The Indianapolis times. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1922-1965, 1931-05-02
The Price of Greed and Anarchy

When we think Of misery in the textile industries,
we naturally allow our minds to gravitate toward the
south We almost automatically turn to Marion
c3astonia. Danyle and the like, where we are told
that women and children work long hours for pitiful
wages.
yet, in a truly striking article in Harpers Maya
zine Louis Adamic tells us Of the Tragic Towns OF
New England" He reminds us that bad working
conditions are, after ALL better than work at all
Lowell and Lawrence were two Of the greatest
xte centers Of the United States until the middle
of the last decade. Now they both hollow shells
He thus describes the general physical impressions
given by Lowell and Lawrence:
Il found in Lowell eight enormous mills, all idle
for years dominating the town, each six or seven
stories high and covering several blocks with tall
unsmoking chimneys . The general aspect OF
Lawrence is not unlike that Of Lowell: empty stores
rows Of shabby implanted, untenanted old houses
broken window panes-no buildings going up
people still moving out when they can-and so on
In Lawrence, too. charity is of the main indus
tries"
The picture of personal conditions given by
Adamic is touching in the extreme 1t is uniform
chronicle of extreme poverty necessary but debasing
charity and universal hopelessness Only lack Of
nerve prevents epidemic of suicide
Lowell, a cotton center, could not compete with
thusiasm of the mill workers The latter could be
secured only by decent wages and good relations with
unions, something which the milI-owners regarded
with more repugnance than cessation of their very
industrial existence
Lawrence wooden and worsted center, has shut
down in part as result of the depression and in part
as phase Of great campaign against union textile
labor number of big factories in towns close
together makes labor organization relatively easy.
The policy now is to build one factory in each of
large number of scattered towns, which enormously
increases the difficulty of unionization
Fall River one of the oldest textile centers in New
England, is industrally dead. This is due in large
part to archaic machinery in the plants. The mill
owners exploited the industry to the limit MIXED it
dry, put no money back into improving equipment,
and then dropped it cold At the height of their
prosperity the Fall River mills earned high as 200
300 per cent dividends yearly And these on the
basis of twelve or fourteen-hour day at low wages
Nothing went back into the town: 1.-The trouble
with Fall River has benin nutshel-that most
of the profits Of its mills spent not in Fall River
but in Paris, New York, the Riviera, Newport News,
Santa Barbara and Pasadena
Adamic found the shoe towns in about as bad
condition as the old textile centers. There is no
thought of peranence or soundness in the industry
as whole The ideal is concentrated exploitation
and quick abandonment The manufacturers are at
each others threats, and all throttng unionism.
Industrial anarchy is the rule.
Adamic found one prosperous town-Salem; Mass
And this a cotton town. supposedly incapable OF
competition with the south. But unemployment
scarcely exists the shops fully unionized high
wages are paid for short hours, and the unions CO.
operate with the owners in devising efficient
methods of production.
In Lowell men stand against telephone poles in
battered overcoats their faces pinched with hunger
In Salem, mill girls actually go to work in raccoon
coats and dine in evening gowns. The money goes
back into Salem, not the Riviera or Mount Desert
island.
The moral is easy. The decay OF New England is
the price exacted by extreme form of captalistc
greed and by old-fashioned industrial anarchy Fall
River and Salem, these are the symbols of the old
and the capitalism. But New Enganders still
to prefer the industrial style of Fall River