💾 Archived View for library.inu.red › file › mother-jones-civilization-in-southern-mills.gmi captured on 2023-01-29 at 12:43:47. Gemini links have been rewritten to link to archived content

-=-=-=-=-=-=-

Title: Civilization in Southern Mills
Author: Mother Jones
Date: March 1901
Language: en
Topics: Mother Jones, publication
Source: Retrieved on 2016-10-28 from http://marxists.architexturez.net/subject/women/authors/jones/1901/civilisation.htm
Notes: Published: International Socialist Review, Vol. 1, No. 9, March 1901; Transcribed: Sally Ryan for marxists.org in 2000; Proofed: and corrected by Dawn Gaitis, 2006.

Mother Jones

Civilization in Southern Mills

THE miners and railroad boys of Birmingham, Ala., entertained me one

evening some months ago with a graphic description of the conditions

among the slaves of the Southern cotton mills. While I imagined that

these must be something of a modern Siberia, I concluded that the boys

were overdrawing the picture and made up my mind to see for myself the

conditions described. Accordingly I got a job and mingled with the

workers in the mill and in their homes. I found that children of six and

seven years of age were dragged out of bed at half-past 4 in the morning

when the task-master's whistle blew. They eat their scanty meal of black

coffee and corn bread mixed with cottonseed oil in place of butter, and

then off trots the whole army of serfs, big and little. By 5:30 they are

all behind the factory walls, where amid the whir of machinery they

grind their young lives out for fourteen long hours each day. As one

looks on this brood of helpless human souls one could almost hear their

voices cry out, “Be still a moment. O you iron wheels of capitalistic

greed, and let us hear each other's voices, and let us feel for a moment

that this is not all of life."

We stopped at 12 for a scanty lunch and a half-hour's rest. At 12:30 we

were at it again with never a stop until 7. Then a dreary march home,

where we swallowed our scanty supper, talked for a few minutes of our

misery and then dropped down upon a pallet of straw, to lie until the

whistle should once more awaken us, summoning babes and all alike to

another round of toil and misery.

I have seen mothers take their babes and slap cold water in their face

to wake the poor little things. I have watched them all day long tending

the dangerous machinery. I have seen their helpless limbs torn off, and

then when they were disabled and of no more use to their master, thrown

out to die. I must give the company credit for having hired a Sunday

school teacher to tell the little things that “Jesus put it into the

heart of Mr. -- to build that factory so they would have work with which

to earn a little money to enable them to put a nickel in the box for the

poor little heathen Chinese babies."

THE ROPE FACTORY.

I visited the factory in Tuscaloosa, Ala., at 10 o'clock at night. The

superintendent, not knowing my mission, gave me the entire freedom of

the factory and I made good use of it. Standing by a siding that

contained 155 spindles were two little girls. I asked a man standing

near if the children were his, and he replied that they were. “How old

are they?” I asked. “This one is 9, the other 10,” he replied. “How many

hours do they work?” “Twelve,” was the answer. “How much do they get a

night?” “We all three together get 60 cents. They get 10 cents each and

I 40.”

I watched them as they left their slave-pen in the morning and saw them

gather their rags around their frail forms to hide them from the wintry

blast. Half-fed, half-clothed, half-housed, they toil on, while the

poodle dogs of their masters are petted and coddled and sleep on pillows

of down, and the capitalistic judges jail the agitators that would dare

to help these helpless ones to better their condition.

Gibson is another of those little sections of hell with which the South

is covered. The weaving of gingham is the principal work. The town is

owned by a banker who possesses both people and mills. One of his slaves

told me she had received one dollar for her labor for one year. Every

weekly pay day her employer gave her a dollar. On Monday she deposited

that dollar in the “pluck-me” store to secure food enough to last until

the next pay day, and so on week after week.

There was once a law on the statute books of Alabama prohibiting the

employment of children under twelve years of age more than eight hours

each day. The Gadston Company would not build their mill until they were

promised that this law should be repealed.

When the repeal came up for the final reading I find by an examination

of the records of the House that there were sixty members present. Of

these, fifty-seven voted for the repeal and but three against. To the

everlasting credit of young Manning, who was a member of that House, let

it be stated that he both spoke and voted against the repeal.

I asked one member of the House why he voted to murder the children, and

he replied that he did not think they could earn enough to support

themselves if they only worked eight hours. These are the kind of tools

the intelligent workingmen put in office.

The Phoenix mill in Georgia were considering the possibility of a cut in

wages something over a year ago, but after making one attempt they

reconsidered and started a savings bank instead. At the end of six

months the board of directors met and found out that the poor wretches

who were creating wealth for them were saving 10 per cent of their

wages. Whereupon they promptly cut them that 10 per cent, and the result

was the ’96 strike. I wonder how long the American people will remain

silent under such conditions as these.

Almost every one of my shop-mates in these mills was a victim of some

disease or other. All are worked to the limit of existence. The weavers

are expected to weave so many yards of cloth each working day. To come

short of this estimate jeopardizes their job. The factory operator loses

all energy either of body or of mind. The brain is so crushed as to be

incapable of thinking, and one who mingles with these people soon

discovers that their minds like their bodies are wrecked. Loss of sleep

and loss of rest gives rise to abnormal appetites, indigestion,

shrinkage of stature, bent backs and aching hearts.

Such a factory system is one of torture and murder as dreadful as a

long-drawn-out Turkish massacre, and is a disgrace to any race or age.

As the picture rises before me I shudder for the future of a nation that

is building up a moneyed aristocracy out of the life-blood of the

children of the proletariat. It seems as if our flag is a funeral

bandage splotched with blood. The whole picture is one of the most

horrible avarice, selfishness and cruelty and is fraught with present

horror and promise of future degeneration. The mother, over-worked and

under-fed, gives birth to tired and worn-out human beings.

I can see no way out save in a complete overthrow of the capitalistic

system, and to me the father who casts a vote for the continuance of

that system is as much of a murderer as if he took a pistol and shot his

own children. But I see all around me signs of the dawning of the new

day of socialism, and with my faithful comrades everywhere I will work

and hope and pray for the coming of that better day.