BY SAMUEL YELLEN  
In the absence of unionization, the possibility of organized protest by the southern cotton-mill workers was small. Had there been a strong union in the field, the differentials in wages and hours between North and South might have been wiped out; but many powerful factors operated against the development of such a union. First, the “lint-heads,” as the southern cotton-mill workers were called, received wages so low that they could not pay union dues and would have been unable to sustain a strike if it proved necessary. The financial support, therefore, would have to come almost entirely from the northern textile unions, who were themselves in dire need of money. Second, the southern mill owners were unalterably opposed to the unionization of their employees; in fact, many northern mills had moved to the South to escape union restrictions. Third, the existing textile unions in the North were not only weak, but also divided among themselves. In addition to the United Textile Workers of America, which was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, there were the American Federation of Textile Operatives and a number of small independent local craft unions. In 1927 the United Textile Workers had 20,000 members and the other unions together an equal number—in all, 40,000 organized workers out of a total of 600,000 in the nation’s textile industry. These unions, furthermore, had no foothold in the South; although there had been a good-sized flurry in unionization among the southern textile workers during the World War, practically every trace had been stamped out in the two years following the war. Moreover, the workers in these unions were the highly skilled operatives; and little effort was made to organize the unskilled and semi-skilled until late in 1928 under the impetus of the newly-formed National Textile Workers’ Union, initiated under Communist guidance to rival the conservative unions in the field.

Consequently, it was not union penetration that caused the sudden outbursts of southern textile workers in the spring of 1929; it was rather the slow accumulation of grievances against low wages, long hours, and the stretch-out. With one exception, the simultaneous strikes that broke out spontaneously in three widely separated areas—Elizabethton, Tennessee; Gaston County, North Carolina; and the Piedmont region of South Carolina—and involved 17,000 workers were not at first concerned with the right of collective bargaining.

The first of the strikes began at Happy Valley, near Elizabethton, Tennessee, where the American Glanzstoff Corporation, a German firm, had recently constructed two rayon plants, the Glanzstoff and the Bemberg. On March 12, 1929, some 500 girls in the inspection department at the Glanzstoff plant walked out in protest against full-time wages of $8.96 to $10.80 a week. The next day found the entire force of 3,000 on strike for an increase in pay to equal the higher pay at the Bemberg plant. The strikers called upon the United Textile Workers for assistance, and Alfred Hoffman was sent to organize them. When President A.M. Mothwurf of the American Glanzstoff Corporation procured a writ of injunction which forbade outright all picketing, the Bemberg plant replied by a solid walkout in sympathy with the Glanzstoff strikers. On March 22 the strikers at both plants returned to work, after Mothwurf agreed to increase the wages at the Glanzstoff plant, to take back all the strikers without discrimination, and to meet grievance committees of the workers.

Notwithstanding this agreement, Mothwurf undertook to break the union—which included 4,653 members out of the 5,500 employees at the two plants—and complaints of discrimination against union members were numerous. As a result, President Green of the A. F. of L. sent Vice-President E.F. McGrady to investigate. McGrady reported that in one week more than 300 workers were discharged for unionism. Discrimination and provocation against union members continued. On April 4 McGrady and Hoffman were kidnapped by groups of armed men, taken across the state line, and threatened with death if they returned. They returned the next day and filed charges against their kidnapers; five prominent business men of Elizabethton were arrested and indicted on charges of kidnapping and felonious assault, but were never brought to trial. When a grievance committee of the workers was discharged by Mothwurf and another committee sent to find out the cause was likewise discharged, the forces at both plants walked out a second time on April 15. Mothwurf called for troops; and even though there had been no violence, Governor Horton immediately dispatched two companies of the National Guard. G.F. Milton, editor of the Chattanooga News, concluded: “The truth seems to be that the Tennessee manufacturers were apprehensive of a labor success at Elizabethton; they looked upon it as an entering wedge for the unionization of the South….There is every reason to believe that the troops went to Elizabethton to quiet this apprehension.”  
 
 
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