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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 H-0239, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Paul Cline came from a mill family: his father was a box loom weaver, his sisters were weavers, and Cline himself mastered a number of jobs at a textile mill before his declining health drove him from his job. After years of working with asbestos, from 1938 until the 1960s, Cline had developed brown lung disease. In this interview, he recalls his mill work and his struggle to wrest worker's compensation from his employer, J. P. Stevens. Cline's memories of his family's mill work and his own experiences have given him strongly negative opinions of textile mills. He describes tyrannical mill owners who forced their employees to work long hours in dreadful conditions, sadistic mill foremen who dangled children from windows, and capricious owners who might fire their employees at will. He also presents a vivid picture of mill life, describing his family's garden, their home, and his father's fondness for fighting. This interview provides a perspective on the struggles of one southern laborer not just to make a living but to stay alive.
Paul Cline remembers mill work as a violent, unhealthy profession.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
My name is Paul Edward Cline. I'm fifty-eight years old. I went to work in a mill with J. P. Stevens in 1938, sweeping. I swept two small weave rooms, upstairs and downstairs. That was my job, to keep the floors clean. Well, I rocked on and I was making $8.10 a week.
What mill was this?
That's Slater, South Carolina. That's one of J. P. Stevens' mills now, but it belonged to the Carter boys that bought it out. It merged with J. P. Stevens later on. Married Nick Carter. It was a filament, run filament then.
What was that used for?
They made dress goods, all kinds of fancy goods. After fill order on
that, they would get order on cotton. They'd run cotton, they'd fill
order on that. Then they'd run anything they could get. Then the
government come in and give them a government order, and they put cotton
back on. I was always looking to try and get ahead and get a better job.
Just young, kept my eyes and ears open. Doffing cloth paid a nickel more
a hour, so I got a job a-doffing cloth and made a nickel more a hour.
It's been so long, I forgot what I was making a hour, but you can count
it up, it's not very much a hour. Then I hauled filling a while. The
jobs wasn't stretched out like they are now. I kept watching people how
to start up looms, when I got caught up. I always tried to learn
something more. I got wanting to weave. I'd run these women's looms
while they was going to eat their lunch, or go to the bathroom. They got
to watching me. I guess the war was coming on. They was going to have to
have some help, so that might a speeded me up getting a job weaving as I
did because they started drafting people in the army right after that.
In 1940, I went to weaving on the third shift. They had spun rayon on
then, take that off and put the filament back on. We got in the war
after Pearl Harbor. When I heard of Pearl Harbor,
Which mill were you working in then?
At Slater's. I went on through the war two years, come back, went back to work at Slater. I worked there with. . . . they started putting cotton on a while, different other stuff—whatever the market was doing. They said the market was so changeable, they'd run anything they could get. Well, they started putting fiberglass on. We all had to learn over. You couldn't tie a end on that, you had to glue it. We had to learn all over how to weave with that. During that time, they put asbestos on my job, three or four looms at a time with the fiberglas. They told us that was to make the uniforms for the steel mill people that works close to the furnaces.
Who owned the
J. P. Stevens, I believe, had it after the war. They bought it out. After
I come back, somewhere in late '46, they done bought it out. They didn't
tell me about the hazards of cotton dust or fiberglas, but anybody with
common sense knows fiberglas is worse than anything. It'd get on your
clothes and you couldn't get it out. It's on your skin, it just stick.
Then the asbestos with the fiberglas and all that, about fifteen years
ago, I started having smothering spells. I went to the companyReader's
Digest. People didn't know what emphysema was. I said, "What
causes it?" He said he didn't know what caused it. I asked him, I said,
"Is it cause of me working in that mill?" "No, no." If he'd of said
that, I would a got out. I don't know whether he knew or not. But if
he'd a said by working in the mill caused me to have emphysema, I'd a
got out then. But he didn't know. He said, "No, that don't cause it." He
said, cigarettes—he told me to quit smoking. Course, I didn't do it.
Were you a pretty heavy smoker?
No, I wasn't too bad. I smoke maybe a pack a day sometimes. A lot of times I wouldn't do that because I'd work. When I worked, I didn't smoke because we had to split the smoke in the mill. I'd always take pride in my job; I wanted to run them looms. I didn't have time to smoke. I'd get it off my mind. I'd smoke when I'd go out.
It kept rocking along. I left Slater and went to Dunean. I worked there
about three months. I got another job on the first shift—I was on the
third shift at Dunean—I got a friend of mine was superintendent at
Brandon Duck Mill. He give me a first shift job. I worked six weeks in
that plant and couldn't make no money. I cut my pay. The old job I run,
I had a different kind of loom, they call a Hunt loom—this fella Hunt
down here made a loom, his own—
When was this that you were moving around like this?
That was during in 60's. I went to Monaghan after I left Brandon Duck Mill. I worked there about on up till I retired in '77. I just got to where I went to my doctor after I moved from the country down here. Was living up at Travelers Rest, and Dr. Lipston, I went to him, he told me, "I don't want you to go back in that mill because it's killing you. It's going to kill you." I said, "You give me a leave of absence." So I took my leave of absence over there, but it made them mad. What they wanted to do, they wanted to fire me. If I hadn't give them a leave of absence, been under a doctor's care, they would have fired me. Anything pertaining, if you're injured or not able to work, they want to get rid of you because they don't want nobody around sickly like that. They're not going to take care of nobody like that, and they the one that done it. So they couldn't fire me because I didn't never go back. I get a new leave of absence for six months and I drawed my insurance, seventy-five dollars a week for six months. That's all I drawed, that's all the insurance I had. When that was all, I had nothing coming in. J. P. Stevens ain't going to pay your bills if you don't work for them. So I went and put in for my social security. I had to go to court to get that. Had four doctors said I was disabled and they still had to have a hearing on me. Because you see, it was on the inside of me, my lungs and all. I tell them, I says, "I can't breathe and can't work." They'd look at me like I was a fool, trying to get something for nothing. I had to go to court to get it. I got my social security started and my veterans started. I still wasn't getting any better.
Kept rocking along there, my wife called the Lung Association. They
referred us to the Brown Lung Association. That's the first time I've
ever heard of the Brown Lung Association. I went to have a screening
clinic that
What was the result of your particular case after you had had the lung test?
I got to talking to
How did that all turn out?
I didn't even look at the . . . He said I did have a bad breathing
problem. I said, "I could have told you that before I come up here."
They run me through the whole rigomorole of stuff. What they done is try
to get the blood out of my arteries. Both of them blue and black. They
like to
Did you get a settlement out of that?
I got a settlement out of that. I settled out of court. But I didn't know
how long I'd live because they'd keep putting it off. Another thing that
the Brown Lung is trying to do is speed up the cases because people is
dying. We had two people to die here in the last three or four weeks in
our association down in Columbia. All the money in the world won't bring
my lungs back. My lungs are just about gone. I don't know how long I'll
live, nobody knows how long they'll live far as that goes, but the
future generation down the line is what we want to do. I got people
coming in there, grandson, and other people got people going to work.
That's honest work. Mill work's all right. I've been proud to be a mill
worker, but I didn't know that they's doing us that way. I was loyal to
them, worked overtime for them, but when I got disabled, they wanted to
kick me out with no pension, nothing. I was just lucky to get that
twenty-two dollars a month. They didn't tell me it was a hazard to my
health. I don't want the future generation to come up with something
like this. I'd heap rather buy clothes here made in America, than go
over here to Korea, China, or Japan. I don't want to see nobody lose
their job, but they create their own unemployment. They'll go overseas
and buy this high speed machinery and put in these mills. The people are
getting old, and these machines are speeded up and used. They'll cut
out, and if you can't run them, they'll lay you off and try to get some
new people in there. They're going to get sick on down the road just
like us if they
When I went to work, they had a "E" Model loom. They advanced to XD's and XK's and things, more speeded up, more advanced. That's good, I like to see people and technology advance. They went to the moon, I's glad they could do that, but the company says it can't clean up because it's too much. But we got a chart here. In 1978, it cost 4.2 million dollars for people to be out of work, disabled. That's in 1978, that's what cost the tax payers. That should be the mill's duty. They'll tell you, there's a lot of people in the association, when they get to where they can't work, can't hold a job, they'll say, "Why don't you quit and get on social security?" See, they don't have to foot that bill. They take that out of your ticket. They'll get you on social security. You're expendable, see. The machine is worth more than you are.
You think it's been that way?
Been that way ever since there's been a mill been built. On down the line, as my father worked in the mill.
Come out here in 1900 from Tennessee and met my mother. They married at Arcadia Mills.
Where was Arcadia Mills?
Up in Spartanburg County. They married, and I think they went to work up at Clifton Mills after they got married.
Is that in Spartanburg?
Spartanburg. In 1900, I believe, somewhere along in there.
How old were they when they. . . .
My dad, I believe he was around fifteen or sixteen years old. See, didn't
have to have a license then. All he had to do was get a preacher and
marry them, get some witnesses. I think my daddy was sixteen and my
mother fifteen, I'm not sure. She was weaving, and she taught my daddy
to
Did they come in to work with their families or did they come by themselves? How did they get to the Spartanburg Mills?
Well, my granddaddy moved the whole family from Newport, Tennessee out here.
Do you know about when that was?
It was just around 1900. I might of got some dates wrong, but anyhow, they come out here in 1900. Maybe my mother and father married maybe on down the line a little farther down. Anyhow, they all worked in the mill before they married. There was three boys and three girls and my granddaddy all working, and they put the paycheck in one. They lived in a big house. They furnished water, they had pumps out there. Different people go get pumps. Didn't have water in the houses like they got now.
That was at the Arcadia Mill?
That was at Clifton, had pumps. They didn't have no electric lights. It was run by water wheel. That's the reason they built their mills on the river. The big old wheel turned, and they had belt drives in the mill. Big belts pull them pulleys in there, that pulls the machinery. When night come, they had to shut down. Just had one shift.
Didn't have any kind of lights?
Didn't have no electricity at all. I have to check up on that. I don't know when they first started having lights. It's in a book somewhere or another; I've read it. It was somewhere on down a few years later.
So your mother and father then actually started working in a mill that was run by water power?
That's right, wasn't no electric light. They was living at Clifton Mill,
and they's a article—you can dig it up somewhere—they had a wash out.
Back years ago, my daddy was living there. He's living up
What was the river that they were on? Was it a creek or a river?
It was a little small river in Spartanburg. I don't know what they called it the Tyger River or what. You can look that up later.
We moved from there
When you were a year old?
I was a year old when we moved out of Spartanburg.
That would be about 1922?
Yeah. He worked at Dunean a while. He had a friend come down enticed him to go to Shelby, North Carolina, Cleveland Cloth Mill. He brought a truck and moved us back to North Carolina. We stayed there a while, then he moved back to Judson Mill and worked there a while. Then we moved to Monaghan Mill. My daddy was a box loom weaver, and my sister and my brother, all of them was weavers. Box looms paid a little more. They had twelve shuttles in them, make fancy cloth, pretty cloth. They was complicated. You didn't have too many of those big old looms—Compton-Knowles looms.
There are lots of harnesses.
Yeah. Sometimes the pattern chain goes plumb up to the top of the ceiling on some of them. They was pretty good experienced on box looms.
That's not what they call a Jacquard loom is it?
Some of them are. They've run all kinds. There's Jacquards, and Compton-Knowles. They had all kinds of makes of them. That was working in the mill way before I was born. They's five of us, each of us born in a different mill—five children.
Why did your family move around so much?
Different places, paid a little more. It wasn't all in a chain like it is now. Maybe this mill is going short time, and they're hiring some of the weavers over here at this mill running at full time.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
Some of the mills was more stronger than others, bigger, had more capital. They could afford to run.
Let me go back and get this; when your grandfather moved in from Tennessee, was he married and his wife was alive, and they both came?
Yeah. All the family came.
But she didn't work at the mill?
No, she didn't work. It kept her busy cooking for the whole family. They didn't give them but a hour for dinner. You had to work from six to six. Then it was from sunup to sundown. Soon as it got light enough, they could go start them looms up before they had electric lights. They start them up, and in the summertime, it don't get dark till about 9:00, so them's long days. Then they'd run till dinner time on Saturday.
Did they run those looms before they got what they call the automatic looms?
Oh yeah.
Do you remember anything about the early kinds of looms? What your mother or father might have said or what your grandfather might have said about how those looms worked?
My grandfather died when I was just a baby. You might interview some more of these people around here that might know. Since 1938's when I worked. They's a lot of people you can interview around here in our association that worked in different places. Some of them a whole lot older than I am that can tell you a whole lot more, like that Mr. Wood up there.
Did you ever hear your parents talk about the conditions?
Yeah, I heard them talk about it. When that Depression hit, they cut wages. They weren't making anything, and I heard my daddy say, "I just don't see how in the world I'm going to make it if they cut wages any more." If you made a bad roll of cloth, they'd dock you for seconds—maybe fifty cents or a dollar. Well that's a dollar out of your paycheck and that hurt. Then you bought your coal and wood through the company. You had a wood stove and burnt coal in the fireplace. When you wasn't making just a little bit, maybe a man's got a big family, it was a struggle. You had to knuckle under. It was almost like slavery. They tell you what to do, you couldn't do this and you couldn't do that. They tried to run your life—tell you what to do outside the mill. You had to kind of watch what you done. Like Mr. Wood says, if a man wanted to take a drink of liquor or drink some beer back in them days, that man found out about it for him. That's just like slavery, you didn't even have no free time. That was before my time, but that's the way it used to be. They thought they owned you. It's not like that now, but it's almost as bad. About this time, now, the only thing that I can think about these mills now—I don't mean it to sham them—the only difference that it is now and a penitentiary, you can go home at night. They got them things bricked up, you got a fence around, and they got a guard there. That's it.
Do you remember when they first bricked up the windows?
Oh yeah, I remember when they bricked them up.
When did they start doing that?
That was back in the 40's, late 40's. They said they wanted to put in air
conditioning, but it was a long time before they did. I know'd it to be
one hundred ten (degrees) on the second shift where I worked. You get so
hot in there, you nearly stifle to death. Then they
A lot of that equipment they put in there for humidity wasn't really for the workers. It was really for the cloth and the. . . .
It was for the company's benefit. They didn't put anything in there for your benefit. They had one water house for a great big weave room. Maybe you's way on one lower end, you had to go way back the other end. One water house and one water fountain.
Come home from school one time, we was telling about having a itch in the mill, I mean in school. We'd start breaking out between our hands and fingers. She just knew we had the itch. She start putting sulphur and lard on us. Next morning, we broke out with the measles. We kid her about that a long time. She couldn't wash it off of us. She had to put us to bed—me and my brother—after two weeks till them measles went back in.
What did she think they were?
She thought it was itch. We come from school telling . . . that's why itch, you start breaking out, and there's a lot of eczema out
How long did you all get to go to school?
I went six years. I went one year for my brother. I was six and a half
What age did you start to work? How old were you when you started?
Seventeen.
Your first job was sweeping.
Sweeping.
You had one sister?
I had two sisters, one dead. They all worked.
When did they begin, how old were they?
What were their names?
One of them's named Agnes. She married a Ross, Agnes Ross. My oldest sister, she was named Alma Cathcart.
Is she the oldest one in the family?
Yeah, she's the oldest one in the family, and my brother was next.
What was his name?
His name was Felix Cline. Then I got a brother named Harley. I'm the youngest.
Where does Agnes come in?
She comes next to my brother there, oldest brother. Then Harley, then me.
All of us born at different mills. Agnes was born at Woodside, and
Harley was born at Brandon over here. I was born at Arcadia in
Spartanburg, and my brother Felix was born at Buffalo Mill in Union. My
oldest sister was born at Clifton Mill. My daddy used to tell them he
had an old rooster. When he seen the wagon coming, he just lay down and
cross his legs, he know'd it was time to move. That's how my dad moved.
Did you all ever have a garden?
Sure, we had garden. My daddy had a garden all the time. Had plenty to eat. We had a cow, had hogs. The company'd let you have it them. My daddy always had a cow. He raised some of the biggest hogs you ever seen. It really helped out.
Would your mother do things like preserve foods?
Yeah. I miss them good old preserves. We used to fuss, me
What was his job in the mill?
He's a weaver. He was one of the top weavers back in them days. That's the reason they come and get him. My sister and brother, all of them was good weavers. I couldn't even carry his reed hook. You never would make a good weaver as my daddy could. I couldn't. I was a good weaver, but I never was a good a weaver as he was. He really knows what he's doing.
How long did the other members of your family stay in mill work?
My brother stayed in it till he died. He died of cancer about twenty years ago. He was a supervisor at Judson for years. He got sick and died of cancer. My sister, she worked. She retired in '62.
What was she doing when she retired?
Weaving. Her husband was superintendent. He died in North Carolina. He lived, you know that little town of Mebane. They got a rug mill, he got a rug mill—Cathcart Fabrics. He got some rug machines. If you're ever up in there, stop in there. His name is Willis Cathcart. He had a small machine makes these small rugs. Had made to his specifications, cost him $7,500. He got some molds, mold these floor mats. He made all them things. He sells floor mats for the cars, got a good business. He was superintendent up Dan River one time, been plant manager several different mills.
Can you talk a little bit about the Depression in the late 20's and
You'll have to get somebody that was there. That's a little bit before my time. Mr. Hardin and them could tell you, but I could hear how it was. Back in them days, it's locally owned companies. It wasn't like it is now, but it was hard work. They had old machinery that run by belt drives and things, it wasn't speeded up. They making more cloth right now on one loom than they got on a dozen back then. See, they couldn't run, them belts'd slip off and the whole thing slip off. They'd have to put the belts back on. It'd break up there, and they'd have to get somebody to fix the belts in them big old claws. Them belts has down and killed people. I know over at Monaghan years ago, before they got the motors on, it cut a fellow's arm off. They give him a life time job. He's dead; he stayed there till he died. Instead of suing them, they just give him a life time job. He been in there and worked with one arm. Back in them days, in the 20's, I was just a kid. I's just born in '21. That fellow over there at Poe Mill is ninety years old probably could tell you.
Do you remember your father and mother ever talking about being out of work during that time?
Yeah, I know when they was out of work. When that Depression hit, they's
out of work. A lot of people was out of work. Mill's running a week and
stopping a week. The first time I ever heard of curtailing—that's what
they call curtailing is stopping off—I was living there at Monaghan Mill
over here, I was going to school. I was eight or nine years old when
that crash hit, 1929, I was eight years old. They's fixing our front
porch—companies owned the houses then—I heard them say they was going to
curtail. I don't know what they's talking about, I ran around and asked
my mother. I said, "What is it they're going to do? Said the mill's
going to curtail." Said, "The mill's going to be off next week." I
thought that was something.
Do you remember people having pelegra?
Sure, they just didn't get the B vitamins. They didn't eat right. Eat fat back meat and gravy and biscuits and some pinto beans. That's about all you had to eat and you's lucky to get that. That's not no good diet.
Would you remember enough to have an opinion about whether that pelegra happened more among people who were in the mill villages or living on farms or. . . .
It was mostly the people on the mill villages. It was all over, I guess, in a lot of places, but mostly it was in cities—not only in the mill villages, in everywhere else, unless you had money to buy it. There wasn't no money floating around then. They cut wages. Some of the domestic help was making five dollars a month. Some of them making four and five dollars a week at the mill—fifty-five hours. That's the reason people say, you could buy fat back. They'd get it for a nickel a pound. We didn't have to buy it, we raised ours. We didn't have to pay, because we always kept something to eat. We had chickens.
Were there some mill villages where you couldn't have a garden?
You could have a garden if you have a place big enough. They didn't say
nothing about it. They didn't care. You had to get out there
Things begin to get better in 1933 when the NRA come in. I could remember the eight hour law coming in effect. Everybody had to work so many hours and be off in the evening. Then they put on the second shift. They'd have Saturdays off. You used to work till dinner time on Saturday. People just didn't know what to do with theirself and they raised wages. They had that old saying, song of Roosevelt's, "Happy Days Are Here Again," well, it was. Far as I know, to me, the President got us out of a hole, back in them days, put people to work.
Do you remember hearing at all about the strikes in 1934?
Sure, I remember them. I wasn't working, I was going to school. I walked right by the National Guard over there at Monaghan. They setting up, it was like a army camp, tents. They had bayonets. They had to protect the people that wanted to go in there. The company told them, said, "If you don't come on back to work, you're going to have to move." Scared the people up.
Was Mr. Marchant, he was still there at Monaghan Mill at that time?
Yeah.
Do you remember him? What sort of fellow was he like?
I remember him. He was a good man. He's got some peoples here now,
children, ancestors. Mr. Marchant from Monaghan was a good man. He
looked out after the people back in them days. I can remember back
before Cecil and Stevens bought these mills out. That's where it ruined
everything. See, these locally owned people, they knowed the people. The
Woodside boys,
You mentioned once earlier about the children being in the mills and somebody giving them a whipping.
Sure, my aunt and uncle
What would that be about?
Well, just goofing off how kids'll do. Playing around, they'd get to playing, and they was supposed to be in there working. They go tell him and daddy'd whip them. Afraid they'd fire them, you know. They wouldn't make but ten cents a day. I got a uncle down there that's eighty-four years old. He'll be eighty-five if he lives till Christmas, cut his leg off. One that's got his hand cut off. He said they used to stick the kids out with their heels, hold their heads out and stick them out the window, said, "I'm going to drop you if you don't behave yourself." That actually happened.
Who would do that?
Some second hands in the mills back years ago. Hold them out there and say they was going to drop them. They just threaten them, but what if they had a dropped one of them. Take them with their heels, little old kids, with the heels and say, "If you don't go to work, I'm going drop you." That's the way they done. Now my uncle down there said he's seen it.
Did the second hands or the overseers ever whip the children
No, no, that's something they didn't do. If they did, somebody'd get their head cracked. That's one thing about those people back then, they didn't let nobody else whip their children. You don't go around whipping other people's children. You go and say tell their daddy if they done something wrong. You better watch out, he'll whip you! But back in them days, people stuck together, mill folk did. We's poor, we's humble, and we's honest.
Sometimes the second hand or the overseer would step out of line, and the mill people, there would be kind of a line drawn. They would know what they couldn't
We didn't have a leg to stand on. They could do what they wanted to. Course they didn't beat you or nothing like that, second hand, but they could do what they wanted to. They could fire you if you's five minutes late, or if they didn't like the way you combed your hair, anything like that. If they wanted to put their girlfriend on the job, they'd fire you and put them on there. You didn't have no say-so back in them days. You had to knuckle under. The way it is now, if you work with them, they can't throw you out of your house because they don't have houses now. Peoples now is waking up, getting more educated, and the younger generation is not going to the mill.
My brother's raised two children and he sent them through school when he
died. One of them teaches at Greenville Tech. She went to the University
of South Carolina. The other one had a scholarship for Vanderbilt
University to play football, graduated from Parker High. But brother got
sick, and he had to come on back, but he went on back to Peaberry
College and studied different places. He's in real estate. Said, "I
don't want you in that mill." My sister Agnes has got two children, a
boy and a
At the time when you and your sisters and brothers coming along, your parents, did they ever say anything like they didn't want you to work in the mill?
Well, they didn't say it, there just wasn't no other jobs available. You either worked the mill or . . . if you want to make any money, you had to work the mill unless you got a job at a grocer. It wasn't like it is now. That's all it was.
What about attitudes of people who were living in town had toward people who were living in the mill village?
In some instances, they looked down their nose at other people. They used
to call them lint heads. One reason, people didn't have the clothes to
dress up like they do now. People wore overalls to town. They didn't
make enough money to buy nothing. Course, they'd go clean. Some of them
didn't, some of them did. They can wash. Water's free, and get some
soap. Some people didn't have much hygiene lessons back them days, but,
when we moved in a house and these people moving in, we'd scrub that
house when we left, and me and my brother would fuss. My mother make us
scrub it when we left. Says, "We not going to have the name of coming in
here leaving a dirty house." We'd scrub it and have that thing spic and
span. Old boy
I heard of people taking their beds. . . .
Take your beds outside. You don't hear that no more.
Were there ever any cases that you remember where the relations between the town folk and mill folk would get into fights, things like that?
These baseball teams they had, one village'd have it in for another one. People back them days, they'd fight a circular saw. My daddy would. He had more fights in the mill than Jack Dempsey had in the ring.
In the mill?
Yeah, he'd fight at the mill. A lot of awful down there Spartanburg, I mean Greer. He had a fight with a guy over there at Woodside, he busted seven shuttles over a guy's head. It's a wonder he hadn't killed him.
What was that about?
I don't know. I had a aunt and she's a good looking woman when she's young. Had a lot of fights over her. She come, somebody insult her or something, she'd tell him, and those boys there, they kind of look out after her, you know. I've heard my daddy say, "I've had more fights over my sister than I have over anybody." She caused a lot of them. She'd fight you too.
What about in the mill while people were working?
They'd fight in there. My daddy run a guy all over that place one time trying to catch him.
Do you know what it was about?
Yeah, he made a break out on his job or something. Something or other about cloth that—it's been so long—made a bad place on it where it looked bad on him.
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[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
He skipped it and went to his girlfriend's. He went over there and told him. This guy knocked my daddy down. My daddy was short, but he had him some shoulders and arms like a blacksmith. He come up, he always used a knife to cut the thread. When he cut that fellow on the jugular vein with that knife, scared him. Said every time his heart beat his blood would squirt out. They took him across the street over there at the drug store and sewed him up. Went on back to work.
What would happen? Would your father lose his job?
No, they didn't fire him. He knowed the man that was over there at Woodside. He knowed Mr. Alexander. Mr. Alexander said, "Now you fellows behave yourselves. We need you." Both of them good workers. They done that. Back then, jobs was easy to get. My daddy moved from Greer, him and my uncle, in a wagon—that was way before I was born—to Monaghan Mill. It was raining, they'd plenty empty houses back in them days, they just moved in, stayed all night. Put his furniture out of the rain and hitched his mules, things up. That's the way they done back in them days. They went over there and got a job the next day at the mill. They asked if he wanted a house, he said, "No, I done got one. I don't like where it's at." Said, "Well, pick you out one." They's just building these mills back then, see.
That was early in the century?
Yeah, they could pick out. That's the reason he moved around. They build
this mill over here. My uncle at Greer, when he was living at Brandon,
he was seventeen years old. He went over here to Judson Mill and climbed
up that smoke stack while they was building it. This guy says, "I dare
you to go up it." He got up on that thing, just a-swinging. He was
seventeen years old when they built Judson Mill. Brandon and Judson
been
Things got much tighter in the 20's and 30's when you couldn't get a job.
Oh, it was pretty rough. When that Depression hit, there just wasn't no job for nobody. Peoples lucky that held onto them. They couldn't sell the cloth. There just wasn't no money going around. There's never been a Depression. We've had recessions. You all don't know what Depression. I hope you never see one like that. People lost their farms, money, and everything.
Let me just ask you, this fighting is a real interesting topic. Did people ever get into fights with the overseer or the superintendent?
Oh yeah, I knocked the fool out of one, walked out one time.
When was that? What was that?
I just didn't like what he said to me. I busted his jaw just about.
Would they be trying to speed people up, or. . . .
No, he just wanted to ride me, and I told him I wasn't no horse. I didn't
care back in them days, and I was already mad. He hit me when I was
wrong, I just whirl around and hit him. I knocked him down, I knocked
him plumb out. Somebody throwed a bucket of water in his face. I just
went on home. I got in a fight downstairs. Old boy cut my overalls. He
started cutting them, and I told him to cut it out. He just playing,
kept on and got bigger and bigger—brand new overalls. I knocked him
plumb out the door. His daddy come running in there—that was before I
went to weaving, I's young. I come off the farm and I was proud—his
daddy come running in there, "What's going on?" I hit him before I knew
who he was. I knocked him plumb out there. I went back up and told the
second hand and showed him what was done. He said, "Just don't worry
about it,
Do you remember any attempts to organize any unions in the 30's?
Sure, sure there was. I signed a card myself right after I went to work.
They tried to organize them. See, people was too poor. That's the reason
they couldn't. You stay in a company house, they find out you joined a
union or signed a union card. They had stool pigeon, they's always
somebody. They'd tell, they'd fire you, they don't have no excuse. The
government wasn't sticking behind them like they do now. They'd kick you
out. They kick people out of their house or don't kick them, they just
moved them out—out in the street. You try to go over here and get a job,
they'd find out where you work. They'd call up and want to know what's
the matter. They had a union of their own. Say, "We fire him on account
of union activities." Well, they, they wouldn't hire him for nothing.
END OF INTERVIEW