Daily Kennebec journal. [microfilm reel] (Augusta, Me.) 1870-1975, 1905-11-25
IS HIGHEST AWARDS IN EUROPE AND AMERICA

England, which includes such typical
cotton milling cities as Lowell, Law
renee, Manchester, Biddeford and
Lewiston, contributes another third.
Up to the War of 1872 New England
cotton mills were merely spinning
mills, the manufacturers distributing
their cotton yarn among the farmers of
the neighborhood to be woven by hand
looms into cloth. According to the
census returns of 1910, Massa chusetts
possessed 81 of these mills, New Hamp-
shire II. Vermont l, Rhode Island 2S,
and Connecticut IA. In this year also
the first factory in Maine, then pro-
vince Of Massachusetts, was started at
Brunswick. But the second revolution
in the American manufacture of cotton
was to follow in 1914 when Mr.. Francis
c.. Lowell introduced English power
looms into his factory at Waltham.
LOwelPs factory was thus the first
complete cotton mill on this continent,
ana the example Of its prosperity soon
led to a universal adoption of power
looms by other manufacturers. In re-
turn for this boon to New England and
American industry, Francis c. Lowell
has now a perpetual monument to his
| memory in the city of Lowell, named
after him by his partners Jackson and
Appleton, who, shortly after his death
in 1919, had established a large mill on
i the Merrimac, the nucleus of the
Lowell of today.
Such were the beginnings of New
Englands most representative and
greatest industry, an industry whose
annual product at present is worth
nearly 200 millions. Its history has
been full of ups and downs though it's
progress in the long run has been strik-
iEg enough. Trade depressions, high
prices for the raw material, labor
troubles, and competition have caused
the New England cotton manufacturer,
perhaps. more than his share of loss
and anxiety, but the good years seem
to have much more than made up for
the bad ones.
Just now, however, a very threatening
danger looms up before this veteran in
dustry in the shape of the competition
Of Southern mills. The recent re-
markabe growth of the cotton manu-
1acture has been one of the striking
features of the New South's develop
ment. In 1890. the census states,
there We're 1.554,000 spindles in the
South; in 1900 this number had in
creased to 4.29S.1SS. In New England
| during the same decade, the increase
was only two million spindles as
against this three million increase for
its rival. And the Southern spindles
| continue to multiply at the same
| breakneck pace. New England manu-
facturers are handicapped both by their
| greater distance from their source of
raw material and by the higher wages
they are obliged to pay for their labor.
| The percentage of women and children
to all wage-earners in the Southern
mills is much greater than in New
England, and the wages of the men are
lower. This, however. is not so much
of q disadvantage. owing to the su-
pcrior quality of the New England fac
tory labor. as the longer haul of the
raw material is likely to prove, es-
pecialiy if the fixing Of freight rates is
| given into the hands Of the Interstate
Commerce Commission.
AT present the New England rail-
roads bring their share of the cotton
| traffic to the doors of the New Eng
land manufacturer as cheaply as do
|
tories, Notwithstanding the fact that
these. their rivals, are planted in the
| heart of the cotton country. But the
Interstate Commerce Commission is
known to favor regulating rates ac-
cording to the distance of the haul,
| which would deprive a great many New
| England manufacturers, particularly
those in the inland towns. of their
ability to compete successfully in the
markets of the world and would in thjs
way cause many prosperous New
| England community to die the slow
death of a deserted village.
The Hon. John Sharp Williams, con-
gresham from Mississippi. in advocat-
ing the Esch-Townsend bill which pro-
poses to give this power to the com
mission said recently: 1.-The South will
benefit more from the proposed legisla-
ton than any other part of our COM
mon country. We would have been
| manufacturing, in my opinion, two
thirds of the cotton in the United States
J today but for the existence of unfair
and preferential rates on the raw ma
| terial' What Mr.. Williams calls un-
fair and preferential rates are merely
those regulated by the laws of trade
They are, however, at the foundation
of New England prosperity. causing
the growth of New England towns and
cities, and giving employment to great
numbers of New England workers in
her most important industry.