Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1929-07-20

There is labor unrest in parts of the
South, which has resulted in strikes and
some violence. According to organ
lied labor, the wage conditions through
out the South DO not compare with
wages in the North, and consequently
much Northern capital has been lured
into Southern industry, in direct COM
petition in the national markets for
the goods produced. The Northern in
veStorS have not undertaken to carry
with them Northern labor conditions,
but have sought to perpetuate the evils
of the Southern labor-long hours and
minimum pay-with far less of per-
sonal tie OF sympathy between the wage
Garner ard employer than has tradi-
tionally existed in the old South. The
Machine Age" is taking over the South
today, and the human cog is not SO
well oiled as it might be, consequently
there is friction.
~
Furthermore, there is unwonted
competition for the general jobs be-
tween white and colored laborers, as
reported by the July Monthly of the
Department of Labor. 1t says:
Certain kinds of work were tradi-
tionally followed only by Negroes; a
white man lost caste by taking them.
Now industry is largely machine,
and the resulting increased produc-
tivity has decreased the demand for
men.
I'm the growing struggle for employ
ment, old traditions are thrown into
the discard, and the Negro finds him.
self meeting white competition in jobs
long regarded as his exclusive field.
White men are driving trucks and
express wagons in the South, repair
ing streets, doing scavenger work, de-
livering ice on their backs, where for
merely Negroes delivered and white men
collected for the delivery; serving as
walters and bellmen in hotels, and
doing other tasks once considered as
fit only for Negroes.
X X \
The suggested fear that Negroes may
invade the industries, where whites
have held a monopoly, gives picture
which IS unfamiliar in the North
While the North does not, as rule,
mix Negroes and whites in the same
line of work (outSide of Congress-, it
is not startling to find a white man
doing trucking or even more servile
labor, when he is incapable of high
er class of work. The great leveler of
caste is the machine.
But it would seem odd if a Northern
Chamber of Commerce were to an
nounce as the great attractions of its
community las Is reported CONCERNING
a North Carolina chamber) "a haven
for harassed industry" (from the cap
italist's standpoint) because of "low
wages, long hours Of work, relative alb
sence of labor agitation and freedom
from trade union interference"
But now the American Federation of
Labor and other labor organizations ap-
pear to be invading the peaceful
South for they are active in connec-
ton with the textile strikes now IN
progress.
Says Alfred Hoffman, organizer fer
the United Textile Workers:
THE workers are practically put on
the auction block and sold at low wages.
The Southern power interests and
Southern Chambers of Commerce are
the auctioneers, selling the South to
manufacturers, with the bait of thou
sands of workers to be shamefully ex-
plotted"
In retort, Mr. Stuart Cramer, lead
ing textile manufacturer of Cramerton,
N c., boasts that:
Industrial life in the South is happy
and contented, healthy and prosperous.
The cotton mill operatives live
amidst the best surroundings that
medical service can devise, and in all
the comforts that money can provide. "
Official data of facts in wages and
standards of living will be necessary be-
fore an evaluation can possibly be put
upon such conflicting partisan state
mentS.
X X X X
BY the South, in this case, is meant
the States south of the Potomac River
and east of the Mississippi In that
region, there was practically no indus
trial activity prior to about 1880; today,
there are more than a million industrial
employees, of whom 27f,785 are in cotton
goods manufacture, and 172,425 in
lumber and timber work. In addition
to the industries" there are 233,317
bituminous coal workers and about
244,000 railroad employees, including
those in repair shops. In the current
decade, there has been great advance
in industries in Georgia and the Caro-
linas, but declines in Florida, Virginia,
West Virginia and Mississippi.
ers in each group are discussed, with