The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-08-26

weapons with intent to kill, will face
a Gastonia court on Oct. Is. The
change of venue to Charlotte which
pressure Of mass protests and the
defense corps forced, does net ex-
tend to these seven.
The majority of the strikers
facing trial today were born in the
farms, villages, mountain towns and
textile towns of the. South. They
represent that sturdy Southern stock
which until recently had been
chained to the stony, poor farm
lands of North Carolina. They are
the generation which has been re-
cruited by industrialists of the
South to man their new mills and
factories.
The part they played in the Gas
tonia strike represented the revolt
of this new generation against the
industrializatioon of the South, with
its speed-up and naturalization pro-
cess introduced perfected from the
North.
Not one of the Gastonia prison.
ers is over "a years old. In fact,
most of them are in their early
twenties, again indicating that the
youth, which is being most viciously
exploited and utilized by the mill
owners, is also in the forefront of
the struggle.
There are three women charged
with murder, among whom is the
19-year-old Sophie Melvin. That is
also indicative of the fact that along
with the youth the women are TAX
ing the place of the older and mid
dle-aged workers in the mill, and
are reacting to their conditions by
fighting against them.
Of the group of 16 charged with
murder, nine are native-born South
erners who were working in Loray
mill in Gastonia at the time the
strike was called. They are K. o.
Byers, Russell Knight, ]. C. Heffner,
Robert Allen, K. Y. Hendricks, w.
M. McGinnis, N. F. Gibson, Delmar
Hampton and Louis Mclaughlin.
All of the seven charged with MUIR
derous assault are also native born
Southern workers who had joined the
National Textile Workers Union,
just before or after the strike was
called.
Of the nine native-born Southern
ers in the group charged with muir
der, five are sons of poor tenant
farmers who worked on their
fathers farms in their childhood and
had little opportunity for an ele-
mentary education. The four others
OF this group are sons of mill work
ers and began working in the mills,
side by side with father, in their
early teens. Of this group of nine,
one began to work in the mills when
he was 9 years old, two when they
were II, three when they were 10
and one when he was IA.
Seven of the group charged with
murder by the mill barons are or
ganizers for the National Textile
Workers Union. These are Amy
Schechter, Vera Bush, Sophie Mel
vim, Fred E. Beal, Clarence Miller,
Joseph Harrison and George Carter.
Six Of them have worked in the tex
tile and other mills in the North.
Of this group three started to work
when IA years old. Most of them
have taken an active part previous
to the Gastonia strike in the strug-
giles of labor in other parts of the
country.
This group of organizers is well
known by the textile workers of
Passiac and New Bedford and for
the valiant part they played in the
strikes there in 1927 and 1928. They
are known for their undying ideal
ism and self-sacrif;ce in offering
their services and lives to the work
ing class.
These are to be tried for murder
in Charlotte today.