(inaudible)
GEORGE STONEY: Have you ever had (inaudible)?
JUDTIH HELFAND: No.
JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.
HELFAND: OK. Is the eye contact -- contact going to be different?
JAMIE STONEY: Um, yeah, but that's all right.
GEORGE STONEY: Good. You want --
JAMIE STONEY: He's done it before, he shifted before while -- when you shifted
from person to person, so you saw him turn.GEORGE STONEY: Uh, would it better if she took my place?
JAMIE STONEY: No, it actually looks interesting like this.
GEORGE STONEY: OK, fine.
HELFAND: OK. All right. Um, I want to -- I haven't met anybody that can tell
me what it was like to go out organizing on the road from one community of strikers to another.CLYDE WARE: Well uh, what it was like?
HELFAND: Yeah, I want you to describe it to me.
WARE: Well, I just told people what I thought the benefits would be for
belonging to a union. Which Albert Cox and John Davis told me they'd get, but they never did get none of them. And uh, well uh, I didn't do that too long. 00:01:00I lasted about uh, six months until I quit, on that one account, they never did fulfill any of their uh, promises.HELFAND: OK, can we stop for a sec?
JAMIE STONEY: Mm-hmm.
HELFAND: Oh wait, so let me --
(break in video)
GEORGE STONEY: -- fifty-four. Um, uh, '34.
WARE: Thirty-four.
HELFAND: Right.
WARE: So say uh, the others were just, kind of wildcat strikes before then.
GEORGE STONEY: Got you.
WARE: And uh, well the -- they got all the textile plants that was organized to
come out on strike. But there was more that wasn't organized than there were that were -- were organized. And uh, but uh, as far as I know, Dwight was the only one that really blackballed a lot of the employees. And uh, the -- in 19-- 00:02:00well, the union elected me to go before the NRLB. I forget what year it was, but I think it was about '35 or '6, and uh, I went to Washington before the NRLB, and on behalf of all the blackballed employees from Dwight. And uh, I never did hear anything from it, and neither did the union. And uh, and the union sold us that, plus the NRLB sold us that. And you can't make nothing else out of it but that. And so, I never did have no use for the union after that.GEORGE STONEY: Now, how do you feel about Roosevelt promising to protect the workers?
WARE: Well, uh, he -- he stood -- should have done what he said he was going to do.
00:03:00GEORGE STONEY: Just -- just try and say, Roosevelt should have done.
WARE: Yeah, Roosevelt should have done what he said he'd do. But he didn't.
And uh, when -- when Roosevelt made that ultimatum, uh, he asked you to go and apply for your job, like you'd come out. And Dwight wouldn't listen to that at all.GEORGE STONEY: Did you feel betrayed by Roosevelt?
WARE: Yeah, you couldn't feel no other way.
CREW: Wait just a second here.
GEORGE STONEY: That's all right, I'm going to ask that, and can you pick up
my questions? (break in video) Did you feel -- Jamie, when you're --JAMIE STONEY: Yeah, we're ready.
GEORGE STONEY: OK. Did you feel betrayed by Roosevelt?
WARE: Sure, you couldn't feel no other way. Uh, betrayed by the union and the
-- President Roosevelt, because he didn't do what he said he would do. He -- he was a good fellow, I imagine his intentions were good, but he didn't uh, 00:04:00live up to what he said he was going to do. Uh, what he should have done was got an injunction against Dwight Manufacturing Company to put everybody back to work like they was when they come out on strike. Then everybody'd have been happy.CREW: Wait.
GEORGE STONEY: That's just --
(break in video)
HELFAND: Now I imagine prior, the reason why they sent you, was because you had
a good sense of what was going on all over. So I'm going to ask you two questions, and I'm going to ask them in order, OK? The first one is, I want to get a sense of what you were seeing when you went to these different towns to help organize.WARE: (inaudible)
HELFAND: OK?
WARE: People in different places in Georgia all wanted to be organized, all
wanted a union, all wanted more money. And more so they wanted to be recognized 00:05:00and treated right, instead of driving them like slaves. And uh, but uh, it -- it changed a whole lot after that, but not a whole lot, the -- uh, what's your next question?HELFAND: OK.
GEORGE STONEY: OK. Now uh --
HELFAND: Go ahead.
GEORGE STONEY: -- what was the name of the man who --
(break in video)
WARE: I forget his name.
GEORGE STONEY: Was it Monroe?
WARE: It seemed to me it --
HELFAND: Monroe Adcock -- Adcock.
GEORGE STONEY: That's right, Monroe Adcock.
WARE: Yeah, Monroe Adcock, he was from Huntsville, Alabama.
GEORGE STONEY: Yeah. No. Now, he went to that convention too, do you remember him?
WARE: Yeah. He was friends with them at the Lincoln Cotton Mill union.
GEORGE STONEY: OK, now I want you to -- so we'll start again, and you'll
just -- I'll say tell us about -- Jamie -- and then use his name.WARE: Monroe Adcock was from Huntsville, Alabama. He was the president of
00:06:00Lincoln Cotton Mill union. And he done quite a bit of traveling for the union. And uh, one weekend, his uh --HELFAND: We got a visitor.
(break in video)
GEORGE STONEY: OK, Jamie --
HELFAND: (inaudible) it is so nice to talk with you.
JAMIE STONEY: Rolling.
GEORGE STONEY: OK.
HELFAND: Where were we?
GEORGE STONEY: You were asking about (inaudible) the convention.
JAMIE STONEY: (inaudible) second question.
HELFAND: Oh. Well no, we didn't really finish the first one. Could you --
could you describe to me, tell me I would -- in fact, you had once told me you went to La Grange, you went to Trion, Georgia, you went to Hogansville. I want you to tell me, I went to Hogansville, and this is what I saw in this local. I went to Trion --(break in video)
HELFAND: OK?
WARE: Well, the -- the -- the ones that I went to, it already made (inaudible)
once for a meeting and got all the papers to come there.HELFAND: Could we start over one time and say the -- the local communities that
I went to, OK? 00:07:00WARE: Yeah. The local community did -- the people asked me to come over there,
and made arrangements for the meeting, and arranged for a place to hold it. And advertised it before I got there. And uh, I -- I didn't have any problems with the -- with the meetings (inaudible) because it was already arranged. But uh, I went to, uh, Rome, Georgia, Aragon, Georgia, Trion, Georgia, uh, Hogansville, Georgia, um, and (inaudible) Chattanooga Tennessee, twice. Where Monroe Adcock got shot at. The same company that owned that mill in Chattanooga 00:08:00that Monroe got shot at owned the one in Gadsden, too. And they was trying to organize it, too. And they liquidated this one before they ever did get really -- they got it organized, but they liquidated it right after they organized it.GEORGE STONEY: Now, you went to -- you said you went to the convention in New
York City.WARE: Yeah.
GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell us about that, and uh, did you remember Adcock
being there as well?WARE: Yeah.
GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about that.
WARE: Well uh, let's see, there was uh --
GEORGE STONEY: Just tell when it was, and then (inaudible).
WARE: Uh, I'm pretty sure that was in '34. And uh --
GEORGE STONEY: It was in August '34.
WARE: Yeah, August of '34. Uh, Albert Cox was the International
representative. He and I drove up in his -- in uh, International's car, and 00:09:00uh, uh, Monroe Adcock and somebody from Dallas Mills, and somebody from Merrimack Mills, and somebody from Lowell Mills, they came up there together, and I think they come in Mr. Adcock's car, they came in somebody's car, anyway. And uh, that's where lived the horse in the hotel lobby, with a bunch of [grapes?].GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about that meeting.
WARE: Well, we didn't accomplish anything. As -- as just uh, I think the
International just wanted to make people feel good. And didn't help anybody, didn't inform us of any good things that was going to happen. And uh, it was just an organized report of what they had done. And what they thought would be 00:10:00done. But uh --CREW: We can stop just a minute.
GEORGE STONEY: OK.
(break in video)
WARE: (inaudible) come out on strike.
GEORGE STONEY: Well now, in -- in uh, August of '34, they hadn't come out yet.
WARE: No, uh-uh.
HELFAND: August 14th.
GEORGE STONEY: They -- they didn't come out until uh, early September.
WARE: Yeah.
CREW: OK, let's -- let's wait.
GEORGE STONEY: Now the --
(break in video)
GEORGE STONEY: -- yeah.
WARE: Vice president.
GEORGE STONEY: And he called them, and it was -- he was warning against the
strike, but it was the delegates from Georgia who -- I mean, from Alabama who insisted on going on strike.WARE: That's right.
GEORGE STONEY: Well now, could you go back and tell that?
WARE: Well, uh, they -- they called this convention in New York City. And
Gorman was international vice president of the TWA, which was the Textile Workers Union of America. And uh, he didn't want a strike to start with, but the people in Alabama had been mislead, and they wanted everybody to strike. And uh, but that was most of the discussion that was up there in that meeting, 00:11:00but the -- Mr. Gorman was a -- he was a short, stocky fellow, and he was the international vice president of TWA, and he was very much against the strike, and -- but the delegates from Alabama pushed him for a strike.GEORGE STONEY: Who was among those?
WARE: Uh, Jim Holland from Dwight Manufacturing Company. Adcock, there was two
Adcocks, one from Dallas Cotton Mill, and one from Atlanta Cotton Mill. And uh, let's see, uh, I can't think of the man's name who was over at Sequoia then, but he was -- his name was Mayo, but I can't think of his first name. 00:12:00Uh, but he -- he went up there. And uh, Sequoia Mill here in -- but Chattanooga didn't send nobody.GEORGE STONEY: Do you remember a speech that Adcock made?
WARE: No, I don't.
GEORGE STONEY: OK. Uh, we have a record of him getting up and telling about
getting shot, and he -- he was kind of crippled by it.WARE: Yeah, he was. He was crippled over a year, about two years before he
fully recovered.GEORGE STONEY: Now do you remember a speech made by a man named --
CREW: Let's hold on a sec.
GEORGE STONEY: OK.
(break in video)
WARE: (inaudible) Norman Thomas was the socialist president, going to run for
president one time, and he did, on the Socialist ticket. He run uh, I think he run against Roosevelt.GEORGE STONEY: Did he speak to that convention?
00:13:00WARE: Yeah. But I forget what his topic was, he was politicking, I know that.
He was promising a lot of things that he couldn't deliver, just like Roosevelt. Uh, if -- if you're not in a position to do this thing, or got the backing to do it, you shouldn't promise it, because you've got to have the backing to do things that you're going to promise to do. If you don't have the backing to do it, you -- you're not going (inaudible).GEORGE STONEY: How could Roosevelt have gotten that backing?
WARE: Uh, he -- he could have, he should have – issued an injunction, I guess,
all of these companies that did comply with his uh, Roosevelt's uh, order. And he'd -- he'd have got every one of them's support back.GEORGE STONEY: Now that would have -- to enforce that, he would have had to call
out the --WARE: National Guard, maybe. And maybe after he issued that ultimatum though,
00:14:00maybe he wouldn't have had to call the -- the National Guard. Uh, uh, a company will try you out. And uh, see if you mean what you say, they don't (inaudible) answer [to bite then?].GEORGE STONEY: OK.
HELFAND: Yeah. You know, we (inaudible).
(break in video)
WARE: I didn't meet all them, but there was a lot of delegates there from
garment manufacturers in New York City, New Jersey, every little basement had a garment factory in New York. Yeah, you know that, you know it.GEORGE STONEY: Yeah. Sure.
WARE: And uh, it didn't -- some of them not much bigger than this porch, had a
little (inaudible) made blouses, scarves, or something.HELFAND: Now he who went to this convention, the only thing that he remembers
from this entire convention is that these guys, delegates from Alabama, came 00:15:00down there, he said that they were out on strike, they didn't have much money, they all stayed in a room together, they brought their food in with them, and they made this impassioned plea to everybody for support.WARE: Yeah.
HELFAND: Now you're the first person from Alabama (overlapping dialogue;
inaudible) that we've met --GEORGE STONEY: -- we've never talked to anybody else who was at that convention.
HELFAND: -- who was at that convention. So, you've got to tell me what it was
like to represent Alabama there.WARE: Well, uh, oh, we -- we was looked down upon just like they always have
been. Uh, at that time, people from New Jersey, New York, uh, Massachusetts, they tried to run the union. Uh, and they did. But uh, people in the South got sold out on first by organized labor. Second, by Franklin Delano Roosevelt. 00:16:00And they got sold out, and uh, left holding the bag. And I went to Washington, D.C., before the National Labor Relations board, and uh, about 90 employees involved in being blackballed, and they had three on that committee, do I remember the names, I don't, but I -- me, the union, and nobody else had ever heard anything else from the NRLB. We was supposed to have gotten back pay and everybody got a job back, NRLB, because they had got people back jobs then. But 00:17:00they didn't. The Dwight company bought them out. (break in video) About 90 of them.HELFAND: Well take a look at that. Like I said, that's a --
WARE: I know I'm on it.
HELFAND: OK. Well I'm going to tell you, that's a list, why don't --
that's a list that's -- that -- that lists all those folks. We found that in the National Archives under Dwight Mills. If you want to read any of those out loud and comment on them, we would appreciate any information you can give us.WARE: Any of these people? Well uh --
GEORGE STONEY: Just the first -- just describe the document you're holding.
What -- what have you got in your hands?WARE: This. It's charging dis-- discrimination against Dwight Manufacturing
Company, uh, in violation of President Roosevelt's orders that all strikers be re-employed. That was President Roosevelt's ultimatum. But the company 00:18:00didn't comply with it. And therefore, about 90 people were blackballed, and as far as I know, this -- I'm about the only one that ever really did go back to work anywhere much in a mill. Uh, my records, your record will follow you everywhere you go. And my record has always been on the plus side. I've never had a negative, uh, opinion about me in my supervision, or work. It's always been on the plus side. And uh, but I went to Washington for the NRLB.HELFAND: Did you use that document when you were in Washington?
WARE: Yeah, I had a list of everybody's name.
00:19:00HELFAND: Was that the list?
WARE: Yeah, I remember the Lowell Wright, and Jesse Smith, and Doug P. Howard,
and Barfield, oh, Aubrey Heath. Andrew Smith.HELFAND: Did you sit and -- and talk -- did you sit and -- and -- and uh, give
testimony to the NLRB with this list?WARE: Yeah. With -- with this list.
HELFAND: Can you describe that to us, and say this list?
WARE: Well I -- I -- I gave them all a copy of this list, and told them they was
all blackballed from the Dwight Manufacturing Company's employment. And they had went back through the personnel office and applied for a job back, and they 00:20:00was refused by Dwight's personnel office, a job. And therefore, uh, we were of the opinion that all the employees on this list be fully reinstated, with back compensation, and their jobs that they had when they'd gone out on strike. But, I never did hear union, (inaudible). Never did hear anything about it.GEORGE STONEY: Find your name on there. Read what it says. Can you find it?
HELFAND: Well --
WARE: (inaudible) go back up there and apply for a job either.
00:21:00GEORGE STONEY: Yeah. (inaudible)
WARE: Ruby Ware, that was my wife.
GEORGE STONEY: OK. All right.
WARE: And (inaudible).
GEORGE STONEY: Just a moment. Uh, let -- Jamie --
(break in audio)
JAMIE STONEY: We're rolling, we're ready.
GEORGE STONEY: OK.
HELFAND: Pick it up from there.
WARE: Do what --
HELFAND: Can you read -- read Ruby Ware, tell us what that is, and then comment
on that.WARE: Uh, Ruby Ware is listed on here as blackballed, and uh, she was my wife,
and she refused to apply for a job. She was an inspector in the cloth room at Dwight Manufacturing Company. So she refused to go back and ask for her job, because she had a job when they told her to strike.GEORGE STONEY: Did they give any reason why they uh, blackballed her?
WARE: Who, her? No. And uh, the -- the only reason they gave me was going to
00:22:00New York. And that didn't do the company any good, I talked to old Charlie Moody around the tennis court, I always (inaudible) from going to my home to the square, I always passed right by the edge of the tennis court. He was playing tennis down there one morning, I stopped and he started talking to me, he said, the reason you blackballed, you went to New York, and it didn't do us any good.HELFAND: Did he know what you were doing in New York?
WARE: What they doing?
HELFAND: Did he understand why you went to New York?
WARE: I went up there trying to get jobs back. Yeah, I went for the NRLB. Uh
-- (inaudible)HELFAND: That was in Washington.
WARE: This was after we were all blackballed, and uh, uh, (inaudible) Davidson
00:23:00called the NRLB in Birmingham and got an appointment for us to go up there, and uh, I went up there, and about half of all the employees (inaudible). But uh, I never did hear anything from it.(break in video)
GEORGE STONEY: Um, uh, uh, did -- were there several people in the room?
WARE: Just me and Albert Cox, and yeah. When I -- them people would come, uh,
people that came to Huntsville over there, I think there was seven or eight of them, and they all stayed in the same room, they got a big room, and rented some extra cots and they all slept in the same room.CREW: Just hold up a second.
HELFAND: You want me to take that?
(break in video)
WARE: (inaudible) wouldn't keep anybody that was an officer in the local
union. Uh, and (inaudible) president at one time, and when they elected JP 00:24:00Holland as president, they elected [Andy Sul?] vice president. And they immediately fired him, they fired both of them as partners, and uh, they fired both of them. And uh, I forget who was uh, secretary back then. But uh, they fired everybody who was an officer in the union. Uh (inaudible) --GEORGE STONEY: Well now.
WARE: -- they'd openly tell you why they're firing you.
HELFAND: Openly?
WARE: Yeah. Ain't you heard that?
GEORGE STONEY: Now, given that everybody knew that by that time, there'd been
two people fired (inaudible) where did these people get the guts to do that? 00:25:00Why did they keep going in the union?JAMIE STONEY: (inaudible) car.
(break in video)
GEORGE STONEY: Yeah.
WARE: That's kind of the $64 question. Mostly I just, uh, got by on hopes,
and hoped something better would happen. And uh, the thought --CREW: Let's hold off.
GEORGE STONEY: Let's --
(break in video)
WARE: -- the hopes that President Roosevelt's ultimatum, that uh, he would get
an injunction against all manufacturers that refused to employ all of the -- that was employed by them when they struck. And uh, but Dwight never did comply with that ultimatum, and so there was about 90 people blackballed.GEORGE STONEY: Now, uh, hold it just a moment.
(break in video)
00:26:00WARE: That -- that union, uh, didn't have anything to do with the local that
Albert Cox was running.GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, I know that.
WARE: And uh, they called it, uh, I forget, well the union members called it the
Popsicle Union.GEORGE STONEY: No, no, that's -- that's -- that's a little later, that.
WARE: (inaudible).
GEORGE STONEY: But no, the --
WARE: I forget what they did call that union when they first started organizing
it. It cost you a dollar to join, and a dollar every time anybody died. And it was company operated, and uh, but it was cheap insurance, as far as the insurance (inaudible) sometimes by law. But that -- Dixie --GEORGE STONEY: No, no, that's all right, that -- the Dixie Federation --
(break in video)
WARE: -- some people started joining the union that the company was backing.
GEORGE STONEY: No that -- the company union came after --
WARE: After that?
00:27:00GEORGE STONEY: After -- that came -- that came after the uh, strike was over.
The company didn't start organizing the Popsicle Union until after they went back in.WARE: Well, when the NRA come in, I was fixing looms, 55 hours a week. Uh,
Roosevelt issued the ultimatum, minimum wage, I forget what it was hourly, but anyhow, accept the minimum wage, had it raise us from $16.20 for 55 hours, to $20 for 40 hours. And uh, that was the NRA. And uh, it helped a lot of people at Dwight, and everywhere else I presume. A lot of people said well, be a lot of places that go broke, but I never did hear of one that went broke. But uh, but I -- I -- that old Dixie -- 00:28:00GEORGE STONEY: But there was one other thing that the NRA said. And that was
that people had a right to join a union.WARE: Yeah.
GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk about that?
WARE: Well uh, I never was much informed about that.
GEORGE STONEY: OK. Now, after the NRA came in, several people have told us that
the -- that the manufacturers started doing the stretch out.WARE: Yeah.
GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk about the stretch out?
WARE: Well uh, if -- if you was union, say you was a doffing up in the spinning
room, and you'd been a doffing say 10 sides of warp, they'd give you 12 or 14 to work. If you was weaving and had uh, 14 looms, they'd give you 20 looms. Uh, but that's -- that's the way they was a bucking the NRA. The company. And they would talk to you openly about firing you. The -- they 00:29:00didn't go behind your back.