The Abbeville press and banner. [volume] (Abbeville, S.C.) 1869-1924, 1919-03-28
FRIDAY, MARCH %, 1919.
IN THE MILL VILLAGE.

posed and generally believed that tne
cotton mills were the places OF last
resort in the fight from starvation
for those people who were unable 10
make a livelihood at anything else'
But the testimony in the Court Oh
Common Pleas on yesterday opened
the eyes of those people who nave
been thinking this way. :.
It was shown in the testimony ths'
an uneducated woman, living in the
Abbeville Cotton Mill village, who
was sickly besides, and who lost con-
siderable time from her work, during
the month of December drew. as
wages the sum. Of ninety dollars. HAD
she made full time her wages would
have amounted to ninety-four dol
lars, and with the bonus paid as ad-
ditional compensation, her wages
would have been about one hundred
and ten dollars. .
These facts show that the Cotton
Mill, whatever it may have offered
in the past, is not bad place for the
working woman. It was the poor peo-
pie of the Mill village; it is now the
poor people who do not live there.
None of the women in business about
Abbeville makes more than does an
ordinary worker Of her sex In the
cotton mills, in fact, none OF them
makes as much. The teachers in the
public schools, who work for only
nine months in the year, and who
are paid for only nine months, do not
make as much by one-third. The
stenographers and book-keepers in
the city do not make as much. 1t is
true that the hours Of some Of them
are not quite so long, but the wages
paid in the mills is sufficient remuner-
alton for the extra work. '.
The conditions in the mills now
are such as to make them inviting
places for the working woman. The
mill buildings are well ventilated, and
in cold weather are properly heated.
All kinds of modern conveniences
are found in the mill and in the
homes. In the mill villages are
churches, good school houses, trained
community workers, good school
teachers, and everything else which
the convenience and welfare of the
people living in these villages de-
mand. The surroundings may be
made by the people of these villages
what the people want these surround
ings to be. If undesirable people
move into these communities the
people in the communities have the
same means to get rid of them that
people have in other communities.
Every mill village should make it a
part of the unwritten law of the vii
lage that no undesirable can live in
that village.
The wages paid, and the work done
for these people suggest two things
to u.s.
First: 1t has been said, generally
speaking, that the laboring man can
secure nothing in the way of ad-
vancement and better living condi-
tions from the employer except
through organization. We are not
writing now to discourage legitimate
organization and cooperation be-
tween the people who labor, any
more than we are writing to discour-
age it in other places. Organization
and cooperation have we'll defined
fields of work, as well as limits be-
yond which they may not go without
danger to the commonwealth, and
without infringing on the legal rights
of others. We are not discussing
this now We do mean to say, how
ever, that in the mill communities
more has been done for the better
ment of living conditions, and labor
has been advanced more rapidly in
the last few years in these communi-
ties, than anywhere else, and the
better conditions and better wages
have come because the law of supply