nearly ceased, as there are only four of the smallest mills that continue this injurious practice.* Such child, married-woman, and night, labor as should not have existed in South Carolina were caused by extreme poverty and a lack of standards and traditions among the operatives, and are decreasing under more favorable conditions. It is not denied that at times such labor has been encouraged or winked at by some mill managements for their own profit, but a growing public opinion is constantly exercising greater influence in these matters. Already the percentage of women operatives in South Carolina is less than in Massachusetts; the United States Census of 1900 gives South Carolina a percentage of 37, and the Massachusetts State Bureau gives that State in 1906 a percentage of 43.

These people, even when extremely poor, are very independent in their attitude towards an employer, often too much so for their own good. Being familiar with mill and farm conditions, they do not hesitate when dissatisfied to move from mill to mill or back to farm work. This has been done frequently from mere restlessness, and is very annoying to the mills, but the ability to do so at any time with ease is a wholesome check on mill managements and has been of great benefit to the operative. Despite many statements to the contrary by uninformed persons,

*Persons unacquainted with factory hours are often misled by seeing mills illumined before or after daylight, thinking that this is all night labor, when it is not. A day shift works sixty hours per week, and operatives often prefer working eleven hours for five days and five hours on Saturday forenoon, so that they may have Saturday afternoon as well as Sunday free. This necessitates starting before daylight and closing after dark during the winter months, and in such cases the law allows this time to be made up, provided that under no circumstances a child below the age of twelve is worked later than 9 p. m.; and that not more than sixty hours of lost time are made up during any one year, and then only when such lost time has been caused by accident or other unavoidable cause.