The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1896-05-06
The Factory Labor Problem.

4 ue CCGtC dIIO tuC -NC"S oHN
Courier both object to the recent
statement CT this newspaper that un-
less there is some remarkable change
in the situation the employment Of
colored labor in some of the cotton
mills in this State will soon be neces
sary The News and Courier thinks
we are gnided in our opinion by "lo-
cal conditions y
So we are. There are more cotton
mills. more spiudIes, looms and fac
tory hands employed within so miles
of this city than in the same area
anywhere in the South. This city
Can and does claim to be the centre
of the most extensive cotton manu-
featuring district this side Of the
Potomac river BY a rough and hur.
ried calculation from memory we find
there are within the limits stated
about 80 manufacturing plants, in
cluding the largest in the South, en-
ploying in the neighborhood of H.
00o people.
We know that the labor question
is serious one, although large
percentage Of the mill people have
been drawn from Western North
Carolina and Georgia One large
cotton mill in this section, recently
completed, has not yet been able to
put all it's machinery in use because
the hands could not be had The
Pelzer mill brought in 600 people
from Eastern North Carolina and yet
need more and there are four or five
new mills now nearing completion,
which are already beginning to look
about for labor These are not sur
mises of opinions These are facts
If there is an abundance Of white
labor in the lower part of the Stale,
as The News aud Courier and The
State seem to think there is, those
contemporaries will earn for them
selves the earnest thanks of manu-
facturers in this section by starting
twelve or fifteen hundred Elen, wo-
men and children this way in the next
three months. We think we know
where to put four or FIVE hundred Of
them tomorrow.
Our contemporaries will find, we
think, if they will make some practi-
cal experiments, that the supply of
white labor available for factories is
not so great as they think it is. The
small land owners and tenants who
are doing well on the farms hesitate
to leave for the factory towns. AS
farmers and land owners find their la
borers and tenants being drawn away
they will meet the competition be-
cause they will be forced to do it.
There is only certain percentage of
the people who g" to the factories
who stick, for some Of them find
discipline, the labor every day in the
year, and the habits of regularity ;rk-
some There is also proportion Of
factory laborers who go to the facto-
ries for the purpose of accumuiating
cash enough to pay for tracts Of land
that they may resume farming as in
dependent owners. This constitutes
a small out steady drain on the sup
ply Of factory labor.
Of course the Greenville News
would prefer 10 see every loom and
spindle in the South under white
hands, but there is nc power which
can make white people go to the fac
torres if they do not wish to do so,
and if they do not go somebody
must keep the machinery going. On
the other hand, there is the powe:
of the landlord and the farmer hold
ing back the white labor and as the
demand for it becomes stronger that
same power will be ready to put i'm
pediments in the way Of the labor
going to the mills.
The short and long of it, so far as
this part Of the country is concerned,
is that one of three things must nap
pen
We must have very large and
early increase Of our white popua
ton, or
The white working people must all
so into the mills, leaving all the farm
labor to be done by negroes, OR
Some Of the factories must be run
by negro labor
Consul General Lee.
Richmond, Va, April 29.-Gen.
l. L