El Paso herald. (El Paso, Tex.) 1901-1931, 1917-09-15

! ~REENEBORO. n. C., Sept Is
have Just visited the biggest
- overall mill Of the world. !
mean the biggest cotton mill that
makes cloth for overalls. The tech
meal name Of the cloth is blue denim
We all know what it is. It is sold
| everywhere in the stores and almost
every wOrkingman wears it. The mill
1 visited makes nothing else. II is now
engaged in rush orders for the United
States government It is turning out
10000 yards daily. It takes three and
half yards Of the stuff to make a
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 Is, 200. =
000 and leave some to spare.
The factory can make 1900, 600
yards in one year. The cloth is about
as wide as the strip of carpet which
covers your flour. The output Of one
day, if Joined together, would carpet
a railroad track from New York TO
Philadelphia The output OF a year, II
il could be Joined and stretched over
mountain and plain, over ocean and
river. would cover a path around the
world at the equator, 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 it as a sample Of the
great cotton manufacturing industry
Of the south It stands on the edge
OF the cotton fields. and hundreds of
thousands Of bales are raised within a
few hours ride of IT by rail The cot
ton can be brought from the field al
most to the mill, and the saving in
transportation is great
Is Acres Of Floor Space.
covering acres. It is made OF brick.
stone and glass. The glass windows
are many. They look like eyes shin
ing out of the red rim of the bricks
surrounding them. The building has
IS acres of floor space. and its rooms
are Of vast extent. The room where
the spinning is done is about $50 feet
wide and more than 900 feet long It
has $4,000 spindles within it. They 90
WhirlInE around so fast that il 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 90 TO the scrap heap.
tricity furnished by the Southern
Power company and generated in
some of the largest turbines ever
erected in the United States.
House Rent 81 Month.
The labor of the factory is white.
1t is composed mostly Of women and
girls from the country about and
from the mountains nearby. It is
American labor, and the employees
work so hours a week and strikes
are almost unknown. The company
treats its hands well It has a mill
village Of 500 houses of from three
to six rooms each. The rent is S4I
a month and this includes electric .
lights and running water from an
artesian well 500 feet deep. It has
a store where the employees can, il z
they wish, buy goods at a slight ad- /
vance over cost. The manager OF /
the mill tells me the wages are /
about the same as those of the cot |
ton mills OF New England.
The White Oak mill is a type OF I
the up to date cotton industry. which Z
has grown so rapidly throughout /
the southern states. A generation 4
ago New England was making al I
most all of our cotton goods. Now. I
as far as the amount of cotton con-
sumed is concerned. the factories of
the south are manufacturing more \
than all the other states of the /
Union combined. In 1915 they ate
up almost one third OF our whole cot
ton crop. The cotton produced that