By James Henry Stevenson.
Do not visit The Scillies. Go to Penzance—a charming spot that has not
received the attention from the tourist that it deserves—and see the
hopeful passengers take ship in the morning for the “blessed isles;”
inspect them again on their return in the evening; if you are still
curious go to Land’s End—a drive of eight or ten miles—and look across
the sea that lies between you and The Scillies; buy a guide book and a
few pictures when you come home, and bless your stars that you did not
tempt the deep.
This is the advice which I vowed I would give, when, one day last
summer, for three awful hours I “hove” with the heaving deep. I am not
usually a poor sailor. Indeed I have generally crossed the Atlantic
without making my offering to the gods of the Abyss. Anything in reason
I am prepared to do, but the demands of the little steamer that plies
between the Islands and Penzance are altogether unreasonable.
It was a beautiful morning and Mount’s Bay, on which Penzance is so
picturesquely situated, was as placid as a swimming tank, but I noticed
that the wind was blowing fresh from the southeast, and I mentally
observed that there was likely to be trouble when we rounded Land’s End.
I am proud of that prophecy now, though trouble came sooner than I had
anticipated.
Long before we had lost the shelter of the rocky and fascinating coast
that girts the shores of Cornwall towards Land’s End, many a swain, who
had started off that morning with a light heart and “Arriet,” sadly
admitted that “all was vanity.”
When we reached Land’s End I lost interest in the scenery and gave
up—among other things—the unequal struggle. The “Lyonesse” was crowded
and there was no place to lie down. Indeed one was fortunate to find a
seat. I secured a camp stool and a vacant place in the gang-way, and as
I watched, or rather was conscious of, the movements of our vessel, she
seemed like a fabled sea monster sporting in the deep. Poised for a
moment jauntily on the wave’s crest, or plunging her nose beneath a huge
billow, she was equally happy. I called to mind the legend of the
Lyonesse, the continent that once stretched between Cornwall and the
Isles of Scilly, and which in the days of “good king Arthur” sunk below
the deep at the command of Merlin, engulfing Mordred and his host as
they thundered hard after the remnant of the slain Arthur’s army. I
thought of this and then I knew that our ship was trying to justify her
high sounding title. Just at this moment she made a plunge towards the
sunken continent and a huge wave swept in over the bow, most thoroughly
drenching a party of ambitious sightseers who were tempting Providence
on the ship’s nose. The wave rolled on towards me but I was too busy
just at that moment to successfully evade it.
As we passed close by Land’s End I roused up for a moment to look at the
celebrated point and again as we came in sight of Woolf lighthouse, a
solitary sentinel in the waste of waters, midway between the mainland
and the islands, and an eloquent witness for the Lyonesse legend.
As for the rest, I can say I was conscious of existence, but not taking
much interest in life, when a sudden cessation of the turmoil within and
without re-awakened somewhat my torpid senses, and as we made fast to
the dock, I dragged myself ashore and followed the haggard and
bedraggled passengers through a narrow street into the town. A short
walk brought me beyond the city to a grassy hillside, where, with my
camera for a pillow, having cast aside all literary and artistic
aspirations as worthless, I was soon blissfully unconscious of the
beauty and romance I had come so far and braved so much to see. In the
course of an hour or so, I was awakened by a grazing horse on the alert
for something green, and, recollecting my mission, started forth to make
the tour of the island.
[Illustration:
ST. MARY’S AND OLD TOWN.
]
We landed, as a matter of course, at Hugh Town, St. Mary’s, the largest
and most important island of the group, with Star Fort situated on its
eastern promontory, and Hugh Town on a narrow isthmus connecting this
promontory with the main body of the island.
As I have already intimated, the first thing of interest to me, on
coming ashore, was a vacant bit of real estate wherein to lie down and
forget my past. So, after shaking myself awake, I walked up a hill and
came in sight of the historic little church which is situated at the
head of the bay of Old Town, formerly the chief town of the island. The
church, a very quaint old structure, stands in an enclosure which rises
in successive terraces on the hillside and is filled with a striking
mixture of English and tropical vegetation.
Among the many interesting monuments in the churchyard, I noticed a
granite obelisk, erected by Mr. Holtzmaister of New York, to the memory
of his wife, who perished in the wreck of the ill-fated S. S.
_Schiller_, May 7, 1875. The inscription reads: “In memory of Louise
Holtzmaister, born at New York, May 15th, 1851, who lost her life in the
wreck of the S. S. _Schiller_ off the Scilly Isles, May the 7th, 1875.
Her body rests in the deep. This monument has been erected to her memory
as a mark of affection by her surviving husband.”
The memory fain would linger round some spot where the beloved take
their last long sleep. Tennyson’s beautiful lines awaken a heartfelt
response in every human breast:
“Oh to us
The fools of habit, sweeter seems
To rest beneath the clover sod,
That takes the sunshine and the rains,
Or where the kneeling hamlet drains
The chalice of the grapes of God,
Than if with thee the roaring wells
Should gulf him deep in fathom brine;
And hands so often clasped in mine
Should toss with tangle and with shells.”
[Illustration:
THE CHURCH AND THE TOMBS.
]
The people of these islands have witnessed many a tragedy of the sea in
their day, but perhaps none more awful than that which this monument
recalls. The _Schiller_, a staunch boat, built on the Clyde in 1873, was
in command of Captain Thomas, an Englishman by birth, but then a
naturalized German. She left New York on the 27th of April with
fifty-nine saloon, seventy-five second, and one hundred and twenty
steerage passengers. She was due at Plymouth on the 8th of May, but for
three days previous to the disaster no observations were obtained on
account of the weather. Early on Friday, the 7th, a heavy fog came down.
Captain Thompson, thinking he was near the islands, ordered the engines
at half speed, but about 10 P.M. she ran on the Retarrier Ledges, near
the Island of St. Agnes. Few were in bed at the time of the accident;
the boats were quickly launched, the sailors behaved splendidly, but the
sea was running high, and as the women and children crowded together
into the pavilion a heavy sea swept over it and carried all away. About
forty-five out of three hundred and forty-five were saved. Mrs. Jones
was the only lady survivor. By Saturday evening seventy-eight bodies,
nearly all with life-preservers on, had drifted ashore.
The old church, which is now restored and used only as a mortuary
chapel, was originally built in the form of a cross. In 1662 it was
enlarged. On each side of the communion table ran a long seat, the one
for the members of the Council and the other for their wives or the
widows of dead councilmen. In 1732 it was decreed that if a councilman
died, his wife was entitled to a seat among the wives of living
councilmen during her widowhood, but if she married she was deprived of
that privilege, unless she married a councilman. This high esteem in
which they held their women, and the fact that they used the church as a
council chamber, throw an instructive sidelight on the character of
these old representatives of the right of the people to govern
themselves.
[Illustration:
THE LOGAN ROCK.
]
We leave the quiet churchyard and its tragic story to continue our walk
around the island. A tramp on the promontory Peninnis, which stretches
out southward into the sea, brings to view many fantastic rock
formations. Great boulders are left curiously poised upon each other by
the action of wind and wave in ages past. Pulpit Rock, composed of huge
flat blocks of stone resting on each other and leaning out to sea, is
perhaps the most famous, though why it should be called “Pulpit Rock” is
more than one can well guess. It looks more like an hundred other things
than it does like a pulpit. Most of all it resembles a great gun mounted
on the rock to command the sea at this point. We next encounter the
Logan Rock (pronounce _loggan_). Everyone who has read Baedaker’s “Great
Britain” knows of the existence of Logan Rock in Cornwall, a rock of
sixty-five tons weight so delicately poised that it can be set in motion
quite easily. I was not aware before that the phenomenon had repeated
itself, but I learned last summer that there was quite a number of these
“_loggan_,” or rolling rocks to be found at different places.
The Logan Rock at St. Mary’s is quite famous and was discovered somewhat
recently by accident. A resident of the town, overtaken by the storm,
took shelter beneath a huge rock. The wind was blowing fiercely and to
his great surprise, if not terror, he discovered that the rock was
moving gently to and fro. He could scarcely believe his senses at first,
but on further examination, he found it was so poised that it readily
responded to his efforts and could be made to sway back and forth. Its
estimated weight is three hundred and sixty tons, and while it requires
some energetic effort to put it in motion it rocks with ease afterwards.
Hugh Town, the port and principal town of the island of St. Mary’s, and
indeed of the entire group of islands, enjoys a very unique situation.
On the southwest a promontory juts out into the sea. This is the site of
Star Fort, and one can make its circuit in about half an hour. It is
joined to the mainland by a narrow isthmus of sand which separates St.
Mary’s Pool, the harbor on the north, from Porth Cressa Bay, on the
south. On this narrow strip of land, across which a boy can cast a
stone, and over which the high tide threatens to leap, Hugh Town is
built. There is no pretension to architecture, no striking buildings,
none even that have the interest of antiquity to recommend them. The
town is practically contained on the narrowest part of the isthmus,
though westward, where the strip of land widens, the houses scatter
somewhat. Save for its audacious situation, daring, as it does, the rage
of the sea from both sides, it is commonplace and uninteresting.
[Illustration:
HUGH TOWN.
]
Too much cannot be said in favor of the islands as a health resort. They
are so small in area, and lie so low, that living on them is practically
living at sea. One may here take a protracted cruise with no reeling
deck beneath him, and no nightmare of _mal-de-mer_ to threaten his
dreaming hours.
There are no manufactures of any kind on the island, nor is anything
present to vitiate the air. Sea breezes, from the illimitable reaches of
the ocean, sweep at will across these tiny bits of land, from every
point of the compass, in quick succession. In winter the mean
temperature is 45 and in summer it is 58. The rain fall is very moderate
and, with fine consideration for the tourist, the rain generally comes
at night, a phenomenon noticeable in Cornwall also.
Here is a fine resting place for men and women, physically or mentally
weary. The rush of modern business life is wholly unknown; there are no
street cars nor elevated trains to catch; there is no congestion of
traffic in the streets; no roar of vehicles nor hum of business to
disturb the absolute rest that the place suggests or to chide one who is
disposed to take life easy. One lies down at night with the murmur of
distant waters echoing through his dreams and wakens in the morning to
the song of the surf.
The islands are said to be a “haven of refuge for sufferers from chronic
bronchitis, phthisis and consumption in all its terrible forms,
insomnia, and the strain of overwork; and for children one vast
playground with free and open beaches and sands difficult to surpass.”
Certainly it would be hard to find a more ideal place for overworked
humanity seeking rest and recuperation. The climate is all that could be
desired, living is cheap, the whole atmosphere breathes rest, and there
are ever present the constant sunshine and the eternal sea.
On St. Mary’s Sir Walter Besant lived while engaged on his celebrated
romance, “Armorel of Lyonesse,” the home of whose beautiful Armorel Sir
Walter located on the now uninhabited island of Samson. Half a century
ago Samson had a population of fifty souls, with ten houses, among which
“Armorel’s cottage” may still be seen. In 1885, only one family was
left, and now nothing remains save the wreck of the houses and the
traces of former cultivation, rapidly disappearing. The inhabitants were
moved to other islands to insure the better education of their children,
and, incidentally, to curtail a little private and untaxed trade which
they carried on with their French neighbors.
To trace the history of these fragments of a lost continent through
former generations would be most interesting, but it must be here
foregone. They have, however, bulked considerably in English history and
figured frequently in her relations with her continental neighbors. They
remained true to the royal cause after Charles I had been put to death,
having been held by Sir John Grenville for Charles II. The garrison was
reduced to submission by Ascue and Blake in 1651. Prince Charles was
sheltered in Star Castle for a short while after his flight from
Cornwall.
The islands were notorious as the scenes of smuggling operations during
the eighteenth century, but this was so vigorously dealt with that it
proved as unprofitable as the various honest efforts to earn a
livelihood that have been successively experimented with in this little
world.
It is said that Hamilco of Carthage, a colony of Phœnicia, discovered
the islands in 3000 B.C.; at any rate, they have been identified with
the Cassiterides or Hesperides of the Greeks, and the Sillinæ Insulæ of
the Romans. The Phœnicians traded with them for tin, which was most
probably brought from Cornwall, as there is no evidence that tin was
ever found on the islands. An allusion in Diodorus Siculus throws light
on this custom. He says: The tin “was first refined and then carried to
an adjacent island for shipment to Gaul.” The Romans reduced the islands
during their occupation of Great Britain and made them a place of
banishment, a use to which they were put by Great Britain also during
the seventeenth century.
The Danish sea-kings found them a convenient rallying point for raids
upon places in the Bristol Channel, but Athelstan drove the Danes out in
927. Subsequently an order of monks settled there, retaining an
independent government till Henry I subordinated them to the Abbot of
Tavistock. Scilly remained under the jurisdiction of the monks till the
dissolution of the monasteries in the reign of Henry VIII. The ruins of
an old abbey are still visible on the island of Tresco.
During the reign of Elizabeth, Sir Francis Godolphin built a number of
forts and Star Castle near Hugh Town. The latter remains to the present,
on the left of the harbor, at Star Fort.
We have noted that the islands were used by both Romans and Britons as a
place of punishment, and we learn that in 1637 John Bastwick, M.D.,
after having been banished there for writing libelous books against
church and government, was sentenced to pay a fine of £1,000, to stand
in the pillory, to have his ears cut off, and finally to be confined in
St. Mary’s castle. After such a generous assignment the story of the
“ducking chair” sounds like comedy. The offender guilty of some trifling
misdemeanor was tied in the chair at the head of the dock and thrown
into the water. One cannot help feeling that this would be fine
treatment for the American “hobo,” especially if the salt water was
available and it was not necessary to haul him out too soon.
The inhabitants have had a hard fight for existence and have been on the
verge of starvation more than once. Farming proved a failure. So
likewise did smuggling, shipbuilding, fishing, and other experiments,
that for a time seemed to promise success.
Now, however, they are more prosperous than they have ever been. Early
potatoes, asparagus, and other vegetables are raised in large quantities
for the English market. In this respect Scilly is to London what Bermuda
is to New York. Besides the vegetables, flowers are cultivated for the
London market, and grow in such luxuriant profusion as to guarantee a
handsome return to the gardener. Anyone who has seen an acre or two of
lilies abloom in Bermuda knows what a glorious sight a field of flowers
is. We cannot judge from a florist’s window how splendid is a flower
farm.
During Christmas week wallflowers, marguerites, daisies, narcissi,
roses, pinks, marigolds, fuchsias, geraniums and chrysanthemums are
found in bloom.
The fields are divided off into little squares of about a quarter of an
acre, by high hedges. Here the flowers are protected from the winds and
cuddled up to the gracious sun. Under this nurture aloes attain a height
of five or six feet, and in blossoming throw up a bloom-spike as high as
eighteen or twenty feet.
As London is distant from the islands only about eleven hours it follows
that if the inhabitants are prepared to supply the metropolis with its
flowers and vegetables they may rest easy about “the wolf at the door.”
The islands number about forty, and are situated some twenty-seven miles
west of Land’s End. Five of them are inhabited, and the total
population, which increased during the decade by one hundred and four,
is some two thousand.
As we steamed out of the harbor a fleet of British war ships, twenty-two
in number, was lying at anchor in the bay. When one reflects that these
fighting machines are similarly in evidence in almost every harbor round
the world, he is convinced that Great Britain’s arm upon the sea is a
significant factor to be reckoned with in questions relating to the
world’s peace.
I met the captain of our ship as I stepped aboard and besought him,
though unbelief was regnant, to assure us of a smooth passage home. I
explained to him that I had contributed everything I possessed on the
way hither and that since then I had been too busy sleeping and seeing
the island to replenish my larder. He replied with cordial good humor
that the return voyage would be pleasant. Of course I was sceptical, but
to my great surprise, when we rounded the point where Star Fort is
situated, I saw at once that the ocean’s wrath was greatly appeased.
Time heals most wounds, and, while she banishes to a merciful oblivion
what is sad and unpleasant, she graciously leaves with us the undimmed
vision of our happy days. Thus it is that I have forgotten the raging of
the sea and the tossing of the ship, and treasure the picture which that
August morning brought me, “a small sweet world of wave-encompassed
wonder.”
THE LABOR QUESTION.
WITH SPECIAL REFERENCE TO SOUTHERN CONDITIONS.
By Herman Justi.
[Illustration]
The writer of the following pages is one of the recognized authorities
of the country on labor questions. Born in Kentucky about fifty-three
years ago, he has been in his time merchant, manufacturer, banker,
editor, traveler and sociologist. He lived in Tennessee for fifteen
years and since 1898 has been in Chicago. As commissioner of the
Illinois Coal Operators’ Association he has dealt with the perplexing
problems of labor face to face, and thus has been obliged to test
theory in the crucible of practice. Although a representative, in a
sense, of capital, he is the friend of organized labor and is so
recognized by its leaders.
Mr. Justi has contributed to the current discussions of economic
topics many valuable papers which have been printed in the leading
periodicals of the country and it is therefore felt that the following
paper, treating a question new to the South, but none the less, of
prime and growing importance, will be read with deep interest.—ED.
In almost every discussion of the labor problem practically the only
class of labor taken into consideration is that known as common labor—by
which term is meant the labor that is grouped into large bodies. That
labor which is known in the North, East and West as common labor is
similarly known in the South. Mill, mine and factory hands, workers on
streets and highways, employes in railway depots and on wharves are
everywhere, for want of a better term, designated as common labor. In
this discussion no notice need be taken of highly skilled laborers who
can be safely classified among the crafts, and who are seldom found in
considerable groups. The craftsmen can take care of themselves and need
no union to protect them. They are treated, not like a commodity that
can be easily replaced by substitutes from an emigrant ship, but like
intelligent human agents, who must be handled with care and respect.
In considering the general subject of labor with special reference to
the South, the question of labor in itself, while important, is not
complicated with so many difficulties as confront us in the North; and
yet the difficulties are many, and some of them, unless intelligently
dealt with, may become serious.
For instance, the loss of the black man as a laborer at the South might
prove a serious embarrassment, or the loss by the black man of
confidence in and respect for the white man’s authority, might
necessitate an admixture, by immigration, of races and nationalities
which would push the black laborer to the wall, and should be avoided if
it is possible to avoid it. To no one is this a matter of so much
importance as to the black man.
The labor problem at the North would be infinitely simpler if there were
fewer nationalities, all of them speaking and understanding the English
tongue. This statement does not imply that those speaking foreign
tongues are necessarily inferior in character or intellect to the
English speaking laborer, but the troubles arise rather because the
non-English speaking laborers are the victims of deception by
unscrupulous interpreters who purposely misrepresent what is said to
them for their benefit, or what is said by them to their employers.
The fact that the black man speaks a language understood by the white
man is a point in his favor, and that is also a reason why he should
continue to be the most desirable common laborer obtainable. The negro
at the North is discriminated against in all labor organizations as well
as in every relation of life, but in the South he still has a fair
chance to market his labor, if he will avail himself of it and will
realize his opportunity. So far the very abundance of cheap common labor
in the South has hindered the growth of the labor union there and has in
many instances defeated its purposes when established. The want of
ambition, which makes the negro content with low wages and inferior
conditions of living, is sometimes found in common labor at the North,
but it is by no means so general as among the black race in the South.
Particularly is this the case in the cities, to which the negroes have
flocked in great numbers, denuding the plantations of needed help while,
in the cities, holding down the wages of common labor,—the only labor in
which the negro competition has yet been apparent. The employers of
labor in the South should do everything in their power to make of the
black man all that it is possible to make of him as a laborer; but, as
he has his limitations and as the black man will at times leave the
South and so leave an opening for new white labor, the South must use
her energies to educate this newly acquired immigrant labor up to
American standards—and no work that it can do will bring greater returns
than teaching the non-English laborer the language of his newly adopted
home.
The very fact that union or organized labor is not strong in the South,
when compared with the average sections of the North, gives the employer
class in the South an opportunity which they may and should utilize in
preparing for that time when the contests incident to organization are
sure to come. And in this preparation they want to bear in mind the
undeniable truth that the quality of the laborer is generally determined
by the quality of the employer. In considering the capacity of any body
of laborers we are unfailingly considering the capacity and intelligence
of the employers in directing their employes. Employer and employe alike
have splendid opportunities opening to them in the South, opportunities
in many respects unrivalled; and it is of the highest importance that
they make a right beginning and understand each other at the start. The
union will indubitably grow, and the employer should welcome it if it
presents itself as a business body seeking the highest wages compatible
with commercial or competitive conditions in return for the best
services of which the labor offered is capable.
But in the South labor must come with reason in its request. It need not
be servile, but it must be respectful, for it is still, as it has always
been, characteristic of the people of the South that they will brook no
interference with their individual liberty. The North does not, and
never did, understand the strength of this underlying principle of
Southern manhood. It is a principle so strong that it does not disappear
in a single generation.
A notable instance of this was seen in a recent dispute over the mining
scale in Franklin County, Illinois. The southern part of Illinois was
settled by Southerners, mainly by Tennesseans and Kentuckians, who
poured into that rich country for a few years before the war and for a
few years afterwards. There are whole communities now dominated by
Southern thought and principles. When the miners’ union was seeking to
establish itself in Franklin County, these farmers, either of Southern
birth or of Southern ancestry, having heard that the representatives of
the miners, whom they described as agitators, were undertaking to
interfere with the individual rights of their sons to work without
dictation from any one, offered their services to the newly established
companies. The newly established companies, however, politely declined
the proffered assistance, preferring peaceable adjustment. But the
tendered services would have been given just as willingly as they were
tendered.
What is needed in the North is also needed in the South; namely, wise
and well informed teachers who are able to illumine the great problem of
labor to the masses, in order that they may distinguish between anarchy
or socialism on the one hand and the accepted political principles of
our country on the other. But there is one thing to be truly said about
the South that will always commend itself to employers contemplating a
change of base or the establishment of themselves for the first time—and
it will commend itself to labor whether organized or unorganized—and
that is the doctrines of the socialist have found no encouragement
there. Such doctrines cannot thrive in the South any more than tropical
plants can survive in the polar regions. Labor leaders should rejoice—in
fact wise, educated, far-seeing labor leaders do rejoice—that this
spirit prevails in the South, for only so can they hold their own
against the radical, trouble-making element in their own ranks.
Thinking too much of established institutions and guarding them too
zealously may at times be a disadvantage, but as a general thing that
community is most law-abiding and most conservative in maintaining the
rights and privileges of all where due reverence is cherished for old
established institutions; and yet the wisest conservatism is that which
steadily, no matter how slowly, prepares itself for changes that are
inevitable. Labor conditions in the South cannot endure as they now
exist, unless the South is to lose all that she has gained since the
overthrow of slavery, and is to stand and view the triumphal march of
the country without participating in it.
The South should not seek to rest under present conditions for they
cannot continue. If the present labor of the South becomes educated and
then improves, it will organize. And if it does not improve, new labor
will come in either already organized or to organize immediately on its
arrival. I know this view will be contested by many able employers, but,
believing it to be true, I deem it best to say it. It is a great deal
better to make yourself strong so that you may trust in your strength
when the certain change comes than to rely upon the fairness of the
other side—and this is equally true of the employer and the employe.
Experience has taught the South much on the question of labor, but so
far as a thorough understanding of the matter goes, the South is barely
at the threshold. The first and greatest thing that the South has to
realize, which as yet is not realized there at all, is this: In the
South as elsewhere, it will be found that cheap labor is the most
expensive. To secure good results is the desired end of all industry and
the experience of older industrial communities has taught that the best
results are, have been, and will ever be obtained by the employment of
the best labor. The best labor is and will always be that labor which
receives the highest wages and which is most nearly satisfied with
surrounding conditions. We can therefore set ourselves no more important
task, no more sacred duty, than that of finding the most nearly perfect
system under which the highest wages can be paid in return for the most
efficient service. And, aside from the justice of this course, aside
from the material benefit to the employer, there is no investment that
brings its returns so quickly to the community at large, as money paid
for good labor. Money so paid is at once spent for the necessities of
life, for all the comforts that can be afforded by the family receiving
it, and so is circulated almost automatically.
Labor organizations have made small headway in the South for other
reasons than the preponderance of negro cheap labor; the first to be
stated being the advantages of climate and of cheap living possessed by
the Southern worker. The winters are short, the summers long. Outdoor
vocations can be pursued in comparative comfort almost the entire year.
Fuel bills are smaller, the cost of clothing less, and the cheapness of
land opens the way for the workman of even moderate means to possess his
own home, if frugal and industrious. He can be his own landlord on
easier terms than in the North. But on the other hand, while the
climatic and other conditions favor the workman of the South, it must
also be remembered that the housing of workmen in the sparsely settled
communities or in mining camps is not as good as in the North where
legislation and the agitation of the labor leaders have brought about
greatly improved conditions.
In the cities of the North the conditions and surroundings of the
workmen are even more noticeably superior to those of the workmen in
Southern cities. The comforts of such flats as workingmen occupy in the
large cities of the North, notably in Chicago, are practically, if not
altogether, unknown in the South, where conveniences are fewer. This
very custom of living without comforts and conveniences has operated to
keep wages down and consequently to offer a check to the spread of
unionism. The homes of many skilled Northern workmen belonging to the
union would be a revelation to the workman in the South equally skilled
but not a member of any labor organization, and receiving less pay for
his services.
The organization of labor in the South has also proceeded more slowly as
compared with the North because of the more rapid growth and development
of the North. It is a fact at once apparent that cities where the unions
are strong are the cities that are growing most rapidly. Another cause
is the scarcity of manufacturing interests in the South and the
consequent small demand for skilled workmen, who are therefore not in
the South in sufficient number to organize effectively against the mass
of unskilled and partly skilled labor. The lack of numerous large
manufacturing enterprises, and of enormous mercantile interests, also
causes a lack of sharpness in competition and has made employes less
ready or able to exact the utmost that could be paid them in wages.
The difficulties of organizing labor in the South are such as always
mark the initial efforts at organization. The union men are out of the
Alabama mines, just at this time, for instance, and new men have their
places. The new men are being trained to their work, and are receiving
practically, if not exactly, the wages asked for by the union. As the
number of these skilled workmen increases, the necessity of organization
will become more apparent to them all, and the larger the number of men
trained for the work, the more effective the union will become. The
union wins victories for others oftentimes where it is itself nominally
defeated.
The question is asked, and with propriety, of the leaders of organized
labor, why it is, if organized labor offers or promises the best
workmen, that employers constantly resist its encroachment and turn it
out and replace it with unorganized labor if they can. There are several
reasons why this is so. It is not, as the labor leader frequently
answers, because the employer is short-sighted and imagines that when he
can get cheap labor he is making money, although it is at times due to
the want of discernment and enlightenment on the part of the employer.
The objection made to organized labor by its very best friends among the
employers is the short-sighted policy of the organization in winking at
or permitting the well-known tyranny of the unions, and also that air of
proprietorship which petty labor leaders so often assume.
I have never denied the right of labor to organize, nor can I deny the
necessity for labor to organize; and, in the very nature of things, it
seems to me that it is best that capital deal with labor as a unit. But
at the same time I have, in pursuing my duties in adjusting labor
disputes, been brought in contact with labor leaders here and there
whose insolence and arrogance, whose absurd claim of being labor’s
unselfish and only friend,—made me wish the whole world of organized
laborers and their leaders at the bottom of the sea. More than one true
friend of organized labor has been lost to a worthy and noble cause for
no other reason than that they have been grossly offended and outraged
by unworthy representatives of labor organizations.
While the slow growth of the union in the South is no doubt a
discouragement to labor organizations, it is a benefit to labor in the
long run. It is also at the same time an advantage to capital that labor
is being slowly organized. Looking to the future it is an advantage both
to capital and labor that the growth of the labor organization does not
go too far in advance of the education of the laboring classes and that
the employer class may, if it has an eye to its own interest, organize
in order successfully and intelligently to treat with organized labor
when it has become a force to be dealt with in the South.
Experience proves that even the most thoroughly organized labor unions
are not all-powerful when the employers stand together, and the
paramount importance of organization among the employers has been
repeatedly demonstrated. When this organization of the employers shall
have been effected, inquiry into cause and effect, careful study of the
labor problem, will quickly show the great advantage and profitableness
of dealing fairly with labor. It will show that, if the employers are
loyal to each other, and if they have an organization in which all of
its members have confidence, they, whether dealing with organized or
unorganized labor, are certain to obtain their approximate rights. The
many labor tangles in which the country has at times been involved were
due far more to the disorganized condition of the employer class than to
the cohesiveness and power of the labor class. Whenever the labor class
has become needlessly strong and where it practices tyranny and
oppression, there the employer class will be found to have neglected its
duty to itself.
Another result of the study of conditions will be that the employer
class will decide to be fair in dealing with labor, because in the long
run it will bring the largest dividends. This cannot be accomplished by
dealing with unorganized labor, where the employers have the whole
matter practically under their own control, and thinking only of
immediate returns, will, consciously or unconsciously, take advantage of
the worker. Dealing with organized labor is not only more satisfactory,
but it is more profitable in its ultimate results.
The question of individual rights has had a large part in Southern labor
troubles. It was a question of the employer’s right to manage his
property for himself in his own way that defeated an almost universal
strike of the Nashville Street Railway employes two or three years ago.
The union was formed and made its demands. The management declined to
recognize the union or to grant the demands, and successfully resisted
the resulting strike. But the management, I am informed, gave careful
examination to the facts thus brought to their attention and has
voluntarily advanced wages and improved conditions to a point far beyond
what was formulated in the union’s demands. There is no union of the
street railway’s employes now at Nashville, and so long as the present
intelligent and progressive policy is pursued there will be none and
there will be none needed. Indeed, the only excuse for labor to organize
is that the policy of the employer has too often been unintelligent,
unprogressive and not in sympathy with the reasonable rights and needs
of labor.
But the organization of labor and the advancement of wages will do more
than any other one thing to lend confidence to those who are looking to
the South as a field for investment. The Northern capitalist and
investor cannot be made to believe that labor as good and efficient as
Northern labor will remain unorganized and render its service for
one-third or one-half of what the Northern workman receives. Nor does
the Southern worker have the same incentive to the high efficiency
reached by the Northern workman. One of the most serious mistakes made
by many Southern communities in presenting to the Northern investor the
advantages at the South is that they put emphasis on the fact that
skilled and unskilled labor is “cheap.” Cheap labor that is at the same
time efficient is an unknown thing in the North, and Northern men who
are familiar with the labor question will not believe that it exists in
the South. “If it were as efficient, it would be as well paid,” they
say. The proffer of “cheap” labor has done much to retard the industrial
development of the Southern states. It is now the universal cry among
the employers of the North, particularly among those who oppose
organized labor, that they are willing to pay and do pay the highest
wages anywhere obtainable and that they are willing to afford and do
afford to their employees the most favorable working conditions.
The question of child labor is one which must be determined by humane
principles, and yet it is a question on which much fanaticism has been
expended and much maudlin sentiment indulged. The child develops earlier
in the South, where the average boy of fourteen is as mature as the
average boy of sixteen in the North. It is a cause for gratification, a
fact to the credit of the South, that recent child labor laws have
removed from mills and mines and factories a vast army of child laborers
who properly belonged in the nursery or at school. It was the South’s
shame that they were ever permitted there under conditions once
existing, and still existing to a degree.
But, while believing that the question of child labor should be closely
studied and the interest of the child guarded, I know that this is not
always accomplished in the case of boys by making it an offense
punishable by fine and imprisonment to keep boys of thirteen and
fourteen years at work, particularly since in certain classes of society
they have no idea of continuing at school after they reach that age.
Anything is better than idleness. It is a thousand to one better for a
boy of twelve to be at work in mine, factory or mill than to be allowed
to remain unemployed and unoccupied. If he is to be forced out of
employment, then provision must be made to force him into school. The
attention that has been drawn to child labor in the South comes about
not so much by the efforts of philanthropists, not so much by the work
of earnest students, as by that class of employers in New England who
formerly employed children of tender years, but who were forced to
desist as the result of legislation, and who for this reason, and not
from any high motives, directed attention to child labor in the cotton
mills of the South. I do not mean to justify what is injurious to the
children, but in considering this whole question trade or competitive
conditions cannot be wholly ignored. We know that the advocates of child
labor laws are often selfishly influenced and that they aim to reduce
the army of workers in the hope thereby to monopolize labor as far as
possible. It is often for the same selfish reason that the hours of
labor are restricted.
Much of the opposition to child labor has undoubtedly been removed by
the course of mill owners in the South, such as the Eagle and Phœnix
mills at Columbus, Ga., the Unity Cotton Mills at Lagrange, Ga., and
mills in Guilford County, N. C., and Pelzer, S. C. In these the children
are required to spend a certain portion of their time in schools ranging
from kindergartens to industrial training schools, which are supported
mainly,—and in many cases altogether,—by the cotton mills themselves.
The press and pulpit unite in saying that in those mills many of the
children have much better facilities for improvement than they had
before their parents left the farms and brought them to the mills.
The South suffers from poorly paid labor, and continues to suffer
despite the fact that conditions are such as make it possible for her to
pay higher prices without injuriously affecting any of her industries.
As the wealth of the world increases the individual wants more and
greater conveniences, and more and more grows the demand for excellence
rather than cheapness to be the chief consideration. The era of
cheapness is on the decline; the product of mill and factory, of shop
and lathe and hand, must be better to-day to be satisfying than at any
time in the world’s history. While excellence is sought the more,
cheapness is laughed at and passed by.
The Southern states are in an enviable position to-day. The South ought
to produce nearly all it consumes, and those things it can economically
produce for its own consumption it should certainly be able to sell in
Mexican and South American markets in successful competition with the
rest of the world. How successfully this can be done will depend upon
the ability of the South to produce the best goods for the least money,
and it can only do this provided its labor is the best. But its labor
cannot be the best unless it is paid the highest wages and is afforded
the most satisfactory conditions under which the workmen can perform
their services, and under which they and their families can live.
When labor is once organized on business lines and is a fair competitor
of unorganized labor, it will not only be the successful competitor but
will furnish the best labor obtainable. Nowhere has organized labor
under such conditions so fine an opportunity or so fair a chance as in
the South. But as I said before, the South is the stronghold of
individual rights. The workman must respect the individual rights of the
employer and the employer in return will respect the individual rights
of the workman.
It is not only skilled, law-abiding laborers that are necessary to the
South’s industrial success, but it is first of all necessary that
employers be enlightened and abreast of the times in order that they may
see clearly what their rivals are doing and what the markets of the
world require. And chiefly employers must be just, wise and humane in
order that they may enjoy the confidence and respect of their men.
It is indisputable that wherever there are employers who are wise and
humane, working in harmony with laborers who are skilled, frugal and
law-abiding, the community where the combination is found has a sure
guaranty of numerical growth and of substantial material prosperity.
Growth in population is gratifying to most citizens, notably so when
accompanied with industrial growth as well, but substantial and lasting
prosperity has too often been sacrificed in the eager desire of one
community to herald to the world a larger population than its rival
possessed. Increased numbers and wealth—if they bring in their train an
unnatural increase in vice and crime, as we too often find to be the
case,—are infinitely worse than if there were no growth. Southerners
sometimes lament that the South does not grow fast enough, yet that it
makes haste slowly is the South’s good fortune, since the criminal
classes have not increased with the population as at the North. The
Southern people, conservative always, should be in nothing so
conservative as in the determination that this shall still be true; that
while it is increasing in population and wealth the South shall also
accomplish the more difficult and important duty of diminishing the
percentage of vice and crime.