The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-11-19
Happy Valley
By TOM JOHNSON.

THE workers of Happy Valley are preparing to
march again. Five times in the last three
years the 5000 workers in the great Benberg and
Glazstoff rayon mills at Elizabethton. Tenn,
have streamed out of the mills in the middle
of the day and another strike was on.
Six months after the huge German-owned
mills first opened, in March, 1927 without
union to back them, with organization at
ALL these Happy Valley workers struck. They
struck against the 12-hour day and wages of
1896 for the girls for 72-hour week The strike
had no leadership and no organized direction.
The company's pimps soon discouraged the
strikers, and broke their solid ranks and the
5000 men and women drifted back to work. The
strike was lost.
In october of the same year the workers came
out and again with no organization and no lead
ership the strike was lost.
Spent by these defeats the workers went back
but the spirit of revolt still smouldered and on
April 1st 1929, the 5000 struck as one man.
This time the United Textile Workers Union
came into the situation with their usual strike
breaking tactics So we'll did these mis- LEADERS
do their work that in days later the workers
went back to the mills on the advice of that
arch betrayer of the American working class
McGrady ably aided in this situation by the
progressive traitor, Hoffman of the U.TWU.
by the usual promises by the company of the
8-hour day, wage increases, better conditions, ETC.
They went back without union agreement.
Then started the same old game. The COM
pany went to work to Systematically weed out
the best fighters, the strongest union men. Over
hundred men and girls were fired before the
workers clearly realized what was up and then
they answered this treachery of the company
and the U.T.W.U. officials with the greatest
strike of all on April 18th, 1929. The spirit of
the strikers was high. Until June, 18th they
held the company at bay and prevented over a
few hundred scabs entering the mills During
these two months the U.T.W.U officials with the
efficient assistance of Judas McGrady did their
best to curb the militancy of the strikers-but
IN vain. Injunctions against mass picketing were
broken b. thousands of workers as fast as the
courts could issue them. Attempts to kidnap
strike leaders were answered by the guns Of the
strikers, and when the smoke blew away four
of the kidnappers were dead or dying, one of
them a Baldwin-Felts detective one the plant
doctor and two local business men.
On June 18th, McGrady and Kelly of the
U.T.W.U. announced that they had concluded an
agreement with the mill owners and the men
we're to go back to work According to this pair
of scoundrels the workers demands we're granted
and there was to be no discrimination against
any Of the strikers. Significantly enough Nc
Grady and his partner in the sell-out, Kelly, did
not produce the agreement or show it to the
men. The strikers trusted their leaders and the
strike was called off Back they went to work
to find out how badly they had been betrayed
Out of the 5000 that struck only 1000 we're
taken back. The rest we're put on the permanent
blacklist The supposed agreement" OF Nc
Grady and Kelly proved to be non-existant--
nothing but trumped-up lie to get the men
back to work McGrady and Kelly promptly
left towr--their work of betrayal we'll done and
in all probability their pockets well lined by
the grateful company.
In October of the same year the workers again
begged the U.T.W.U. to lead them into the strug-
gle. The situation became so threatening that
the mills sent in hurry call for the best ally
German, the president Of the UTW.U. German
answered and came to Elizabethton where the
union hating business men Of the town were
kind" enough to allow him to use the County
Court House for union mass meeting. He used
it to such good advantage that the $500 men
who attended, determined to strike, were finally
persuaded by German to go back to work until
spring"
The workers remembered and last spring, in
March, despite the best efforts Of Paul Fuller of
the A. F. Of l.. and the best labor traitors in the
leadership Of the U.T.W.U., the mills were struck
again. BY this time all but about 200 union men
had been fired from the mills while the union
stood idly by. When the strike came thousands
OF the non-union workers came to the union hall
and agreed to strike with the union men If
only the union would agree to share what relief
came in with all the strikers. The U.T.W.U.,