Joe Jacobs, Roy Wade, Don Rodgers, and Angie Rodgers Interview 1

 GEORGE STONEY: Hold it everybody.

JAMIE STONEY: When you're ready. Anytime, [Jeff?].

JOE JACOBS: While we're looking at these papers and you people were involved at the Cannon Mills, here's one on the Cannon Mills. It's pretty interesting and it helps to point up what really happened in '34 and '35. Now in order to do that take a look at this. Remember I told you that we were busy fixing up statements and affidavits?

ROY WADE: Right.

JACOBS: Well, under the date of October in '34, right after the strike, [there's your?] affidavit. What does it say?

ANGIE ROGERS: "I was a member of the general textile strike and when the strike was settled I went back to my job to go to work and I was told that I was 00:01:00not needed anymore. I had tried to serve -- I had tried at several places to get work and they refused to give me work because I had worked at the Cabarrus Mill prior to the strike."

JACOBS: In other words, they used and it says that the excuse not to put this Jessie Benson back because she had worked at Cabarrus Mill before and they wouldn't take her back. And here's a bunch more. All of them that we got together back in October and then we sent these off to the National Recovery Board. What happened after that?

WADE: Can you describe some of these people when they was given these?

JACOBS: All right. What happened was that we had -- we either came down to where these affidavits were taken, if they were taken in Concord or if they were taken in Georgia, wherever, and we sat down with them and we went over this. We got them to give us the information. We then got it typed up. We then got them to sign it. We worked day in and day out. Just look, here is just one batch of 00:02:00them. This must be, oh, 10 or 15 of them right here. All different kind of jobs and in each one of them, why we put down where they worked and what the plant was and what the particular job was that they came out on. Here's a batch of them. All of this in '34 that we were working up and we're trying to get some help for them. Meantime they're being evicted, meantime they're being discriminated against. OK? We go to '35. Here's '35. Here's with respect again to Cannon, what's the date on that?

DON RODGERS: July 16,1935.

JACOBS: All right, how about you reading this letter that was sent.

DON RODGERS: "Mr. Samuel R. [McClure?]. Dear sir, we are waiting and waiting for the board to do something for us and they have not done anything as yet. The Cannon Mill Company, Plant number six, has just about laid off all of our union members and taken on farmers. The farmers work in the mills and work a 00:03:00crop on the farm. They have laid off people in company owned houses and let them take our jobs. The people ask their bosses what they are laid off for and they say that they don't have anything for us to do, but they don't fail to take on the farmers. If there is anything you can do you had better do it at once. If you don't, the people are going to take the matter into their own hands. They are talking a strike Saturday, July 21st at 10:00."

JACOBS: And this is July of a year later and the people are still militant and going to talk about a strike. Is the union still around? Of course it is because who signed that?

DON RODGERS: This is signed by L.A. Cook, the secretary of local 1902.

JACOBS: Right.

WADE: Right.

JACOBS: Read some more of that.

DON RODGERS: "Whenever they lay any of us off we have to take a job on relief at 20 cents per hour. If we have a family of 8 or 10 or even 12 they won't let but one in the family work on relief. We can't get anything but just what 00:04:00we worked for. The people are getting tired of being done this a way. I want to know if the Wagner labor bill covers this discrimination. If so, just let us know. All people in this plant are being laid off and struck last fall in the general strike."

JACOBS: And that's signed by?

DON RODGERS: By L.A. Cook, Secretary of Local 1902.

JACOBS: And this is almost a year later.

DON RODGERS: Right.

JACOBS: Now what happened at Cannon after that? Here's a report that was sent from a man named Toliver -- no, a man named Williams, who was staying at the Ainsley Hotel and he sends this also to Mr. McClure who is the executive assistant of the textile labor relations board. That's who that letter was written to that you just read and in this one he talks about a conversation that he had on July 17th. July 17th -- that letter is July 16th, they got the letter 00:05:00and this is a conversation on the 17th and he says that you instructed your representative, that's of the textile labor board, to proceed to Kannapolis on the above assignment and your representative got there on the 19th in company with H.D. [Lisk?] -- UTWA organizer. We used to call him Red Lisk. At that time he was red headed and wasn't bald headed but since then he's got bald headed and he ain't red headed. And I think he's gone by now. Anyway, this letter tells about a meeting that they had with Mr. C.A. Cannon of Cannon Mills and they had a meeting in his office, they discussed things in detail, and then it keeps on telling about Cannon's letter where he said there was considerable curtailment of workers and if only out of 39 out of 702 employees laid off that 00:06:00claimed discrimination, he says that's a proof that they didn't discriminate against them. Let's go further. Around that same time, and this is all -- if you noticed, July '35 --

WADE: Thirty-five.

JACOBS: And this is McClure dealing with the secretary L. A. Cook in a letter of 1902. Here's a letter to Mrs. Perkins that Cook wrote in July. Cook is the officer of the local union. The union's still around. Here's a letter that Mr. Toliver wrote in July just prior to that saying, "Early last week H.D. Lisk," that's Red Lisk again, "discussed this case with me and is getting up full information so we can interview Mr. Cannon." Here's Mr. Toliver in August the 30th. "Since my letter of August of 27th he said he'd gotten another letter from Cannon and I discussed the case." See it here with Mr. Ed -- H.D. Lisk, Organizer and also with the local union officials in Concord. 00:07:00Must be still alive. This is in, again, August the 3rd of 1935.

WADE: I can see why the people got the idea that the union might have left them because it was taking so long to get -- I mean, the union's writing letters on behalf of the workers pleading with the textile labor relations board to do something and they was doing nothing.

JACOBS: Right. Not only that, but listen to this now you see it, now you don't business. Here's the last paragraph of Toliver's letter. He was the mediator on the textile labor board staff. "In my opinion no discrimination has been made to the knowledge of Mr. C.A. Cannon. However, there is strong probability that some of the complainants may have been laid off by a superintendent or overseers because of their union activities." That means that he smells a rat.

DON RODGERS: So that they asked Charlie Cannon and he didn't know nothing about it --

JACOBS: Don't know nothing.

DON RODGERS: -- instead of asking the people who actually laid the people off.

JACOBS: Don't know nothing is right. Let's go further. We are hitting 27. Here he says that they're again dealing with Cannon Mill up in Concord and he talks about complainants and they have the names of seven who weren't working in the plant when they presented it and Cannon said he wasn't familiar, he promised to investigate. "In the meantime, the workers and Mr. Lisk have again complained to me that Mr. Cannon has had ample time to give me this information. They are becoming very restless. I called Mr. Cannon on the phone yesterday. He said he'd been delayed in getting up the information but would let me have it promptly. I'm in constant touch with Mr. Lisk here." That's the union organizer. "He's cooperating with me in every way to try and get some adjustment. As soon as I hear from Cannon I will let you know." What the companies were doing they were stalling.

WADE: Stalling.

JACOBS: Stalling. They were starving the people.

WADE: They wanted people out of their homes all the time.

JACOBS: And these go into September and it still wasn't settled. Here's September 21st. Here's McClure again writing to Mr. Lisk who was pursuing the thing. Here's another list of names that was submitted at that time. All of this was gotten up by people like myself. Red Lisk, Dean [Hollihan?], all of us. That's what we did for a long year and then we finally wind up in this set of things on Cannon which with a September 13th letter and here's what Toliver says and I want you to listen to it. He said, "I was very sorry to hear from Mr. H.D. Lisk on yesterday." This was September 13th, the letter. "That the plant had increased production and instead of taking back any of its 00:10:00former employees they were employing outside help." You remember the letter said they were hiring farmers instead of our people? Exactly. "Mr. Lisk stated that while he was afraid that very little had been accomplished, he would appreciate it if I would contact local union officials in Concord again as they are very restless and he thought that probably I might be able to help matters. I had a conference with three of the local union officials and promised them I would again try to see Mr. Cannon. Will do so in the week ahead." Then he says, "As formerly advised, I still believe that Mr. Cannon would have re-employed the complainants were it not for the fact that formal complaint has been filed with the labor board." That's another excuse. You follow that? "This is a supposition on my part but under the circumstances I am afraid Mr. Cannon will not be easily induced to go into the trouble of trying to make any extra effort to employ the complainants." In other words, you can file the complaint, we ain't gonna do nothing for you. Period. That's part of the 00:11:00story of Cannon. And just to wind it up in a fashion so that's close to us right here. Right up the road, LaGrange, I think that's 27 miles from here, just about that same time of the year, and I have it in my day book that I brought down with me and I can get the exact date, but about that time of the year, it was either in September or October, 1935. Over a year later the secretary treasurer of the local union, some people came to his house, knocked on the door. When he went to the door they grabbed hold of him. They threw him in a car. They took him down a dirt road. They beat the hell out of him. They told him that was part of what he got for still messing around with the union and that if he knew what was good for him that he would leave LaGrange. And 00:12:00they left him on the road. He finally got back. He went to a farm house and knocked on the door and finally got them to ride him back to his home. When he got to his home he called his father-in-law, a man named Estes who was the president of the union but not very active. The real active one was George -- it was Henry -- George Henry. I always mix his name up because they're two first names. I told him he had them to mix me up. He said, when he got in touch with us the next day, when I say "us" he got in touch with me, George Goodge and Hollihan. We were still around, still trying to help. And he told us that he recognized the voices of the men because when they grabbed him they put a bag over his head. Why, when they were talking they threw him in the back seat of the car. He recognized some of the voices and when they were beating 00:13:00him the bag came off partly from it and he could see one man whom he recognized as being an insurance company man who did the insurance for the Callaway Mills. When he told us about it, I said, "Well, what we gotta do is see if we can get him indicted before the grand jury." We knew they wouldn't take a warrant out against him. So we arranged for him to go to the grand jury. When he went down to the grand jury room to testify against them and the solicitor had arranged for him to go when he hit the court house, the sheriff grabbed him and his father-in-law with him, and they searched them. And when they search them they found a gun on each one of them and they arrested them under an old Georgia statute of bringing a gun in and around a court house. The only one that could do it they said was the sheriff. They arrested them for carrying a gun without a permit and they arrested them for carrying a concealed weapon. And instead of them getting in front of a grand jury, they put them in jail and he called us 00:14:00again and we had to make bond for him. I forget how many thousand dollars and we got him out. Listen to the end of this story and then you'll see how the companies was still fighting it. "The case was called. When the case was called to come up we had done some investigating to find out what had happened. I had arranged with a solicitor that of the six cases, three against his father-in-law and three against him, that we would try one. And whatever happened to that one would cover the others. We picked the jury, we put them on the stand. When I say "on the stand", we put the sheriff on the stand and he testified that he -- when they came to the courthouse he found them with a gun. How did you know that they had a gun on? Well, we just figured they would because they had been in that strike and they were the leaders of the thing.

WADE: Oh, wow!

JACOBS: So I said to the sheriff, "How do you know that he doesn't have a permit? He said, "Well, I looked down in the court of order there and we couldn't find a permit." And then he said -- I said, "Well, how did you get the business of carrying a gun around a court house?" "Oh," he says, "When I talked to the district attorney he says the only one that can carry a gun around the courthouse is the sheriff." And he said, "When he told me that," he says, "I knew we had to make the case against him because he was carrying a gun to the courthouse. He might use it." We had found out, now listen, the first case that we tried was that he didn't have a permit. And the reason I wanted to try that, he let me pick the one to try so that it would govern all the others. That was our understanding. I had gone down to the court of ordinary and checked and found that the court of ordinary when they got the permits, had this stack of permits there and then they were supposed to put 00:16:00it in this red big book, permanent record. And the court of ordinary was a lady and she had not kept up to date on it and she did not put that permit in the book. And as a result he had his permit laying right there and it hadn't been put in the book and when the sheriff looked for it he couldn't find it. And when he couldn't find it, that's how he did this case on us not having a permit. I got them to bring the court of ordinary lady up and she came up and brought -- I told her to bring her books up, I had to subpoena. She brought her books up and when she testified, she testified that he had a permit but she had not marked it in the book and D.A., never saw a man get his jaw drop like his dropped and I said, "Well, your Honor, well, we move to dismiss the case and not to submit it to the jury," and of course the judge said, "Well, what do you say to the district attorney?" He says, "Well, your Honor," and after a couple of pauses he says, "I guess what we gotta do is dismiss it." Then 00:17:00he came over to me he says, "You really did a job on me." He says, "You knew all the time what the hell it was and you didn't tell me about it." He says, "I don't know whether that's a breach of ethics or not." I said, "Breach of ethics or anything else, my man is free." Now wait a minute. We're not through. Meantime, the judge says write an order dismissing the case and finding him not guilty. I lean over to my man. I said, "I don't like the way the sheriff is talking with the D.A. I saw him talking over there while I was trying to write." I said, "Do me a favor. You get the hell out of here with your father. Get out of town, meet me," and I told him to meet me just outside of the county line on the highway there. It was the old highway, not the one we got here now. He got went downstairs. Went in his father-in-law's car. Went ahead of me. When I got there I said, "I want to get the guns." See, they still had the guns. I said, "I want to get the 00:18:00guns." Well, when I went down to get the guns, the sheriff messed around until he finally gave them to me in his possession. I went outside. When I went outside where my car was and they had the license, you know, from my county? There were two deputy sheriffs standing by it. I got in my car, they had a patrol car right behind, they followed me. They looked all over to see where Henry's car was and Este's were. They weren't there. They followed me to the county line. And just like I thought they were going to arrest him again on some other trumped up charge.

WADE: Trumped up charge. That's right.

JACOBS: Finish the story. Now this was over a year later. He stayed in Atlanta with some other kin folks and we got him a job with the Georgia fire company at that time through the union up there, through the IBEW union, and he worked there until he finally retired from that plant. The Estes family had all kinds 00:19:00of problem. But the reason that I tell you that story -- this is over a year later and if the union's gone and they done broke the union and we walked out and everything else, why would they have done that to this man? They did it because there was still a union then. And that's part of the story and that's why when people say that we walked off and left them, I get so darned mad because it was years and years and years later. And by the way, the last word on it is the National Labor Relations Act was passed by Roosevelt because these textile owners didn't keep their promises just like they're not keeping them now, and like they're trying to keep people out of the union now.

WADE: That's right.

JACOBS: So when they tell you we walked off, whatcha gonna tell them now?

DON RODGERS: I know better. I've seen proof of it.

WADE: You tell 'em where to go to find the proof their self.

JACOBS: You think that you're going to believe your eyes rather than what you hear?

ANGIE RODGERS: Definitely, I've got proof.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, great. OK let's do a (inaudible, cross talk) I may have to interrupt you, Joe. OK, let's try it, Joe.

JAMIE STONEY: We're rolling.

JACOBS: Based on all these papers and what I've shown you, if anybody says now that the union walked away after the strike, I think you can tell them, or can you tell them, that you saw not only the story of it but you saw the documents. You saw the papers that were involved in the days and months in the year or more after the strike and the union was still here. Is that right?

ANGIE RODGERS: We certainly can.

GEORGE STONEY: Show us the document.

JACOBS: And here they are. And anybody who really wants to know the truth, all 00:21:00they've got to do is go to the same place that we went and there it is, National Archives and here's this material and here's the one that was about the hearing of that Exposition cotton mill that I told you about, Charlie [Bergman?]. And here are the papers about the Cannon Mills. That ought to have a familiar ring to it.

WADE: Definitely.

JACOBS: And this shows you what Cannon was doing then and how he was delaying and putting off and didn't know anything. You know, it's a funny thing that the big man in the company doesn't know what's happening in the company when he don't wanna know. But when he does, he knows and everybody else knows that he does. And that's the proof of it. And if anybody says that --

GEORGE STONEY: OK, let's go back to the first -- just so you're telling this whole story over again. Start from the beginning document.

JUDITH HELFAND: These are the first ones that you showed.

JACOBS: We'd been told that --

GEORGE STONEY: That's it. That's it now. Let's start right now.

JACOBS: Who wants to pick that up?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, go ahead.

WADE: I'll take that. We heard in the last campaign when we was trying to help the workers organize the union how they all believed the union up and left during the uprising of 1934, the original union drive. How the union just up and left them after it was all over.

JACOBS: And wasn't that part of the propaganda that the company tried to use against the union when you were carrying on that campaign?

WADE: Yes.

DON RODGERS: It sure was.

JACOBS: The proof of it is something else. And I brought some of these documents here so that you could see because if we tell you that the union stayed and that the union didn't walk off, a lot of people say, oh, they just talking. But if you see these, then you can say well, I saw it with my own eyes. Let's take a look. And here are some of the materials that we got from the National Archives and the National Archives is a place where the United 00:23:00States government puts the records of their different departments. They had -- it doesn't make any different what the department is. They put these records away so down the line if somebody wants to know what happened they can tell take a look. Here it shows National Labor Relations Board, the Atlanta Regional Labor Board Office. The date is October 17th, 1934, right after the strike. What happened? They had a regional director in Atlanta for the national labor board by the name of Frank Coffee. He's writing a letter to Paul Herzog, the existing executive secretary of the same board in Washington, and said that when he was in Birmingham a day or two ago he talked to Messers. Bibb, Gillian, Brown, Porter, and Murphy, and Gillian explained to them that he had been appointed as an examiner and asked that the others who he just wrote about be appointed as examiners. "The urgent reason for this is a letter just received 00:24:00from John Dean, international representative of the UTW asking that hearings be held at the earliest possible on the following mills" and here's a list of them. In Alabama City, Gaston, Aniston, Florence, Haleyville, and on. "These examiners could clear the up these mills quickly. All of them attended the hearing I held in Birmingham on the Saratoga Victory Mills of Albertville and Guntersville. Seemed interested, at least they sat they sat through 10 hours of it." Here is the beginning of our effort to get our people back. Here's a document from on the board. Who brought the complaints? We're the ones that brought the complaints.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, now to the next documents.

JAMIE STONEY: Next set.

GEORGE STONEY: Next set of documents.

JAMIE STONEY: Next folder.

HELFAND: Do you want him to go through more of those? Because (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).

GEORGE STONEY: Just flip through those.

HELFAND: Just flip through them and you can just read some snatches of it Joe.

JACOBS: All right. What had happened was that we were getting up all these complaints from our people because they were being kept from going back on the 00:25:00job and the companies were beginning to evict some of them already. It didn't take hardly a day after they had promised what we had understood to the President of the United States that they would take our people back, no discrimination. Here's another letter written on the 9th a few days later. Sending complaints filed against the following mill, Clark Thread Mill, Atlanta Woolen Mill, Porterdale Mill, Bibb Manufacturing. I'm sure you've heard of Bibb just like you've heard of Cannon. And here's another letter on the 9th again. Here's some more mills. Anchor Duck up in Rome, Goodyear Mill up in Cedartown. Here's another letter, October the 4th. Here's two Bibb Mills in Macon, Georgia. Here's the Payne City Bid Mill in Macon, Georgia again. All on the stationary, this is not union stationary. This is Uncle Sam's stationary. National Labor Relations Board signed by the man Coffee. All of these came from the union, they didn't come from anybody else. Here's a 00:26:00couple of them up in High Point written by the same man. They had an office over in the Citizens Southern Bank building. On and on and on and on. Here's another Bibb Mill in Porterdale. That's where two of our people were killed. And here's a list of, oh, I don't know -- 15,20. October the 4th. Other mills in Newnan, one, two of them in Newnan, Newnan Cotton Mill, two more in Newnan, Bibb again over in Porterdale, Fulton Bag in Atlanta, Atco, any number. And here's the letter from the union on union stationary the day again, October 1934 and here it says that, "We have gotten telegrams in this office today stating that situations in the areas in which we've already filed complaints and this date is submitted for your consideration." Sent to the 00:27:00textile labor board, signed by Francis Gorman, the fellow who headed the strike and it talks about Haleyville, Alabama; Gaston, Alabama; Rome, Georgia; Albertsville, Alabama and here's one from Stevenson, Alabama. And here are still letters all of these are October 27th. Here's a letter from a man named Squires and Coffee who's down here. Here's a telegram. In this telegram's in from Birmingham, Alabama. It is signed by who? John Dean, representative of the UTWA being sent to a man named Judge Stacy, National Labor Relations Board, [Berg?] Building, Washington, DC. And then he asks that Frank Coffee of the Atlanta Regional Board be immediately sent to all hearings in Albertville and Gunterville, Alabama on discrimination cases I've discussed with Mr. Coffee and with your consent he will be glad to assist us in this 00:28:00urgent matter. We're still there. This is almost two or three weeks later. And I could go through -- here's one on the 24th raising sand again about hearings. Here's another list on the board stationary. Here's one sent from [Hollihan?] on Bibb in Porterdale. Look at the list there. There's a whole page of names of people on different shifts who have not been returned and he said --

GEORGE STONEY: Flip that over so we can get a longer hold on that.

JACOBS: The following are the names of workers. Look at them. Here's one, first shift, speed attendant employee, so many months. Roy Kitchen first shift, card attendant, employed four years. Skip down a way. Here's a winder hand, here's a spinner. Here's a third shift employee. Here's a first shift employee. All of these are people who were not returned to work.

DON RODGERS: And some of them had been working there over 10 years.

JACOBS: Right. Spinning room, didn't make any difference. Twister room, doffing, weaving, weaving, duck weaver. Here's another page of them. You 00:29:00think that's a big page? Look at that. There's another page, there's still another page with as many names as can go on it. Still another page, still another page and he said all of these people -- this is Hollihan writing it to the board. "All of these people reported for duty on October 1st in compliance with instructions issued by the Textile National Relations Board and in each instance they were instructed to report to the main office of Bibb Manufacturing and there to make application for employment. They complied with these instructions and in the meantime the plant is now being operated on three shifts and the strikers won't -- can't say how many of the plant is in operation. There is much help being hired from the rural sections around Porterdale, but these people were not being hired."

WADE: The companies weren't honoring their commitment to put these people back to work.

JACOBS: That's right. And if you think that was the only one, here's one 00:30:00addressed to Hollihan to Coffee. This is a Goodyear tire rubber company at the Atco plant and here is the list. And there's, oh, 10 or 15 names there. This line the same. Here's another, oh, looks like 20, there's 40 maybe, maybe 70 or a hundred people between those two pages. Again, Hollihan represented the union trying to do it and look what's attached to it here. Here's a statement about each one of those people whose names are on that, statement of discrimination from workers at the Goodyear plant at Atco. There's one page of it, two pages of it --