One June morning in 1934, Grand Exalted Giraw Fisher received a report
from one of his secret operatives in the town of Paradise, South
Carolina, saying:
"The working people here are talking about going on strike next
week unless Blickdoff and Hortzenboff, the owners of the Paradise
Mill increase pay and shorten hours. The average wage is around
fifteen dollars a week, the work day eleven hours. In the past
week the company has speeded up the work so much that the help
say they cannot stand the pace.
"The owners are two Germans who came to this country after the war.
They employ 1000 hands, own all of the houses in Paradise and
operate all of the stores. Most of the hands belong to the Knights
of Nordica and they want the organization to help them unionize.
Am awaiting instructions."
Matthew turned to Bunny and grinned. "Here's more money," he boasted,
shaking the letter in his assistant's face.
"What can you do about it?" that worthy inquired.
"What can I do? Well, Brother, you just watch my smoke. Tell Ruggles to
get the plane ready," he ordered. "We'll fly over there at once."
Two hours later Matthew's plane sat down on the broad, close-clipped
lawn in front of the Blickdoff-Hortzenboff cotton mill. Bunny and the
Grand Giraw entered the building and walked to the office.
"Whom do you wish to see?" asked a clerk.
"Mr. Blickdoff, Mr. Hortzenboff or both; preferably both," Matthew
replied.
"And who's calling?"
"The Grand Exalted Giraw of the Ancient and Honorable Order of the
Knights of Nordica and his secretary," boomed that gentleman. The awed
young lady retired into an inner sanctum.
"That sure is some title," commented Bunny in an undertone.
"Yes, Givens knows his stuff when it comes to that. The longer and
sillier a title, the better the yaps like it."
The young lady returned and announced that the two owners would be glad
to receive the eminent Atlantan. Bunny and Matthew entered the office
marked "Private."
Hands were shaken, greetings exchanged and then Matthew got right down
to business. He had received contributions from these two mill owners
so to a certain extent they understood one another.
"Gentlemen," he queried, "is it true that your employees are planning
to strike next week?"
"So ve haff heardt," puffed the corpulent, under-sized Blickdoff.
"Well, what are you going to do about it?"
"De uszual t'ing, uff coarse," replied Hortzenboff, who resembled a
beer barrel on stilts.
"You can't do the usual thing," warned Matthew. "Most of these people
are members of the Knights of Nordica. They are looking to us for
protection and we mean to give it to them."
"Vy ve t'ought you vas favorable," exclaimed Blickdoff.
"Und villing to be reasonable," added Hortzenboff.
"That's true," Matthew agreed, "but you're squeezing these people too
hard."
"But ve can't pay dem any more," protested the squat partner. "Vot ve
gonna do?"
"Oh, you fellows can't kid me, I know you're coining the jack; but if
you think its worth ten grand to you, I think I can adjust matters,"
the Grand Giraw stated.
"Ten t'ousand dollars?" the two mill men gasped.
"You've got good ears," Matthew assured them. "And if you don't come
across I'll put the whole power of my organization behind your hands.
Then it'll cost you a hundred grand to get back to normal."
The Germans looked at each other incredulously.
"Are you t'reatening us, Meester Fisher?" whined Blickdoff.
"You've got a good head at figuring out things, Blickdoff," Matthew
retorted, sarcastically.
"Suppose ve refuse?" queried the heavier Teuton.
"Yeah, suppose you do. Can't you imagine what'll happen when I pull
these people off the job?"
"Ve'll call oudt de militia," warned Blickdoff.
"Don't make me laugh," Matthew commented. "Half the militiamen are
members of my outfit."
The Germans shrugged their shoulders hopelessly while Matthew and Bunny
enjoyed their confusion.
"How mutch you say you wandt?" asked Hortzenboff.
"Fifteen grand," replied the Grand Giraw, winking at Bunny.
"Budt you joost said ten t'ousand a minute ago," screamed Blickdoff,
gesticulating.
"Well, it's fifteen now," said Matthew, "and it'll be twenty grand if
you babies don't hurry up and make up your mind."
Hortzenboff reached hastily for the big check book and commenced
writing. In a moment he handed Matthew the check.
"Take this back to Atlanta in the plane," ordered Matthew, handing the
check to Bunny, "and deposit it. Safety first." Bunny went out.
"You don't act like you trust us," Blickdoff accused.
"Why should I?" the ex-Negro retorted. "I'll just stick around for a
while and keep you two company. You fellows might change your mind and
stop payment on that check."
"Ve are honest men, Meester Fisher," cried Hortzenboff.
"Now I'll tell one," sneered the Grand Giraw, seating himself and
taking a handful of cigars out of a box on the desk.
The following evening the drab, skinny, hollow-eyed mill folk trudged
to the mass meeting called by Matthew in the only building in Paradise
not owned by the company--the Knights of Nordica Hall. They poured into
the ramshackle building, seated themselves on the wooden benches and
waited for the speaking to begin.
They were a sorry lot, under-nourished, bony, vacant-looking, and
yet they had seen a dim light. Without suggestion or agitation from
the outside world, from which they were almost as completely cut off
as if they had been in Siberia, they had talked among themselves and
concluded that there was no hope for them except in organization. What
they all felt they needed was wise leadership, and they looked to the
Knights of Nordica for it, since they were all members of it and there
was no other agency at hand. They waited now expectantly for the words
of wisdom and encouragement which they expected to hear fall from the
lips of their beloved Matthew Fisher, who now looked down upon them
from the platform with cynical humor mingled with disgust.
They had not long to wait. A tall, gaunt, mountaineer, who acted as
chairman, after beseeching the mill hands to stand together like men
and women, introduced the Grand Exalted Giraw.
Matthew spoke forcefully and to the point. He reminded them that they
were men and women; that they were free, white and twenty-one; that
they were citizens of the United States; that America was their country
as well as Rockefeller's; that they must stand firm in the defense
of their rights as working people; that the worker was worthy of his
hire; that nothing should be dearer to them than the maintenance of
white supremacy. He insinuated that even in their midst there probably
were some Negroes who had been turned white by Black-No-More. Such
individuals, he insisted made poor union material because they always
showed their Negro characteristics and ran away in a crisis. Ending
with a fervent plea for liberty, justice and a square deal, he sat down
amid tumultuous applause. Eager to take advantage of their enthusiasm,
the chairman began to call for members. Happily the people crowded
around the little table in front of the platform to give their names
and pay dues.
Swanson, the chairman and acknowledged leader of the militant element,
was tickled with the results of the meeting. He slapped his thighs
mountaineer fashion, shifted his chew of tobacco from the right cheek
to the left, his pale blue eyes twinkling, and "allowed" to Matthew
that the union would soon bring the Paradise Mill owners to terms. The
Grand Exalted Giraw agreed.
Two days later, back in Atlanta, Matthew held a conference with a
half-dozen of his secret operatives in his office. "Go to Paradise and
do your stuff," he commanded, "and do it right."
The next day the six men stepped from the train in the little South
Carolina town, engaged rooms at the local hotel and got busy. They let
it be known that they were officials of the Knights of Nordica sent
from Atlanta by the Grand Exalted Giraw to see that the mill workers
got a square deal. They busied themselves visiting the three-room
cottages of the workers, all of which looked alike, and talking very
confidentially.
In a day or so it began to be noised about that Swanson, leader of
the radical element, was really a former Negro from Columbia. It
happened that a couple of years previously he had lived in that
city. Consequently he readily admitted that he had lived there when
asked innocently by one of the strangers in the presence of a group
of workers. When Swanson wasn't looking, the questioner glanced
significantly at those in the group.
That was enough. To the simple-minded workers Swanson's admission was
conclusive evidence that the charge of being a Negro was true. When he
called another strike meeting, no one came except a few of Fisher's
men. The big fellow was almost ready to cry because of the unexplained
falling away of his followers. When one of the secret operatives told
him the trouble he was furious.
"Ah haint no damn nigger a-tall," he shouted. "Ah'm a white man an' kin
prove hit!"
Unfortunately he could not prove to the satisfaction of his fellow
workers that he was not a Negro. They were adamant. On the streets
they passed him without speaking and they complained to the foremen
at the mill that they didn't want to work with a nigger. Broken and
disheartened after a week of vain effort, Swanson was glad to accept
carfare out of the vicinity from one of Matthew's men who pretended to
be sympathetic.
With the departure of Swanson, the cause of the mill workers was dealt
a heavy blow, but the three remaining ringleaders sought to carry on.
The secret operatives of the Grand Exalted Giraw got busy again. One
of the agitators was asked if it was true that his grandfather was a
nigger. He strenuously denied the charge but being ignorant of the
identity of his father he could not very well be certain about his
grandfather. He was doomed. Within a week the other two were similarly
discredited. Rumor was wafted abroad that the whole idea of a strike
was a trick of smart niggers in the North who were in the pay of the
Pope.
The erstwhile class conscious workers became terror-stricken by the
specter of black blood. You couldn't, they said, be sure of anybody any
more, and it was better to leave things as they were than to take a
chance of being led by some nigger. If the colored gentry couldn't sit
in the movies and ride in the trains with white folks, it wasn't right
for them to be organizing and leading white folks.
The radicals and laborites in New York City had been closely watching
developments in Paradise ever since the news of the big mass meeting
addressed by Matthew was broadcast by the Knights of Nordica news
service. When it seemed that the mill workers were, for some mysterious
reason, going to abandon the idea of striking, liberal and radical
labor organizers were sent down to the town to see what could be done
toward whipping up the spirit of revolt.
The representative of the liberal labor organization arrived first and
immediately announced a meeting in the Knights of Nordica Hall, the
only obtainable place. Nobody came. The man couldn't understand it. He
walked out into the town square, approached a little knot of men and
asked what was the trouble.
"Y're from that there Harlem in N'Yawk, haint ye?" asked one of the
villagers.
"Why yes, I live in Harlem. What about it?"
"Well, we haint a gonna have no damn nigger leadin' us, an' if ye know
whut's healthy fer yuh yo'll git on away f'um here," stated the speaker.
"Where do you get that nigger stuff?" inquired the amazed and insulted
organizer. "I'm a white man."
"Yo ain't th' first white nigger whut's bin aroun' these parts," was
the reply.
The organizer, puzzled but helpless, stayed around town for a week and
then departed. Somebody had told the simple folk that Harlem was the
Negro district in New York, after ascertaining that the organizer lived
in that district. To them Harlem and Negro became synonymous and the
laborite was doomed.
The radical labor organizer, refused permission to use the Knights of
Nordica Hall because he was a Jew, was prevented from holding a street
meeting when someone started a rumor that he believed in dividing up
property, nationalizing women, and was in addition an atheist. He
freely admitted the first, laughed at the second and proudly proclaimed
the third. That was sufficient to inflame the mill hands, although God
had been strangely deaf to their prayers, they owned no property to
divide and most of their women were so ugly that they need have had no
fears that any outsiders would want to nationalize them. The disciple
of Lenin and Trotsky vanished down the road with a crowd of emaciated
workers at his heels.
Soon all was quiet and orderly again in Paradise, S. C. On the advice
of a conciliator from the United States Labor Department, Blickdoff
and Hortzenboff took immediate steps to make their workers more
satisfied with their pay, their jobs and their little home town. They
built a swimming pool, a tennis court, shower baths and a playground
for their employees but neglected to shorten their work time so these
improvements could be enjoyed. They announced that they would give each
worker a bonus of a whole day's pay at Christmas time, hereafter, and a
week's vacation each year to every employee who had been with them more
than ten years. There were no such employees, of course, but the mill
hands were overjoyed with their victory.
The local Baptist preacher, who was very thoughtfully paid by the
company with the understanding that he would take a practical view of
conditions in the community, told his flock their employers were to be
commended for adopting a real Christian and American way of settling
the difficulties between them and their workers. He suggested it was
quite likely that Jesus, placed in the same position, would have done
likewise.
"Be thankful for the little things," he mooed. "God works in mysterious
ways his wonders to perform. Ye shall know the truth and the truth
shall set ye free. The basis of all things is truth. Let us not be led
astray by the poison from vipers' tongues. This is America and not
Russia. Patrick Henry said 'Give me liberty or give me death' and the
true, red-blooded, 100 per cent American citizen says the same thing
today. But there are right ways and wrong ways to get liberty. Your
employers have gone about it the right way. For what, after all is
liberty except the enjoyment of life; and have they not placed within
your reach those things that bring happiness and recreation?
"Your employers are interested, just as all true Americans are
interested, in the welfare of their fellow citizens, their fellow
townsmen. Their hearts beat for you. They are always thinking of you.
They are always planning ways to make conditions better for you.
They are sincerely doing all in their power. They have very heavy
responsibilities.
"So you must be patient. Rome wasn't built in a day. All things turn
out well in time. Christ knows what he is doing and he will not permit
his children to suffer.
"O, ye of little faith! Let not your hearts store up jealousy, hatred
and animosity. Let not your minds be wooed by misunderstanding. Let us
try to act and think as God would wish us to, and above all, let us,
like those two kindly men yonder, practice Christian tolerance."
Despite this inspiring message, it was apparent to everyone that
Paradise would never be the same again. Rumors continued to fill the
air. People were always asking each other embarrassing questions about
birth and blood. Fights became more frequent. Large numbers of the
workers, being of Southern birth, were unable to disprove charges of
possessing Negro ancestry, and so were forced to leave the vicinity.
The mill hands kept so busy talking about Negro blood that no one
thought of discussing wages and hours of labor.
In August, Messrs. Blickdoff and Hortzenboff, being in Atlanta on
business, stopped by Matthew's office.
"Well, how's the strike?" asked the Grand Giraw.
"Dot strike!" echoed Blickdoff. "Ach Gott! Dot strike neffer come off.
Vat you do, you razscal?"
"That's my secret," replied Matthew, a little proudly. "Every man to
his trade, you know."
It had indeed become Matthew's trade and he was quite adept at it. What
had happened at Paradise had also happened elsewhere. There were no
more rumors of strikes. The working people were far more interested in
what they considered, or were told was, the larger issue of race. It
did not matter that they had to send their children into the mills to
augment the family wage; that they were always sickly and that their
death rate was high. What mattered such little things when the very
foundation of civilization, white supremacy, was threatened?