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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview E-0017, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Lacy Wright was born in Greensboro, North Carolina. At the age of twelve, Wright left school in order to start working to help support his family. Wright's father worked for Cone Mills in Greensboro and arranged for Wright to work at the White Oak plant where he worked. Wright explains that it was a common practice for children to work at the same plant as their parents. Wright explains how company paternalism in the mills and in the mill villages helped to facilitate family ties in the workplace: children compromised approximately one-fourth of the labor force in the Cone textile plants during this time. Except of a brief stint with the post office in the late 1920s and early 1930s, Wright worked only for Cone Mills from the late 1910s into the mid-1960s, when he retired. All but two of those years were spent in the White Oak plant. During these years, Wright also lived in Cone Mill villages. Throughout the interview he discusses what it was like to live in company housing, stressing the paternal role of Cone Mills in the lives of their workers. Aside from some efforts at organization and one short-lived strike during the late 1910s and early 1920s, Cone Mill workers largely stayed out of the labor movement until the 1950s. Decent wages and a low layoff rate kept them out of the 1934 general strike, say Wright. Nevertheless, Cone Mill workers were increasingly drawn into the labor movement during the 1950s when organizers from the United Textile Workers/American Federation of Labor and the Textile Workers of America/Congress for Industrial Organization competed for support amongst Cone Mills plants. Wright describes this process and explains his own growing involvement in the labor movement during his last years as a worker for Cone Mills. In addition, he describes his general support of unionization and outlines what he perceives as unique challenges of labor organization in the South.
Lacy Wright worked for Cone Mills in Greensboro, North Carolina, for nearly fifty years, from the late 1910s at the age of twelve to the mid-1960s. He describes work in the textile industry, life in the mill villages, and the role of the labor movement in the southern textile industry during a large stretch of the twentieth century.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Lacy, let me ask you first: when did you start working in the textile mills?
I started working in the textile mill in
1917. Here in Greensboro?
I started work at twelve years old. And with the exception of seven years I worked 'til I was sixty-two.
From age twelve to age sixty-two, that's fifty years.
In other words, I worked for the company forty-four years.
The Cone Company? The same company?
Cone Mill Company, forty-four years.
What did you do when you were twelve years old?
Well, I did about everything that was to be done in the carding room from
sweeping the floor to being a slub attender, everything with the
exception of being a boss man or a fixer. I never did
How much did you make when you were twelve years old? Do you know?
When I started to work I made seventy-five cents a day, ten hours a day.
So you weren't going to school?
I had to quit school. My dad had to take me out of school. I only went five and a half years to school.
You were in sixth grade when you left?
I was in the sixth grade. I went 'til Christmas in the sixth grade. And my dad had to take me out of school.
This is 1920? What year did you say it was?
No, it was 1917. And I went to work in the card room.
And I got a job with the Post Office department for seven years.
Did your brothers and sisters work in the mill too?
I had two sisters and one brother. I got one brother still working in the mill.
When they were little?
You bet your life. He works in the spinning department. He's worked in the spinning department all his life.
But all of you dropped out of school?
Well, yes. Now we came here in 1912, and my sisters went to work immediately. All the schooling they got was in a country school. So when they came here my uncle was spinning room boss. My dad was a farmer in the country, and he talked my uncle into moving and bringing all of us up here and putting us to work. My two sisters went to work immediately. Well, now, the reason my dad took me out of school was my two sisters married, and it left him and nobody but himself to work. I believe at that time he was making $1.25 a day.
In the spinning room?
In the card room. Now my dad, when he come to the mill he was already up
between his forties and fifty years old, and he never did learn how to
operate no machinery. He was just a handy-man, you might call him. And
so I went to work in the mill. And I did, of course, one little thing
like sweeping the floor and pushing out rolling from the spaders and one
thing and another, until I think I was about sixteen years old and I
begin operating drawing frames. Well, I operated drawing frames up until
I got
Speeder?
Speeder: s-p-double e-d-e-r-s, speeders. So I ran speeders until 1924, and I worked for the Post Office department about seven years.
Why did you quit working in the mill?
Well, I had a brother-in-law (my wife's brother) that got a job with the Post Office department and under civil service. Now the job I had with the Post Office department at that time wasn't a civil service, it was just Special Delivery messages. And the Depression came along, and it got so bad I had to operate my own automobile and furnish everything for it, and deliver the letters for so much a letter, you see. So when times begin to get bad people quit spending so much to mail a letter and went back to three cent letter. So then it got so bad I came back, then, to the textile mill; in 1933, right after Roosevelt was elected and taking his seat in '33, in May.
Then you left the Post Office?
I left the Post Office and came back. So I wouldn't have gotten back in the mill at that time if it hadn't of been for the fact of the Revolution Plant. I came back to work at the Revolution Plant then.
Revolution Plant?
Revolution Plant; it's a Cone Mills plant. So I came to work there; they started up a second shift. Now at that time we went to work at six o'clock in the evening and worked all night long until five o'clock the next morning.
You worked eleven hours?
Eleven hours. And boy that's a long drag, I'll tell you that!
Were there still young kids working there too?
Yes. Now during this time, right after I went to work, I don't remember what year it was, but child labor laws come into effect. So what they did to us kids that was in the mills and wasn't sixteen years old, they let us work eight hours a day. See, a kid could work eight hours a day when he wasfourteen years old. They couldn't hire one after the child labor laws come in; you couldn't hire a child that wasn't fourteen years old. So I worked about a year and a half on eight hours a day. We'd come in at nine o'clock and work 'til noon, and they give you an hour for dinner. You go home for lunch and come back at one, and then work 'til six. So I worked about a year and a half at that, on eight hours a day.
What year was that, now? This is '33, right after you've come back to work?
Let's see. I went to work in '17, when I was twelve years old. That must have been somewhere along about 1918-1919.
Oh, in the early days.
During the war.
Lacy, how many kids were there in the plant? How many young boys like yourself, and young girls? Do you remember?
Oh, my goodness. That company didn't raise their help, they grew their
help. In other words, if you'd of lived in, like, Madison or Mayodan or
High Point, Winston-Salem or anything like that and come here wanting a
job, they'd tell you: "No, we don't need no help." Because everybody
that had children, they gave them the jobs, don't you see, because they
It was a real family thing, the whole family worked.
As to how many, it's hard to tell, because they had families over there then that's unbelievable. They had families over there that had twelve to fourteen children in one family. So actually it's hard to tell how many
In the plant you worked in when you were little, do you remember, were half the people that worked there children? Or a quarter?
Well, I would say it would run around 20-25 percent, at least that much. Because every kid over there went to work at an early age. Then back in those days, you know, it was quite different than it is now. There wasn't no recreation for kids, you know. They always kind of had a problem. Actually, I would have liked to went on to school. I loved school, and I got along in school good. And I would have liked to have went on. But there was numbers and numbers of children fourteen years or something; they get the idea they want to go to making them some money, so they put in to work.
Did you live in a house that the Cone Mills owned?
We lived in a house that the company owned all my life, with the exception of the time that I worked at the Post Office. Now that was one thing: if you quit the mill you had to leave their house. They wouldn't let you live in their house and work somewhere else.
You were in a regular mill town, weren't you?
Yes. If your father worked there they wouldn't allow you to live with your father and get a job somewhere else, you see. That was against the rules. In other words, your dad either had to put you in the mill or leave, one or the other.
Did the foreman tell him that? Who told him he had to do that?
Well, that was a company rule.
How did you know the rule?
They tell you that!
They tell you that.
Yes.
They come around to your house and tell you, or they tell you on the phone.
No, they tell you in the plant. In other words, if I'd of went somewhere else and got a job, they'd of told my dad right quick: "That boy can't stay with you; or you've got to quit and leave work." See. That was set rules in all the plants at that time.
Did that ever upset your daddy?
Oh no, because, you see, after I'd quit I'd already married. I was my own man then, you see. After I got married I worked on about three and a half more years 'til I went to the Post Office. And I came back to the mill in '33 at that Revolution Plant. Well, I worked the Revolution Plant about two years and they started tearing out the speeders and putting in an improved slubber that would take the place of the speeder. Well, there wasn't enough jobs for all of us, because they already had slubbers and speeders, and they were going to do away with the old slubber and speeder and put in a new type slubber that would make more production than we had been making before, you see.
Tell me what a slubber is, Lacy.
Well, a slubber puts it on a bobbin—at that time I'd say about ten to twelve inches in length when it was full.
Puts the yarn on bobbins.
That's right, puts the yarn on slubber on what we called a
This is about '35, something like that?
Yes, in '35.
Do you remember Franklin Roosevelt coming into office?
Yes sir.
What do you remember about him? First, in 1933, you were a young married man going back to work in the mill.
Well, the times were so bad when Franklin Roosevelt was elected and the country was in such shape… Now before I left the Post Office this Depression came on, see, and that was one of the reasons I had to leave the Post Office. So when Franklin Roosevelt was elected they started in what people called then pump priming.
Pump priming.
Pump priming. Now what they meant by pump priming was that he began to
take government money and create jobs to put all these people that was
out of work… Now when you was out of work back in them days you didn't
get a dime from nowhere, see. If you got out of a job, if you couldn't
pick up a day's work there and then, why you just didn't get nothing. So
when he was elected, why he began spending money. Now I don't reckon you
all ever know anything about it, but they actually put men out and paid
them—I don't remember now just exactly what the wages were, it wasn't a
whole lot—
The W.P.A. jobs.
That's right, the W.P.A. work, that's what it was. And they began to get people to work, see.
Did you think about applying for a W.P.A. job yourself?
No, I had a job…
At the Revolution Mill.
At the revolution mill, and the Post Office together. Now when I left the Post Office I didn't even lose one day's work. In other words, I left the Post Office… Well, I actually worked on the Post Office one week, worked there in the daytime, and slept what little I could and then go to work in the mill. I saw I couldn't hold that a day longer.
You're a pretty hardy man, Lacey.
Well, I wasn't nothing but skin and bones. You know, when you get down to
skin and bones there ain't but one thing you can get off, and that's
either the bones or the skin, one, you know!
Were a lot of your friends out of work?
You know, that was an outstanding thing here in Greensboro, when I began to think back about it. The mills was running, three or four days a week, every week.
Even during the Depression?
Yes.
Yes, all the time.
You see, they were running three or four days a week in place of shutting
down and laying off like a lot of mills did. They managed some
You were OK, eh?
You could eat. And, of course, we all grew a garden. Most every house had a garden. They laid me off at Revolution.
When was that? '35, you said?
'35. They laid me off in '35, the spring of '35. Now incidently, in the fifty years from the time I went to work until I retired, there were six days that I was out of a job, in that period of time. And that was when they laid me off at Revolution. So I came home. My dad was still living in the mill village at White Oak, and he let me have half of his house when I had to leave the Post Office—he had a six room house, and there wasn't nobody but him and Mom in it—three rooms of it.
Did you have some kids by then? Did you have some children yourself?
Yes, we had two children at that time. That's all I got now. So Dad let
me have half the house, and I lived there while I worked for Revolution,
most of the time. So when they laid me off at Revolution the old man
that was my supervisor when I first went to work had got to be mill
superintendent at White Oak. So I went to see him (he was named Mr.
Armfield).
Let me be sure I understand. You're saying you didn't have any job, and now you had two jobs.
That's right.
OK.
That's exactly right. In other words, already I had one job and the offer of another going back.
So what happened? Did you end up taking them both?
No.
He said: "Well, I'd like to have you back." I said: "Well, Mr. Leonard, why didn't you keep me while you had me?"
What did he say?
He kind of grinned. He said: "Well, I reckon I should have." I said: "Well, I tell you. It's got to where I'm going down here like Mr. Beal told me, down to payroll office. I'm going to work Monday morning in White Oak." So then I worked at White Oak, and I retired when I was sixty-two. Well, in fact, I got so sick that I had to stay out of work in February before I was sixty-two, in September.
What year was that, then? (1966)
Why, at White Oak. You know, I had emphysema. I went to see a doctor; he told me I had emphysema. And I just got to where I couldn't stay down there, that's all there was to it. I couldn't work.
So in 1935 you moved to White Oak? Is that the year they laid you off?
That's right.
You moved over to White Oak in 1935 and you stayed on at White Oak until…
I was sixty-two. Let's see; that was… This is September… Next May it will be—count nine years back, now what is that? This is '74.
About '66?
'66 when I retired.
So you were at White Oak thirty years?
The last time.
The last time.
Yes.
Not that first time when you were a kid.
That's right.
You worked at Revolution for two years, '33 and '35. You worked at White Oak from '35 to '66.
That's right.
Let me ask you, Lacy. When was the first time you ever heard of a union?
When I was a kid.
Who told you about it?
Well, they was all over all the mill villages over there because they got a labor movement started—now that was a peculiar thing—in Revolution Plant.
Is that right?
Yes.
When you were a kid?
Well, when I was young, yes. I don't remember now just what year it was. And the company got on them people so bad about trying to organize down there that they fired I don't know how many of them, take their furniture and set it out in the streets, out of the mill houses and out in the streets. Wouldn't even let the people have time to find them another house and move into it. They had their own constables.
This was in the mill villages.
That's right.
In the twenties?
No, that must have been about the time I went to work. Yes, right about World War I.
Late teens; '17.
Yes.
No, he's not slowing down.
They fired and moved out I don't know how many people.
What did you think about the union then, yourself? Did you have any feelings one way or another?
Yes, I did.
In the forties.
Now that was under the C.I.O. before they both came together.
Let's go back. Did you ever hear of a flying squadron?
Yes. I mean, a lot of things happened while I was at Revolution.
That's right.
1934; September 1934.
You know what I told my boss down there one night? We went in down there. I don't know whether you ever saw a picker stick on a loom or not.
A what stick?
A picker stick, they call it.
What's that?
It's on a loom; it makes a shuttle go through the warp. And it's a
hickory stick about that wide and about that thick, and it's about four
feet long—three and a half, four feet long. And it was hickory, solid
hickory. Now they'd taken a bunch of them and piled them at the mill
door when they begin to hear about these flying squadrons, you know. And
I went to work one night down there and my sister's overseer, a fellow
by the name of Roy Lynch, he come to me. He said: "Wright," he said.
"Now we got pretty good evidence that they're going to shut us down
tonight. We've got picker sticks at all these outside doors." He said:
"If they come, what we want you to do, we want you to go out the door
and get you a picker stick, and go to
Your foreman told you that, Lacey?
The assistant foreman.
The assistant foreman. Did he tell everybody that, or particularly you.
Told everybody. Went around there and cornered them and told everybody.
Did you like him?
Well, I'll tell you what I told him, now.
OK.
I said: "Roy, you just let me know when them fellows get here, that flying squadron. And," I said, "in place of going out on that side of the building and getting me a picker stick, I'm going back on this side and find me a hole. I'm going out of here."
You were going to get out of there.
I'm going to get out of there. And he looked at me. He said: "Well, you think that's the best thing for you?" I said: "I tell you. I like my job, but I don't like it well enough for somebody to kill me for it." And I said: "I figure them fellows come here, and they come here with ideas that they are going to stop this mill."
You knew what they were coming for.
Absolutely. And I said: "To my thinking, they going to come here for pay. That's my opinion of it." I said: "Now I may be wrong, but I ain't going to test to see whether they come here for pay or not. I'm going over there to find me a hole on the back side, and I'm going out of here."
How'd you hear about them, the first time?
Oh man, it was all over everywhere around here. Everybody in the mill knew.
How did they know?
Oh, it was in the news, in the newspapers.
Did you think they were bad people? Did the news say they were going to try to stop the mill.
No. No, I didn't think they were bad people.
Did you think they were good people? Did you think they were crazy?
Well, I'll tell you what I thought.
Did you think they were people like yourself?
I'll tell you what I thought, at that time. I didn't say much about it, because I couldn't afford to.
Right.
I said if them people were that interested in getting them a better situation where they worked, that they were willing to get out of here and go somewheres to try to shut somebody else down, even if they had to fight about it, that they mush have something that we didn't already have. That's exactly what my thoughts was.
Were you working in the mill then too?
Yes, sure, weaving over there I did.
I remember that.
Now, I don't actually believe in strikes until there's just absolutely no
other way. Now I'm a firm believer, and all the time I was in organized
labor, I believe if you get the tables between you and you stay there
and talk long enough, you can come to some place in there that both
sides can kind of work with it at that particular time, or maybe a short
period of time. You
Think back when you were in the Revolution Mill now, right. It was 1934, and the foreman came to you and wanted you to pick up one of those sticks.
That's right.
You didn't know anything about a bargaining table at that point, did you?
Yes, to a certain extent. And I'll tell you one reason where I got a little bit of experience in bargaining. Postal carriers and postal clerks have an association. Now, they couldn't strike, at that time the law wouldn't allow them to, strike. But they did. And they would have their meetings, monthly meetings, each one. It was a separate organization, but it was a national organization with both of them; in other words, all over the country. Now then, the way they worked, they worked by putting pressure on the congressmen and senators. They weren't allowed to strike. I learned a little about organization there. And there were some things that they done real well there, and there's some they didn't. And so when I went back to Revolution I had me a little bit better knowledge of what organization could do for you than I did when I first worked in the mill.
Had you ever heard of the National Recovery Act? At the time, did you ever hear of that?
Yes.
What did you hear about it?
When it was enacted… Now that's one thing I've always kind of tried to do. But due to the fact that I didn't get much education, I tried to pick up here and there, everywhere I could, any kind of knowledge I could. And I knew of it at that time, because, you see, it was enacted under Roosevelt.
That's right.
So I did know it. I mean, I didn't know all the benefits, all the workings of it, but I knew that it was passed by Congress, and it was passed to protect the working man. And that was just about the general idea of what I knew about it.
Well, tell me. Did the squadrons ever come?
Never did.
They never came to White Oak?
No.
No, you were at Revoluion. They never came…
Never came to any Cone mills.
They didn't. Did they ever come to Greensboro at all?
Not that we had any knowledge of, no. If they came here we didn't know it.
Why is that?
I don't know. Now, one thing I'll tell you…
Do you not remember, or are you pretty sure they didn't come to any mill.
Well, I'm not sure; but, I mean, they never made no attempt anywhere.
That's real odd. That's what I've heard before, but I wondered why that was.
Well, I don't know. I can't tell you that. The one thing that I think could have contributed to that: now Cone Mills was always a little bit better to their help, and paid a little better (higher) wages than numbers and numbers of other mill companies. Not a whole lot; there wasn't a great big difference there. But now, when we were living on the villages there was lots of things that they did for us that saved us money.
What kind of things?
Well, there were numbers of things.
Did they have a company store?
They had company stores, and they sold a good quality of goods. Now that's one thing: they sold a good quality of goods. And they were in line with the prices. And if you got in bad circumstances they would see that you had something to eat.
Did they give you loans? Would they lend money?
In other words, you run your grocery bill by the week. And if you got down sick they didn't cut you off the first week. They kept going. Now then, if you built up a record there, and after they'd done it to you and you'd gone back to work, if you didn't try to pay some of that money back, why then if you had a problem again it might be hard for you, see? Now one thing was they gave us all our electric current. You see, it was generated down at the plants, in the mill down at Indian River.
And they sold us coal for six dollars a ton when it was eight and ten dollars if you didn't live on the village. They sold you stove wood for your stove for $3.50 a cord. They kept the streets up pretty well. Now, they even had horses and mules, used back in them days to deliver coal and wood with, and they put men out with ploughs and plowed your garden in the spring of the year. They were much better to us than they were in numbers and numbers of other cotton mills and numbers of other textile mills.
How did you know that they weren't that good in other mills?
Well, after 1920 my dad bought—in '22, the latter part of '21 or '22—an
old '21 Model T Ford Touring Car. And we'd do a little visiting
occasionally, you know. Now we never got too far, maybe Fayetteville or
Kannapolis
Better than Kannapolis, huh?
Yes. Things like that that were just for information. And a lot of times maybe in writing; we'd write to one another. We had a pretty fair picture, generally speaking, of what you might say in a two hundred mile radius of Greensboro. Now Dan River was one place that we kept pretty close check on, because back in those days Dan River seemed to be able to operate more work days in a week. And around here people were using the kind of cloth that they were making. They seemed to have a better market. We had a pretty good picture of the textile market. Now up where Thad lived, well we kept up with those mills up there. These Fieldcrest over here, we kept up with all them, you know, because there was always somebody coming in and going, you know.
Why did you want to keep up with them like that? Were you curious?
Yes.
What were you curious about?
Well, you see, back in those days, you know, back in the teens and the twenties, nobody didn't even have a radio.
You're talking about the thirties now, aren't you?
Yes.
When you used to travel around.
Yes. Now back in the early part of it there wasn't too many people that
was able to even take the newspaper, see. And you just pick up your
information any way you could, you know. And it's always right
interesting to how much could be put out by the word of mouth back in
them days. News traveled by word of mouth faster than any other way
around there, you know, in those days,
So you were convinced, from all this information, that y'all were getting a better deal from the Cone Mills than other people were.
Now, it was nothing outstanding. But back in them days any little old thing looked pretty big to you, you see. For instance, I worked at White Oak, and I was a speeder or slubber tender; and I found out the man over in Danville was making a cent more an hour, or a cent more a hank than I was getting at White Oak. So that make you stand up and look, don't you see. And they knew that; they knew it. Now after old man Cesar died…
Old man who?
Old man Cesar Cone. He died in '18, I believe it was (I believe it was 1918 he died).
That's the year Daddy died.
Now he was the original; in other words, he was the head of it. Now back in those days Cone Mills didn't have nothing right in Greensboro.
Didn't have anything what?
Didn't have no plants that worked in Greensboro. And after old man Cesar died—why, I don't know; someway or another everybody would talk about it—it seemed like the benefits, or what we term, you know, in our labor as fringes, begin to gradually drop off a little bit. Some this year, and maybe year it'd hold up, maybe next year after that holdup, and then the next year a little bit more of it would drop off.
What year are you talking about now?
I'm talking about after 1918. Now they didn't go at it in a big way, just a little bit now and then; a little bit now and then, you know. You knew about it, but it didn't hurt you too awful bad. And all the time, when you think about it and begin to look back, they were fighting organized labor, because all the North, you know, at that time was organized. All textiles.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Did you ever talk about that? Did people ever get together and talk about that? You know, get angry, or…
No. You know, that was a funny thing. Until Proximity got organized…
That's a Cone plant, right?
Yes. And evidently they must have got their certification somewhere around '50 or '51. Now you know why, about four or five years before we did.
What was the first union in the town? What year?
That's Proximity; about '50 or '51.
Well, I believe Proximity
Didn't they get organized during the war?
No, we got certification, Honey, in '55.
Well, Proximity
We got certification and got our first contract in '55.
That's at White Oak?
Yes.
I believe Proximity got certified during the war.
Yes, they got it…
Well, they might have. They've had it, you know, a good long while.
In the forties.
And they were on the C.I.O. Well, now, we had an election at White Oak on the C.I.O., and lost it.
When was that?
Before '55; let's see, it must have been about '53, somewhere around there.
It was after the war, huh?
Yes.
Did you try to organize then? Were you involved in that?
Some. You might say, I was still working underneath the cover yet, you know, until I come out and vote for that. Of course we had a secret ballot, you know, and when you'd go vote the company had no way of knowing which way you voted. But we lost the C.I.O. election. And then a fellow by the name of Luke Carroll got in with the A.F. of L. And he come in there and he got started.
When was this, Lacy?
Let's see. Luke worked approximately twelve months, maybe a little bit longer, before we got enough cards signed for an election.
I believe that was about '52 or '53.
He must have come in here somewhere along then. We had the election, and then applied for certification.
This was in A.F.L.
A.F. of L.
United Textile Workers.
That's right. They were broke; they didn't have any money. But there's
something about Luke Carroll with them people at White Oak. I ain't
Did you believe him too?
Well, most of it I did. Now, I've always kind of had in my mind a certain
line there that I believe on one side it's right and on the other side
wrong. That's always been the way I've looked at things. Now when Luke
was on one side and I thought it was the wrong side, and then he moved
over to the other side, why, I was against him over there and for him
over here. That's always been my idea. But I'll tell you the simple
reason why. I always felt like that if you ever do any good in the South
to organize textile workers, you aren't going to do it by misinforming
them too badly. Now, I don't believe but what in any situation with any
cleate but what some of it's going to be propaganda and some of it's
going to be the truth. But I believe that if you ever do any good in the
South it's got to be when the truth overrides propaganda. These people
down here, I've watched them all my life. They are people—I guess I'm
right when I say this—that don't want to be bothered. I'll tell you what
they want to do. They want to go to work; they want to come home and
they don't want nothing to bother them. And they don't want to be
bothered, a lot of them, too much with the boss down there, whether
they're doing their job right or not. When they get home they don't want
to be bothered, they don't want no responsibilities. And why it is, I
don't know. I don't understand it, and I fought it for the whole time I
was in organized labor, to try to get it across to them "You have got a
responsibility." Now, the responsibility to me, and to my family, was to
put some food in on their table for them to eat, a house with some
furniture in it for them to live. Now then, the only way I
Now I can remember, one time we had a strike at White Oak…
What year was that?
A long time before we were ever organized.
About '51, wasn't it Lacy? A big strike… You mean an earlier one?
No, it was farther back than that. We shut them down right now. The card room done it. The speeder hands got it; that's before they tore the speeders out, it was way back before then.
When was that?
Oh man, I don't know now.
Well, let's see. You went back in there in '35, and you worked…
Now this was when I worked there the first time.
Oh, the first time.
That was somewhere long about the early twenties. That liked to have killed old man Bernard and got hold of him, because we shut him down.
Old man who?
Bernard Cone. Old man Cesar done died, and he was head knocker.
But what happened: they were changing the style of yarn that they were
going to make. They were making coarse yarn and fine yarn. Your fine
yarn was really filling And the warp was for the war. They were going to
make it all on the speeder the same size. Now they had for years, when
they were filling speeders, a two cent difference in the amount you got
per hank, because it was fine work. And on the warp you made two cents
more per hank. Well, when you run fine work on a speeder in an
eight-hour period the speeder wouldn't run as many hanks on fine work as
it would coarse work. Well, they made the change, and
To twelve? To twelve cents?
So everybody got all worked up about it. And it was a funny thing: I went
on vacation—back in them days they didn't give you no vacation pay, they
just shut down. On vacation. It was all worked up before vacation. So I
come back the morning after vacation; I was already a week behind in my
grocery bill, you might say. They said (they were all out on the supply
floor, all of them together): "What are we going to do?" And it was
right funny, I didn't have too much to say into it. I was always young
man then, you know. They said: "We're going to shut it down. We're going
to get old man Tom Gardner (he was superintendent then), we're going to
get him down here and talk to us, and if he don't raise the price of the
hank, we ain't running no speeders." And I just thought to myself: "What
am I going to do? I don't feel like I should go against them fellows,
and I don't feel like I can afford to be out of work." So he come on
down there and talked to us. He said: "No, absolutely not. We're not
going to do one thing." Now he said that right to start with, to show
you how you can irritate a bunch of men that's already mad. That was the
first thing he said when we told him what we wanted: "No, that's all
we're going to do. Now you can take it, or you can leave it." And some
of the fellows pretty badly cursed, and they said: "Well by God, we're
going to leave it in the speeders
You walked out with them?
I walked out with them.
Had people talked about this during vacation?
Oh, a long time before vacation, and during vacation too, you see.
And had they planned it out? Had they planned to walk out together?
Well, I can't actually say that… In other words, there absolutely wasn't no organization in what we know of organization.
It wasn't formal.
It was each man making up his mind what he was going to do, don't you see.
There was no union.
No. Neither was there anybody that even attempted to lead the group or do anything like that. So we walked out, and they wouldn't let us go out the gate that we had come in at. They made us go out up at the office.
Oh.
Oh.
All went out at the office.
Oh yes?
So we stayed out. And I know me and my dad, boy we went all the way down
around Kannapolis, Thomasville and everywhere, to all them little cotton
mills to see if I could get a job. Couldn't get no job down there, and I
finally decided… I went down here on Deep River below Randleman to
Central Falls.
Take somebody out and clean out the house.
I said: "Well, I ain't got no job."
Did he know why you didn't have a job?
Yes.
That you had walked out?
They knew. Oh now, I'll tell you what I bet you. I bet you it wasn't five hours when the constable shut that mill down until every mill everywhere around here knew that we'd shut it down. You see, the officials would call.
Would they tell your names? Do you think they had a list, and all that? Do you think they had a list of who walked out, the names?
Well, no. I don't know that maybe they'd give my name or anything.
Yes. They'd know.
In other words, to my opinion the communications were that we've got a
bunch of men up here that's quit. If they come there for a job don't
give them a job. That's my opinion; I don't know that to be true. But
anyhow this man said to the boss: "Yes, I'll give you a house." And he
showed me where it was at, and I went up there. An old six room house. I
went up there and part of the doors was off of it. And whoever'd lived
in there didn't care more about keeping it clean than a hog would,
didn't look like. I went back down to the office, and I told them; I
said: "That house is in bad shape up there." "Yes, I know it is," he
said. But he said: "Don't you worry about that. By the time you get
ready to move I'll have that house in shape." And I said, "Well, I
reckon you just as well send me a load of stove wood up there, because I
use a wood stove." He said: "Yes, I'll do that." And I was to go to work
on Monday; that was along about two or three days after we walked out.
We walked out on Monday morning. And
When LukeCarroll was here, now that he was smart about not striking. What he'd do was protest a day at a time in different departments.
When was that? When did Luke Carroll come here?
About fifty.
It was about fifty-one, fifty-two, somewhere along in there.
There was a big strike here in fifty-one…
A.F.L., right? He was A.F.L.
Now there was a big strike here in fifty-one, right? Do you remember that? All Cone Mills shut down; forty thousand workers went out through the Carolinas.
Not in Greensboro.
Where'd you get that up?
That's in a lot of books. May not have been the Cone Mills in Greensboro. Fieldcrest went out. You don't remember that, huh?
No, and I don't either. I was working
No sir. I never have knowd more than one… In fact, that time we shut White Oak down was the only time I've ever knowd them to—any plant around there—be completely stopped, except Proximity. Now they shut Proximity down one time.
When was that?
It was before fifty-five, because we never had got certification,
Now that was Fieldcrest, or something like that, might have been, but it wasn't…
Wasn't Cone?
No, not in Greensboro. Not to my knowledge, and we were working.
Y'all were working. Do you remember anybody going out at all, and the plants kept going?
It was later than that when you went out (with spinners), I don't reckon it was; I reckon it was when you was out with the spinners. But it didn't shut the mill down. No.
That was in the sixties. We didn't shut it down. That was in the sixties.
Well it was early sixties, because I didn't work after '63.
Well that was another strike. But now what we done one time, we almost shut White Oak down by what we called a protest.
We done that a time or two.
Have you ever heard tell of that?
Tell us about that.
All right. Now what Luke Carroll done, he was smart, see? I can tell you.
Do you remember when Luke came in here?
It must have been '51 or '52, somewhere. It was in the fifties, and I think early fifties when Luke come in.
Now you see, the reason Luke started protesting: they got to a certain
point in the contract with Luke and they got locked. And they wouldn't
Yes.
Yes, third shift. Well, he'd hold as many out of that department as he could, and he wanted everybody else to go in back behind it and ahead of it. He wanted them to work. Well what'd happen, back there first thing you know would begin to build up, you see, until there wouldn't be enough work for them to do, and they'd have to send them home. Well, the same thing about these beyond there, see. You see, it was in the law; we weren't on strike. We had a contract with no strike in it, see. A no-strike clause.
You did have a contract?
Yes. We had a contract after that. That was after '55, Honey.
It was our second contract we were having trouble with.
Oh it was, yes.
I didn't know Luke was still around here that late.
I don't believe he was there in '55, Lacy. I believe Scott Hoyman was here somewhere along that time.
Scott came in about '52.
Well, he was…
Go ahead and tell us how he did this. We'll get the years later on.
What were some of the other ways to protest?
We were still under the A.F. of L. when that happened. Now I know I
worked in the card room, and I'd stay out there at the gate 'til Luke'd
got
That was about 1953, something like that.
Must have been somewhere along there.
You were negotiating with the United Textile Workers negotiating with Cone.
Yes.
Luke was doing the negotiating.
Yes.
Bob Freeman was …
And we finally shook them loose. Now the biggest mistake that Luke ever made was… At that time we had that company worked to where they were to give us a check-off. And why Luke loosened up on that I don't know, but he did.
You signed a contract without a check-off.
Without a check-off. And we never did get one.
Never got it back.
We didn't ever have one.
That's the reason it must have been the first contract. Never did have one. Now…
Did you ever hear of George Baldanzi?
Yes. I heard about him; I never met him. And George Rieves; you know, he was president of A.F. of L.
Emil Rieve.
I heard of them; never did meet them.
I just wondered if you had.
Yes. But we shook them loose on everything except the check-off.
With that little staying out.
Yes. Oh, we cut that thing right in the middle. You might say we had them
water-logged behind and starving to death on the other side.
So did you keep switching?
They would switch days. Some would work a day, and some would stay out. Well tomorrow, them that was out today would come back to work. In other words, they got the department on about a fifty-fifty basis, you see. It was running about a half of what they needed to run. And nobody, the way they worked it, lost more than a day's work in a week, you see. It worked wonderful.
That's a good idea.
In other words, if you could get it organized and get the people to believe in it, it was much better than striking. 'Cause when you strike everybody loses. I never saw a strike yet but what everybody loses. And we could afford to lose a day's work and keep on going all right, you know. And then, the majority of us in the other departments, we donated the loot to help…
The people who stayed out.
To help buy them something to eat and help them when they were
How long did you do that? What period of time did you do that for? You know, that people stayed out.
About two weeks.
Two weeks?
And we really had that thing put down. And we wouldn't have taken that long, but it so happened that when Luke started in the spinning room the card room was behind with the spinning room, don't you see. We were having to work extra time to keep the spinning room going. So it was two to three days, you see, before it would even out. And from then on, why it got worse and worse.
Did you ever hear of Bruno Rantine?
Who?
Bruno Rantine? During that time?
Did you ever hear of him?
No.
I don't think I have.
What other organizers were here besides … you said Bob Freeman?
Bob Freeman; and he …
We had Bob Freeman in here.
We had Moon Mullin in here.
Yes, Moon Mullin.
Was Joe Pettigo here?
Yes, Joe Pettigo. Now that was one when I was president of the local, and I had to fight Joe worse than I did the company.
Tell me, when did you get to be elected president, Lacey?
Have they got that down?
The last year before… I served a year before I retired.
Oh, not 'til the end then.
They tried to get me to take it from year to year.
They wanted him to take it a long time before he did, but with his eyesight he couldn't do it.
My eyesight was so bad I couldn't see to read, you see. A man who's
president of the local, that's a big handicap, because he needs to be
reading these things of what's going on, you see. In other words, you
can read something to me, and I can't keep much of it in my mind
afterwards unless I read it myself. And I just wouldn't accept it. But I
And Marion Norwisky was there too.
Who was that?
Marion Norwisky. He was the man that was in here when they sent me to Washington on this brown lung thing.
Yes they sent us to Greenville, S.C.
And we had … let's see. We had two or three others; who were they? Had
Joe Pettigo, Bob Freeman; and of course, Julius Fry was in here all the
time. He was state representative then. Had Moon Mullin. Moon and Joe
So that was in '54, I believe it was, you voted (all the Cone plants, I think all at the same time) to go back to the Textile Workers' Union.
That's right, yes. And then we formed the Joint Board. That's when Scott come in with us.
Scott was our Board manager.
Do you remember why you wanted to go back to T.W.U.A., to the C.I.O. union, then, instead of an A.F.L.? Do you remember that?
Yes, I remember that well. And now, there was one thing I liked about A.F. of L.; it wasn't so much good to textile workers, but they had craft unions and C.I.O. didn't.
And you liked that?
I liked craft unions. Not all together for textile, I don't think there'd be too many things that textile would be any good for. But I still liked it, because when you had the craft union you pick up, like carpenters, brick masons and things like that, all around all over the country. And the more members you got in any union, the more backing you've got. And, you see, the C.I.O. was textile all together, generally speaking, in the state at that time. But I know one of them; Ray Payne was the man that asked me about it, about the time Scott kept meeting with us over there when Luke was still here. He come to our meetings.
Well, Luke … go ahead.
So Ray Payne come to me one time over there; he said: "How do you feel
about going from A.F.L. to C.I.O.?" Well, as I told you a while ago,
The United Textile Workers'?
Yes. And they couldn't hardly afford to keep us a man in here. Our membership was low, and they had a lot of members that were members that wouldn't pay a dime. They just created a bad situation. Well, at that time we knew that the C.I.O. was strong.
How did you know that?
Well, we knew from the workings and getting what news we could here and there, you know.
They had Proximity. They had the contract at Proximity.
Yes, had the contract. We learned a lot of it from there.
They had a check-off over there.
Now that was another thing that Luke done. He was instrumental, in a way, in tearing up that union in Proximity.
That's exactly right. Luke Carroll…
'Cause they had voted and switched from C.I.O. to A.F. of L. when we did, when we ourselves got certified in it, the A.F. of L.
Proximity switched…
From C.I.O. to A.F. of L.
When you all got your first contract.
When we got our first contract, right. Well, then what stopped them backing them, we switched back…
They switched back.
Which switch? Either one of them? The first one?
When they switched from C.I.O. the first time to A.F. of L. it killed that union at Proximity.
In what way did it kill them?
Evidently people just didn't believe in it. In other words, they liked the C.I.O. better.
What was the sentiment that moved them to vote for the A.F.L.? Just because of Luke? You said Luke did it. Is that what you said? That it was Luke that did it?
Luke was instrumental in it, in getting them to switch. Because what he
was wanting to do, he was wanting to get a Joint Board, like it was
finally would up with: Reidsville, Haw River, Gibsonville, Salisbury,
Greensboro. In other words, at one time we had nine plants on the Joint
Board. We got all of that movement started, but we didn't get it
consolidated until after we went on the C.I.O., and then Scott come in
and got it consolidated. Called Greensboro-Burlington Joint Board, is
what it was called. And Scott was the man that really got it all
consolidated. Now this was another thing this contract company wouldn't
do: they wouldn't talk to us about a master contract. They wanted each
separate plant. In other words, you had to negotiate… And they always
wanted when a contract run out here, they wanted all the rest of them in
force yet. And just about the time another one was going to run out
somewhere or other, they'd make a settlement of this one, you see. In
other words, their idea was to separate you, to divide. Anybody could
see through it, you know. In other words, the White Oak contract set out
when the next contract would maybe be two months old. But during that
Never could…
Get together.
Never could get together, I don't know why. In other words, Carroll left here pretty shortly.
Oh, he did.
Yes. And another thing Carroll done that nearly killed us, he got the idea around here that by these unions they'd form a company around here selling home heating oil; you know, with each union member putting so much in. They tried to get me to put some money in, and I wouldn't do it. Each one put two hundred dollars in it. I don't know that this is true, it was just talk; they said that Luke got about ten thousand dollars out of that, and he run off with it.
Well Lacy, a little while ago you were saying that you liked Luke.
I liked Luke in a way, yes.
Because he was real inspiring to you at meetings, and he helped you organize and stuff.
He was. And he had a knack of doing that thing, no question. I don't today exactly dislike Luke. I'm just saying what I feel like in my personal mind was the wrong that Luke done. Luke might not have saw them that way, see.
I understand. I just wanted to be sure.
Now you see, the thing about it that made me pretty sure of my feelings, is I stayed on here and saw the after effects of all of it, don't you see.
In 1954 you came back in Textile Workers' Union, T.W.U.A. What were the after effects of that? You had a local at White Oak; you had a local in Proximity.
That's right.
Did you have a local in Revolution?
No.
Just two locals.
They don't have a local in Revolution yet. They lost the election down there about two years ago by about forty-five votes.
You had one in the Print Works too, didn't you?
Print Works had a strong union.
Yes, that's what I thought.
But you see, we had Print Works in the Joint Board. But the printers had a separate union, you see, and really they were the backbone of the union in Print Works. And that's another funny thing. They belonged to the printers union (and I reckon still do), and they had a contract years and years before any of the other Cone workers had one.
Of course theirs was not…
And never had one minute's trouble about getting a contract. And those guys, when we was making, oh, $1.25-$1.30 an hour they was making $4 and $5 and hour, you see. And they never had a minute's trouble, and I don't reckon they do yet. Now are they under the same printers' union as the newspapers?
I don't know; we'll have to check it.
That's a really complex area.
Let me ask you, Lacy. When you came back in to T.W.U.A. in '54, Scott was there, right? Scott Hoyman?
Yes. Now was that in '55, before Scott taken charge? But he was meeting me in our meeting. Scott didn't have anything to say at all, he was just more or less… I always figure Scott was there just to gather what information he could.
Who was in charge of it?
Luke was still in charge; that was before Luke left.
So Luke was here when you came back over to the C.I.O.
Yes.
OK. In 1955 you worked for ten more years in the White Oak plant, right? You left about '65. What things do you remember during those ten years?
Now you're talking about the sixties now, when I left?
Right. From '55 to…
'55 was our first contract under A.F. of L., and it was for one year.
Without a check-off.
Without a check-off. And boy it was rough going, I'll tell you. Now they did give us the privilege to collect dues in the mill; that was in the contract. We got that; that was as far as they would go. But you had to do that at break time, and you couldn't interfere with a worker while he was doing his job, don't you see. So you can imagine what kind of handicap that was.
Did you ever know Larry Rogin? Did you ever know that name?
That name's familiar to me. I can think of two more men that was in here, and I can't think of their names to save my life right now.
He was helping Scott and Luke negotiate that contract in '54 and '55, where you all settled for no check-off. Did you ever participate in any of that bargaining, any of those negotiations?
Not back in those early days. I didn't get on the committee 'til somewhere in the latter part of the fifties. I got on the negotiating committee in the latter part of the fifties. In other words, we had two or three contracts before I ever got on the committee. I was a steward; I was a department steward. And, of course, I held other offices: vice-president, and different things in the local, you know. I didn't begin to deal directly with them up in the office until some time in the late fifties.
Tell me about that, bargaining those contracts. Did you feel like you had a strong local behind you?
No, never did. 'Cause if I had, I'd have done a whole lot more talking, and a whole lot stronger talking than I did.
Was it usually you and Julius, you and Julius Fry?
Yes.
Who else? Was Scott ever involved?
Moon Mullin, Scott, Joe Pettigo. Now part of the time when Scott was in there I went up there more or less as a lesson. I mean, I didn't have any authority to say anything about what was going on in the contract, unless they opened it up to the ones that was sitting back there, you know. Some boys sitting right around the table… The last contract before Scott left here was the first one that I was on the committee.
Must have been about '58, '59?
Somewhere along in there. Well then, it must have been about '59 Moon
Mullin come up here from Georgia, you know; and he stayed here a year
and then Joe come in. Now the last contract that I sat in on was with
Julius Fry, but I didn't stay long enough. I retired before they got
that contract. Now I know there was one time there that I knowed a
fellow; did you ever hear tell of
What did he do?
Oh, you'd get around a negotiating table, and nobody could talk but that old man.
He'd just keep talking and talking?
He'd just keep talking, just keep talking. And he was always on running his mouth about something, and it didn't pertain to White Oak. In other words, you know, the owners of Cone mill bought a mill down in Gadsden, Alabama. And they bought a well-organized union down there when they bought the plant. And they killed it in two years. What's she trying to tell me there? [referring to Mrs. Wright] But out of twenty-six hundred people (that was a bigger plant than White Oak) they had twenty-one hundred members.
Is that right?
Dues-paying members; they had check-off. And Cone killed that union. Now boy, they really give them a struggle over the first contract they had down there. In other words, they threw it up to us.
Lacy, after fifty years in the mill and about … let's see, about fifteen years real active in the union (since about '55), what do you see as the value of a union here in Greensboro?
Well the value… In my opinion, if the textile industry doesn't get organized, with the organization of everything else in this country eventually it's going to run into a situation but what they won't have no say-so whatsoever of what they get. They'll just have to take whatever is offered to them.
So you think a union's important.
Sure!
Well, why do so few people even want to pay dues? Five percent, ten percent, even in these plants that are organized.
I don't know. I never have been able to figure that out, because I have tried to show people that even though they were paying… When we first started out, we started out with, I believe it was seventy-five cents a week; and when I left it had got to a dollar and a quarter. OK, now if that union, if the people all of them together would get any strong enough that the International could work through them or with them without them being a dead-head to them, that union could make them many times more than what they're going to pay in dues back in fringe benefits and wages, in working conditions.
But people don't see that.
I just never could get them to see it to save my life. I don't know why. It's just something that's beyond my understanding. And living with the people, people that I grew up with, people that I've lived with all my life, and people that I had confidence as friends, people that… They weren't ignorant people; they weren't completely ignorant people. None of us were highly educated, but we weren't completely ignorant.
But you sound like you believe in the union completely.
Oh, I'm 100 percent for a union that
END OF INTERVIEW