The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1929-10-12
YOUTH HOL DING
.CHARL OTTE MEET
In Unity With Textile
And TUUL Conference
Continued from Page One)

Continued from Page One)
work before II years of age.
"The greatest number in the South
entered the mill before the ages OF
IL and 16. ." (From the same
bulletin).
Taking the textile industry as a
whole, there were 100000 young
workers between the ages of 16 and
10 years in the entire American tex
tile industry This was in 1920
and only includes young workers
between the ages of 16 and 10. Now,
after nine years of the most intense
Vaccination and simplification of
the processes of the textile industry.
we can certainly estimate that there
are at least 100000 young workers
between the ages of 10 and "a in
the entire textile industry, and GER
tainly a quarter of a million young
textile workers in the South.
These young workers work for
wages of 81, So and Sc per week.
Pellagra and consumption are not
uncommon. The speed-up (called
stretch out in the South, the long
hours and low wages have left a
marked effect on the youth. The
you gWorkers in the South, who
trace their descent back to the
sturdy mountaineers of the North
Carolina and Tennessee mills, are
gradually becoming a race physi-
cally weaker than their ancestors.
(Pellagra increased about so per
cent in the last year in the state of
North Carolina). These conditions
have had their greatest effect on
the youth. Therefore their role in
all the struggles in this industry.
The textile industry internationally
is in a crisis. Over-production, a
fundamental contradiction of capt.
talism, is the main cause of the
crisis in the textile industry. The
markets remain relatively the same
while output grows under modern
machine methods with the severe in
classification of labor. The textile
bosses, therefore, muslin the ma
ture of things under capitalism
compete with each other by cut
throat Snethods in order to capture
markets. In order to undersell each
cher they must Clover production
COSTS" This they do by rationale
zation-speed-up, frightening hours,
the onveyor system, gearing machin-
cry to high speed, etc. Their sec
ond method of "liquidating" their
crisis is war. Hence the crisis in
the textile industry can be seen as
one of the factors making for war;
The international character of the
crisis and the international char
acter of capitalist naturalization in
tn textile industry can be clearly
perceived when we realize that within
the last year there have been
strikes in the textile industry as
far apart as Gastonia, N. c.; Bonn
bay; India; Lancashire, England;
Ludlow, Mass; Czecho- Slavakia and
the north of France-all these
strikes being primarily the efforts
of the workers to struggle against
the effects of capitalist rationaliza-
ton. In the southern states inten-
sification of labor ha salready as
sumed a classic form. The whole
structure ofscapitalist prosperity in
the South is based on the highest
degree of naturalization. The youth,
as a result, is rapidly displacing the
adult workers in the industry and
therefore are playing an important
part in the struggles of the workers.
1t is symbolic of the Southern
struggles that 6 of the 7 present de-
PENDANTS now on trial in Charlotte
are young workers.
1t is also significant that three
of the workers massacred in Marion
were young workers.
In Elizabethton, and in the Loray
strike, young workers played an
active and sometimes leading role.
So much so, in fact that when young
workers in the uniform of National
Guard came, the youth took the mi
tiative in pointing out their strike
breaking role and in such an effect
i've manner that troops very often
had to be withdrawn. 1t is also in
teresting to note that one Of the re-
leased defendants in the Gastonia
trial, J. C. Heffner, a young textile
worker, was a member of the Ma
tional Guard).
The bosses have made tremendous
efforts in the South to win the
youth. The young workers meet on
every hand barrage of capitalist
ba,