The Anderson intelligencer. [volume] (Anderson Court House, S.C.) 1860-1914, 1886-10-28
The South's Danger.

The advantages which the South has
enjoyed in. having suitable help at ex.
tremely low wages to make cheap lines
of goods is likely to wane. The refusal
of the railway pool to accord to the
Eastern and Middle States the same
freights and advantages which were given
specific competing lines made at the
South is likely to be overcome. The fact
that these benefits to the South, especially
in iron pudding and cotton spinning,
we're creating an embarrassment to kin
dred interests North and East, has at
tracted the attention of the Central Trades
Union, and delegates are now South
organizing these employees into guilds,
that will come under the control of the
Association of Amalgamated Iron Work
ers and the National Cotton Spinners.
From report made last week to the
Manchester, N. A., Spinners, ne learn
that unless the wages paid the Tennessee
and Georgia cotton mill help were in
creased, the entire business North of
bag drills and coarse fabrics, which now
serve as an apprenticing business for
those graduating on to fine yarns and
weaves, would be shut out of New
England, and that it was question of
self.protection that uniformity of pay
for cotton mill help be secured for the
whole country. In response to this
committee was chosen to agitate the
danger throughout New England, and
alresdy, we are told, two competent men
have been sent to Augusta, Ga, to inves-
tigate and advise in the strike of the
1900 operatives there. That the Pitts.
burg puddlers are awake to the situation
is evinced in the fact telegraphed to
Boston, Thursday, that ''an organization
has been effected in Birmingham, Ala,
that has more than one puddler from
each furnace there"
This al aggressive move from these
trades unions, intended first to fasten
their enthusiasm upon the members of
their order by showing broad purpose
for labor control, and also to head off the
Knights of Labor move, which aims for
national influence. That they will sue
ceed, no one, who knows aught of the
colored brothers. susceptibility to glowing
pictures from the North will doubt.
That the turmoil which swept the North
may not this Winter be repeated in the
South it is not safe to deny. 1t is all a
part of the Powderly ambition to bring
every wage Garner in every corner of the
land on common basis for pay, irrespec-
tive of the local conditions and advan-
tages. Transferring the labor turmoil
from the North to the South of the
Mason & Dixon line has:its disadvantages
to the country at large, and is likely to
be more serious in its results than if the
bobbery were kept here. The South is
just now in a transitory state: Her
facilities are just being developed, and
her industries are hardly more than
initiatory. Her change has been wrought
by capital from the North and East,
which has been attracted hither largely
by the docile and abundant supply of
cheap labor. True, her natural resources
have been brought into prominence, but
these have been the incidents, for in all
enterprise labor is the lever by which
progress moves, Upturn the present
system and distract the present plodders,
and they will be more cratic from their
inexperience and more demonstrative
from their ignorance.
We suggest to those having large
forces employed South the keenest wis
dom and the greatest patience. Watch.
ing with kindness and advising with
gentleness will be the best means of
meeting the emissaries. The struggle
beyond the enthusiasm for better pay is
to be for increased power between rival
labor factions, and while house divided
against itself will fall, it may, in it's tum-
bic, wreck a good many neighboring
estates.-ManutactureT's Gazette, Boston.