Call To Idleness

In Macon, Ga., 50 men and women sat down with determination on a railroad track so that a switch engine could not take carloads of cotton goods from the Payne Mill of Bibb Manufacturing Co. At Manchester, N. H., the Amoskeag Mills, largest single cotton textile factory in the U. S., shut down its chemical plant, then closed completely. In Manhattan, the "Explosion Conference" of underwriters announced that insurance rates on textile mills and mill villages, due to "riot or civil commotion," should be forthwith tripled. At Gastonia, N. C., heart of the Southern textile belt, the Loray Mill of Manville Jenckes Corp. announced that its employes had petitioned to continue work. At Charlotte, N. C., union leaders held what amounted to an old-fashioned Southern camp-meeting, with mighty prayers for success. In Paterson, N. J., silk textile workers announced that they would strike in spite of the fact that their contract with manufacturers forbids a walkout without first consulting the Industry's Industrial Relations Board.

Such were some of last week's reports on the eve of a national textile strike (TIME, Sept. 3). The working population of two San Franciscos would approximate the number of persons engaged in the textile industry. But two San Franciscos would occupy only a few square miles, whereas the major textile area of the U. S. stretches from Maine to Georgia. Of cotton textile workers alone North Carolina has 92,000, Massachusetts 71,000, South Carolina 70,000, Georgia 55,000, Alabama 25,000, Rhode Island 20,000. Some 400,000 cotton textile workers in 1,200 mills plus some 100,000 woolen and worsted workers in 500 mills plus some 150,000 silk and rayon workers in 1,000 mills--such was the army that the United Textile Workers called off the job this week. How many mill hands in how many districts would answer the union call, not even the strike leaders themselves knew for sure.

Generalissimo of what may become the No. 1 strike in U. S. history was Francis Joseph Gorman. Thirty-one years ago, aged 13, young Francis arrived in the U. S. from his native Bradford, in Yorkshire. In Providence, R. I. he got a job as a sweeper in the Atlantic Mills. When he was 20 he joined his first union. Since then he has been more interested in the manufacture of labor solidarity than of textiles. In 1928 he was elected vice president of United Textile Workers, the job he still holds. After Thomas F. MacMahon, the Union's 63-year-old president, ascended to the cloudy heights of NRA's Labor Advisory Board, Vice President Gorman stepped forward to take command.

By way of experience, Gorman has directed four textile strikes in the last five years. He lost the one at Marion, N. C. in 1929 because of premature attempts to organize Southern millworkers. The Danville, Va. strike in 1931 was also a failure. At Lawrence, Mass, in 1932, the Union's six-month struggle blocked wage cuts for woolen workers. A strike among silk workers at Pawtucket, R. I. in 1933 won better wages, a reduction of the machine load per employe. Last year Francis Gorman invaded the South once more to organize cotton textile workers in Alabama. There 13,000 men struck in mid-July, a prelude to the greater strike last week.

Last week Washington was filled with the usual run of union leaders, hardboiled, gruff, suspicious, but it was Francis Gorman, affable, articulate, self-contained, who was directing the show. In the mornings, while he munched his ham & eggs at the Colonial Hotel, he managed to confer amiably with newshawks. All day long he went from conference to conference, yet made time to meet the Press officially twice more before bedtime, to pose for news-cameramen, to keep his temper.

Day & night he was busy conferring with Chairman Lloyd Garrison and his Labor Relations Board, answering queries from union leaders far & near, issuing marching orders to his followers. When woolen and worsted manufacturers reed to confer with him on the Union's general demands--a 30-hour week with 40 hours' pay, limitation of the "stretch out," recognition of U. T. W. -- he extended the strike order to their industry. Silk and rayon manufacturers agreed to confer with him but, before the conference could be held, he ordered silk and rayon workers to strike on the ground that their product is too close to cotton goods to be separated in union strategy.

Meanwhile cotton mill owners nervously awaited developments. Most to be dreaded, despite the Union's protestations of peace, were riot, bloodshed, damage to property. Some mill owners thought the strike would fail of a complete shut-down by a wide margin, hoped that their plants could be kept open and running full tilt while their neighbors were being temporarily put out of business. Others thought a 100% tie-up would do the industry good for a brief time, allowing it to dispose of its surplus stocks.

Still harping on the achievements of his industry as a pioneer under code control, George Arthur Sloan, head of the Cotton-Textile Institute, wooed public support as follows:

"Under the Recovery program we have done more proportionately than any other industry in America has thus far done for its employes. We have raised the hourly rates of pay 70%; we have reduced working hours from an average of 54 to a maximum of 40 hours per week.

"We cannot accept as justified the violent procedure of a strike against a Government code."

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