The Rise of Cotton Mills in the South Part 14

[145] A sentence occurring in an editorial of the News and Courier, in the issue of March 24, 1881, is indicative of the love with which this city looked upon the undertaking proposed: "A man who has been in the whirl of New York or in any of the brand new cities of the great West coming into Charleston might readily enough come to the conclusion that the old city was in a sad state of decadence ... but our own people ... if they have their eyes open (or hearts open would perhaps be the better expression) could not fail to see manifest improvement."

"They dub thee idler, smilingly sneeringly, and why?-- How know they, these good gossips, what to thee The ocean and its wanderers may have brought?

How know they, in their busy vacancy, With what far aim thy spirit may be fraught?

Or that thou dost not bow thee silently Before some great unutterable thought."

--Henry Timrod

[146] "The people of South Carolina are nothing if not heroic, and right or wrong, they are sincere, earnest, and brave ... the same heroic qualities are now leading in the restoration of the South to prosperity, and on a basis that must speedily give the reconstructed States a degree of substantial wealth and power that was never dreamed of before the war."

(A. K. McClure, "The South: Industrial, financial and political", p. 55, published 1886.)

[147] The News and Courier, in an editorial on March 19, 1881: "Every true South Carolinian must rejoice at the prudence and energy exhibited by the citizens of Columbia in their management of the cotton mill campaign....

It will be a happy day for the whole State when the hum of myriad spindles is heard on the banks of the historic ca.n.a.l. Columbia will then grow rapidly, speedily rivalling Augusta in the number and success of the cotton mills. Thousands will be added to the population, and from our political center additional life and energy will flow to every part of the State.... we confess to having a weakness for Columbia, which suffered so sorely at the end of the war, and which is the only place of consequence in South Carolina that has not improved its business and enlarged its boundaries since the overthrow of Radicalism in 1876. But cotton mills will soon make amends for the vicissitudes and hopelessness of the past, and for that reason The News and Courier takes the warmest possible interest in the cotton mill campaign at Columbia." The Observer, Raleigh, N.C., July 11, 1800: "... when our people once begin to mingle freely, having a community of interests and a common purpose, sectional feelings will be obliterated, and we will forget that there has been an East, a center, or a West, and remember only that we are all North Carolinians, sharing the same fortunes, blessed with a common hope and enn.o.bled with the same proud memories of a glorious past." The News and Courier, January 25, 1881, carried a plea for State aid for Columbia in her enterprise to build a 16,000-spindle mill, the same as forms the subject of the first part of this note. The editorial especially advocated the placing of convicts at work on the construction: "... The capital, _because it was the capital_, was laid in ashes by Sherman's troops. In the person of Columbia, all South Carolina was ravaged and laid waste. The city which suffered so sorely may reasonably expect the just a.s.sistance of the State in the endeavor to repair her losses caused by war, and intensified by years of contact with political profligacy and misrule."

[148] "What the South should do is the caption that graces the editorial effusions of all cla.s.ses cf papers, and especially those of our own deeply solicitous and anxious friends of the North. Many of us think we know. The South should depend upon its own virtue, its own brain, its own energy, attend to its own business, make money, build up its waste places, and thus force upon the North that recognition of our worth and dignity of character to which that people will always be blind unless they can see it through the medium of material, industrial and intellectual strength. We may proclaim political theories, but it is the more potent and powerful argument of the mighty dollar that secures an audience there, and the sooner we realize it the better for us." (News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C., Nov. 27, 1880.)

[149] Editorial in News and Courier, Mar. 9, 1881.

[150] It is interesting and pathetic to observe how unaccustomed the South was to the most obvious facts of business. Concentration upon one crop had precluded from the Southern mind--speaking in the aggregate, of course--the first reasonings springing from diversification of industry and from ordinary compet.i.tion. But once the necessity for a different att.i.tude became apparent, the statesmanlike manner in which this was pressed must provoke admiration. The article in J. D. B. DeBow's "Industrial Resources", etc., pp. 124-125, presents the consideration that the cotton crop of Tennessee, amounting to 200,000 bales, 90,000,000 pounds at 6-1/2 cents an average pound, gave the producers 11-1/2 per cent. profit on their investment, while the manufacturers of the same crop made 24 per cent. profit--more than twice as great. "Are there any so blind as not to see the advantages of the system?" Much earlier Southern statements of the true fact from manufacturing cotton was to be found, but in the delirium of the latter days of slavery these were lost sight of.

Wm. J. Barbee, in his "The Cotton Question" pp. 138 and following, commends for the reflection of capitalists in 1866 the "Manufacture of Cotton by its Producers, suggestions of S. R. c.o.c.krill seventeen years ago." c.o.c.krill speculated as to the gain to be derived from cotton mills in the cotton states, and said: "Facts like these should fix the attention of the cotton planter, teach him his true interest, and stimulate him to become the manufacturer of the product of his field, instead of permitting others to reap the entire profit."

[151] News and Courier, Feb. 2, 1881. The editorial appeared apropos of the opening of books for subscriptions to the Charleston Manufacturing Company, which occupies a prominent place in the history of cotton manufacturing in the South. The editorial concluded: "This is the logic of the investment of money in cotton mills in Charleston. It will pay the stockholders their ten or twelve per cent., and the city at large will get a dollar's profit on every dollar's worth of raw cotton that the mills consume."

[152] While the manufacture of cotton was the most prominent manifestation of the newly quickened spirit in the South, it was by no means the only one. Every opportunity for productive enterprise was eagerly investigated; the discovery of one of these was hailed in the papers with an enthusiasm like the joy of a child in a new-found plaything. Properties of soils, the use of the telephone, the most profitable employment for State convicts were some of the topics of interest. There was, of course, a complete absorption for a time in railroads in the Southern Atlantic coast states, either for the further building of small independent lines, the merging of these into systems, or the extension of the coastal lines over the mountains into Tennessee.

There was also a phase of the movement distinctly moral in tone, as, e.g., the wide formation of temperance societies about this time.

[153] News and Courier, Aug. 1, 1881.

[154] While it is clear that the purpose to build cotton mills in the South arose irrespective of the means at the disposal of the people with which to do so, and would have come about had their financial limitations been even more discouraging, it is certainly true that a revival of business at the time of the commencement of the cotton mill campaign was a spur to the widespread investigation into the profitableness of cotton manufacturing. That there was coming to be money seeking investment, or at any rate capable of investment, was good reason for the searching out of opportunities for productive industry. The following gives an insight into the better times that had begun: "The year that is just finished will be to the present generation a red-letter one, for it brought to an end the long and weary period of enforced economy and restricted business that followed the panic of 1873, and put every branch of industry at work.

Agriculture was encouraged in the West and South by good crops and remunerative prices, the factories received more orders than they could fill, the railroads were blocked with freight, the mines were pushed to a greater extent than ever, and all other interests were quickened towards the end of the old year in a way that was full of promise." This summary of the year 1879 appeared in The Daily Const.i.tution, Atlanta, January 7, 1880. The return to specie payments did much to stimulate trade. A contribution to the Savannah, Ga. Morning News, quoted by W. H. Gannon in "The Landowners of the South and the Industrial Cla.s.ses of the North", pp.

6, 7 and 8. The article was probably written by Mr. Gannon himself.

[155] Quoted from Savannah Morning News by W. H. Gannon, The Landowners of the South and the Industrial Cla.s.ses of the North. "The cotton mill to the cotton field" was the familiar dogma which crystallized out of the course events were taking.

[156] The term is taken from The News and Courier, where it was used first, perhaps, in the issue of January 31, 1881. Before long it had come to be a phrase in everybody's mouth, and proved to be apt beyond any thought, probably, of the editor who first ran the line over a column of notices of new mills established.

[157] "The News and Courier busies itself with every enterprise, big and little, that will turn a dollar's worth of raw material into more than a dollar's worth of manufactures." (News and Courier, Mar. 19, 1881.)

[158] Reprinted in Daily Const.i.tution, Mar. 9, 1880.

[159] News and Courier, Jan. 12, 1882.

[160] Ibid., Feb. 22, 1881, see p. 11, note 3.

[161] Ibid., January 26, 1881.

[162] "While Charleston and other points in the State are discussing and initiating their cotton manufactories, Spartanburg is pushing ahead with her grand enterprise. (Spartanburg correspondence of News and Courier, Feb. 4, 1881.) The same purpose to encourage new mills actuated the News and Observer, December 24, 1880, in referring to Edward Richardson, of the firm of Richardson and May, cotton factors, in New Orleans ... the cotton king of the world. He runs ten to twelve plantations.... Has built a town (Cresson) ... where he has factories employing 400 looms, 18000 spindles and 800 hands. He is worth from $15,000,000 to $18,000,000, all acc.u.mulated in the South, the poor South." The encouragement lent by one mill to others to come into the field was recognized. In working for the establishment of the Charleston Manufacturing Company, the News and Courier was starting a force that would grow in power through the years: "When this pioneer company shall have made a good start, other companies will speedily follow...." (January 28, 1881). And again (Observer, January 2, 1880): "Another large cotton factory. The Charlotte Observer chronicles the erection in the immediate future of a cotton factory in that city, and regards it as the beginning of a prosperous growth of manufactures." An item in the Barnwell, S.C. Sentinel, reprinted in the News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881, declared: "The people of Charleston should have never hesitated as long as they have about embanking in the manufacture of cotton goods, and we firmly believe, as the ball is started, that it will be kept moving...." The Keowee Courier, in an editorial also reprinted in the Charleston paper, commended Charleston as setting an example to the entire State. A Georgia note, carried in the News and Courier of February 24, 1881, is especially specific in this connection: "If the organization of this manufacturing company (the Enterprise Factory, Augusta, Georgia, which was to be greatly enlarged after making good profits) proves a good omen--its extension may work as an invaluable stimulus to other enterprises now. It will hurry up the walls of the stupendous Sibley Mill, where 25,000 spindles will soon mingle in our industrial acclaim. It will quicken the shuttles of that giant corporation, the Augusta Factory." "It will spur on the Globe Factory and the Summerville Mills to renewed effort, while our South Carolina neighbors cannot but catch the spirit of improvement."

[163] Reprinted in the News and Courier, Jan. 31, 1881.

[164] Reprinted in the News and Courier, Feb. 23, 1881.

[165] Ibid., Jan. 27, Mar. 20 and May 4, 1881.

[166] The commencement of the movement was right clearly marked in the minds of the people. The News and Courier (August 1, 1881) in an editorial commenting on the address of Major Hammett on cotton manufacturing in the South, printed in that issue of the paper, had these words: "Major Hammett was the founder of the Piedmont Factory, which, under his management, is one of the finest and most profitable cotton mills in the South. The Piedmont Factory was projected and built before the opening of the cotton mill campaign in the South, and Maj. Hammett ranks, therefore, as one of the pioneers in cotton manufacturing in South Carolina."

[167] News and Courier, Oct. 13, 1881.

[168] "We people of the South should embrace every opportunity which, like the opportunity offered by this exposition, will bring among us intelligent and interested observers of our industrial condition, resources and apt.i.tudes. We have in the midst of us the raw material, so to speak, of a magnificent prosperity. We lack knowledge, population and capital. These may be slowly acc.u.mulated in the course of years, or they may be rapidly by well directed efforts to obtain them from beyond our own borders. We advocate the latter plan." (Interview with one of the officials of the exposition, printed in News and Courier, Mar. 14, 1881.)

[169] News and Courier, Dec. 27, 1881.

[170] An Atlanta dispatch to the News and Courier, February 25, 1881, said the executive committee of the exposition was fully organized, with H. I.

Kimball, chairman and J. W. Rickman, secretary. By March 8 (News and Courier) $20,000 had been subscribed in Atlanta, and General Sherman had headed the Northern subscription to the capital stock with $2,000. By the 17th (News and Courier) the stock had reached $40,000, four subscriptions of $1,000 each having been received from private individuals, and eleven of $500 each from like sources. Railroad subscriptions at this date were: Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, $10,000; Louisville and Nashville, $5,000; Richmond and Danville Road, $2,500; East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Road, $2,000. By the first day of April (News and Courier still) New York bankers seemed likely to increase by $5,000 the amount of subscriptions sought from them, and make their shares $30,000. Inman, Swan & Co. subscribed to $2,000 worth of stock Drexel, Morgan & Co. took $1,000; and Brown Bros. & Co. $1,000. Before the week was out, (News and Courier, April 5) the Boston Herald had taken $1,000 worth of stock. The executive committee had sent an agent to Europe and had made a tour of investigation through the North earlier.

[171] News and Courier, Oct. 21, 1881.

[172] Ibid., Oct. 7, 1881.

[173] News and Courier, Oct. 10, 1881.

[174] November 1, 1881. This paper maintained Mr. Hemphill as staff correspondent at the exposition for some time after its opening.

[175] News and Courier, Dec. 5, 1881. The speech details the number of miles of railroads that spread like a web over New England. "I have said that there is no better simple standard than the proportion of railroads to the square mile of territory of any State, by which to gauge the condition and prosperity of the people. I ask you, gentlemen of Georgia, if you will lag behind. I ask you men of the South what you will do in this matter." "I told you last year you needed the savings bank more than any other inst.i.tution; there is a vast unused capital in your Southern States in the hordes of the working people waiting for us, but there is one condition precedent to the savings bank--you must set up schools."

This paragraph ill.u.s.trates Mr. Atkinson's ideas singularly well. His advocacy here of common schools was a part of his great desire to see the South rebuilt, and so was his proposal of savings banks. But he could not understand how the South wished to see money taken out of savings banks and placed immediately in cotton mills, where it would be more productive to its owners, and to the country. As far as Mr. Atkinson went, his reasoning was astonishing sound, but where he stopped, he stopped irrevocably.

"Where are your dairies? You farmers of the hills of Georgia, from the mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee, aye, from the North c.u.mberland valley, from the French Broad River, even from that great blue gra.s.s country of Kentucky. Where are your dairies?" he seemed to think of everything but what to his hearers seemed most obvious. He suggested stock raising as profitable in the South, and finally the culture of Pongee, Tussah or Cheefoo silk worms, though the latter would be, he thought, perhaps of doubtful success. A week after this speech, Mr. Atkinson had a talk, reported in the News and Courier of May 8, 1881, with the press representatives in their pavilion. He discussed first "whether a single roller gin, operating against a saw gin, will do an equal amount of work with less motive power and less labor." He had arranged to take to Boston to lay before the New England Cotton Manufactures' a.s.sociation samples of cotton from all the gins on the grounds. "Mr. Atkinson has proposed another trial of every kind of gin, cleaner, press and picker, to be made in the building of the New England Mechanics' Inst.i.tute in Boston, in December, 1882. Every man in the South who is especially interested in cotton production and manufacture will be invited to plant a specific acre for use at this trial, which will be the second step in what has been so well begun in Atlanta. The picking and saving the cotton wasted on the ground, the cleaning, ginning and packing of the staple in good condition, offers to the Southern States a branch of manufacturing the most important in the whole series of operations which neither the Northern States nor Europe can share, but in which there is greater opportunity for profit in ration to the capital invested than in any other department of manufacture. 'No staple in the world,' said Mr. Atkinson, 'except the sugar raised by the Maylays, is treated so barbarously as the cotton produced in the Southern States of the American Union'." Tests, Mr.

Atkinson thought, showed that cotton from the Charlotte steam compress worked up more smoothly, though the yarn was somewhat weaker, perhaps, than cotton from the county compresses and loose cotton just as it came from the field. It may be that this interview was written by Mr. Atkinson himself, and run into the reports of the day at the exposition as sent out by the correspondents.

[176] Examples of this abound. The Manufacturer and Industrial Gazette, Springfield, Ma.s.s., was quoted in the News and Courier, Feb. 3, 1881: "They (the Southern States) have the advantage of cotton location, and, when they have secured new and improved machinery, will do any unrivalled business. They can save freights, buy cheaper and hire cheaper labor. They save buyers' commission, and warehouse delivery and cartage, sampling, cla.s.sing, pressing, shipping, marine risks and freight and cartage to interior towns, which amounts in all to some seven dollars per bale. The Northern mills also lose from receiving cotton poorly ginned, containing a good deal of leaf and sand, which is computed at six per cent. of the entire crop. The difference between the cost of a bale sent to Fall River, Ma.s.s., and a bale sent to Columbia, Ga., is eight dollars and six cents.

This makes a tax of eighteen per cent. which Fall River pays in compet.i.tion with Columbus. It is estimated that, if the planters could manufacture their cotton near home, they would save $50,000,000 in transportation.... As yet the South manufactures princ.i.p.ally coa.r.s.er goods, yarns, ducks, unbleached muslins, sheetings, shirtings, osnaburgs, jeans, etc., but the time is not distant when it will come to make prints, cambrics, laces, and all the finer qualities of staple goods."

[177] News and Courier, Dec. 5, 1881. (In the same issue excerpts from the address were printed.)

[178] News and Courier, Oct. 13, 1881. In the following editorial comment of the Augusta, Ga., Chronicle and Const.i.tutionalist (reprinted in the News and Courier, Dec. 8, 1881) the contrast between Mr. Atkinson's views and the facts as the South was finding them is made sharp: "Augusta has an abiding faith in her manufactories, despite Mr. Edward Atkinson, and people outside seem to think as well of them, at any rate they are willing to invest their money in such enterprise.... For such factories as the Augusta, the Enterprise and Sibley and the King are of immense importance to a city. There will be when all of them are at work, fully twenty thousand people dependent upon them, including the operatives and their families, to say nothing of the stores that will be supported by their trade. Each factory like the Sibley or the King adds five thousand to the population."

[179] "We have found that we cannot stand alone, that our fight must be made within the Union." (News and Courier, Oct. 24, 1881.)

[180] News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., July 13, 1881. When Garfield was shot, July 2, this paper carried an editorial of similar content. Five days after the appearance of the editorial here quoted, when recovery seemed a.s.sured, the paper said this: "One thing the President's desperate illness has unquestionably effected. It has done more than years of ordinary events in bringing the North and South together--vainly will the politicians flourish the 'b.l.o.o.d.y flag'. The people will not rally on the ensanguined colors again. For the Republic, as well as the President, the danger line is well nigh, pa.s.sed."

[181] News and Courier, Sept. 20, 1881. Garfield died at Elberton, N.J., September 19. That Charleston meant what she said is shown in the reception which was accorded the First Connecticut Regiment, invited to visit the city after attending the Centennial Celebration at Yorktown, Virginia. The New Englanders came six weeks after the death of Garfield--October 24. On this day the newspaper carried at the head of the first column the Connecticut and South Carolina flags crossed, above them the words "Yankee Doodle Came to Town", and below "A Welcome Invasion!" An editorial headed "Happy Day" had these words: "It does not strain the probabilities to believe that the visit of the First Connecticut Regiment to Charleston is the outgrowth and sentiment and interest which found expression when the President of the United States lay dying, and when after his long agony he died. Had not President Garfield been slain, and the South felt differently and, therefore, acted differently, this present unpremeditated fraternization would have been impossible. There is no shock now in removing mourning trappings to make room for the wreaths and garlands of joy. It is the fit succession of events, a consequence of the murder of the President. The blood of the Chief Magistrate is the seed of union. Yorktown in itself a reminder of the days when North and South had felt one aim and purpose, furnished the opportunity or occasion, and the unselfish sorrow of the Southern people during the President's mortal illness furnished the motive. The relation of the two events is too plain to be ignored or misunderstood. This is the significance of the coming of the Connecticut First from the land of abundance and diversified wealth to battle-scarred and struggling Charleston."

[182] Interview with C. C. Baldwin In the New York Herald, reprinted in News and Courier, July 11, 1881.

[183] The Daily Dispatch, Richmond, Va., March 5, 1880.

[184] News and Observer, Dec. 1, 1880.