The people's voice. [volume] (Helena, Mont.) 1939-1969, 1940-01-17
WPA Tells Story
OF Town That
Was Murdered
BY HENRY ION

| WASHINGTON-( The stor,
of a town that was murdered by fl
nanciers with thoughts only of profits
was told here recently by the Works
Projects Administration.
1t is the story of Manchester, New
Hampshire, once the home of the huge
Amoskeag textile mills, now merel,
the subject of a study by the WPA'!
research section as a typical town
outside interests with little regard fol
which came under the domination o
public welfare and which was dropped
when it no longer served their pur
poses.
More bleak and horrifying than any
mystery thriller the WPA report por.
trays Manchester as typical of mum
erous communities in New England
/ (that) lost their principal economic
activity
Thousands of skilled textile work
ers were left stranded when mills
either moved southwark or went out
of existence because of either their
| inability to compete with southern
manufacturers or their unwillingness
to continue to risk their investments
in market that promised to be less
productive of profits than formerly
| The Amoskeag mills, which en-
ployed as high as 1900 Of the city's
35 900 gainfully employed, shut down
is 1885.
"In a field survey conducted late in
| 1885," the WPA report states, "al
most one-quarter of the workers could
not be located. Most of these had
apparently left Manchester and some
of the migrants had probably OBJ
tanned jobs.
| "Of those interviewed, only two
fifths of the men and one-fifth of the
women had had any work since their
last Amoskeag job in 1885 and only
one-third of the men and one-sixth
of the women were employed at the
time Of the interview. OF the total
man-months elapsed between the last
Amoskeag job and October, 1886, only
15@o were spent in employment"
I'm 1887" the report continues,
"about one-quarter of the Manchester
families were receiving general assist
ance or WPA work In 1888 the aver
age rose osce again to the 1886 level
of almost 1870"
The preface to the report, which
breaks down the figures in detail and
reviews the financial history of the
company, declares, st (the report)
shows what the owners decision to
withdraw from manufacture the CAPT
tai they had accumulated by produc,
ing cotton and wooden goods in Man
chester. has meant in terms of unem-
ployment, loss of income, migration,
and general disorganization of the
Manchester labor market.
1T also raises the questions con-
corning the social responsibility of
business. What is an appropriate
basis for a decision to liquidate an
enterprise whose employment or I'M
employment largely controls the pros
perity of a city?
cover the course of more than a
century the people of Manchester had
invested in homes and built COM
munity with schools and churches and
streets and other community enter
prises that go with an American city,
yet they had no say in matter that
affected them so vitality.
I'm the case of railroad operation,
for example, public utility commits
sions have gone beyond the question
of probability to the owners and
have given weight in their decisions
on abandonments to the interests of
the communities, to other business in
terests served and to the equities of
labor Their criterion is the public
welfare"
Who owned the Amoskeag mills in
this town that was murdered? AT
no time" the report says, ibid Man
chester residents own any consider
able portion of Amoskeag stock. From
it's early years the organization was
characterized by absentee ownership.
Control was exercised by board of
directors or trustees who not infre-
quently had but small investments
in Amoskeag securities.
with few exceptions the trustees
were prominent financiers and mer-
chants of the Boston area who had
no detailed familiarity with manufac-
turing processes and for whom Amos
keag represented only one OF num-
Der of business interests"
The report points out that Where
as much of the capital accumulated
as a result of profitable activity in
particularly locale was transferable,
the mobility of labor was highly re-
stricted
The report does not add that it is
these same financiers and absentee
owners who are demanding conf
dence" before they will again turn the
wheels in the factories they control.