Joe Jacobs Interview 2

HELFAND: So we were just -- we were just framing your position a little bit.

JACOBS: Well, course, we must remember that in that period of time, and subsequent too, that my situation was somewhat different than those who participated in the strike who were rank and file people who worked in the mill, and the reason it was different of course is because they lived 24 hours in the mill village, or in the community in which they did, whereas I didn't, I could always come back to the safety of Atlanta, if you want to call it that. But this may have been part of the motivation of people who said then, and said subsequent to then, that they were not happy with what the union did, or the 00:01:00union didn't win, and that the union lost the strike, and a lot of the other things that, uh, were disparaging of the union. Uh, from my position, I could see possibly more objectively, and that was what good did come out of it, and what changes it did make, and in the helping the people to solve their problems who were being blacklisted, how we move them out of the environment that they were in that they would have never gone anywhere, to a better environment, all of which had some effect on them. And of course, while you're -- while you're talking about that too, uh, one must remember that in the '30s and in the early '40s, if you represented unions and you were a lawyer that you were 00:02:00not the most popular lawyer in the town by any means, and that a lot of lawyers looked at you with sort of a, what I call a cocked eye or askance, and wonder what the hell kind of a guy you were, because remember, this was even before the CIO came into the picture, this was when the United Textile Workers was still the only organization within the picture, and it was a small union by comparison with other unions that were there, it was one of the few industrial unions, and when this tremendous revolt took place, they -- they didn't begin to have the manpower, they didn't begin to have the ability to cope with it -- I don't think anybody else could have coped with it, really, because there was no union that big in its own right that could've coped with it. And while -- while it 00:03:00succeeded in making me even more convinced that that was the way that I wanted to practice law and to work with trade unions, when I look back at it now, I can remember so many times that when I would go in to one of these, uh, towns, and we would hold a meeting in which we would try to explain to the people what we were doing, and I was being trailed by the sheriff, or I was being trailed by one of his deputies, that I wasn't being trailed for security but I was being trailed to keep an eye on me to see that I didn't do anything that they did not approve of, of course, I could tell many stories of how some of our people were actually in -- charged with things that nobody else would have been charged with if they had not been members of the union, and how difficult it was then to 00:04:00get 'em out of it. I can remember, for example (laughter) in -- in one case we had where they were trying to get a restraining order against us because of the fact that some of our people had decided that they were going to picket the plant because they had not been put back to work, and in that jurisdiction, which was in the state court at that time, I had to be introduced by the representative, the Bar, in that time, in that town, who had been designated by the Bar to do it, and who turned out to be the (laughter) one who represented the mill. (laughter) So in one minute he's introducing me as a fellow member of the Bar and qualified to represent these people who worked there, and then five minutes later he's there trying to get an injunction against us. And I 00:05:00think it's improved some since that time, there've been more of us who represent unions, although not that many in the South, but it means slowly, even there, that people's attitudes change, and I think that I could get an admission by lawyers who have always represented management against unions, that if it were not for unions, that a lot of the benefits that we kno-- take for granted in our society were developed because of us having trade unions. They either became legislation, or else it became custom. I can remember for in-- well, one of the -- one of the first agreements we tried to get in the textile industry, we tried to get vacation pay, and I can remember the lawyer for the company saying, "Anytime they want a vacation, all they gotta do is get their clothes together and they can have a vacation." Which meant that they would 00:06:00be leaving their jobs. Now, when you talk about vacation and anything -- industry, in the office, anywhere else, we're not talking about an unpaid vacation, we're talking about a paid vacation. Nobody thinks that unions did that, but they did. That's part of what they did. And it's not a law, 'cause you know, the lot of them say, "Oh, we don't need a union, there's a law that'll take care of us," there's no law that says that. Severance pay. There's no law that says you could get severance pay, except in a union contract, and not a lot of the employing companies, if there's severance pay they'll give you that, paid vacations, paid holidays, other things.

HELFAND: So -- so for you, you were saying before that you saw -- you saw -- you had a little -- you were a little bit objective, you saw the people who ran with it, and you saw the people who got really crushed.

JACOBS: Right.

HELFAND: And if you could just say it in that compact --

JACOBS: Right.

HELFAND: -- way, and so I decided, you know, it's like because I could -- because I was somewhat removed, I could be of service, or something.

JACOBS: I gotcha. And on reflection, what the strike did as far as I'm concerned to me, because of the fact that I could see not only the many good things that came out of it, but also the injustices that were perpetuated by because we did not have either good unions to fight, and big enough to fight, or laws to do it, if anything that I needed to increase my resolve to continue to work with trade unions to help them, that did it. And I've never regretted 00:08:00it, and as a result of it, why, I think I've been able to look at it from partly as an outsider, partly as an insider, but to also see the many things that happened and why it is that young people coming in the industry these days ought to take a good look as to how the union can help them not only in the textile industry, but in other industries too. And I have no regrets whatsoever about having continued to do it. I might not have made, uh, as little money as I have made with it, I might've become a millionaire, but I don't think I'd have been happy with it. (laughter) I think I'm much happier this way. (laughter)

HELFAND: Well, we've all benefitted. And out of your sacrifice, a lot of people have benefitted tremendously.

JACOBS: Oh, I don't know that you'd call a sacrifice, I think out of my work, let's put it that way. (laughter)

HELFAND: All right, well I think, um, now one other thing.

M1: What are you gonna, cut?

HELFAND: No, it's OK.

M1: Still running.

HELFAND: Will you always remember this revolution of hope? Could you -- I mean -- you've said that before --

JACOBS: Yeah.

HELFAND: -- you said it was a revolution of citizenship, will you always -- could you call it that and tell me why you'll always remember it, or what you -- why you want people to remember it?

JACOBS: Well, you know, we -- we keep looking back at things that we call turning points. In my view...one of the turning points in the history of this 00:10:00country was the, what I call the strike or the uprising of 1934, and the reason that I do is because that was the first time that any industry that was as widely separated and as completely dominated by those that I call the feudal barons, the owners, who when they talked about the workers, it was "my people," as though they owned 'em, it was not that they owned them as slaves, but they owned them really body and soul and control their lives from the time they were born till the time they died. And here's suddenly, and out 00:11:00of what they thought of nowhere, was this revolution, was this uprising, was this strike, the like of which we have not seen before, and the like of which we haven't seen since. And that's why when -- when you say when you look back, uh, and you ask what was most important thing in your life, or the most dramatic thing, inevitably it -- my thinking turns to the 1934 strike and what happened then, and in the days since that time, and...with the hope that before I go, they'll be organized. (laughter) (pause) (laughter) Amen, as we say. If I 00:12:00had some of my textile workers sitting here now, they would say "amen," and that would be the size of it. Have we covered it?

HELFAND: I think so, um. Did we just hear all of that at the end, all of that talking in the background?

M1: You could hear it but it's --

(break in audio)

HELFAND: You know, this was not the first time Southern workers had ever tried to organize.

JACOBS: Nope.

HELFAND: This was the first time that they organized at this massive level, so could you make that leap for us, could you say, "now listen, all this organizing, it wasn't the first time, they'd done it before," if you could talk about some of those earlier attempts and the difference, that would be really helpful.

JACOBS: Well, when -- when -- when you -- when you talk about the 1934 strike, or the uprising as I can call it, or revolution as I continue to call it, that was different than earlier efforts to organize in the textile industry in many 00:13:00ways.

HELFAND: OK, I'm gonna have to cut you -- could you say, "this -- this strike in '34, this period of time, this, you know, NR -- this organizing post NRA, this was different than the organizing that happened before," the reason I'm asking you to do this is this won't go in the reflective part of the film --

JACOBS: Yeah.

HELFAND: -- this will go a little earlier, 'cause we need to -- we don't want people to think that this was the only time they ever did it.

JACOBS: Right.

HELFAND: OK.

JACOBS: All right. This 1934 uprising, or effort to organize the textile workers, wasn't the first time that there had been these efforts. There had been many efforts before in other parts of the country, started way back in the turn of the century as a matter fact. In the South also there had been efforts before that, but those were isolated.

HELFAND: All right, now what I want you to do is -- we're just talking about the South now, so say, "This was not the first time," -- that this was not 00:14:00the first time in the South we ever organized like this before, and then just go to the earlier efforts, that'd be great.

JACOBS: All right, we'll start it over.

HELFAND: OK.

JACOBS: This wasn't the first time that efforts were made to organize the textile workers in the South. There was efforts, but this one was different. What made it different was this was on a tremendous scale, all over the South. It covered the South. The other ones had been in particular mills, particular places, for example, Elizabethton, Tennessee in the early '20s, they had strikes up there the like of which nobody would believe, and they organized. Gastonia had strikes, North Carolina in a number of places they had strikes, primarily, all of these were one mills, two mills, one town, things of that 00:15:00kind. This wasn't that. This was all over the South, wherever the mill was, almost without exception. I don't know what the statistics would show, but I know that based upon what was happening at the time, and the calls that we had, and people we were trying to recruit, and the organizers we were trying to find, and the calls for help that we got everywhere, Tennessee, Kentucky, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi -- what little there was -- Arkansas -- the one, two little mills that they had over there -- Louisiana and backwoods that we didn't even know there were mills there, we had calls for it. That's what made it different. And it was different. Thousands of people. No other textile strike prior to that time ever got anything like 00:16:00newspaper coverage, nor did it spread over the number of people. And it didn't make any difference, by the way, at that time, there were some mills that made thread and some mills that made cloth and some mills that made grey-goods and all kinds of things, all of them were involved, it didn't make any difference what the product was, including the -- the beginning of the rayon industry, they were involved in it too, and some of them came that had tried to come out before joined in with it. Even some of them that had organized in the rayon industry joined in with it too to show their support, and they used to send people to help, to help organize, that was the difference in it, and that's what made it so much more memorable in the terms of history of people trying to improve their lives, because it was widespread.

HELFAND: Great. The big difference was that Roosevelt was behind them, I mean, that's why -- that's the difference in the isolation, isn't it?

JACOBS: Well, no, they were -- what -- what I think created the difference was a number of things, it wasn't just political. At that time, there were shifts in machinery, there were changes in operations, there were -- we got the beginnings of what I call the time and motion study people were coming in at that time, the people that were running the mill weren't as content with the profits that they were making on it, so what they did was that they were buying new machinery and adding workloads on and making changes in the plant which disturbed the routine of the plant, and here are people who had been working for one, two, five, ten, whatever number of years, they kept changing. In addition to that, there was the talk about changes in the laws, recognizing unions, re-- 00:18:00giving people a voice in the plant, giving -- making changes in the community -- and we had, as you know, we were in the middle of a depression where people were being laid off, where people were no longer having jobs -- you know, a lot of public forget that before the strike took place, a good number of people in the textile industry had been laid off, and they were still in the village, and they still had no work and they still had no money, and they found out that this pat on the back from the company didn't pay for groceries, and they ran out of credit at the company store. All of these combined together, this was part of the scene, that's why when -- when we talk about it, we can't say there was one particular thing that did it, it was a combination of things. And there was 00:19:00talk that this was a new day dawning, this was a new era where you could get -- live better and improve better, and where people could make a better living for themselves, and that was part of the talk that was going on at that time. Won in the textile industry 'cause that was at the bottom of the bottom in terms of pay, in terms of work conditions. In some of the other places in the other ends of the country, people were beginning to get better wages out of it, if you remember we -- we -- we were just in the automobile industry, they were -- what was it? I don't know if Ford's $5 day had come in then or not, but that was big deal talked about it. There were other types of industry that they were makin' more money. In the -- in the steel fabricating industries, they were beginning to make a better living. That was a -- that was a feeling of change, and that was part of the change -- they wanted to be part of the change. And 00:20:00that's why they did what they did -- that's the reason they came out so fast. I can remember when we were telling them, "Take it easy, take it easy, take it easy, will -- we'll find the answers to it," and -- and -- and they weren't taking it easy, 'cause they weren't content. They were -- there was a lot of discontent, and those are things that I think in this country has motivated a lot of our changes that we have, things build up. But this was the difference between that organizing drive as compared to the isolated ones in different places.

HELFAND: Great. Now you didn't (inaudible) right?

JACOBS: Of the, uh, textile?

HELFAND: Yeah.

JACOBS: No. No.

HELFAND: Do you remember when you -- when the message came from that convention that, "OK, we're going to tell everyone to go on strike"?

JACOBS: (laughter) Of course.

HELFAND: Could you just tell me about that?

JACOBS: All right, there was a convention of the United Textile Workers in August, and one of the primary subjects was "we want a strike," and this was primarily coming out of the South. I did not go to the convention. I probably could have if I'd had the money, but I'm sure I didn't have it at that time. Uh...as I watched the papers, it was apparent that the people who came primarily out of the South, and this is another significant thing too, were not taking the advice of the leadership of Gorman at the time, who was saying, "Take it easy, we'll work this thing out, when we're ready to strike, if 00:22:00we have to strike, we'll strike -- we may not have to," he was trying to keep the lid on the boiling pot, and the lid was difficult to keep, and it was being resisted. And then the next I knew, and I was as surprised, I think, as a lot of other people down here, (inaudible) when the approval was given that if you want to strike, we're ready to go -- but even then, if I remember correctly on the approval, it was to be on the basis that if you wanted to strike, what you would have to do would be to request the permission to strike from the international union, and then they would try to arrange to have people come down and work with you, or either they would be done. They didn't wait when they (laughter) when the convention was over, they were ready, and they came out, and many places against the -- where they had established locals, and 00:23:00there were a few of them, against the advice of their leadership there, because they felt that now's the time, and that same movement of change that I was talking about was in the air.

HELFAND: Was it exciting? Was it exciting?

JACOBS: Was it exciting? (laughter) Of course it was. When -- when that many people come out, and -- and -- and I never have gotten over my amazement as to how many people responded. We had no idea -- none whatsoever, that anything like that number would respond. And it wasn't all on the first day. It started and as it -- like a snowball, kept growing, and growing, and growing, and growing, and growing. After a while, oh, I forget now whether we were into, oh, fifth, sixth, seventh, eighth day of it, we looked around, we said, "Well, are there any mills open?" That much had had transpired. And we were getting 00:24:00reports from everywhere, everywhere. And you know, I've seen organizing drives where we've had people go in and where folks had been, uh, unhappy with their situation, and you had -- and the organizer will talk to them and they, "Yeah, I'm ready to sign a (inaudible), I'm ready to join the union," and you succeed in signing person after person after person. I have never seen anything like this. You didn't have to wait for them to -- to -- to go to their house and talk to them, they came to you. They looked for you, they looked for the union, they were looking for somebody, and where there were no unions, there were -- there were telegram after telegram after telegram -- there were committees that came to Atlanta to the headquarters of the AF of L, and said, "Where's the organizer, we want to sign up, we want to get a charter," in those days, the -- they talked more about, "Well, we got to 00:25:00have a charter so that we're an established union," and -- and -- it was far beyond anybody's not only dreams, but expectation, and that's what overwhelmed everybody at the beginning, because there were so many involved, there's no way you could handle it. (laughter) I don't want to draw any similarities, but it's -- it's -- it's -- if you don't prepare, there's no way you can assemble the forces, there's no way you can get it. Even with help that we got from other unions, I can remember we had other unions who were not industrial unions who were trade unions, and they -- some of their people helped us too, as a matter of fact, some of their people became -- the husbands would belong to, like, a building trades union, and the wives would work in the -- in the mills, they -- they were among the ones who became leaders, the wives would ask the husbands what -- how they do in their unions, 00:26:00and that's what made it different than anything else.

HELFAND: How would the South be different today if it had worked?

JACOBS: Give me that again.

HELFAND: How would the South be different today if they had succeeded at the time?

JACOBS: If they what?

HELFAND: If they had succeeded, if the mill owners --

JACOBS: Oh, if they had succeeded. (laughter) Well...you know, when we saw the, uh, industry, as I know it, begin to look for what I call cheap foreign labor, more than one time I said to myself that if we had succeeded in those days, that industry would still be in this country, we would still be making textiles of 00:27:00all kinds, garments of all kinds, and the thousands of people who have been displaced from those mills would still have jobs, and good paying jobs, and not be working in these service industries at minimum wage, because their contracts would have seen to it that they would not be chunked, and we didn't have -- and I'm trying to remember the term of it now because they're using it in Europe now in the European community and it's -- it's called human dumping, and we would not have the human dumping that we have in that industry that has taken place in this country, not only in that industry, but in other industries that are not organized.

HELFAND: I think I'm going to ask you one more thing, and then that's it, I promise. One of the biggest -- saddest things that I guess occurred was that these communities of descent, these communities of citizens, real citizens, were totally dispersed.

JACOBS: Yeah.

HELFAND: And that must have had a devastating effect for you to watch that.

JACOBS: Well, when you -- when you talk about among the things that happened after the strike, where just any number of these people were blacklisted and they went from one town to another to another to another to try to get jobs, or where they decided, "well, we're no longer going to stay in the mill village and work under the conditions we did," well it meant the big movement of people who, at one time, it's been living for years in that same county or community, and while we saw it, and while in some places I think we may have 00:29:00regretted that that's what happened, and while it did have an effect because it meant then that the voices that had been trying to improve their conditions and who did not agree to go along and accept anything that was handed to them, or that was told to them, we still saw that, at least I did, as the basis that here are some people who have at least the spirit and the desire to belong to a union and to improve their lot, and among them were people who when the CIO came along in the '50s and in the early '50s were among some of the leaders. 00:30:00They were among some of those who became the leaders in the wave of organization that took place after the World War II, and that of course was compounded also by the fact that during that war, while the woman that gotten jobs, and there was a new day dawning for women workers in plants, when they went to came out of the army, why, the people came out of the army, where the people who were black were put on jobs that they never had been permitted to work on because when we talk about the textile industry today, we're not talking about a one-race industry, we're talking about a two-race industry, we're not talking about a one-gender industry, we're talking about a two-gender industry. In '34, it wasn't. In '34, it wasn't because the ownership of it saw to it that the people who worked were white, and they were primarily men. There were some jobs that were known as women's jobs that are no longer just known as women's 00:31:00jobs, been a lot of changes there, but the thing about it is that while we lost a lot of the people who were the dissenters in the little town, those seeds spread to other areas, and that became the basis of some of the CIO organizing, F of L organizing, the big push that took place in the '40s and '50s in the organization of trade unions over the country. And it had to have some effect back home too because not all the dissenters moved out. Some of them did what they could until they had a chance again.

HELFAND: Great. We're done.

JACOBS: What else?

(break in audio)

HELFAND: Just gonna be quiet for 30 seconds.

M1: I'm rolling, room tone. (pause) End room tone.

(break in audio)

JACOBS: Thi-- this is one that goes 365 days a year. Well, let's see, I think this is it. Nope.

(break in audio)

JACOBS: -- keeps me sane too. (laughter) No, that's up to you people what you want to do. Now, you see I still don't know exactly whether she wants me to talk about what these are or what they aren't.

J. STONEY: You could just look at some stuff without talking for a while.

JACOBS: OK.

HELFAND: Yeah, just do what you do when you're in here by yourself.

JACOBS: Well, when I'm in here by myself, I do like this. (long pause) Oh, 00:34:00that's pretty.

HELFAND: Why do you do this, Joe? (pause) Joe, why do you keep your orchids, why do you collect them?

JACOBS: Well, that keeps me sane. When I come down here, I can forget ev-- all the problems of the world, and then -- and then there's so many different kinds too, it's like human beings. Each one different shape, and grows a different way and likes a different thing. And they come from all over the world too, and there's some of them that will bloom one day, and there's some of them that will stay bloomed for weeks, like that one that's hanging down there, that's one of the most unusual species that there is. And that's the first time I have ever bloomed it, and it'll stay bloomed like that for probably three or four weeks, and here's one right here that blooms today, and tomorrow it's gone. It's all over. And then you see, there's some of them like human beings too, these are not doing too well so instead of putting them in incubators, we put them in our incubators so that we can see 00:36:00what they're gonna do. Of course, when people talk about orchids, they usually think about this type of orchid over here, which is the one that's more commonly seen and known because they wear corsages so they see more of them. Just take a look at the color on that, and then take a look at this one here. These grow in Hawaii more than anywhere else, look how bright and brilliant that is. It's fantastic color.

HELFAND: Joe, could you draw a metaphor between these little orchids, even the tiny, tiny little ones that sprout, and people, or even the uprising of '34 in Southern textile workers?

JACOBS: Well, the -- these orchids, uh, I guess in a way are like some of the, uh, human beings, they want to express themselves, and they want to live a 00:37:00healthy sort of life, and some of them do it quite easily, and some of them don't. And the amazing thing about it is though that if you can get a group of the same kind together, and get them to growing, you'll find that -- that they seem to thrive by being together or close with others, and when it's one that's isolated or one that is a different kind than the other, it may not like that climate at all, it may disappear, that's ways that like a lot of people when they get in the unions, they -- they get together and they work with people that they're compatible with and have the same objectives and same ideas. And that way, why, they're able to grow and able to get somewhere too. And the thing though that amazes me about it is that you -- there's so many 00:38:00different kinds, there's 40,000, and I've got a lot of different kinds here, and still they can all be compatible one way or the other, just like in a trade union, they can have all kinds of different personalities and still -- and still do well. Course, there's -- when you don't care of them, they can't strike but they sure can wither and die away too. And that's what makes orchids interesting too. Let's just go back over on the other side, I want to see if they aren't some over there that I can take a look at. And see, the amazing thing about it is like take a look, see here? This grows, and this is where the flowers on, they've already fallen off, just like this one here will have a long extension on it, do you see it? And it'll go up there, that -- 00:39:00and it'll be, oh, 15, 21 of them, and they'll be white with long white tail dragging behind it, and it takes a certain kind of bee to pollinate it, this is like those over -- the purple ones over there, only this is a different -- different family. Here's one here which is still a different family, different configuration, but they all make up part of -- of orchids. Here's another one with another cross, still, more parts of orchids.

HELFAND: (inaudible) through just a little bit at a time, don't say much, and if you get to a certain flower that speaks to you about (inaudible) --

JACOBS: Yeah. OK.

HELFAND: If you can make a little story or a little metaphor.

JACOBS: Now, this is -- this is one of the things that intrigues me. Here, here's one that grows erect, long with a lot of flowers, this way it grows in the wild. Here's one that's been hybridized, look what we've done to it. Instead of it being just straight purple, it's purple with a certain amount of white and yellow in it, and although this is not the best of the year for this kind of a plant, here's a kinsman of it. Just take a look at the color, isn't that fantastic? And there's some of the other color too.

J. STONEY: If you could just (inaudible) while you're holding it? One sec.

JACOBS: Yeah. And that's what makes growing orchids interesting, and you can 00:41:00talk to them and they'll respond, too. They'll tell you whether they're happy or not, course, I don't have my radio going here, I usually, when I'm down here, turn on the station that has classical music so that I know that they will enjoy it like I do. (laughter) There's what they call a double one, see, here's one leaf and there's a second leaf. And here it is without the double leaf, and look at the color. All of these anthuriums, this is one without the color. Look at this one. All kinds of colors, some of them straight white...these will last a long time. They grow primarily in Hawaii, they like air, they like light. See the second leaf? And then of course 00:42:00here's the snout. Then while we look at it, here's one that comes from down in Selby Gardens, which is world-renowned for -- and these anthuriums. And it's an amazing -- this is it's so-called bloom.

HELFAND: OK, let's just -- we're just going to get -- [00:42:29]

[Silence]

[Silence]

[Silence]

[Silence]

[Silence]

[Silence]

[Silence]

[Silence]

[Silence]

[Silence]