The watchman and southron. [volume] (Sumter, S.C.) 1881-1930, 1914-06-20
liam c. Irby, Jr.. of Laurens, was as

namely. "strive for laws that will pro-
tect the poor and the rich can take
care Of themselves"
I believe the cotton mill trust is
being formed and operated by the
northern majority stockholders (who
control practically all our cotton
mills) forcing their officials to stay
off the market when we have cotton
to sell and purchase from them, by
contract, when they have pooled their
interests and manipulated the eX-
changes, so as to make big profits.
believe these majority stockholders,
by manipulating the price of cotton
and eXtorting exhorbitant prices as
commission merchants for selling cot
ton goods are taking all the profits
in our cotton manufacturing indus
try. greatly to the injury of small
stockholders. lowering wages in the
mills, depressing the price Of cotton
and enabling them to evade just tax
alton by making it appear on their
books that cotton mills are losing
money. The cotton mills can shut
down at any time and we have no
means of finding out whether such ac-
tion is justifiable or a conspiracy to
depress the price of cotton. lower
wages. or intimidatc their employees.
I therefore favor a law requiring
cotton mills to make full reports OF
their transactions to the commission.
or Of agriculture to enable the attor-
ney general to obtain facts with
which to prosecute in our courts, viO-
lations of law and prevent conspira-
cies against the welfare of the people.
/ believe this law would reveal facts
that would enable us to protect small
stockholders and regulate wages so
that the hours Of labor could be grad
ually reduced to eight hours per day
without working hardships on cotton
mills and greatly to the benefit of the
employees.
The increasing power of the cotton
mill merger and tendency to all mills
under one ownership makes it ncccs-
sary to regulate wages in order to
prevent them from grinding and Op-
pressing their employees. 1 believe
this can be done by constituting the
governor. attorney general and comI
missioner Of agriculture, all three
elected by the people, q corporation
commission and giving them such
power as would be necessary to pro-
tcct the interests Of the small stock
holders, then let all the people who
work In the cotton mills elect u
member of the commission and tho
cotton mills one, and give this CONS
mission Of five power to regulate
wages. This would give the mill op-
eratives all the advantages they could
obtain from complete union and
would relieve them from all the trials
and hardships Of strikes and lock-
outs, etc., that employees in other sec
tions have been forced to endure in
their efforts to protect themselves
from the tyrany and oppression of
organized wealth. l believe much
dissatisfaction caused by dockage of
employees for bad cloth is due to the
fact that the mills employ children to
spin the thread and becoming tired
and careless, spin defective thread,
which, when it goes into cloth,
makes 1t hard for weavers to prevent
a defect in the cloth. If the mills
would pay their employees n just wage
they could send their children to
school and give them better opppor-
tunities to develop mentally and ply
slcally, and would not have to work
them in competition with themselves,
| thereby enabling the mills to lower
the scale OF wages to a child stand
ard.
One-half the number of our white
lpeOp'c DO not own their homes, thou
sands are heavily mortgagcd and we
are becoming more and moro q home
less people. The constant increase
IN the price of land makes it harder
and harder for young mon to obtain
homes and we arc fast approaching a
time when our white people will be
forced to endure whatever conditions
they can obtain in cotton mills, cities
and towns as they will be unable to
compete with the horde of negro
renters on the farms. Nothing re-
tards DEVELOPMENT of schools, roads
etc, In rural districts more than
sparsity of white settlers.
The gradual concentration of lands
by syndicates in the towns and cities
II ruinOus to small merchants for
the reason that it will force trade in
syndicate stores and by the time
heavy rents and oytortionoto +;,,,o