The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1929-10-24
PAY OR STAY OUT WAS
EDICT OF HOSPITAL TO
MILL STRIKE WOUNDED

fore we became moderniZed and eff
flcient, when kings prided them
selves upon their willingness to bear
sword and share meat with his
humblest subject. There were even,
a long, long time before that, Man
in Galilee who lived with the poorest
and humblest.
1t is doubtless too much to expect
anything so quixotic from the Gov
ernor Of a state. But if Max Gard
ner will go to Marion, with his fam
lily, and live in one of Mr.. Baldwin's
mill cottages all winter, and work,
under normal conditionS-and this,
of course, implies that all of his
family will also work-in the mill,
then 1 think that the Carolina STU
alton will be solved before spring!
1t must be stated that, in addition
to this tremendous decrease in house
rent, the worker at Marion and
other southern mill villages gets free
electric light. So far as have been
able to find out, this free electric
light costs the company So a month
a house, at the most.
I should think it would cost very
much less, because when you have
worked from ten to twelve hours
day-when you are looking forward
to arriving at the mill at 6:45 each
morning-you ordinarily do not sit
up very late reading detective stories
and consuming electric light.
Not So Good
One of the most important things
about the mill cottage situation in
Carolina is that every prosperous
and reasonable man to whom you
talk about it, north or south, says,
well, perhaps their houses aren't
so good when you take it from the
standpoint of people like you and
me. I guess we wouldn't like it so
well to live there. But you gotta
remember that the folks in those
houses are just down from the
mountains, where they have been
living in log cabins, and to them
these houses are luxury"
In the first place, this comforting
theory happens to be entirely mac
curate. The mill cottages are not
better than the mountain log cabins
of Tennessee and Kentucky and the
Carolinas. I asked several minor Of
ficialS of the Marion Manufacturing
Company wherein the cottages are
definitely better.
They said that the mill cottages
were superior to the mountain log
cabins in three respects, that they
have electric lights, in that they are
painted, and in that they have
board floors instead of floors of
beaten earth.
The general theory, you see, Is
that the mill companies, in bringing
down this Cheap and satisfied
labor" from the mountains, are CIV
ing the barbaric mountain horde a
splendid leg-up on the way to gen.
eral American prosperity. There
fore, such is their theory, however
primitive the mill cottages at such
places as Marion, it is at least
6A1AA viz WI a
ers should be grateful for it.
Want the Best
But the unpleasant truth is that
aside from the suggested fact that
these cottages are actually not quite
so good as the mountaineers' log
cabins-once you take a man and
his family from the seclusion of the
wilderness to what jocularly is called
IA civilized community" then he
will not be satisfied unless he can
have everything that every one else
in that community has.
I'm the country of the blind, the
one-eyed man is king" In the
mountain community the man who
has a puncheon floor and a glass
window in his log cabin is incredibly
rich. But when you take man and
his family from a skyland district,
where a glass window spells riches,
down to a place like Marion, where
the father of the family sees the
houses of the mill owners, where his
wife and daughters see women in
New York frOckS, where the whole
family sees world riding in motor
cars costing from $50 to $4,000 while
they walk in the alternate mud and
dust of the mill village, then they
do not feel altogether satisfied to
have for sole reward for the labor
of all of them, ten to twelve hours
day, wooden floor to their housed
Next: Sinclair Lewis will discuss