The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1907-06-23
r II COTTON NILS.
A Min village 400 Miles LOnS-New Power
DEVELOPMENTS.

II the seats in Q Pullman car were twenty
feet higher q passenger would hardly
be out Of sight Of n cotton mill from the
time he left Danville, Va, until he reached
Atlanta, Ga; @ distance Of 400 miles. II
Is one long mill village.
Within the last thirty years the part OF
the Carolinas and OF Georgia known as the
Piedmont region has become one OF the
great cotton manufacturing districts OF
the world. And there are, Of course. many
cotton mills. and some OF the largest. further
South.
The development Of the power OF the
Southern rivers means as much TO the
Piedmont mills, says The Worlds Work. as
the power Of Niagara would mean to English
cotton spinning II it were situated In Man
chester.
At Whitney. N. c.. a 3s9 yard dam is being
built across the Yadkin River to turn / 100
cubic feet Of water into a four and a half
mile canal. At the end of the canal will be
q fall two-thirds as high as Niagara. which
will generate las 900 horsepower when the
turbines are installed.
II Is claimed that this power can be sent
by transmission lines as far as Fayette-
vile, eighty miles away. Charlotte. Green's
boro and Concord, the largest mill centres
in North Carolina, and innumerable smaller
towns are within half that distance.
The Southern Power Company has about
a dozen water power plants, which when
they are finished will furnish power from
Concord and Taylorsville in North Carolina
lima.
Their transmission lines in this territory
will be accessible to more than half the
mills in the South. In Georgia and Alabama
also the rivers are being harnessed.
This is equivalent, " said a mill president
in Charlotte, "to the discovery OF an in
~exhaustible coal supply east Of the noun
%tains."
Those mills which find steam power
cheaper or more convenient than power
from the transmission lines will not be af-
footed by the rates Of the power oom-
panies, but the presence Of the trans
mission lines gives every mill in this great
section a low price for power above which
they do not have to go.
The Transformation OF the Piedmont
region has been 30 rapid that the railroads
which a few years g served this section
with ease, admit now that in spite Of tre-
mendous improvements in rolling stock
they are unable to handle the freight that
originates along their lines
The main reason for all this growth still
exists. More mills are being built every
day. There is more local capital han
there used to be and outside capital is easier
to get. The mills are meeting the scarcity
Of labor by training their help TO be more
efficient.
Improved machinery is making il possi-
BILE for fewer hands to do more work. A
man who can operate six ordinary looms
can run twelve or fifteen OF the automatic
kind and do more weaving with each loom.
A drawing-in machine lately invented OBJ
viates some Of the most trying labor that
girls do in the mills.
Practically all the larger mills in Spartan
burg county maintain free schools for the
children Of their villages. At a little North
asked il he objected to a graded school
near his mill. NO. was the answer, "the
more children you get to go 10 it the better
/ like it. want intelligent labor
Some time ago. said one mill president,
do. the children that work now are the
most expensive help We have"
The mill mems position is that the best
place for the children is in school; the next
best place (for those over the legal age)
is in the mill, and the last place for them is
running loose In idleness.
The mill presidents convention of South
Carolina recommended to the Legislature
Of that State that it pass a compulsory
has passed such a law and another raising
the age limit for children's work. vSouth
Carolina has passed a law reducing the hours
Of labor. The age limit is still low. but as
public sentiment and the school facilities
grow the limit will be raised.
The mill tenements are better h they
used to be. The Whitney Mill at Spartan
burg is preparing to serve a good break
to its employees for two cents apiece
because their breakfasts are 80 i'll prepared
1t home. At another mill 0 per cent. in
crest is allowed on all money left with
he company treasurer more han six
In some places the operatives
ire beginning to save money.
Many of the people who work in the mill
It Ramseur, y. c.. own their homes.
With gardens about them. Some even
farms that they rent, and many nave
anil accounts.
II people come TO work there who do not
up to the moral standards Of the
community a delegation from the mill
the owner and he dismisses them.
they live as we'll as any people of small
means in q small town, and the mill there
better labor and more Of it in proportion
han most OK tho mills in the South.
The reason is that the Ramseur mill is a
cry old one. The people have been work.
there for several generations and have
eoome thoroughly accustomed TO the
fe.