<hi rend="bold">Oral History Interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976. Interview G-0040-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007):</hi> Electronic Edition.

<hi rend="bold">Oral History Interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976. Interview G-0040-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007):</hi> Electronic Edition. A Southern Woman Becomes a Leader in the Labor Movement: Part II McGill, Eula, interviewee Interview conducted by Hall, Jacquelyn Funding from the Institute of Museum and Library Services supported the electronic publication of this interview. Text encoded by Mike Millner Sound recordings digitized by Aaron Smithers Southern Folklife Collection First edition, 2006 210.3 Kb The University Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 2006.

© This work is the property of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. It may be used freely by individuals for research, teaching and personal use as long as this statement of availability is included in the text.

MP3 file derived from WAV preservation master, which was derived from original analog cassettes.

Oral History Interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976. Interview G-0040-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) Series G. Southern Women. Southern Oral History Program Collection (G-0040-2) Jacquelyn Hall 243 Mb Chapel Hill, N. C. Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 5 September 1976 Oral History Interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976. Interview G-0040-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) Series G. Southern Women. Southern Oral History Program Collection (G-0040-2) Eula McGill 59 p. Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill Chapel Hill, North Carolina 5 September 1976 Interview conducted on September 5, 1976, by Jacquelyn Hall; recorded in Atlanta, Georgia. Transcribed by Patricia Crowley. Forms part of: Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007): Series G. Southern Women, Manuscripts Department, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Original transcript on deposit at the Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.

The electronic edition is a part of the UNC-Chapel Hill digital library, Documenting the American South.

An audio file with the interview complements this electronic edition.

The text has been entered using double-keying and verified against the original.

The text has been encoded using the recommendations for Level 4 of the TEI in Libraries Guidelines.

Original grammar and spelling have been preserved.

All quotation marks, em dashes and ampersand have been transcribed as entity references.

All double right and left quotation marks are encoded as "

All em dashes are encoded as —

Library of Congress Subject Headings Documenting the American South Topics English Textiles Labor and Unions 2006-00-00, Celine Noel and Wanda Gunther revised TEIHeader and created catalog record for the electronic edition. 2006-05-19, Mike Millner finished TEI-conformant encoding and final proofing. Interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976. Interview G-0040-2. Conducted by Jacquelyn Hall

Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library

Citation of this interview should be as follows: “Interview G-0040-2, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007, Southern Historical Collection, The Wilson Library, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill”

This is the second part of a two-part interview conducted with labor activist Eula McGill. In this interview, McGill focuses on her continuing work in the Southern labor movement from the 1930s to the 1970s. McGill begins by explaining her views on workers' education and labor leadership. According to McGill, teaching workers about the history of the labor movement was especially important. In the 1940s, McGill was an active participant in Operation Dixie; she describes in detail labor campaigns in Lafollette, Tennessee, (1943) and in Dixon and Bruceton, Tennessee (1947). During this time McGill also continued to work actively with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union throughout the South. McGill briefly remarried, but for the most part she dedicated her life to the labor movement. Here, she speaks in more detail about what it was like to be a single woman working within the predominantly male labor movement. She emphasizes the transient lifestyle and some of the challenges she faced as a woman trying to organize both men and women.

Short Abstract

Southern labor organizer Eula McGill explains her views on leadership in the labor movement and the role of workers' education. After rising through the ranks of the labor movement during the Great Depression, McGill continued to work actively to organize workers from the 1940s to the 1970s. She describes in detail various labor campaigns and strikes in the South, as well as her work with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers Union and other labor organizations.

Interview with Eula McGill, September 5, 1976. Interview G-0040-2. Southern Oral History Program Collection (#4007) Interview Participants EULA McGILL, interviewee JACQUELYN HALL, interviewer [TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

JACQUELYN HALL:

I came across a report that Louise Leonard McLaren wrote in '37. She was traveling through the South talking to people and trying to recruit students for the Southern Summer School for Women Workers.

She met you at a State Federation of Labor meeting in Anniston, Ala. and you were one of the people that she really wanted to recruit for the school. She talked to you about workers' education, and said that you were going to try to help raise scholarship money and recruit students to go. Do you remember anything? Do you remember that?

EULA McGILL:

Yes. That was back in the thirties.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes, in '37.

EULA McGILL:

Yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

But you never went to the Summer School yourself?

EULA McGILL:

No.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did they try to get you to come?

EULA McGILL:

Yes, seems like some girls from Anneston went. You see, a part of that time we were spending with Textile too. We were spending time actually helping to organize both, both Textile and Clothing during that time. It seems like Louise Browning from the Utica Mill there in Anniston went; I just can't remember anyone else at the time.

JACQUELYN HALL:

But were you not interested in going yourself?

EULA McGILL:

I was interested, but I was involved in organizing and I couldn't take the time off to go.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Were you sympathetic toward the idea of residential workers' education at that time?

EULA McGILL:

Yes, yes, I am. I've always been interested, because I don't think these one or two days' seminars on workers' education really have the effect it ought to have and really prepare the workers good enough to be real leaders. I think they need more time to study it.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What do you think workers' education should accomplish?

EULA McGILL:

Well, I think it should accomplish. . . . So many times the seminars that I've been to more or less don't give enough labor background history to make a person feel when they're talking to workers or the particular leaders of the rank and file workers in the shop— I hate to use that word "rank and file," because

[laughter]

I don't feel like I'm nothing but a rank and filer

[laughter]

. But some people, they want to make the distinction between the paid representatives on the staff and what we call "rank and filers" (but for the people who are working the shop and are the local union leaders). I think in recruiting people who you want to be the leaders in an organizing campaign, you should be prepared (or the people who are talking to people should be prepared); it helps them in talking to workers to help them to understand the philosophy behind the labor movement. I think it helps to give them more confidence in themselves when they're discussing the need for organization to know something about the early struggles, and to know something about people who have tried and failed and kept trying again, and kept failing maybe again and trying again over and over, so that people won't become impatient if it don't happen as fast as they want it to happen. And I think if they understand that and are able to convey that to the potential leaders who are helping to organize and to build the union in the shop it makes them more effective. It makes them be able to talk more and to put down some of the . . . . If a person comes and says, "Well my father was in the coal mines or in the steel mills or in the textile mills, and they tried to get a union and they got fired, and the struggle they went through," then they think, "Oh, what's the use of putting up a fight for it, because you may fail." They're so afraid to try because they might fail. And so many people who did try and failed and may for a while become discouraged, if they really had the unionism in them and believed in it they'd keep fighting for it. I think it's only the people who let temporary setbacks put them down and hold them back that are . . . I won't say harmful, but they are the people who won't make leaders. You have to have the determination to still believe although you fail.

JACQUELYN HALL:

In your work have you had the time, or have you tried in your own work to provide that kind of workers' education?

EULA McGILL:

Yes. I think that everyday workers' education, every day if you have time to talk with workers not to always talk about current problems, but to let them know where this movement came from, so that it'll help them overcome the temporary setbacks they have by putting the courage in them to keep on—not to become impatient and give up.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did you come across any of the WPA workers' education projects in the thirties?

EULA McGILL:

Yes, in Greenville, South Carolina I did.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Oh really?

EULA McGILL:

They had an organization in there, the WPA workers, in Greenville.1Let's see, we used the same hall when I was working up there. I was up there for a little while on what was the Wing Shirt Company. And they had a good group of organized WPA workers organized up there. Oh my goodness, let me think of that fellow's name: John Bolt Culbertson.

See Edwin D. Hoffman, "The Genesis of the Modern Movement for Equal Rights in South Carolina, 1930-1939," Journal of Negro History 44 (1959), 346-369.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes.

EULA McGILL:

John Bolt was kind of the leader of them, and he was a young lawyer there at the time in Greenville. And he was working with them.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes. Did you know Alice Spearman Wright in South Carolina?

EULA McGILL:

No, I didn't know her. I didn't work much in South Carolina. I think that was my only work in South Carolina until the late sixties.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Well, I wanted to just talk about some of the campaigns that you were involved in after World War II. Could you tell me something about Cluet-Peabody?

EULA McGILL:

Well really, we got the first contract in Cluet-Peabody in '41; in February of 1941 we got the first contract. The cutters had been organizing in Troy for a good long while. We got the first contract in the plant in '41; I believe it was February of '41. I didn't spend much time. . . . Then I went back to Knoxville and worked on the Hall Tate campaign, and in on the Palm Beach shop also, until '43 when I became business agent in LaFollette. And then I was business agent in LaFollette until '46, until the latter part of '46.

JACQUELYN HALL:

So you weren't closely involved, with Cluet-Peabody?

EULA McGILL:

Well, not after they got the contract signed. I helped in the organization here in Atlanta with May Bagwell through part of '39 and part of '40. Then it kind of seemed to simmer for a while there; we couldn't get enough interest. And May held it down pretty much alone until the break-through came in '41.

JACQUELYN HALL:

How do you account for how much more successful the Amalgamated was in organizing the South than, say, the TWUA was?

EULA McGILL:

I think that we had. . . . For the main part, companies that we organized during that time were . . . well, Manhattan (including Peabody) had no history of unions. But I think it came through the hard work and the statesmanship of Sidney Hillman; I think a lot of it was due to his personality and the way he was able to, well, sell the union to the employers (or at least to get them to resist). . . I mean, they didn't resist. He was able to persuade them, in other words, that he thought the union should be advantageous to them in certain ways as far as cooperation. If they really wanted the cooperation between the workers and the management which they claimed, I think he finally convinced them (including Peabody and Manhattan) that this was the best way to get it. That's my feeling.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes. Also, Amalgamated had a stronger base in the. . . .

EULA McGILL:

Yes, we had a base in the clothing, and we had the financing and the resources, I think certainly more than the textile unions had.

JACQUELYN HALL:

So as the plants started moving south after World War II Amalgamated could organize them as they moved south, before they got too entrenched.

EULA McGILL:

Yes, yes. Well, you take the Publix Shirt Corporation. We organized them in the thirties. They had one shop in Knoxville. And they were in Pennsylvania, mainly in the coal fields, and I think that people were more union-orientated in these areas up there. And we were able to organize the Publix Shirt, which was S. Liebowitz and Sons then; it later became, in the forties it changed to Publix Shirt Corporation. Again, I think that. . . . Well, Mr. Liebowitz himself, Mr. Harry Liebowitz who was one of the owners, told me in the forties that he wouldn't operate without a union. When the union tried to organize him in Pennsylvania he resisted because he thought they were going to come in and try to take over his business. But once he dealt with them and saw that it was really helpful to him in having knowledge of what was actually going on in his plants (which he would never have the knowledge). . . . He told me himself that he felt that if he came to one of his shops and the workers wanted to complain to him personally about something (maybe some supervisor or some plant manager), that they weren't afraid to tell him of their complaints and grievances, because he knew when he left there the union was there. If the supervisor, if they would want to take retaliation against the worker, they felt that the union would protect them. And he felt that he knew more about what was actually going on in his plants through this corporation. He didn't resist the union; he told me very frankly that he wouldn't operate his shop without a union.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Well, did the Amalgamated make a strong commitment to trying to organize the South in this period, during and right after World War II?

EULA McGILL:

Well, they joined with the CIO in what they called Operation Dixie. I think we gained more; we pretty much acted on our own. While we wanted to cooperate with other unions, we have felt that our industry was such that we had to do it ourselves, because of the type of industry we had. And we felt that we could do it ourselves better. Although we cooperated with other unions, we wanted to pretty much run our own organizing campaigns. And we did have from time to time help from some CIO organizers in the fields in some of our campaigns, but we always ran our own campaigns. We felt that our industry was a little bit peculiar in the type of work they did and the type of problems they had, being a piecework industry. We were able to talk to the workers more about the problems than someone, say, that came out of other plants like steel. Any other union wouldn't be able to talk with the workers; only the workers who came out of the plants themselves was able (and then some representatives was able) to discuss the day-to-day problems that occurred in the garment or clothing plants.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Tell me a little something about Operation Dixie.

EULA McGILL:

Well, it didn't last very long, and it didn't pay off as well as. . . . There was a lot of publicity.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What do you think went wrong?

EULA McGILL:

I really don't know, because most of the time during that time I was involved in administration work. And I only came back on the organizing staff-really not on the organizing staff, but into some organizing situations—in the latter part of it. I was still primarily a business agent, and only helped out part-time in some of the organizing things. And I wasn't as involved in that organizing as the other staff that was primarily organizing, because I was still doing servicing in LaFollette. The only campaign that I worked in Operation Dixie was not involved in it, but it was considered to be part of it) was the Henry I. Siegal situation in Bruceton, Tennessee. And I was still working as a business agent, and went in there to help out trying to organize the Bruceton plant of the Henry I. Siegal Company, of which we had one plant organized in Dickson, Tennessee. And that was the only organizing campaign I was involved in during that whole Operation Dixie.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Now in '47, at the time in which you and Mary Martin. . . .

EULA McGILL:

Morgan.

JACQUELYN HALL:

. . . Morgan were threatened by a mob in Knoxville?

EULA McGILL:

No, in Bruceton; it was in Bruceton.

JACQUELYN HALL:

In Bruceton. Oh, she was from Knoxville; Mary Morgan was from Knoxville.

EULA McGILL:

She was from Knoxville, yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What was that about? How did that happen?

EULA McGILL:

Well, of course that area was primarily a rural area. Bruceton, Tennessee was a railroad junction; it was really a railroad town. But most of the workers in that plant came from neighboring counties where it was rural—practically no industry whatsoever. And anyone who would have known that area at the time would have understood the people's fear of losing the first paycheck

[laughter]

they ever had had from public works—what we used to call public, going out and working. That's what farmers and rural people used to call working public works; it wasn't anything like we think of public works today, as being government sponsored like WPA. But that's the way people used to call public work. It was prompted by those people from that—I can't think of the name of the county it was in. Bruceton was in Carroll County; it was right on the edge of the other county. I want to say Humphries County, but I don't think it was. But anyhow it was rural, completely and absolutely: no industry whatsoever. And those people came out of the rural areas, and they really thought the company would close. And too, a lot of those people had invested money to build that plant. We were able in an earlier charge against the company to stop deductions from their paychecks to pay for the building, and to get money back after they'd made deductions on the building. After the deductions were made it caused the people to fall below the minimum wage, and we were able to obtain back pay, the difference in what they actually received and the minimum wage after the deduction that they had signed up to have deducted out of the check to help pay for the building.

JACQUELYN HALL:

So how did this particular incident develop?

EULA McGILL:

They were the townspeople; it was primarily a banker there in the town, in Bruceton. Of course, he had great animosity for us, because he was pretty much left holding the bag

[laughter]

for that building, that had been built and the workers were supposed to pay for it.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Well, did a group of people confront you while you were on the picket line?

EULA McGILL:

No. What actually happened in Bruceton was that we had the strike in Dickson. We had had a union in Dickson for quite some time; I believe it was about '42 or '43 that I was sitting talking to two people from the Hall Tate shop one night. They were at my room at the hotel there in Knoxville. And his brother was a machinist, a sewing machine mechanic, in Dickson, Tennessee, and he was trying to get in touch with his brother because they had walked out. We had been in there before and were unable to organize because those people had also paid for the building. And they had resisted the union over the years; all during the thirties we had tried to organize in Dickson and failed. Griselda Kuhlman and several organizers had been in there, and they had been framed on charges and things. We weren't able to get anywhere. So I got in touch with the office, because I was tied up with the situation there and wanted to know what had happened. And as a result we obtained a contract in Dickson. So we had to have a strike over there for some demands that we felt were necessary. And during this time we were trying to organize the Bruceton plant, and we brought it out in sympathy with the Dickson —or tried to bring it out; didn't get a majority come out. And of course we had quite a bit of skirmishes on the picket lines—not from the town people at that time, but mainly the bosses who were trying to come through the picket line the first day. Then they got an injunction against us, and there was no more skirmishes on the picket lines. But we were hurting the company to the extent that they wanted to get the picket line away so that they could ship; they were having a little trouble getting the goods in and manufactured products out. Most of the truckers were observing our picket line. The townspeople and the farm people, not the workers, were the people who confronted Mary and I. They thought they could run us out of town. I guess they figured that that would end it. Then of course after that happened the railroad men got so embarrassed because this happened in the town, because practically the whole town of Bruceton were connected to the railroad; the people who lived in the town of Bruceton were railroad workers and were organized. Then they came to our rescue and tried to help all they could to give us protection—it was particularly in the town of Bruceton, and as I say most of the workers didn't come from that area. They traveled from the next county up to work, the people who lived outside the county.

JACQUELYN HALL:

I saw that at the '48 convention in the proceedings there's a little exchange where it had been rumored that you and Mary Morgan had been run out of town, and you correct that misimpression.

EULA McGILL:

Well what happened, that morning before we were out of bed—in fact it was real early, I guess it was around seven o'clock—we were living in the home of a Methodist minister, and he came in there and told me some men was outside and wanted to talk with me. So we got up and went to the door. And the spokesman for them was Hillsman Taylor, who was a town marshall or constable or something. And Hillsman said the people wanted to talk with us. I guess there was a hundred and fifty men out there all trampling the minister's yard. So I said, "Well, couldn't one or two of you come up here to tell us that, and not have everybody out there trampling Mrs. Melton's yard and her flowers?" And that kind of set them back, because I said, "They are residents here." Then Hillsman and one of the newspaper men came inside. And we sat down at the dining room table, and I asked him, "How did you get here so quick from Memphis?" And he said, "Oh, I got a call this morning at two o'clock." So they wanted the publicity of it, I believe; it was a newspaper man that told me. And he wanted to make a picture of us. . . .

JACQUELYN HALL:

Who had wanted the publicity?

EULA McGILL:

. . . the mob—because that's all you could term it, a mob. I said, "How did you get out here so quick from Memphis?" And he said, "I got a call this morning at two o'clock." So evidently they just telephoned him and headed him out there. He kept insisting that he make a picture of Mary and I with our suitcases. And I said, "Well, I'm not going anywhere." He kept insisting. And I said, "No, I'm not going to do it." We went to eat breakfast at a little restaurant up town, and when we came out he made a picture of us coming out of the restaurant. Then later when the paper came out he had already written it as if we had been run out of town; so that's why he wanted the picture with a suitcase, to back up his story. He had already actually written the story, evidently, because when the Commercial Appeal came out on the street (we got it that afternoon) the story was written that they had run us out of town. So that's why I wanted everybody to know that.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Well did Hillsman say to you, "Get out of town."

EULA McGILL:

No, no.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did they actually threaten you?

EULA McGILL:

No, he just come up and said that these men wanted to talk to us, and that they wanted us to leave town—-now, because he'd been pretending to be quite friendly with us before, Hillsman Taylor had; and after that, why. . . . Well, I guess he was pretending, according to the newspaper man, pretending to see that everything would be peaceful. So actually I can't remember the man's name that did the biggest talking; (I can look back through the records or find out) later the company hired him as their guard up at the plant. He was from the next county too, and he wasn't very well respected by the people in Bruceton. I cannot remember the fellow's name; his nickname was "Rabbit"

[laughter]

. I guess that sticks in my mind more than his real name. But he told me he wanted us to get out of town. And I answered him; that's when I said to him, "Now look, couldn't one or two of you have come up here and told us that instead of bringing out a mob on the lady's yard and trampling her flowers?"

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did you have any more trouble with threats after that incident? Did they just disperse?

EULA McGILL:

Well, after the railroad men. . . . They called a meeting on a Sunday, and all the railroad men came. And they said they didn't intend to have that in the town. They called upon, they talked to Hillsman Taylor and the mayor of the town, and let it be known that they wasn't going to tolerate anything like that in the town; that we had been behaving ourselves and not breaking the laws, and that we had a right to be there. I think that had the effect of keeping them from doing anything actually to us openly.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Now Gladys Dickason was chairman of the CIO Southern Organizing Committee at that time? Was she involved in Operation Dixie? She was on their staff?

EULA McGILL:

No. At that time technically Gladys was head of the research department. But then she'd taken over as southern director for the Amalgamated.

JACQUELYN HALL:

I see.

EULA McGILL:

Of course she may have been on. . . . As usual they have some people from every union that's involved in a drive like IUD has now. They have people from all the unions participating and helping advise on meetings and planning and things like that. But Gladys was research director and also southern director of the union, the Amalgamated Clothing Workers.

JACQUELYN HALL:

So you were working under her?

EULA McGILL:

Directly under her.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Now the Hall Tate campaign in Knoxville, you never got a contract. That was an unsuccessful. . . ?

EULA McGILL:

We didn't get a contract until another company bought them out, a company that we had a contract with. They closed down and dissolved the business as Hall Tate. Then Henley Tate, a nephew of Mr. Sam Tate who was one of the owners (William Hall and Sam Tate owned the business). . . . They were making suits for Steins, Steins Stores. Over the labor controversy Steins, they withdrew their work from the Hall Tate Company after the strike we had at Hall Tate in '49. And then Sam Tate and a man called Breezy Wynn (I think his name's Herman; we always called him Breezy), he went into making pants. Then later the firm was bought out by a company we had a contract with in Pennsylvania, and it's been a union shop ever since. Hall and Tate doesn't have anything to do with the company now; Henley stayed on for a while with the company as manager of the plant. He may have some stock in the company; I don't know if he's still associated with it or not.

JACQUELYN HALL:

You went to LaFollette, then, in forty-. . . .

EULA McGILL:

I was in Roanoke, Alabama working with the Palm Beach shop. And at that time John L. Lewis had pulled the United Mine Workers out of the CIO, and he had set up two groups: one called United Construction Workers, the other was District Fifty. As I understand it District Fifty was to organize in byproducts of coal and things more directly associated with coal, and the United Construction Workers was kind of a catch-all organization that took in everything else. So they were trying to get the people in the two shirt factories that we had organized in LaFollette to join their union, and of course using the mine workers' name, the United Mine Workers' name to try to attract them to this. And they couldn't make any success; they couldn't get anywhere with the people. They wouldn't join. So Franz Daniel and Ed Blair was in there at the time, and they were attacked and beaten. And Franz was shot; he wasn't actually shot, but the bullet lodged in a thick wallet that he had in his pocket, in his coat breast pocket. And Gladys called me to come up there. And that's how I got involved in LaFollette, because they felt that a woman would be safer in there than a man, and a woman maybe could not be openly attacked. However I didn't depend on that. I was very careful not to be out after dark and not to go anyplace except the union hall and the restaurant and to the hotel where I stayed. But the men would sit out in front of the hall, carloads of men, and watch us all day long. Evidently they thought they'd scare us. But we went ahead about our business just like they weren't out there. Of course we knew they was there and we were prepared. So they didn't actually. . . . So I went to LaFollette then at the request; that's how I came to LaFollette in the early part of 1943.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Now this was at Atlas and Reade Shirt. . . .

EULA McGILL:

Well, they weren't called Atlas. . . . Originally they were called Atlas and Reade. The Atlas plant became Southeastern Shirt Corporation, and it was Southeastern Shirt Corporation at the time. And the Reade plant became Imperial Shirt Corporation; they were bought out by different companies.

JACQUELYN HALL:

They had been organized by the Amalgamated in '37.

EULA McGILL:

Yes, they was organized in the thirties.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did you know anything about that original drive? Zilphia Horton, I know, was in it.

EULA McGILL:

No. Zilphia and Elaine Wright and Charlie Hand, mainly Charlie Hand and Elaine Wright. Zilphia was in there for a short while after it was organized, for a short while.

JACQUELYN HALL:

I know they tried to put her in as business agent, and the workers didn't like. . . .

EULA McGILL:

No, they felt they ought to have a man. I was the first woman business agent they ever accepted in LaFollette.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Was there any question raised when you came in about your being a woman?

EULA McGILL:

No, no.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Why did they accept you so readily?

EULA McGILL:

Well, I knew the history of LaFollette, being working in around Knoxville and Middlesboro, Kentucky. I'd met these people at meetings and all. I don't think they looked to me

[laughter]

as a woman

[laughter]

. I'm thinking now of the first meeting with them. And I knew the history and I talked to them, and I explained to them that we were in there to work together. If they didn't trust me, now was the time to say it. So at the very outset we got off on the right foot, and we had a wonderful relationship with those people.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Now a lot of the miners were the husbands of the women who were organized in the shirt plant, isn't that right?

EULA McGILL:

I want to say now that the United Mine Workers, the men in the mines and the representatives of the United Mine Workers, were never in no way involved directly. They stayed clear of it. In fact, I knew some of the representatives, having worked with them all during the years, and they apologized to me for what was going on, because they knew me. And I worked very closely with them on the OPA and the War Manpower Commission; I sat on that representing the CIO in that district, and the representatives of the United Mine Workers. And none of them, I can say that I never saw a representative of the United Mine Workers, and as far as I know no rank and file miner was ever involved.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Well, who were the people who were involved?

EULA McGILL:

There was an ex-sheriff, Clifford Lay, was put on the staff and Silas Huddleston.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Silas Huddleston.

EULA McGILL:

That don't ring a bell with you?

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes, he was involved in the Yablonski murder, wasn't he? That's the same person?

EULA McGILL:

Same person, Silas Huddleston. Silas Huddleston was a miner from Caryville, Tennessee, and was president of one of the locals down there. And he went on the staff of the United Construction Workers; they put him on the staff. And he was the leader of that, and I'm pretty sure he was the leader of having Ed and Franz beat up. He was the leader and the one I always have done my talking to when it was necessary to talk to him.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What was he like?

EULA McGILL:

He, to me, was, I think—and that's what makes it so sad about what happened later. . . . When I read it in the paper and they mentioned LaFollette his name popped in my head. And one of the friends of mine up in there sent me newspapers and everything, and sure enough, he was involved. When it came on I just said to myself, "I'll bet Silas Huddleston's involved in that in some way." There was another man who was never. . . . Pat McCulley worked for the United Construction Workers, but he was never, I never saw Pat in any of the mobs that tried to rush our union hall or give us any trouble. I never saw Pat in it. I had known Pat; I had never known Silas Huddleston before, but I had known Pat McCulley. He was a miner and they put him on the staff. I never saw Pat; I don't believe that Pat was ever involved in it, because I never saw him. And I did talk to him once after I went to LaFollette.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Now who was the sheriff or deputy?

EULA McGILL:

Clifford Lay. . . .

JACQUELYN HALL:

What was his role?

EULA McGILL:

. . . was sheriff, and he was put on the staff.

JACQUELYN HALL:

While he was sheriff?

EULA McGILL:

No, he got defeated as sheriff, and they put him on the staff for the United Construction Workers. Then he later ran for sheriff and was defeated, later on.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Because of his role?

EULA McGILL:

I don't know. I'd say, I think it had a big part to play among other things (that I can't prove, it's best not to say) involved in some running of whiskey out of Kentucky. It was supposed to have been his automobile that hit the guy and killed him and didn't stop. Anyway, he was defeated as sheriff. He got back in as sheriff; I believe he was elected one time, and then a man named Rose Kitts defeated him. And that was the end, as far as I know, of his career as a law enforcement officer.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Was his involvement in this jurisdictional dispute ever raised as a campaign issue against him?

EULA McGILL:

Not openly. You didn't do things like that in the mining area; in the mining area you had to have some more subtle ways to actually fight. I had calls from rank and file miners saying they'd come help me, but my position was that I didn't want to cause a conflict in their unions. And I never accepted their help. I didn't want to cause any more trouble. I thought we could fight our own battles, and I didn't want to get any of the rank and file miners involved to the extent that they might get into trouble. I had a group of miners come, and I went and met with them and sat down and talked with them. And I told them at that time they were just causing trouble in their own union, and since their union was involved I thought it was better that they stay clear of it. And that's why I say, the United Mine Workers didn't directly try to cause any violence. I have to blame the United Mile Workers 'cause they were paying the bill. But I know the people who knew the miners the day the mob came down there and tried to break in our union office (and finally did break in) and we had a fight.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What happened when the mob broke in the union office?

EULA McGILL:

People told me that there was no miners involved. There were taxi drivers and just anybody they could pick up. I know there was some taxi drivers; they had organized the taxi drivers into the United Construction Workers in that area. They only owned the cabs. In fact, I was afraid to even ride a cab during that time; I didn't know who anybody was. I walked, because I didn't have an automobile. My car had torn up, and I was unable during the war years to get cars. And I didn't have an automobile, so I'd walk anywhere in the town I wanted to go, unless somebody (one of the workers) had a car.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Tell me about this incident when they broke into the union hall. What happened?

EULA McGILL:

Well, they kept trying to get the people to join their union, and they didn't have any success. A few people would join. They had four or five of the women who worked in the old Reade shop (which was called the Imperial Shirt) that was involved, I know. One of them had been a forelady, and she was afraid of losing her job as a forelady. And I think she was afraid that the union wasn't going to accept her back into union membership because of her activities previously. And at that time we had a union shop, and you had to be a member of the union. And the firm had talked with me about accepting her back in the union. And I told the firm that I didn't have anything to do with it, that when the time came for her to go back off of supervision into a bargaining unit job that I would do what I could. But I did not know how the people felt about her, and what had happened in the past I had no knowledge of it, and that I could not give them any assurance that she would be accepted in the union because I didn't have a vote (I only had a voice). And I had been talking to the people more or less about it, the officers of the union, and discussing it with them that she was going to come back. But they used her and a few others that were disgruntled for some reason. But they couldn't get the majority, because we did service the people; we had a good contract, as good as anybody had in those days in the shirt plants. The people were very happy with the Amalgamated Clothing Workers. We had, of course, people who (as every union is not perfect). . . . But we had very good meetings, good support from our members. We had a good union, and they just couldn't get anywhere.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Were most of these workers women in the shirt mill?

EULA McGILL:

Yes, yes. I didn't involve any of the men. I told the men to stay out of it altogether, the few men we had in the plant, because they would be victims of violence. And I told them to stay clear.

JACQUELYN HALL:

How did the women respond to the threats of violence?

EULA McGILL:

They held their heads up and went on, until they started shooting in their houses and beating up their husbands and threatening. The pressure got a little bad after they finally put a picket line out and wouldn't let the people into work. They put a picket line up and wouldn't let the people in to work, and that's how they finally got one of the shops; they never did get the other. But they came. We was having a meeting over at the hall, and they came up. We had the door locked. There were seventy-five or a hundred guys and one or two women, and the people who knew them said they worked in Jellico. They were not workers from our plants; none of the workers from our plant was involved in this. And they were trying to get the door open, and they couldn't get it open. They kept trying. Frankly, we had clubs inside the hall to protect ourselves. And every time they'd stick their finger through the crack one of the girls would hit their fingers, and they yelled. A cop was standing outside, the policeman, watching all this. And they yelled back to him and said "They've got clubs in there." And he came up and asked me to open the door. We opened the door, and he stepped back and let them in. Then them women beat the tar out of them

[laughter]

JACQUELYN HALL:

Really?

EULA McGILL:

Yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

How did they beat them?

EULA McGILL:

They sent seven of them to the hospital. They used their scissors on them; a lot of them had their scissors, and they'd cut.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did any of the women get hurt?

EULA McGILL:

No.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did the men not fight back?

EULA McGILL:

Yes. They tried to fight, but they couldn't fight. Them women was terrors. They were trying to get to me. Some of the women took me back in the back of the hall and made me stay back there. They knew that they were after me. And I didn't like it

[laughter]

; I wanted to stay out there and fight too. But a bunch of the women took me in the back of the hall.

[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]

[TAPE 1, SIDE B]

[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]

EULA McGILL:

I didn't see anything. I saw bottles of whiskey in their hands, and I figured they'd try to use the bottles of whiskey. In fact, there was one guy there, one of the Musish boys. His father told me later; he called on me, (his father was a representative of the United Mine Workers) and he asked me if his son was over there. And I said, "I don't know him, but I understand he was." He said, "Well I assure you, he won't be back." And I never saw him at any more of the fracases we had over there. In fact, the first day they put the picket line at the Imperial Shirt Plant, that plant had their clocks set to get off five minutes earlier than the other plant. No, I'm getting that backwards: the Southeastern Plant (because it was furthest from the restaurants and the bus station), they had their clocks set to give them equal chance to get into restaurants and on the bus in the afternoon, to get a seat. For some reason or other that's the way the people wanted it. So when I came out at noon, out of the Southeastern shop, there was a man standing out there, and he said, "We want you all to come over to the other plant at noon; we're going to organize it." And I said, "Well, I thought it was organized;" that's what I said. That tipped me off. And as I was going on to the hall I met one of the city councilmen. He was going home for lunch; he walked that way every day and went home for lunch. And I told him I was expecting trouble, so he turned and went back. I went on over to the big plant (what we called the big plant, the Imperial Plant), and there was a great gang there. And most of the women stayed in the plant and didn't come out. And I got in the plant. They didn't know who I was; those people out there, they didn't know me. And I think a lot of those men were brought down there that day under the impression that plant did not have a union in it; they did not know what they were there for. I went inside the plant and alerted the union officers and the stewards, and most of them stayed in. The few who came out, when they tried to come back in after work, why we had to fight to get them in. We fought all through the hall of the plant, and finally got some of them in. But the majority did not come out; they stayed inside the plant all during the lunch hour. So the company then shut the plant down because of the trouble. We had a wage opener at that time, an opening to discuss a wage increase at that time. That opened for an election. So by the time the election came around there had been so much violence and shooting and threats and everything that we lost it, slightly lost it. The day before the election I had practically every union member in the hall for a meeting. But the fear of not being able to get into work, I think, caused them to vote for the other union. And then the day after they lost the plant couldn't operate, because the people didn't go into work. They came to the union hall.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Do you think the same people that may have voted. . . .

EULA McGILL:

Against.

JACQUELYN HALL:

. . . against the Amalgamated came, and still stayed out of work?

EULA McGILL:

Yes, that's right. They came to the hall instead, they were so upset over losing. I think they all thought that enough would vote to put it over—and almost did. We almost did. But there was just enough of them that was frightened; I'm sure that's what it was. And the plant manager called me and asked me to tell the people to come to work. And I said, "Well, you're kind of calling the wrong people, ain't you?" I said, "We don't represent those people anymore." And I said, "I don't care what happens." "Oh," he said, "I know you better than that. You do care." Some of them never went back to work; never worked another day in that plant. Didn't never work no more in the plant; and one's retired out of Arrow Shirt Plant that was involved in that and never went back to work in that plant no more.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Was any legal action taken against the mob at all?

EULA McGILL:

No, no. I'll tell you, I felt then as I feel now (and I told Bro Potofsky when I talked with him). He told me just to leave. When they begin all this fighting he asked me, he said, "Why don't you just leave and let them have it?" More or less that's what he said. And I said, "These people don't want to leave our union, and I don't want to leave. I want to stick with them." And he said, "Well, hire you a good lawyer; that's all I can do."

JACQUELYN HALL:

What did he mean by that?

EULA McGILL:

Well, to protect me in case of any frame-ups or anything. I felt this way: that I did not want to bring any legal action against another union member. And that's what I told Silas Huddleston. He came down there later, he and five men. And I got in the door and I said, "What do you want?" And he said, "I'm coming in that hall." And I said, "Not as long as the Amalgamated's paying rent on this hall you're not coming in." He said, "I represent those people." And I said, "Well, if you represent them, you go rent you a hall and take them to it and represent them. But you're not coming in this hall." And I said, "I want to tell you something, Silas." I said, "You're not going to do me like you did Franz Daniel and Ed Blair." I said, "I know you don't have guts enough to do it yourself, but in case you have any idea of having somebody do something to me you're going to pay for it. I'm going to see that you pay if anything happens to me." And he said, "Well, I hope nothing doesn't happen." I said, "Well you better, because you're going to pay for it. I'm going to hold you responsible." So only I and the secretary-treasurer of the local was And she got behind the door with a .45, 'cause they'd beat her husband up. And he was a very frail, sick man, not able to do hard work. He worked in the bus station restaurant, and they had come in the restaurant there and beat him up trying to make her quit the Amalgamated. And she had a .45

[laughter]

standing behind the door; she would have killed him. I'm trying to think But they won the election.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Was this the most violent campaign that you were involved in, the most violent period that you were involved in?

EULA McGILL:

Over a longer period of time. Actually, the pressure and the anxiety before they finally actually had to take it by main force with physical violence; the pressure of the people and all, I'd say it went on the longest. And it was quite embarrassing, coming from a so-called union. That's what I told Silas that day; I said, "It's very embarrassing to have to stand up and. . . ." I said, "We have a hard enough time to organize without two unions having to fight each other." That's the way I felt about it. And I still say today I'm proud of the way we acted. They would have never been able to have won the election if I had not agreed to the company. The company asked me, and the mayor of the town and a good friend, Mr. Charlie Russell (who was a very good friend of mine who ran the hotel—and I was at that time living in one of his houses); they came and talked to me about getting the plant open. And I agreed. I said, "Well, there's nothing I have to do with opening. The company can open any time they want to as far as I'm concerned." And I'm still proud that we did not attack another union; we did not attack any of their members; we just merely tried to protect ourselves. I'm proud of it, although we lost the shop. And, I'm sorry to say, a lot of the people knew they was making a mistake. But they'd rather work that way than not to work. Most of the people still feel today (well, of course, that's a long time; the old-timers know). . . . In fact, there's a new group of workers in there now. They tried to take the other plant, but by that time Clifford Lay had become. . . . He didn't go back in there, and he was the sheriff at the time this happened, county sheriff. The first time he ran he ran against an old man who was already in his seventies, and he did defeat that old man—barely defeated him. And he went back in, and it was during the time he was sheriff this was happening. After all this violence he resigned as sheriff (I'm pretty sure it was under pressure from the governor, Governor McCord, because Charlie Russell told me that he went to see the governor). He resigned, and they put the former chief of police there in as sheriff. He went outside of town and hired—no, he didn't hire him, but the city hired—a man from outside as chief of police. And the climate was much better; they couldn't get by with doing the violence to us in the other plant, although they tried. They tried every way that they could. The local management there was playing with them; they thought if they could get rid of us. . . . They knew it would be a weaker union that wouldn't understand our work, and they were really playing footsie with this other union. But the people resisted. And we had to call a strike of our own during that time for violation of the contract. They tried to run some scabs in, but they didn't get to first base. I told the chief of police that we weren't going to stand for it. He said, "I'm not going to have any fighting." I said, "Well, if the scabs show up there's going to be some fighting; and I can go to jail as well as anyone. But there weren't enough scabs. Our people there were stronger, and the pressure couldn't be put on because they knew with the new sheriff, the acting sheriff. . . . I'm trying to think of his name. But he was a very fine person. He was a railroad detective, and he had been chief of police during the time. And he did his best to try to get us. . . . He came and talked to me, and he said he thought he had some good leads as to who had beat up Franz Daniel and Ed Blair and wanted my permission—or wanted me to prosecute. I told him just what I told you, that I did not want to get involved and try to cause any trouble in another union. And he got a little bit disturbed then. Henry Sutton his name was; Henry Sutton.

JACQUELYN HALL:

You said you were living in a Methodist minister's house at first?

EULA McGILL:

In Bruceton.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Oh, in Bruceton, I'm sorry. Right.

EULA McGILL:

Oh, I'd left Bruceton and went to LaFollette.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes

[laughter]

. I just started thinking about that.

EULA McGILL:

But, you see, LaFollette happened before Bruceton.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes, yes.

EULA McGILL:

You see, after we lost the big shop I had the small shop. So I started helping out in organizing campaigns some, because I just had this one shop.

JACQUELYN HALL:

I was just wondering about whether that was unusual. Was he allowing you to live in his house because he was sympathetic toward the union?

EULA McGILL:

Who?

JACQUELYN HALL:

The Methodist minister.

EULA McGILL:

Very sympathetic, and she was too. She had lived there, and he was her second husband. And I cannot remember . . . it's terrible that I can't remember the name.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did you get any support from the churches like that in any of your. . . ?

EULA McGILL:

Oh no.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did you get active opposition in your organizing efforts from the churches?

EULA McGILL:

In some areas, especially in the textile. Not so much in the garment plants. I never had open opposition. Of course, most of the people, they'd say, "My pastor told me not to have anything to do with the union." There was some churches back then that called the CIO the mark of the beast. Well, I think the main thing would be more. . . . Most of the churches that the workers went to, it was my feeling that they had to support their church because nobody had money that went there. And all the money the church got was what these workers got, and they were afraid of a'losing it. I'm pretty sure that was the motive in them telling them not to have anything to do with the union. I'm sure it was that more than anything else.

JACQUELYN HALL:

You were serving on the OPA Price Panel during this time that you were involved.

EULA McGILL:

During the World War, yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

And Hillman was national co-director, I think.

EULA McGILL:

Of the War Manpower Commission.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Of the War Manpower Commission, yes. What was your role in it? or what was the OPA Price Panel's purpose, and what kind of role was labor trying to play in that?

EULA McGILL:

Well, we more or less, the people who worked in the OPA were a voluntary board. When they couldn't straighten out violations of the code they would bring them to us, and then we would take action. That was what we'd do. We'd have a meeting and take up what the investigators and checkers who checked the stores had. Of course it was labor, the public (whoever that is: housewives), business—a panel. That was the purpose of the OPA, to try to keep everybody in line.

JACQUELYN HALL:

And to try to keep down inflation: was that the overall purpose?

EULA McGILL:

Yes, and to try to keep people from selling tallow for margerine—you'd be surprised, but that happened

[laughter]

JACQUELYN HALL:

Selling what for margerine, tallow?

EULA McGILL:

Beef tallow, or some kind of liquid stuff. I looked at it; I don't know what it was, but they were selling it for margerine. A lot of things like that you had to watch. And very careful about meets and things being sold, that it was a proper inspection. And prices particularly: they'd check the prices, and they had to post their prices. A lot of the stores would not report or post their prices; had a terrible time with some of the stores getting them to post their prices. You couldn't tell if it was a violation unless they posted them.

JACQUELYN HALL:

I noticed that the '46 Amalgamated convention was in Atlanta.

EULA McGILL:

No.

JACQUELYN HALL:

It wasn't?

EULA McGILL:

It never has been, no.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Never has been?

EULA McGILL:

Never has been no Amalgamated convention in Atlanta.

JACQUELYN HALL:

I thought that was unusual. I wondered if they ever met in the South.

EULA McGILL:

There wasn't one in '46. '44, and the next one was in '48. We didn't have one in '46 during the war. Wait a minute now, wait a minute. Had one in '44. No, we skipped from '40 to '44. We did have one in '46; we skipped from '40 to '44 during the war. And in '46, Atlantic City, I guess, yes.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Atlantic City, that's what it was, yes. I looked at some of the proceedings for that convention.

EULA McGILL:

That was right after the LaFollette thing.

JACQUELYN HALL:

And you were speaking in favor of a commitment to the southern drive. Griselda Kuhlman was also talking about her experience in the South. I was wondering whether you felt that the union did not make, whether you were trying to push the union to make a more serious commitment to the South. Was there opposition to that?

EULA McGILL:

No, there's never been no opposition. But at conventions you always feel like at revival meetings, that you have to keep praising the Lord

[laughter]

JACQUELYN HALL:

[laughter]

I see.

EULA McGILL:

You always have to keep the members who are delegates. . . . After all, the money comes from the national office, and the delegates in the convention is the supreme voting power. And you're doing that to impress the members, the delegates from the locals all over. We have to get our money to organize the South from the other locals.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes. So the question was how much money was going to be there?

EULA McGILL:

To impress the delegates there of the need to organize the South to protect their conditions. That's why we were making the pitch.

JACQUELYN HALL:

You mean delegates from locals outside of the South?

EULA McGILL:

That's right, that's right, because normally that's where they were from. We are the largest single joint board now in the Amalgamated. The membership is beginning to shift, but at that time we had (in '46), I think we had . . . I don't guess we had over eight locals in the South. I may be wrong. It seems you can almost name them because it was not a big thing: Knoxville, LaFollette, Atlanta, Americus, Ga., Dickson, Tenn. I don't know the ones, I didn't work in Mississippi; we had some in Mississippi. We didn't have a single one in Alabama at the time. We had one in Montgomery; we had a shop in Montgomery that was in the Amalgamated (all black). And in Neils: now it's the National Coats out of that shop.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What effect did the Taft-Hartley Act in 1947 have?

EULA McGILL:

Well, let me see. I've got the list somewhere in all them things past.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Yes. I can look that up. What effect did that have on the Amalgamated and on your work?

EULA McGILL:

Well, any time that you have—now this is my experience—once you organize a shop, most of the manufacturers would rather have everybody in because it's still divided when you have two groups more or less in controversy and competition with each other, unless you are able to get an overwhelming majority to sign so that they pretty well don't look to see if the boss is giving the favoritism to the people who don't belong. You have people that don't belong accusing the boss men of favoring the union people, occasionally. As far as organizing, I can honestly say that a lot of people have said to me (whether they mean it or not), but I have had more people to say to me, "I'd join the union if everybody had to join. But I don't want to join the union and the rest of them get what I am getting and not have to help pay for it." Now that's honestly the truth; I've had a lot of people say that. And it's surprising the workers who do not know this; it's surprising the workers who do not know that there's laws that they don't have to join anything to work in the union shop. And they get really upset when they find out

[laughter]

people were working there and getting the same thing they were without helping pay for it. And as far as organizing, it's always been hard. If it's not one thing to combat it's another. It has hurt and certainly hindered organization, because more and more the law is weakened. The company gets up every day and says, "I don't have to do nothing; you can't make me do nothing. You can organize the union if you want to, but there ain't no way. . . . You have to come to me, and if I don't want to give it I don't have to give it." And the law has become pretty much. . . . A lot of the workers don't have much confidence in it, because they see so many ways the company can get around it. And there's so many slick ways they can say what they want the workers to think they said without actually saying it. Then too, the workers are afraid to file a complaint if they violate the law; they are afraid to back it up and give a statement and face them in it.

JACQUELYN HALL:

A whole spate of right to work laws were passed in the South after Taft-Hartley, weren't they?

EULA McGILL:

Yes. They had to do that because, see, Taft-Hartley still give us the right for the union shop if the majority voted for it, and we was winning the elections overwhelmingly for the union shop, because workers wanted to join. They'd feel that everybody should help pay to defray expenses. And we were winning. If they left it to real union shops, the majority voted for it—I mean, a two-thirds majority had to vote for the union shop. And we were winning, and we practically lost none. Once you could win the election it was very easy to win the union shop, because most people felt that, "Well, if I'm going to have a union here, why I should join it and help." The average worker will join the union if they see some benefit to it. The few dollars they pay in dues is not what keeps people out of the union. And too, you can't have a voice unless you're a member: can't attend the meeting, have nothing to do with elections of officers. It was easy to win the second election for a union shop. And these powers-that-be begin to work to try to get state laws (which are very much easier to get passed).

JACQUELYN HALL:

What about the requirement that union officers had to sign anti-Communist affidavits, or affidavits saying that they were not members of the Communist party? Did that have a very negative effect on the union?

EULA McGILL:

At first. Now it's pretty much a routine. People are a little more sophisticated. But I know the first ones who signed, the workers would look at you when they was elected officers and you handed them one of them papers to sign. They wondered, "Lord, what in the world? I am not a Communist; what do they want me to sign this for?" They felt like I do about it; "you're asking me to say that I'm not? I haven't even been accused or suspected, and here I am trying to prove that I'm not." They resented it. I think it's become a matter of routine now. They understand better that they're not being accused of anything. But it's still something that I think is terrible, to have to prove you're not something before you're even accused or suspected. And if a person's going to

[laughter]

work undercover, they'd sign it anyway. It's just a farce as far as I'm concerned.

JACQUELYN HALL:

You went back on the staff as an organizer in '52.

EULA McGILL:

'52, for straight organizing.

JACQUELYN HALL:

And what was your first assignment? You went to Miami? Gladys Dickason asked you to come back on the staff as an organizer and sent you to Miami in '52.

EULA McGILL:

No, my first assignment was in Livingston, Tennessee; that's the first assignment. I went there and worked with a group on a shirt plant in Livingston, Tennessee. And there we were confronted again with the same group, the United Construction Workers. They came in and got on the ballot, and we lost the election by thirty votes. They used every tactic: called us Communists, used loudspeakers, and threatened to beat us up—the same old routine.

JACQUELYN HALL:

How did you deal with being red-baited, being called a Communist in those different situations?

EULA McGILL:

It never worried me; I didn't let it bother me, because I don't thin the workers paid any attention to them. In the first place to the average worker the Communists is a word to them; it's a dreadful word, but they didn't pay any attention. I think they knew that this group was just . . . that was propaganda they was using against us. We brought some of our, in that campaign at Livingston, members from LaFollette who had confronted this group before. We brought people out of the shop. One girl, the miners threatened to withdraw her mother's miner's pension, and she had to go back to the shop.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Did you prefer being an organizer or being a business agent?

EULA McGILL:

It doesn't make any difference, you know. I think sometimes I feel that a business agent is more rewarding, to see some good you're doing. When you're organizing sometimes you feel like, well, you're out here to get these people out on a limb, and you have to fight. You worry yourself to death, afraid that something'll happen and you're not going to be able to protect them. And they don't follow your advice a lot of times. And when they talk union they're going to talk union, and you try to advise them how to do it so that the boss won't catch them off-guard so we can protect them with whatever the law can protect them with

[laughter]

. And you worry constantly about it, that maybe somebody is in there talking and they don't know really how to protect themselves. And if they get fired you worry yourself to death. I know when I first started organizing, when anybody got fired I tried to get them back in there. I had no relief or nothing. I used to spend most of my paycheck keeping people up who got fired, families. They had no income. Organizing is a heart-breaking job in a lot of respects. You feel sometimes that you're back with your head against a stone wall. But all in all, you know that it has to be done, that you have to keep at it. If you don't, well, you can slip backward a heck of a lot faster than you can go forward. If you don't keep up the battle, why you'll slip backward.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Well, you and Ed Blair, then, were assistant organizing directors under Gladys Dickason, right?

EULA McGILL:

We more or less divided up the South.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Two of the strikes that I know about during that time were at Water Valley, Mississippi and Newberry, South Carolina. Were those the two . . . ?

EULA McGILL:

Let's see, Water Valley was first. Well, see, I worked there and organized Leeds, Alabama and a little plant out in Bessemer, Alabama during that time. No, Water Valley was first.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Was it at Water Valley that Ed Blair was shot?

EULA McGILL:

No, he was never shot at on an Amalgamated picket line. He was shot on a picket line with the IUE in Columbus, Mississippi, when he was on the picket line with them.

[Interruption]

EULA McGILL:

See, I didn't work much in Mississippi; I just came to help out when Ed needed it, especially help in a strike.

JACQUELYN HALL:

So he was really in charge of. . . ?

EULA McGILL:

Yes, he was in charge. I didn't have to work much there. He liked Mississippi; he handled Mississippi altogether. I just went in a time or two in Mississippi to help him out. I went in in the Seminole campaign.

JACQUELYN HALL:

What were the states that you were in charge of?

EULA McGILL:

Well, he and I split it. We pretty well worked together, whichever way. I usually worked over this way. I used to kid him and ask him wasn't there no inbetween Mississippi or Miami. He liked it. He took care of mostly Tennessee, Mississippi and Alabama.

JACQUELYN HALL:

Were you working out of Atlanta?

EULA McGILL:

Well, we was working out of our car, mainly. Nashville was the southern office. And I just really didn't have an office; technically worked out of the Nashville office, but I was hardly ever there. I was in Florida, Georgia, the Carolinas.