The Constructive Philanthropy of a Southern

Cotton Mill

BY WILLIAM P. FEW

Dean and Professor of English in Trinity College

For the past several years during my vacations I have had occasion to observe a cotton mill in South Carolina that is doing much to improve the living conditions and to raise the standard of life among factory operatives. Because it seems to me to have lessons for other mills and for thoughtful people everywhere who are interested in human progress, I shall try to set forth simply and without ornamentation just what is being done by the management of this mill, the Victor Manufacturing Company at Greers, for the welfare of the employees and their families.

In this mill village the church is fortunately a center of influence. The divorce of the working people from the church has not come about here as it has in some other sections of this country, and if the church is wise it never will come about. The company has erected a commodious church building for the use of all denominations. A union church has some disadvantages, but it also has some decided advantages: for one thing it tends to mitigate the excesses and the evils of denominationalism, which in isolated and ignorant communities often constitute the chief hindrance to the influence and helpfulness of religious bodies. The danger lies in the tendency for religious tolerance and catholicity to pass into lukewarmness and complete indifference; but this has not happened at Victor. The Methodist and Baptist denominations, the only churches that have constituencies in the community, maintain large and active church organizations. The company gives a residence and two hundred dollars a year to the pastor of any mill church who lives in the village. The mill officers thus help and encourage the churches, but the congregations are left to rely largely on their own self-direction and self-help. Each has an earnest and efficient pastor, who seeks to shepherd his people and to build them up in their bodies, their minds, and their characters. Still more can be done by the churches as men better trained and more nobly consecrated to

the highest good of their fellows enter this field. There is now an urgent need for the right kind of men in this work, and the call will constantly become more insistent. The wise cultivation of the religious natures of men will do more than any other one thing to promote a sense of brotherhood and coöperation, and to break down the barriers that separate men into factions and produce all kinds of friction in business, in politics, and in society. The manufacturer or social reformer who neglects this agency for order and human brotherhood is very unwise. At Victor there is an eager desire to promote the religious well-being of the people and a fixed purpose to bring the best wisdom of this generation to the service of the children of the light. The success with which the churches are carrying on their work augurs well for the prosperity of the community and for the continuation of the friendly relations that exist between the employers and employees.

The mill maintains for nine months in the year a kindergarten and a school that offers instruction through four grades. It is supported out of the mill treasury, supplemented from the public school fund of the State. The officers of the mill select the teachers and give the school a wise general supervision. A much wiser school management is thus secured than is usual in small towns where chance or politics or personal caprice so often determines the destinies of the local school. The teachers canvass thoroughly the homes of the village for children of school age, and everything short of a compulsory law is done to bring all the children into the school. An admirable school house, built by the company, stands on a commanding hill and is furnished with playgrounds and attractive surroundings. I recently passed from the playgrounds of this mill school to the playgrounds of a neighboring village school, and could not perceive any noteworthy difference in the dress, health, or apparent happiness of the children of the two schools. Wisely managed and well taught this school affords excellent opportunities for an elementary education.

Efforts to instruct and improve this community are not confined to the church and the school, but the management is constantly on the lookout for any new agency that gives promise of doing good. Already there is a club house for men, called the Lyceum and containing a library, reading room, smoking room, bowling alley, games and lodge rooms, and other means

and appliances that fit this building to be a center for the social life of the men of the village. The building is kept open at suitable hours during the day and at night. The reading room is supplied with newspapers and magazines which, I have observed, the people read, and the library affords sufficient opportunity for pleasant and improving reading. A teacher from the mill school is on hand each Saturday afternoon to give to such as may wish it expert advice about books to read. The keeper of the building informs me that the books are widely used, and my own observation goes to confirm his statement. Through the reading room, the library, public lectures, and entertainments, the people of this mill village have a better chance at self-cultivation and enlightenment than is in reach of the general population of the Southern States outside of cities and larger towns. Besides, the club rooms furnish a place for social foregatherings in surroundings that are bound to have a civilizing and uplifting influence.

There is also a commodious and expensive building lately erected by the company for the use of the women and children of the village. This club house has a gymnasium, baths, assembly rooms, and living quarters, with all modern conveniences, that make the building a model of its kind. Here are the headquarters of the Y. W. C. A. workers, the general secretary, the domestic science teacher, and the kindergartner, three well trained and competent women who give all their time to religious and welfare work for the women and children of the community. The general secretary is engaged in efforts aimed directly at the physical, intellectual, social, and religious development of women and children of seven years and upwards. The domestic science teacher has classes in cooking, housekeeping, and sewing. The kindergarten teacher has charge of the children under seven years of age. By means of classes for mothers, classes for girls, sewing circles, night school, library, and reading room, these women seek to promote in the community better ideals of living. They live in the building, and not only give instruction, but actual object lessons in cooking, housekeeping, sewing, and the domestic arts in general. The women and girls of the village have shown a remarkable eagerness to make a wise use of their opportunities. At the organization of this work for them one hundred members were enrolled. Subsequent additions and the

large regular attendance supply additional evidence that these extraordinary advantages will not go unimproved.

All these facilities for self-improvement that are provided by the mill and made available for everybody are doing much to enrich the lives of the people; yet there is perhaps on the mill itself no obligation to create these opportunities out of its own funds other than the duty that rests upon every man to do what he can to make the world a better place in which to live. But the mill does owe its employees certain primary duties. It is in common honesty bound to pay a living wage, to consider the interests of the laborer as important as the interests of the stockholder, to create wholesome conditions and, as far as may be, attractive surroundings in which the laborer may live and work. Of these voluntary benevolences and primary duties the Victor Manufacturing Company has done the one, and the other it has not left undone. The operatives are well paid. The wage is higher than the wage paid the ordinary day laborer in the community. The age limit and the working hours are humane and reasonable. The families live in comfortable houses. Good water and the utmost possible cleanliness produce sanitary conditions. The mill itself is beautiful and well kept. The grounds about it are covered with grass and set with trees. Available open spaces are turned into attractive parks. All over the company's property, by use of trees, grass, vines, and flowers, the vil lage is beautified. Every device approved by the best experience has been used to encourage the householders to grow flowers and to cultivate herb gardens. A pasture free of charge is kept for the use of all families that have cows. Sufficient open space is available for those who wish to raise chickens. All these conditions make possible a satisfying home life for every family that will make the most of its opportunities. The people of the mill are beginning to own the houses in which they live. The company is dividing up into lots a near-by tract of land to sell to such mill people as wish to purchase land on which to build residences for their own occupancy. To give the people this further stake in the community will go far towards reforming completely the nomadic life of the factory population, which is a great evil, but which has never been so serious at Victor as at some other mills. The mill happens to be located on the outskirts of a small,

thriving town, where social distinctions are little stressed. This fortunate circumstance and the genuinely human, unprofessional attitude of the management towards the people have prevented the growth of social castes and bitterness, and have welded the community into an unusual oneness of aim and sympathy.

Through church, school, library, public lectures, private instruction, personal sympathy and example, through wholesome conditions and attractive surroundings, the management is seeking to educate and elevate not only the children of the community, but also the whole population, grown-ups as well as the young. Through all these processes and by the use of these most approved methods, I believe a general tendency is being created that is improving and uplifting the community. A higher standard of living is being set, and this will be a controlling influence in many an individual life and in many a home. The tonic effect of ideals and the shaping power of new ideas and new ways of doing things are vague and intangible, but they are pervasive and mighty. There are many people who will do better when they are shown how to do better, but the instruction must come in a way that attracts their attention and in a form that is obvious to their minds. For this purpose a valuable idea put into successful operation is above all formal teaching and abstract advice: things seen are mightier than things heard. Take a simple matter like the matter of cooking. For generations the cooking among the less well-to-do classes in the Southern States has been atrociously bad; whether it is better in the same class in other parts of the country, I do not know. It shows little if any tendency to improve. Now I can see no reason why the sort of efforts put forth at the Victor Mills should not even in one generation bring about a much better grade of cooking in that community. And if it does, that will be as valuable a reform as could be brought about. Mean biscuits have probably done almost as much harm as mean whiskey. So also may improvement be made in housekeeping and other domestic arts, as well as in the training and religious education of children.

Because of the rapid and wide dissemination of ideas through the press, because of the open mindedness of the American people, and because for intellectual and spiritual purposes the whole country has become one great community-for these reasons movements