Evening star., 1917-09-16
The Fast Growing Cotton industry and Its Future


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Copyright 1917. by Frank C. Carpenter
GREENSBORO. y. c.
q HAVE just visited the biggest over
all mill of the world. l mean the
biggest cotton mill that makes
q cloth for overans. The technical
name of the cloth is blue denim.
We all know what it is. 1t is sold
everywhere in the stores and almost
every workingman wears it. The mill
! visited makes nothing else 1t is now
engaged on rush orders for the United
States government. 1t is turning out
10000 yards daily. 1t takes three and
a half yards of the stuff to make suit
of overalls for man The daily output
is enough to make suits for more than
10000 men. and the yearly output would
furnish suits for l3,000.oOO and leave
some TO spare. The factory can make
4l,oOO,OUO yards in one year. The cloth
is about wide the strip of carpet
which covers your floor The output of
one day. if Joined together. would car
pet railroad track from New York to
Philadelphia The output of year. if
II could be joined and stretched over
mountain and plain, over ocean and
river. would cover path around the
world at the equa tor. and there would
still be enough left to reach half way
to the center of the earth.
This factory is known as the White
Oak mill. ] take ir as sample of the
great cotton manufacturing industry OF
the south. 1t stands on the edge of the
cotton fields. and hundreds Of thou
sands of bales are raised within a few
hours ride of it 10y rail. The cotton can
he brought from the fields almost to
the mill. and the saving in transporta-
;ion is great.
covering acres. 1t is made of brick
stone and glass. The glass windows are
many. They look like eyes shining out
of the red rim of the bricks surround
ing them. The building has eighteen
acres Of hoor space. and its rooms are
of vast extent. The room where the
spinning is done is about $50 feet wide
and more than 500 feet long. 1t has
$4,000 spindles within it. They go
whirling around so fast that it makes
YOU dizzy to look. The weaving rooms
contain about 1000 looms. They are
equally large. The building is filled
with machinery of the latest make and
Of cost efficiency patterns. The man
ayers tell me it is up-to-date. and the
Old machines go to the scrap heap. The
motive power of the mill is electricity
furnished by the Southern Power Com
pauy and generated in some OF the
largest turbines ever erected in the
United States
The labor of the factory is white. 1t
is composed mostly of women and girls
from the country about and from the
mountains nearby. 1t is American
labor. and the employees work sixty
hours week and strikes are almost
unknown. The company treats its
hands well. 1t has a mill village Of
800 houses Of from three to six rooms
each. The rent is 81 month. and this
includes electric lights and running
water from an artesian well 600 feet
deep. 1t has a store where the en-
ployes can. if they wish, buy goods at
a slight advance over cost. The man
ager of the mill tells me The wages
about the same as those of the cot
ton mills of New England.
The White Oak mill is a type of the
ur-to-date cotton industry. which has
grown SO rapidly throughout the
southern states. A generation ago New
England was making almost all of our
cotton goods. Now, as far as the
amount of cotton consumed is
cerned. the factories of the south are
manufacturing more than all the other
states of the Union combined. In 1916
they ate up almost one-third of our
whole cotton crop. The cotton produced
that year, in round numbers was just
about 100000 bales. of which some
thing like 100000 bales were exported.
OF the balance the cotton growing
states used 100000 bales, while New
England and the other states consumed
the remainder The south has now al
most 500 cotton mills, with 100000
spindles. The capital invested is a quar-
ter of billion dollars.
The size of cotton mill is measured
By the number 80 spindles. The spindle
is the slender red on which the thread
is twisted and wound by machinery.
There are hundreds and thousands of
them In a great modern mill. In all
the world there are now, in round num-
bers 100000 such spindles. and
they spin about all the cotton thread
used by mankind. OF these spindles the
United States has easily more than one
fifth of the whole. That means that of
every five yards of cotton worn by men.
women and children anywhere on this
big, round earth one yard is made in
the United States. We have altogether