The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1888-01-05
LABOR IN THE SOUTH.
A Prominent Knight of Labor Gives Picture
of Free Trade'' Labor In tho South.

A Prominent knight of Labor Gives q Picture
of Free Trade" Labor In tho South.
T. B. Barry. of the general executive board
of the Knights of Labor, interviewed by an East
ern paper, gave a terrible account of the state
OF labor in the South. His own words have .
dramatic interest that no comment OF ours could
increase and we give them just as they were
uttered
overbearing spirit prevailing among the en-
ployers against the interests OF labor. 1t IL as
much as a PERSONS life is worth to be known as
a member of Knights of Labor there All the
manufacturing towns In the Carohnas are
owned by the cotton corporations Company
houses and company stores are found every
where The working people have no stoves IN
their h ouses but warmth is obtained, ana COOK
ing is done only by means of open hreplaces
They are paid monthly in checks not cash, and
many of these people never get dollar in their
clothes, matter how long they may have
worked at a place.
s.Wages in the cotton factories are absurdly
low ranging from 10 cents per day for little
children to 81 per day for grown persons Car
penters brick-layers and stone-masons receive
from 81 81 so per day. The hours OF labor in
the cotton mills are from in the morning to 8 in
the evening, with thirty minutes for dinner
twelve hours and half per day. Little children
as young rs Eve and six years OF age are en-.
ployed in the mills. There is an abs olute lack
of opportunity for the education OF children, In.
asmuch there seems to be an entire absence OF
q proper school system. These little folks l
found to be pinched and distressed in health,
whiting in their young days like faded and
more stopped and debilitated than aged persons,
owing to over physical exertion and close con-
fnement.
IAN almost inconceivable amount of brutality
is exercised toward these little people in the
mills by their foremen and srperintendents
placed over them. In one case 1 remember
found at Durham, S. c., a little boy, twelve
years of age, who was held at arms length and
kicked by a foreman until his nose bled. all be-
cause. the foreman claimed, the little fellow in
nocently laughed at him.
Invent to Lynchburg Va, the city Of tobac-
CO factories, where learned that to be colored
is to be niger. Last fall the labor interests
of the city solldiied in politics. regardless OF
color, and elected eleven out of fifteen members
Of the City Council. One of these members
in which it was declared that IL the member
should take his sort four determined men
would shoot him. Notwithstanding this threat
the member assumed the duties of the office and
still lives. This is one of the few bright spots
met with. Through the organization of tho
Knights of Labor in the first place, race preju-
dice in Lynchburg has been largely overcome
MY next work brought me to visit local as
sembly at Lowell, N. c.. and while there
learned Of the dastardly treatment that was
melted ont to some of the working people at Pish-
ing Creek. a town thirty miles distant contain
ing 900 inhabitants. The superintendent Of
the mills called his help to him and gave them
twenty-four hours in which to leave the order or
undergo discharge. About sixty Of the opera
tives were Knigh Is of Labor, and they decided
to leave the order. Then the superintendent
organized a body known as the Jay Hawkers,
a kind of Ku-Klux Khan. formed to fight ths
knights of Labor.
s'The Jay Hawkers were told by their en-
ployer that if they would put away the master
workman and secretary of the assembly every
thing would be all right. So the Jay Hawkera
went to the homes of Master Workman Harris
and Secretary Wilson, with the intention OF
dragging them out and lynching them. The
officers were not at homo at the time, but ths
wife of one of them, when she saw the masked
men with ropes in their hands. come to drag her
husband out to death, frightened that
she has been ill ever since. When Harris and
| Wilson were returning home they were told by
the neighbors of the threatening danger They
took to the woods and were pursued for ten
| days This was in June last, and the story was
| told me by those directly in teres.ed.