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patrolmen to keep the traffic open; but these particular patrolmen went all over the village and made arrests. Sometime early in October although I cannot give you the exact date, they received a loan of $800,000 from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Immediately after this loan was made the mill officials began to evict people in a wholesale manner. Some 250 families were either evicted or forced to move to keep from having their goods set out on the street. In our case the majority of the private homes were leased by this mill company. Therefore some of our families had to stay out for 4 or 5 days at a time before they could find shelter for their household goods.

We have approximately 600 or 800 people out at the present time. And I think our case is pending before the Wagner Dispute Bill Board. But since we have gone out on strike we have many, many workers who went back into the mill to work who are working two and three 8-hour shifts. Many people are applying for jobs but they seem to prefer making this double time.

Mr. Chairman, I believe that is all I have to say.

Mr. KELLER. Are there any questions?

Mr. Wood. Did you lose both fingers in the mill?

Mr. MOORE. Yes; I did, in the Mooresville Cotton Mill, August 1, 1899.

Mr. Wood. Did you receive any compensation for them?
Mr. MOORE. They paid my doctor's bill, $25.25.

pay for what time I was off, which was some 4 months.
Mr. WOOD. I wish Mr. Hartley were here.

They did not

The Mooresville Co. is a very phenomenal institution, then, is it not, Mr. Moore?

Mr. MOORE. Yes; it is.

Mr. WOOD. He was $25 ahead. But they just gave you that $25 out of the fullness of their hearts?

Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. How long were you there at that time?

Mr. MOORE. I might say that we did not have any compensation law at that time. At the present time they do have some compensation law in the State of North Carolina, so that if you are injured in any way you get compensation from the State.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Yes; you get that because the law compels them to give it.

Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Is this the company that got the loan of $800,000 from the Reconstruction Finance Corporation?

Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. How long after that was it when you were discharged?

Mr. MOORE. I was discharged before that. I was discharged last March 18. I think they received this loan sometime about October 1935. I don't know the exact date.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Had they been evicting these employees from the company houses prior to getting this loan from the Government? Mr. MOORE. I don't think so, except myself. I was evicted about April 1934.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. This wholesale eviction then came after that, after they got the $800,000 subsidy from the Government?

Mr. MOORE. I think so. I do not know exactly the date they got their loan, but their evictions began sometime in the latter part of October.

Mr. KELLER. Let me ask you this question, Mr. Wood. Why not have this committee ask this company to come up here and tell us about it?

Mr. WOOD. That is a fine thing to do.

Mr. KELLER. If you instruct your chairman to communicate with them, he will do it.

Mr. Wood. I make the motion, Mr. Chairman, that the chairman. of the committee request the managers of this Mooresville Cotton Mills to appear before this committee.

Mr. RAMSPECK. I second the motion.

Mr. KELLER. It is moved and seconded that the chairman of this subcommittee ask the Mooresville Cotton Mills to appear before this subcommittee.

What is the name of the president of the company?

Mr. MOORE. John F. Matherson is the president of the Mooresville Cotton Mill.

Mr. KELLER. Is that town named after your family?

Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir. My great uncle was the first settler in the town.

Mr. KELLER. Then, Mr. Wood, that will be done.

Mr. WOOD. I think the wage policy of this company was brought out yesterday or day before yesterday by another witness.

I would like to ask how long after joining the union was it until you were discharged?

Mr. MOORE. I was elected president of the union on March 3, 1934. The first discrimination occurred later. Putting me back on the old job was about the first of August, and I was discharged March 18, 1935.

Mr. Wood. Your work was inefficient after you joined the union? Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir.

Mr. WOOD. Hadn't they discovered any inefficiency prior to that time?

Mr. MOORE. Not prior to that time.

Mr. WOOD. How many years did you work for the firm?

Mr. MOORE. I estimate that I worked approximately 26 years. I first went to work for them in 1899, but I was gone at different times for 3 or 4 years at a period.

Mr. WOOD. But you always got work when you came back?
Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir; I always got work when I came back.
Mr. WOOD. Your work was all right up to that point?

Mr. MOORE. Yes; it was.

Mr. WOOD. Until you were elected an officer of the organization? Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir.

Mr. KELLER. Is there plenty of work you can do with this injured hand?

Mr. MOORE. Yes, sir. The job they had me on I could handle very efficiently-a smash job.

Mr. WOOD. How long has it been since you lost your fingers?
Mr. MOORE. August 1, 1899.

Mr. WOOD. I thought you stated you was about 12 years old. And you have been working for that firm ever since?

Mr. MOORE. Practically so, except 4 or 5 years at a time. I farmed a little and I worked at other mills.

Mr. KELLER. I will now call Mr. Christenbury.

STATEMENT OF ED CHRISTENBURY

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. Mr. Chairman and members of the committee, Mr. Moore just spoke of this matter in the Mooresville Cotton Mill. That is where I have been working myself. I have worked for this company off and on for around 22 years.

I want to say that when the N. R. A. was in effect this mill was doing a very good piece of business; wages were paid which were fairly good. The code was $12 per week of 8 hours. But when they came to the code and $12, then those who got $18 or $16 were brought down. And I will say that about 30 percent were brought down equal to the $12.

At one time I was an unskilled worker and they paid me $12 a week for about 2 or 3 months. Then they put me on a skilled job as a feeder hand. I have been working off and on for about 7 years on that. When they put me on as a skilled worker they kept me under the skilled code, and I worked the same job as the unskilled, at $12. The pay as a skilled would have been around approximately $13 or $14 on that job.

Since the code was declared unconstitutional, or, as they say, "When the bird died", that is, the Blue Eagle, they began the stretchup system again and the wage cutting. I have not been in the mill since the strike. We have been told by those who work in the mill that they have stretched out on them considerably and have cut the wages around 16 to 18 percent.

With reference to this strike, it came about in the way that the preceding brother said, because of union activities, we believe. They began to fire the officers of this local union no. 1221. We saw then that they were heading toward abolishing our organization, so we as a committee got together and appointed a committee of the local to go out to the management of the mill and try to get the matter corrected and stopped. We wanted to be peaceable and we wanted to work.

But it seems that the managers of the mill would not talk or would not take any active part in settling it.

For a few days after the strike they did call for the committee to come to the office. And the committee went to the office, but they did not say anything to them about the strike. Then they sent a conciliator from Charlotte, and the committee with the conciliator went up there and tried to settle it before the strike. But they would not do anything in any way, and we told them as a committee it seemed they did not want to sit down and arbitrate and settle the question without a strike. We told them that we would strike. The president of the mill said, "Well, just go ahead and strike and see what we care."

We did so. And, if I am not mistaken, when the strike was called it was right around 1,200 of the employees who went out on strike. The third or fourth day of the strike they began to work against the strikers in the way that they demanded deputy sheriffs, the State highway patrolmen, and so on, to protect the office and the mill and

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the mill property, to which we were not doing any damage. We were very peacefully picketing. We had a very peaceful picket and have had up to the present time.

Then they tried another scheme. They went out over the hills and to other towns and hired everyone they could get hold of and put out the word that the strike was over with. They went as far as South Carolina and Georgia and hired every man they could get hold of; that is, countrymen and inexperienced help, and they brought them into the mill in order to keep us out. Before they would sit down and arbitrate with us they would spend thousands of dollars; that is, before they would cooperate with the Federation of Labor.

Then, as the brother said, it was not long until they began to evict the folks from their homes and set them out on the street. I had been told at that time in the town by some of the business people that the mill was in pretty bad financial condition and that something must be done. It was only a few days after that, we found out, that they had borrowed $800,000 from this firm.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. You mean the Reconstruction Finance Corporation?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. Yes, sir; that is right.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. That is, from the Government?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. Yes, sir. Then, when they got this $800,000 they began to set those people out of their houses one after another. That is when the battle started in connection with the evictions from the homes. They set out people from 39 homes. They evicted 250 in all. But the rest of them moved out in places where they could find them.

Before going any further into this matter I will say that before they had done this thing they had gone around and leased every open home building that they could find; that is, before they set those people out. That was so they would not find any place to go to. We had families in that town that were set out on the streets as high as 3 days.

Now, my friend, what we are here for is to ask the Government and this committee that they make a ciose study of this bill which is now before you. We believe that will be of benefit to the manufacturers just as much as the labor class of people in their working hours and in connection with the wages paid.

I do not see how our friend from the South representing the manufacturers said the other day what he did. I do not see how he can figure out that the family of six or seven can live off of 6 or 7 dollars a week. But we have families in Mooresville, N. C., today which have drawn as little as 40 cents in the pay envelope. They would get perhaps around 15 to 16 hours of work a week. But before they would get their check the company would take out the rent, coal, and the lights. And if he had anything to eat off of, all right; if not, all right. That is the way it figured

We believe this bill will help the manufacturers. And we are asking you as Congressmen to pay close attention to and study this bill in order that it may be fixed in such a way that we can secure help and protection, especially for the children of these families.

We have families in that town today, my friend, who cannot send their children to school because they do not have the money with which to clothe them. They have to live off of charity. We have

some working in the mills all week and then they have to look to charity for enough to bridge them over from one week to another.

There has come a time, my friends, when something must be done in our country. As we know and as you know, we have around 11 million unemployed people today walking the streets, and the biggest majority of them today are in the Southland. It is not because there is not enough goods to be made but because the manufacturers have stretched out and doubled up and turned the other men out onto the street. That is the reason for the condition existing today.

One man was speaking about the silk mill. We have one plant in our town that belongs to the Burlington Silk Co. Since Christmas the man who ran 8 looms is now running 16 at the same pay he was getting for running 8.

A man was telling me Saturday that when you draw your check on the company's time you walk right into the office and they give you a little slip of paper, and the office will get you and take you right through the door and you walk into the company store to cash it. That is the trouble we have in the South since the N. R. A. was declared unconstitutional.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. When did you folks go on strike?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. On the 23d day of September.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. How many were involved?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. There were 1,600 on the pay roll in the mill. Mr. SCHNEIDER. And practically all of them went out on strike? Mr. CHRISTENBURY. I say there were 1,200.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. Were many of them married people, and did they have children?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. I did not understand your question, sir.
Mr. SCHNEIDER. Were many of them married?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. Yes, sir; many of them were.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. About how many children were involved in the whole group?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. I would say the children involved in the whole group would number around 800.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. When did this company get that loan from the R. F. C., to your knowledge? Was it after you went out on strike? Mr. CHRISTENBURY. Yes, sir; after we came out on strike.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. You people believed they got it after you went out on strike?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. And they believed that this benevolent United States Government is lending to your employer for the purpose of browbeating you and financing an institution to starve you into submission? Is that the belief of the worker?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. Yes, sir; that is the belief of the worker, that it is used for that purpose.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. They believe that is a fact?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. Yes, sir.

Mr. SCHNEIDER. And that is really what has been done?

Mr. CHRISTENBURY. That is what has been done.

I know accord

ing to what they said about the condition of the manufacturer that they did use that for that purpose. If they did not, they would not have had to borrow the money.

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