Bill Irby Interview 1

JAMIE STONEY: Judy, I'm real sorry. Uh, I've been labeling this whole tape (motorcycle noises) and part of the last tape is Concord when it's actually Kannapolis. Excuse me. Mea culpa, mea culpa, mea culpa! I'm really sorry. We're in Kannapolis but I logged it as Concord. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry!

(break in audio)

00:09:00

GEORGE STONEY: OK. (inaudible)

GEORGE STONEY: OK, Mr. Irby?

IRBY: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell me, uh, when you were born, and where you were born, and about your childhood?

IRBY: August 15, 1914. And it was on Chester Street in Kannapolis, North Carolina. I lived here all my life, I was raised here, and, uh, finished high school here and everything else. Worked -- worked at the YMCA three years, then -- then worked in the textile mill. Worked on -- worked on that a good while, and I worked that till 1951. I left the job because I -- it seemed that after 23 years (inaudible) I'd never seen a promotion. I thought maybe it'd be time to make a change. (Laughs) But I did make a change for myself. And things 00:10:00have been very good with me, though. All the public's good to me. I'm in a number of cl-- clu-- clubs and everything. And, uh...

GEORGE STONEY: Could you tell me what it was like growing up in a mill village?

IRBY: Well -- we di-- I -- we didn't ever expect anything because we didn't have anything. Didn't expect anything. because we made 17 cents an hour, and all 70 cents a day, and ten hours a day, and it be sun up to sun down most of the time. Have no place to go, and so... We just -- all us met up town and sat around town and sat up there in front of the church an on -- on the bench. (laughs) Yeah, that's what we'd do. (laughs) At night. No place to go, and that's what we'd do, so. We -- but we took it easy because didn't nobody have no money to buy anything with, and -- and I had several sailormen come and open the store here says -- we said, lord, they'd never open a store here. There's nowhere this bad yet. He was -- he was a Greek. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: Tell me about Mr. Cannon.

00:11:00

IRBY: Oh, Mr. Cannon, he was a quiet man and never say much. He just god-awful quiet to us and never told us anything, so he was really quiet and never said nothing to us and he -- he, uh, I never seen him in the office up there. I always saw Mr. Cannon, er, Brown. But he was the man -- he was the man when I was there. And he would do anything for you if he could. And he -- we -- wor-- and I thought that was the only place you could work. That's one of the reasons I stayed here, I guess. (laughs) I thought that was the only place you could work. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: Where were you -- uh, tell us about, uh, what you did during the early strike in the '20s. You'd tol-- tell us about --

IRBY: The twenties? Twenties, oh yeah. I had a little red wagon, didn't many people have a car in 1920 -- nobody I know of. And so, people would (inaudible) to go on strike for about four months -- for four months, and so I'd go around, little red wagon, I'd pull them about half a mile or mile and then 00:12:00they'd give me a nickel, and so all I did to pull away, I'd be glad to make a nickel. (laughs) I-- I pu-- I pull groceries over in that little red wagon again, boy. And so -- yeah, that wasn't too far from where I was born. You see, I was born on Chester Street and you go right around the curb down that, and that's where the union store was back there down on the left.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about that union store.

IRBY: Well, the union store -- I was -- union store -- I was young and I didn't think much about it, because I didn't know what it was all about. And I was a young 'un. And so that's the reason I didn't and, uh, the people that went over there... But the union didn't do right -- they had a big meal over there. I had big -- a plate -- big plates over there and had big meals over there and all of a sudden the one's run the union, they just took the money and left. And when they did, didn't nobody have any money so Mr. Cannon put them all back to work but less money than was making. Sh-- wasn't much 00:13:00less, but was a little bit. Uh-huh. Put them all back to work. And the people was glad to get to go back to work because they didn't have another place to work. No place to go anywhere.

GEORGE STONEY: Did your parents work in the mill?

IRBY: Yes. My mother was sick all the time. My mother was sick. She -- she -- she worked later on after the children got young -- got old. She -- she went to work then. Then she worked 20 so-- 20 some years after the -- the children grew up. And then, uh, my father was a professional baseball player. He -- he'd go off and play baseball in the summertime and come back wintertime. And everybody was good to him. He was -- go (inaudible), everybody. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: Did he ever play for the mill team?

IRBY: Huh? He played -- well, he played -- mill team -- didn't have a team, it had -- uh, Kannapolis had a real good team. And they -- they all was (inaudible) sort of thing. Uh, I was at the big make up there and we'd about to win the game over there and so, uh, when they flied Miss Concord down there 00:14:00people in Kannapolis don't like it. Concord didn't like Kannapolis, you see. And they's playing ball all at them, and I guess the Lord sent a big storm, and now it's raining and that. But otherwise you're about to get drowneded in that rain. And so, but, uh, ball ga-- it had stopped the ball game and since then they didn't have any baseball. But boy, they had a crowd for baseball all the time. My father, he advertised baseball games for them -- drove the car up and down the roads, signs all over, and have a big crowd. We had enormous crowds for baseball. Baseball was done -- professional thing of it kept on going, but it didn't.

GEORGE STONEY: Now I gather there was some feeling between the people in Kannapolis and Concord --

IRBY: That's true --

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us about that.

IRBY: People in Concord, they always thought they was better than Kannapolis people. Mr. Cannon, he lived in Concord, you see, and uh, instead of living in Kannapolis. I don't know if that -- it's always like cl-- Kannapolis is a pretty bad part, and the mill is, so they thought it was a disgrace to work in 00:15:00the mill. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: Had you ever heard the word lint head?

IRBY: Yeah, I've heard the word lint head. They call you lint head and everything else. And, uh...

GEORGE STONEY: How'd you feel about that?

IRBY: Well, I didn't like it, but wasn't nothing to do about it. So you could stand up about it -- you'd had a fight, you'd lose your job. And if you got locked up anywhere on the outside, then anywhere around here you got fired. Automatically, you'd got fired. This town automatically fired you. (laughs) If you got locked up, so you had to just be very particular.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, tell us what you were doing during 1934 -- the summer of 1934.

IRBY: Past 1934?

GEORGE STONEY: Well, what -- what were you doing in the summer of 1934 when you were 20?

IRBY: Oh, I worked -- I worked at the YMCA in 19-- worked YMCA, $60 a month. And, uh, I worked in there, so... We -- they sold tickets to the theatre, what it was. Pick up tickets there, and uh -- and so, they took 25 -- about 30 of 00:16:00us, we went to the World Fair in Chicago in 1934 and it cost us about $30 for 20 -- for about 14 days, up there and back, and all doing everything up there. (laughs) Hard to believe that now, but it's the truth. And uh, everybody was tickled to death to get together on that. And after sold -- sell those tickets, and Mr. Cannon let us sell the tickets, uh, Mr. Fester did over at the YMCA. He let us sell the tickets and we took in half of what we took in -- tickets there was 15 cents. And so we got enough money to take in. We had to stop about three days from selling tickets because we didn't have that money. That's all it took us, about $20 -- about $25, something like that, to go up there and back. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: Now, in 1934, there was a big strike all over --

IRBY: Yeah, yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: -- the textile strike.

IRBY: There was a big strike with all the mills around here. Yeah, and I -- I came back -- I went to the World Fair, like I told you, and I come back through Cincinnati and coming back through Cincinnati the headlines were saying, "Read extra, read all about it. Big textile strike in the South." And I got a 00:17:00newspaper and it had a picture of Kannapolis on the front page. On the front page it had a picture of Kannapolis! Well, and I looked -- I'm sorta amazed, and I said, "Lord knows!" and then we decided to go back there, man -- I don't even work there. They don't have strike -- that don't sound right, to have to strike there. But that's the way the newspaper put it in the newspaper. In Kannapolis -- why -- we got there, wasn't no strike. But they did have a guard there before, and had guards on top of the mill and guards everywhere. And the people from Morris were going to come down here and make parades then -- parade down through the thing, and me-- We never had no confusion or trouble -- Kannapoli s never did -- need a strike or nothing like that happened. Just kept on working.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you ever see any of those, uh, national guards around?

IRBY: Oh, I saw them around there, yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: Tell us what you saw.

IRBY: I just saw them walking up and down the street, and walking all around. It's like re-- regular guards and -- they (inaudible) ever had any trouble. And try to stop it.

00:18:00

GEORGE STONEY: Now, we've got pictures of the national guard with tents out and all --

IRBY: Yeah, yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: -- that kind of thing. Talk about that.

IRBY: They just parade aroun-- they had to have a place to stay -- to stay around here, and the parade, and, uh, it made the marches up around here.

GEORGE STONEY: Now were any of those national guardsmen people who worked in the mill before?

IRBY: I really wouldn't say that because (inaudible) I don't know what they were -- I don't think -- I think -- they could have been. I was -- if some of them had actually worked in the mill. But everybody -- everybody worked in the mill just about -- it -- it, Mr. Cannon hired them for protection and-- they got a gun sent all up the mill and everything up for -- for protection. But I wasn't working at the mill, but I had to walk up through the -- that because the theatre was right joinin' them then. I had to go and get in.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you explain that? Did you say that Cannon, uh, uh, bought guns and gave them to people?

IRBY: I didn't say that, no. I don't know where the guns come from. I 00:19:00didn't know where they got the guns. They had the guns, All right. Uh -- about everybody's got a hunting gun, anyway, and I guess that's what they carried their own gun (inaudible). Everybody had a gun, he just -- just hired them -- paid them, so. So that's taken with that.

GEORGE STONEY: Was the, uh, mill ever closed here during that strike?

IRBY: No. To my knowledge it wasn't, no. He had a lot of people that worked in other towns, living in other towns, that worked here -- and they always got to work regular pretty good. Better than the ones lived here.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, why has this been -- I grew up in North Carolina myself.

IRBY: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: And we've always thought of Kannapolis as a town that got a lot of privileges from the employer, but the employer also told you what to do.

IRBY: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about that.

IRBY: Well -- well, we used to have what -- wasn't much to do because we didn't want him to tell us nothing to do, but we know -- we knew what we 00:20:00shouldn't do, and we were -- that's all I can say. We -- we knew what to do. We just didn't do anything out of the way. Like I told you, you did anything wrong, we gone get arrested. You get fired, lose your job, regardless of what you done --

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about --

IRBY: -- we got arrested.

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about when you first went into the mills full-time.

IRBY: Well, I went in the mill the first time is -- it was in 1931 after I finished high school. Uh, uh -- I went to work there at the YMCA for three years. At the YMC -- it was --

GEORGE STONEY: Let's go back to the --

IRBY: -- thirty-four --

GEORGE STONEY: -- thir-- no. Let's go back to when you first went into the mill as a high school in the summertime.

IRBY: Oh yeah. Well in the summertime in high school, we always worked about -- I wasn't 14. When you're 14 -- you can go to work at just 14, and you could work that spread towels, and (inaudible), and it don't make too much by 17 an hour at ten hours a day -- worked ten hours a day, and you spread towels and -- 00:21:00but you didn't get to work but three months, four months, and go back to school. Of 'course, this had -- I guess four months, because it didn't have an eight month school in those days. Now they're up to nine. We had an eight month school.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, when you st-- when you first started working in the mills, you were working ten, twelve hours a day. Talk about what happened when they reduced the hours, and raised the pay.

IRBY: (Laughs) Well, when they did that, I -- I was --

GEORGE STONEY: No, no, sorry. When -- tell us what they did, OK?

IRBY: Well -- well, what they did to ge-- the government did that. They cut it down -- Roosevelt wanted to be President -- Roosevelt wanted to be President. (train whistles)

GEORGE STONEY: Hold it. Sorry.

(break in audio)

GEORGE STONEY: OK, sir.

IRBY: All right. When Roosevelt become President, the first thing he do, he cut, uh -- he cut the -- he cut the hours down -- got the hours cut down from ten hours a day to eight hours a day. Eight hours a day and the wh-- that's all we had work. And I -- and then the -- then the wages started raising. Raising the wages from 17 cents -- I was going to make $2.40 a day -- $2.40 -- 00:22:00that's 30 cents a hour. And I thought then to myself and I said Lord knows that won't last long, and I better get me another job on the side because that -- (laughs) because they'll be back ri-- back again and I won't have nothing, you know. And so I -- first thing, they never did cut it back. So it's always been -- but I figured then they'd cut it down. They -- they wouldn't do that -- cut -- leave it cut to be eight hours a day. (Clock chiming) I thought we'd go back to ten hours a day like always, you know, but they never did.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, why do you think they -- and did they start speeding up the machinery? Did they have a stretch out? Talk about the stretch out.

IRBY: I don't -- see, I was right in the mi-- cutting room and then I couldn't tell you if -- in other words, we just had to wait to cut the towels, weigh them by the pound and then cut them, and worked in there. And they had a -- they had a machine and that people -- people -- the boss -- they had so many boss men, and that's the trouble. They had a boss man, a superintendent, an 00:23:00overseer, (laughs) a secondhand -- had all them boss men in there. Had n-- I think they had 19 long time -- had about 19 presidents in there. (laughs) And when Mr. Murdoch took it over he said, "Lord knows that you don't need all them people. I'm the president." (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: Well now, when I was here before, you would -- I was asking you about the picker clocks.

IRBY: A picker clock?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, and you told me that there was some way that you could jimmy those picker --

IRBY: Well, they could jimmy those clocks --

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Let's start again. And, uh, ma'am? You want to buy that?

F1: Mm-hmm.

GEORGE STONEY: Well, why don't -- look --

F1: That's all right. Let me look a little bit more. I might just be --

GEORGE STONEY: OK, but be very quiet because we can pick up from there. OK? All right, tell us about the, uh, the picker clocks. Tell them what they were, and then --

IRBY: I don't know exactly how they were. I can't tell you how they were, but I know the people that worked around them because they could figure -- figure out to get them to work better --

GEORGE STONEY: I'm sorry, you have to start off and say "the picker clocks."

00:24:00

IRBY: The picker clocks, you can get them to work better -- they could get them to work better, but I couldn't because I didn't have picker clocks -- we, uh, we had weigh by the weight, and so... Machines, what ha-- loom pickers and all that, weavers and what had them. They had picker clocks down there. We didn't ha-- they -- they could u-- they could knew how to work those things.

GEORGE STONEY: Could they actually jimmy them to speed them up?

IRBY: Yeah, they could speed them up. That's right, they speed them up, they slow them down. In other words, when you make -- in other words, like yous come to work in there and -- and -- and you turn in and you made a whole lot of money -- and let's speed them up again so you wouldn't make as much money. because it -- that fellow -- that one fellow, one or two fellows, then it was really mopping it up, you see. He was making too much money. Others wasn't making money like that. That's the way they run that. because th-- and that would hurt everybody. You -- you get enough -- a few of them, you couldn't get them to slow down. And they go ahead and turn out all they could and make 00:25:00all they could, and Mr. Cannon just wanted them to make so much and that's all. And, uh, limits to things. If -- if it hadn't had those things, then we couldn't run i-- some people made so much money on that, things would have been a lots better for us all. He wouldn't run -- he wouldn't change the price to like that. We change the price and when you made so -- made over the limits. (laughs)

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Uh, when, uh, the YMCA -- wasn't that, uh, pretty well run by the mills itself? Talk about that.

IRBY: No, it was run by -- it was just about run by the YMCA. It was run by Cannon -- Mr. Cannon. He was nice, but all he -- he always -- after meeting his wife was there with him, meetings and all that thing, and, uh, it was always run by that, and...

GEORGE STONEY: What about the churches?

00:26:00

IRBY: The churches? Well, it's -- it -- he alw-- he put the locks up for the churches all around that --

GEORGE STONEY: Just sa-- sorry, start again. "Mr. Cannon."

IRBY: Mr. Cannon put locks up for the church-- all the churches around (sirens)--

GEORGE STONEY: Wait. Hold it. Just a minute, sorry.

(pause for sirens)

IRBY: It was the chu-- the churches were --

JAMIE STONEY: Go.

GEORGE STONEY: Mr-- OK. "Mr. Cannon."

IRBY: Mr. Cannon, yeah. Mr. Cannon, he always looked out -- some of the churches he give -- give a good donation to, and, uh, the church we got he gave a real donation to it, and he always give a good donation to the (inaudible) college up there -- he had a lot of donation there. And then (inaudible) college down there, uh, he gave a lot of donation down there, he, uh, to the churches. I don't see how he made so much money, but (laughs) he died to make so much money. They had a big house in (inaudible) down there, and had a big, brick fence around the back end of it and all that -- ten -- eight to ten foot high -- high.

00:27:00

GEORGE STONEY: Now did anybody think that maybe they were making that money for Mr. Cannon, and resented it?

IRBY: Well, we just barely made enough to make ends meet. That was our trouble. We barely made enough to make ends meet. because there were times when everything was going up, and wh-- same was going, uh, going up on us.

GEORGE STONEY: Well, I'm just baffled by the fact that you saw Mr. Cannon with all of this money, and this big house (clanking noise), and all of these people just barely making enough to live on.

IRBY: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: Was there any kind of resentment towards Mr. Cannon, uh, for that?

IRBY: Well, not necessarily because it's the only place you can get a job, and it's the only place you can work. And you had to -- had to do wha-- and had to look after him, help him. And because he was all -- he talked nice to us at the meetings and all that.

00:28:00

GEORGE STONEY: But there was no feeling of resentment towards Mr. Cannon, then, or his family?

IRBY: No, because we didn't have no other place to get a job. We didn't have no other place. And -- and the people that -- in the stores -- and the stores in those days -- in those days -- we opened in the mo-- early in the morning, stayed open until 10:00 every night -- 10:00 every night, some nights 12:00. And the barber shop did that, too. We always -- but then -- then -- finally way down somebody closed at 5:30 and people couldn't go to the -- go there. That's one reason thing hurts the town -- hurts the town up that.

GEORGE STONEY: Now in the '40s --