The Rise of Cotton Mills in the South Part 3

Edmonds has done, the value of slaves, is an obvious error; and especially because of the failure to note the inclusion of this factor, the spirit of the other exhibits is cast in doubt. Though legally they were property, in the social-economic sense the slaves did not const.i.tute capital any more than their owners represented capital. The question is rather whether this part of the population, as productive agents under the system of enforced labor, did not mean a liability and not an a.s.set at all.[127]

Mr. Edmonds is guilty sometimes of careless statement, as when he says, "The Southern people do not lack in energy or enterprise, nor did they prior to 1860.... From the settlement of the colonies until 1860 the business record proves this."[128] Or again, "the energy and enterprise displayed by the South in the extension of its agricultural interests was fully as great as the energy displayed in the development of New England's manufactures or that of the pioneers who opened up the West to civilization."[129] Such expressions, it will presently be shown, proceed from a loyalty to the South and a just desire to defend her against a.s.sault respecting her part in post-bellum development, but facts brought out in these pages show the mistaken zeal in seeking to place the old South abreast in industry or even agriculture.

Allowing what is perhaps the exciting cause of Mr. Edmonds' argument to appear from his own context, light is shed in the following sentences: "... 'The New South', a term which is so popular everywhere except in the South, is supposed to represent a country of different ideas and different business methods from those which prevailed in the old ante-bellum days.... Its use ... as intended to convey the meaning that the South of late years is something entirely new and foreign to this section, something which has been brought about by an infusion of outside energy and money is wholly unjust to the South of the past and present. It needs but little investigation to show that prior to the war the South was fully abreast of the times in all business interests, and that the wonderful industrial growth which has come since 1880 has been due mainly to Southern men and Southern money. The South heartily welcomes the investment of outside capital and the immigration of all good people ...

but it insists that it shall receive from the world the measure of credit to which it is ent.i.tled for the accomplishment of its own people." And then he instances the cotton mills and Birmingham and Atlanta.[130] His explanation of the inactivity in the South for ten or fifteen years following the war, in the fact and causes of which he is entirely correct,[131] bears out the belief, clearly indicated in the pa.s.sage just quoted, that it is his real purpose to accord to the ante-bellum South her deserved praise. However, he overreached in trying to establish anything like continuity for Southern enterprise over the ante-bellum years. The interpretation here given of the new South is now a plat.i.tude, but it may not have been a tilting at windmills when he wrote; indeed, its acceptance now may be due in no small part to Mr. Edmonds.

Altogether, it is best to rest Mr. Edmonds' theory with the following pa.s.sage, in which there is no confusion of his own thought and no controversy with anyone: "Since 1880, although the South is still (1894) practically without great acc.u.mulated wealth, her people have turned to manufacturing with a facility that not only shows that they are in no way lacking in capability to compete in manufacturing pursuits, but, considering the limited capital, this section has exhibited remarkable gains in developing its resources under adverse conditions. In a little more than a decade from the time the work of development may be said to have begun, it is not a question whether Alabama can compete with Pennsylvania in iron, but rather whether Pennsylvania can compete with Alabama. n.o.body now doubts that the South can compete with New England in the manufacture of cotton goods, but many do doubt whether New England can compete with the South.... Since 1880 the growth of manufactures in the South and their success has been more than astonis.h.i.+ng."[132]

Edgar Gardner Murphy in his spiritual interpretation of the South showed himself discerning and gifted beyond almost any other writer. His conception of the economic history of the South may be held to have been secondary in his purpose and so in his thought. However, his position as an expositor of the section and the emphasis which he places upon his economic opinions regarding its past, make it inc.u.mbent upon the student to examine his views. In the following quotation the turn which he gave to the influencing argument of Mr. Edmonds and his personal slant in interpretation of this, are apparent:

"The present industrial development of the South is not a new creation. It is chiefly a revival. Because the labor system of the old South was so largely attended by the economic disadvantages of slavery, and because the predominant cla.s.ses of the white population were so largely affected by social and political interests, it has often been a.s.sumed that the old order was an order without industrial ambitions.

"The a.s.sumption is not well founded. Instead of industrial inaction we find from the beginnings of Southern history an industrial movement, characteristic and sometimes even provincial in its methods, but presenting a consistent and creditable development up to the very hour of the Civil War. The issue of this war meant no mere economic reversal. It meant economic catastrophe, drastic, desolate, without respect of persons, cla.s.ses or localities.... Thus the later story of the industrial South is but a story of reemergence."[133] There are then outlined the steps of Mr.

Edmonds' argument, except that Murphy failed to make clear the almost total lapse of industrial activity by 1840.

The incentive to discover an industrial past for the section, which Mr.

Edmonds found in the desire to establish the South as the magician of her ante-bellum awakening, is matched in Murphy's motive by a more subtle design. In one place he said: "... the most distinctive element in the economic movement of this period (1880 to 1900) is the increasingly dominant position of manufactures as contrasted with agriculture. This industrial revival is but the reemergence of the tendency which we found so manifest in the statistics of 1860. It is but one rea.s.sertion of the genius of the old South."[134] Here with his absolute conception of the ante-bellum South is hinted the purpose which really animated it. That in speaking of the post-bellum development as "one rea.s.sertion of the genius of the old South" he did not mean, as very easily might be supposed, that through the earlier history of the section had run a genius for industrialism, is made clear in the following pa.s.sage, which, though it refers particularly to social relations.h.i.+ps, is pertinent for the industrial bearings:

"The old South was the real nucleus of the new nationalism. The old South, or in a more general sense the South of responsibility, the men of family, the planter cla.s.s, the official soldiery, or (if you please) the aristocracy,--the South that had had power, and to whom power had taught those truths of life, those dignities and fidelities of temper, which power always teaches men,--this older South was the true basis of an enduring peace between the sections and between the races." He regretted that this old South was not enabled to come into force until after Reconstruction because "a doubt was put upon its word given at Appomattox.

Its representatives were subjected to disfranchis.e.m.e.nt. Power was struck from its hands. Its sense of responsibility was wounded and confused."[135]

This is a fine statement of a primary and outstanding truth in the development of the South that began about the year 1880. The old South did draw breath with the new. The permanent character of the South, the forces resident in the South of earlier as of later years, were those which largely made possible a complete change in viewpoint, which carried through the measures of, if not indeed giving birth to, the potent consciousness of a reversal of program. But, as Murphy failed to see clearly, there is a radical distinction between the continuity of this quality in the South and any continuity of its evidences in industrial pursuits. The new South did not receive from the old South a heritage of industrial tradition; what it received was a traditional and ingrained and living social morality, not marred in its essential characteristics and presence, and very likely even a.s.sisted, by the inst.i.tution of slavery. As again Murphy said: "... this sense of responsibility, deepened rather than destroyed by the burden of slavery, was the n.o.ble and fruitful gift of the old South to the new, a gift brought out of the conditions of an aristocracy, but responsive and operative under every challenge in the changing conditions of the later order."[136]

In this apology for Murphy's view is splendidly apparent the best resource with which to turn from the South that was to the South that is.

CHAPTER III

_CONDITIONS PRECEDENT TO THE ERECTION OF THE MILLS_

To understand the establishment of cotton mills in the South, it is necessary to grasp the deeper impulses which actuated every policy certainly from the year 1880 onward, continuing in only modified degree to the present. Every phase of the movement for the building of cotton mills was conditioned by motives at once tender and heroic, universal in their applicability and too intimate in appeal to admit of more than pa.s.sing argument. In a study of the actual erection of factories, the hundreds of problems that arose and the ma.s.s of practical detail attendant upon their solving const.i.tute, it seems to the writer, a hopeless or at best profitless puzzle, unless it is clearly understood that these minutiae point back to something elemental and primal which gave them character. On the other hand, if this fact is recognized, the circ.u.mstances which accompanied the setting of mills in operation, such as the securing of capital, the obtaining of adequate labor, the selection of sites for the location of buildings and the like, from the very coldness of the subjects, and their unsentimental aspect as commonly thought of, strike into peculiarly bold relief the purposes that lay behind them. When it came to money-getting, psychical factors must be crystallized into something very forceful and admitting of unquestioned faith. It is the aim of the present paper to be an introduction to the study of the problems involved in the setting up of cotton mills, by giving the antecedent action, as it were, and by showing the motive force as it developed, operated and concentrated.

This responsible cause, catching the phrase from a writer of the day, may be termed "real reconstruction". The impulse for it came over the South in 1880 like a great ground swell, translating itself into a thousand activities and ramifications. "Real reconstruction" was spectacularly the outcome of the defeat of Hanc.o.c.k by Garfield in the presidential election immediately, but its roots run deeper and have their hold in the slow but sure recuperation of the South from the devastation of the Civil War through the troubles of radical rule, a.s.sisted by a brief breathing s.p.a.ce from the termination of carpet bag government in 1876, when the lesson of fifteen terrible years soaked in thoroughly. It is sufficient here to say that in 1880[137] the South suffered a change of heart, a revulsion of conscience that was fundamental. The people turned on their heel, and faced about to find a new future of the largest promise.

A newspaper which before had bent every effort towards the election of Hanc.o.c.k, the Democratic candidate for the presidency, as securing for the South political independence and revenge for Northern mistreatment, a week after his defeat printed an editorial headed "Our Refuge and Our Strength", with these words:

"... we have been defeated in the national contest. In the administration of the national government for the next four years we need not concern ourselves, for as far as possible our councils will be ignored. What, then, is our duty? It is to go to work earnestly to build up North Carolina. Nothing is to be gained by regrets and repinings.... It is idle to talk of home independence so long as we go to the North for everything from a tooth pick to a President. We may plead in vain for a higher type of manhood and womanhood among the ma.s.ses, so long as we allow the children to grow up in ignorance. We may look in vain for the dawn of an era of enterprise, progress and development, so long as thousands and millions of money are deposited in our banks at four per cent. interest when its judicious investment in manufactures would more than quadruple that rate, and give profitable employment to thousands of our now idle women and children.

"Out of our political defeat we must work a glorious material and industrial triumph. We must have less politics and more work, fewer stump speakers and more stump pullers, less tinsel and show and boast, and more hard, earnest work. We must make money--it is a power in this practical business age. Teach the boys and girls to work and teach them to be proud of it....

"Demand all legislative encouragement for manufacturing that may be consistent with free political economy. Work for the material and educational advancement of North Carolina, and in this and not in politics, will be found her refuge and her strength."[138]

The uselessness of attempting a political salvation as contrasted with the logic of giving all energy to the building up of the South materially, clearly shown in the pa.s.sage quoted, occurs time and time again.[139]

President C. C. Baldwin, of the Louisville and Nashville Railroad, born in Maryland but for many years resident in New York, and competent to take a comprehensive view of the South and its problems, said in an interview with the New York Herald in 1881, after the new program had gotten under way: "The commercial men of the states fully appreciate the situation....

They now see clearly how very little politics have done for them, and seriously turn toward the real 'reconstruction' which active trade will inaugurate. All the war issues are dead and buried except to a few politicians who misrepresent their const.i.tuents and merely use the language of the past to give them, personally, a pa.s.sing prominence. True, we hear a great deal more about the men who stand forth prominently as the advocates of these dead issues than we do of the thousands of young and energetic Southern men who are building cotton and woollen mills; who are opening mines and starting iron, copper and zinc furnaces, or who are relaying the roads between the Atlantic and the Ohio and the Gulf. These men don't talk, they don't write books, they don't go to the Legislature or to Congress. They speak, trumpet toned, in results, however. The people of the South have suffered--it is not pertinent whether we regard their sufferings as just or unjust--but they have put aside mourning and are ready for work."[140]

The Sumter, S.C., Southern voiced the same idea: "The Southern people, outside of the professional politicians, care very little about Federal politics. They are endeavoring to develop the resources of the South and regain the broken-down fortunes left by the desolation of civil war.

"So taking the past and the present as indices for the future, it is plain to see that a dissolution of the Solid South will cut at the very roots of all these wrangles between the North and the South[141] in which sectionalism is involved."[142]

"The people of the South are beginning to learn that the true road to power is not through the White House, supported by a swarm of federal officials", said a Tennessee paper in March of 1880. "They are learning that solid wealth is power, and that wealth is attainable only by working up their cotton and wool into fabrics and their ores into metals."[143]

The clear-headedness of the following extract from an editorial which appeared in the Columbia, S.C. Register, at the time the city was putting forth every energy to realize a desire for cotton mills, is unsurpa.s.sed:

"But if we lost the victory, in one sense, we have won it in another. We have been taught what the South can do for itself if it wills to do it. If we have lost the victory on the field of fight, we can win it back in the workshop, in the factory, in an improved agriculture and horticulture, in our mines and in our schoolhouses.

"There is where our fight lies now, and the only enemies before us are the prejudices of the past, the instinct of isolation, the brutal indifference and harmful social infidelity which stands up in our day with the old slave arguments at its heart and on its lips, 'I object' and 'You can't do it'."[144]

In the broken and all but disheartened condition of the South after enduring the war, radical rule and defeat of political hopes, this conception of another economic future, once it burst upon the consciousness of the Southern people, amounted to nothing less than a religion.[145] Every one of the old pangs added devotion to the new purpose. The whole pride of the South seemed about to go to disruption, and the imminent danger of this lent a pa.s.sionate loyalty to the changed program which appealed to everything that was best and n.o.blest in the people.

The new spirit was strongest in North and South Carolina and in that portion of Georgia contiguous to South Carolina. Distance from this region as a center about marks the intensity of feeling and comprehensiveness of grasp with which the impulse was voiced. Florida and Mississippi felt it little, due probably to their position so very far South as to be still submerged in misery; Virginia was only slightly affected and Maryland hardly at all in the same sense as the middle South, because of proximity to the North and difference of character, by reason of the absence of cotton as the staple. North and South Carolina and the region about Augusta, Georgia, gave the plan its first conception and its most whole-hearted support because, it appears, North Carolina is by nature resourceful and hardy above any Southern State, and South Carolina, despite every discouragement, would have the heart to try again because she is thoroughbred in a company of thoroughbreds.[146]

Just as the philosophy varied in intensity territorially, so it varied in degree within the same region. Some wished salvation through material advance for the sake of the State; this was natural, as growing out of a well-known loyalty of the citizens of Southern commonwealths.[147]

Others with larger view proclaimed the new gospel for the whole South as a section, rather adopting an att.i.tude of aloofness toward the North, wis.h.i.+ng the Southern people to work out their great problem without a.s.sistance from those who would be predisposed to meddlesome criticism. It is true that reorganization for the South was the most national thing Southerners could turn themselves to at that time, and in the judgment of many still is, but speakers and writers often failed of just the most fortunate expression of their purpose in that they did not strike the national note very consciously.[148]

It is something to have gone through what the South went through and come out not dispirited utterly, not defiant against fate or enemies, not forgetful of the past, but, remembering the worst, determined soberly, quietly, thoroughly to do the fundamental thing and do it nationally. It was left for Charleston more than all others--n.o.blesse oblige--to speak this greatest message:

"The Southern people must be national themselves, in their aspirations and conduct, if they would have the government truly national in spirit", and have Garfield "President of the whole country, and not of a section, or party, to have a government of 'the whole country', to be ent.i.tled to it, we must think of the whole country as our own, and demand no more than we are ready to give. It must come to this. In the near future the successful leaders, South and North, will be those whose first thought is for the Republic, men who are national in feeling and purpose; men who understand that the political and social strength and safety of each State depend not on isolation and separation, but on combination and union."[149]

By the late fall and winter of 1880 the mind of the South was ripe for progress and accomplishment. Perhaps the first gropings after procedure struck upon the consideration that manufactures would add another profit to the profit of agriculture. The big, general conception was first grasped without refinements or modifications or drawbacks; it was received with almost childlike simplicity and faith.[150] But it came to be ingrained. "The cotton which now comes into Charleston and is sold here pays commissions to the factors and brokers, and when s.h.i.+pped leaves behind it the price of the drayage, compressing and storage. Cotton which comes into Charleston and is manufactured here is doubled in value, and an amount equal, at least, to the value of the raw cotton when it reached the city boundary is distributed among the people of Charleston. This is the simple key to the prosperity which invariably attends the development of manufactures. Manufacturing gives additional value to raw material, and this additional value goes into the communities where the manufacturing is done. At present Charleston does nothing to increase the value of the cotton which comes here for sale. It leaves us as it finds us. The city lives on the pickings and sc.r.a.pings....

"Cotton mills change all this. A bale of raw cotton worth forty dollars is spun into yarns or cloth worth eighty dollars.... The stockholders and the working people get the whole difference between the cost of the cotton and the value of the yarns or cloth, except what little may be expended for material that cannot be purchased here."[151]

President H. P. Hammett, of the Piedmont Factory, in a remarkable address before the State Agricultural and Mechanical Society and State Grange, of South Carolina, to which reference will several times be made, after describing the earlier absorption of the South in a single pursuit, and the ills that grew from this, said: "A new condition of things and a changed sentiment amongst the people prevail at present; with the changed relations of society and inst.i.tutions a sentiment favorable to a diversity of pursuits has developed ... a disposition is manifested to develop the many resources heretofore lying dormant or hidden.[152] Capital when needed is furnished, and men of energy, enterprise and ability develop ...

the general sentiment of the people is to utilize all the facilities within their reach.... Under such circ.u.mstances it is natural that the public mind should be directed to the manufacture of their great staple."[153]

There were a score of reasons making this course seem plausible.[154] They were advanced, scrutinized, at the South sometimes accepted with a grain of salt, at the North not infrequently flatly and stoutly challenged as absurd; they were patiently explained or difiantly, and not always with the closest reasoning, flung in the faces of their objectors--but finally they were proclaimed as gospel, and in this sign the South set out to conquer. Of these beliefs is to be placed first and foremost the conviction that, other things aside, manufacturing was most economical and so logically belonged, at the source of production. Here is the doctrine, given in all simplicity, and not without the force characteristic of newspaper correspondences of that day: "Sir, it matters not what anyone may say to the contrary, common sense tells us that other things--machinery, skilled labor, motive power and facilities of s.h.i.+pment--being equal, a cotton factory in the midst of cotton fields must prove more profitable than the same concern a thousand miles from its base of supply could possibly be."[155] Other factors there were--cheap labor, unused water powers, abundance of wood and coal nearby, local market for the sale of product, longer running time than in the North, a favorable climate, saving in fuel and light, absence of damage to cotton by compress, saving in bagging and ties, a.s.sistance to be given to women and children much in need of work--all of them bore their part in focussing the energies of the South upon that program which was to mean so much in so many ways--the "cotton mill campaign."[156]

The current pa.s.sion for building cotton mills--it was nothing short of this--was stimulated and guided by press[157] and platform in urging, chronicling and praising advances.

The Columbia, Georgia, Enquirer, after recounting the progress of the city in spinning--it had 60,000 spindles--said: "These are the weapons peace gave us, and right trusty ones they are.... The story the spindles tell is one of joy to all, and show (shows) how rapidly we are climbing the hill of prosperity."[158] The affectionate tone of this item from the Rock Hill, S.C. correspondence of The News and Courier is unmistakable: "In conclusion let me say a few words in regard to the 'pet' of the town, the Rock Hill Cotton Factory. This factory is owned and controlled by the citizens of the town, (except $15,000 in stock owned in Charleston). It has a capital of $100,000, has over 6,000 spindles, with 1,500 more to be added in a few days."[159] The Marion, S.C. correspondent of the same paper a year earlier contributed this for his town: "Our wants: A bank, an academy, a cotton factory, a comfortable room for pa.s.sengers at the depot, an iron foundery, and last, but not least, work upon our streets."[160] So much did cotton mills come to be considered the natural signs of progress that Raleigh made apology for not having a single mill. "There is not a cotton factory in Raleigh, but there are not less than five large planing mills, two foundries, two boiler factories ...", and there follows a list of everything in the corporate limits, including schools and even newspapers.[161]

Under its caption, "The Cotton Mill Campaign", the active News and Courier every few days listed new entries into the field of cotton manufacture.

The issue of February 8, 1881, presented a particularly large number of items from different towns. The Newberry Herald exhorted the citizens with reference to Charleston's achievement thus: "Cheer for Charleston--A Movement all Along the Line. Charleston is in a fair way to have two large cotton factories in a short while.... Camden is preparing for a cotton factory. Hodges, Abbeville County, is preparing for a cotton factory. Rock Hill has a cotton factory. Greenville has several cotton factories. Newberry, the best location for a cotton factory in the State, and the place most needing one is not preparing for a cotton factory, and there is no present likelihood that she ever will." The method followed here, of citing the advance of other places in mill building as an incentive, was widely used, and not commonly with the rather complaining tone of the above from Newberry.[162]

That the spirit was in the air is clearly discernible in a Winnsboro contribution: "Why does not Fairfield (the county in which the town of Winnsboro is located) make the experiment? It is said that $15,000 will set in motion over five hundred spindles, and continual additions can be made." While recognizing that water power was difficult of access, steam might be used, for there was plenty of cheap fuel for years to come, and the Charlotte railroad offered easy communication with the world for a mill located along its tracks. The Hampton, S.C. Guardian struck the note: "Factories are springing up all over the State, and our people must not be found lagging in the race of progress."[163]

How the people were reaching out for cotton mills, with their attendant profits and advantages, may be seen in this advertis.e.m.e.nt appearing in the winter of 1881: "We will give to a Cotton Manufacturing Company, that will organize and locate at Landsford, S.C., with a capital of $300,000 a site, 20 acres of land and 3000 horse water power. Apply for particulars to T. C. Robertson, Allen Jones, Rock Hill, S.C.; Wm. R. Landsford; Edward McCrady, Jr., Charleston."[164]

A little earlier the cotton mill campaign had extended itself to the point of interesting cla.s.s effort, for the most prominent German citizens of Charleston organized a mill in a short s.p.a.ce of time.[165]

The cotton mill campaign had gotten well under way[166] when its further progress was greatly facilitated and its successful outcome made plain by the projection of a plan to display the resources of the Southern States in an exposition at Atlanta. The scheme was first proposed in October of 1860, and the International Cotton Exposition was opened in Atlanta October 5, 1881. The exposition, in organization, history and influence, is inseparably bound up with the name of Edward Atkinson, economist, publicist and manufacturer of Boston. He gave it its inception; in an unselfish and magnanimous spirit he guided its beginnings and brought it, by his advocacy and superintendence, to completion. He was "the father of the Atlanta exposition."[167] In a sincere desire to see the South extricated from the disorganization of the war and the years that followed, he planned this method of showing the people what he considered to be their true interest, namely, concentration upon better methods of cultivating and preparing cotton for market and for manufacture. With a fine comprehension of the most fundamental needs of the section in many directions, he conceived the care of cotton between the field and the factory to be properly the first concern of the Southern States, not temporarily, but for all time. The Atlanta exposition he proposed as the lens through which to focus attention upon this.

But Mr. Atkinson, most singularly for a man of his grasp, penetration and experience, had not reckoned upon the force of the enthusiasm for manufacturing cotton, which, as has been shown, came over the Southern people. That cotton mills were being built he could not but see; that they were making profits he could not deny--but in the economic wholesomeness and permanency of the factories he would not believe. In the International Cotton Exposition he created a Frankenstein to amaze and frighten and torment him. For once the resources, of the South were displayed in visible, tangible form in reasonable compa.s.s, and once the people were united upon an effort which should gauge their strength and possibilities, the invitation, or, as some put it, the duty to manufacture the staple in the fields where it grew leaped out as a fact more patent than ever. The people had felt the strength that came from union in a common purpose, and nothing could deter them from following the light that this brought to them. Mr. Atkinson, who had acted in the best of faith and with great ability, was surprised and chagrined; when he found that, while following his lead in showing the necessity of more careful culture and preparation of the crop for manufacture, the South, by the agency of the exposition, was fascinated in going beyond his goal, and building mills to make up the cotton for itself, he protested earnestly, and went to no end of pains to turn the people from their course. But the horse had taken the bit in his mouth, had glimpsed a broader highway open ahead, and the reins that had directed him once were of no avail to arrest his career.