Eula McGill Interview 3

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GEORGE STONEY: -- John Dean getting, uh -- getting, uh, kidnapped. Just that and then --

EULA MCGILL: Well, John -- over again?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah. Just a minute.

JAMIE STONEY: Speed.

GEORGE STONEY: Ready?

JAMIE STONEY: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. All right.

MCGILL: John Dean stayed at the -- the Oregon State -- the Russell Erskine Hotel --

GEORGE STONEY: No, no. Sorry. I want you to start off by saying let me tell you about John Dean getting kidnapped and, then, you start.

MCGILL: Uh-huh. Well, let me tell you about John Dean being kidnapped at Huntsville. He was staying at the Erskine Russell Hotel and a group of -- knocked on the door and he opened the door and they took him out and took him over the line into Tennessee -- to Fayetteville, Tennessee -- and left him at a hotel called Pope Hotel. Well, he called back, of course, to the -- some of the people -- strikers -- and they came over and got him -- several car loads. And 00:01:00they felt that they owed him protection. So, after that, they protected the -- with all the organizers and stayed with them. They didn't go anywhere by themselves to avoid this happening to anybody else ever again. And because in Huntsville, one way or the other, depended on the mills. And when all those mills were out on strike and it was 100% and those people all were militant union people. And anyone who would try to buck them in town couldn't win. They had to lose. So, the few people who were -- had courage enough to try to do something to an organiz er was taking a risk in Huntsville, Alabama at that time.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, tell them about -- tell us about the organizers thing at your house.

MCGILL: Oh, well, we had a big house and we had vacant space and, uh, I lived with my sister and her family and I was always going with the organizers to different places and speaking as a worker and, of course, we'd wind back up -- so, they'd just stay at our house. And, uh, we'd have -- they'd eat with us. And, then, later on after the strike was over, the General Textiles Strike broke -- the union was broke. And they went on half pay. They're supposed to work a week and off a week. Well, of course, they couldn't do that, so our house was open to 'em any time they needed a place to say and didn't have room -- couldn't pay for a hotel room. And I used to say then, too, they didn't stay in the best hotel. It was a good hotel, but they didn't stay in high-priced hotel-- they stayed in cheaper hotels here and even in Birmingham when they stayed in a hotel. Nothing wrong with the hotels, they just weren't 00:03:00as -- they weren't the first-class hotel. But they spent a lot of time at our house and we enjoyed it. It wa s -- we had a lot of good union discussion and my brother-in-law's sister -- the cleaning shop -- she worked at the cleaning laundry and dry-cleaning place and they were organized and they were out on strike, too, about the same time in Birmingham. The laundry workers was out on strike about the same time we were. So, our whole family was -- by that time, my sister had come around. (laughs) She changed her mind about the union. She thought, "Well, this is the thing to do."

GEORGE STONEY: Now, when you went around making speeches -- I'm going to ask you to do something that may be very difficult. If you could, kind of, remember back there and give us a -- kind of tell us what kind of thing you did -- I mean 00:04:00what kind of a speech you made. Just give us a speech!

MCGILL: Well, I would tell the people -- I might not use things my father told me. And I (inaudible) my life. (phone rings)

GEORGE STONEY: OK. We'll start that again. (inaudible).

MCGILL: You want me to straighten up now?

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, fine. (laughter)

JUDY HELFAND: You look tall.

MCGILL: He has a slurp. I mean, slump.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, yeah.

HELFAND: Yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: You look tall.

HELFAND: For a tall blonde haired lady, you were looking pretty small.

GEORGE STONEY: (inaudible).

MCGILL: Uh --

GEORGE STONEY: OK, Jamie?

JAMIE STONEY: Speed.

MCGILL: During the uh, strike, uh, of the textile strike in '34, of course, prior to that, I worked in the mill, and I didn't get around anywhere except in town. But I was active around town with a friend of mine, and we did a lot of work organizing the bakery workers. And uh, when the plants went on strike, I would go along with uh, with the organizers to different places, and they'd 00:05:00ask me to -- to talk to the workers, you know, they'd get -- felt like maybe another worker sometimes can have a little more influence than an organizer who was a staff -- paid staff. And um, I used a lot of things that my father told me about the union. And I used them about making the country a better place, and everything was organized, and why was it, if it was good for the doctors, and it was good for the lawyers, and if it was good for the merchants with their chambers of commerce, and even the ministers was organizing, the ministerial association, why were they organized? To take care of themselves. And if it was good for them, why shouldn't it be good for us? Why wasn't a union a good thing? And I always said, there's nothing that doesn't have something 00:06:00that's bad about it, or makes mistakes. But I always weigh the good and the bad, and see which comes out the best. And the main thing that I liked to say to the people, that I didn't know you could take the churches or any other organization, while they might be interested in the welfare of workers as an individual, maybe members of their church or something, well what could they do about it? There was nothing on the face of the Earth, organized for the purpose of bettering the working class of people, but a labor union. That was the sole purpose of a labor union was to organize and better the lot of working people. And that we were just as smart as anybody else. And I had a lot of people telling me back then, oh, that -- and they'd say I'll probably sell the other workers, you -- textile workers ain't got sense enough to run a union if they had one. And I belied that. Because I learned, and earlier on, and it was 00:07:00talking about how people looked down on textile workers, or like I said, I never heard the word textile worker until I joined the union, I was always called lintheads, or cotton mill trash. But after I went in the mills, I learned that there was good people in there, and even smart people and intelligent people. That was the only job they could get to make a living. And my father used to tell me, don't matter what you have to do to make a living, try to do the best you can. And what you have to do, if that's what you have to do for a living, try to do the best you can, and look for something good in it, instead of looking for something bad, you'd have -- you'd feel better about yourself.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, we've heard in some places that textile workers were against unions as though it was something -- like being against Christianity.

MCGILL: Well sadly, I'm sorry to say that in a lot of instances, especially in the towns where the textile industry dominated the towns, that a lot of the ministers fell under the spell of the company's propaganda. Maybe they were sincere, maybe they liked the donations, the money they got, I don't -- but I used to tell preachers who talked against the union, the more money the workers got, the more they can put in the collection plate. And a lot of them was talking, they called it the Mark of the Beast, especially when the CIO was organized. I remember when I was on the staff, working with the textile, TWOC, there was a lot of the churches that they had a -- there was a guy in Texas, he was really fighting the union, Gerald L.K. Smith. And he was on the radio, and 00:09:00he got a lot of -- it was all, I guess an organization, how else he could have done it, but he had speakers, preachers in different mill village churches, and there was a certain Sunday they was all going to speak against the unions. And we were al l assigned to church to go to listen, to see what they said. And the church I went to was outside of Atlanta, in a mill village. And it was a church, and had a big potbellied stove in the middle of it, it was cold weather. And they had an outside speaker who was going to speak that day, and these people said, these cotton mill workers, and most of them just didn't have on suits of clothes, they had on pants and a sweater, and it was cold. And before the 00:10:00meeting started, one of the church leaders, maybe a deacon or something, got up, and he said in a mock whisper, "Now before this -- call the man's name, before he comes in, I want to talk to you people. Because we need to pay his expenses for coming here today, and he said, 'I would like to make up $100.'" And he passed the plate, and I don't know how much he got, but here's these people sitting there, poorly dressed, in this church with a stove, probably couldn't afford, but they'll make up $100 for this man to come to talk against something against their bes t interests. And it was so sad to sit there, I could hardly sit there without saying something. And he got up and talked against the union, and how the union was against business, and here these people sat, who worked in these mills for very low wages, and poorly 00:11:00dressed, and he was coming there with a nice suit on, how he could stand up there and I just -- well, I don't have any respect for people like that.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, could you tell us about the uh, when --

JAMIE STONEY: Just a second.

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

JAMIE STONEY: Go ahead and talk, I'm just going to make a little adjustment here.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Uh, when you speak next, I want you to ask about -- tell us about the -- putting that one -- you had very few blacks in the mills, you start off by saying, well we didn't have very many blacks in the mills at the time, what they did, but you signed up this woman, and uh, no, your boss said --

MCGILL: I -- yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Tell that story. But start off --

MCGILL: Her name was Mary, her name was Mary.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Start off by letting us know how few blacks there were in the mills. Just as though the audience didn't know anything about that at all. They didn't realize that there were no blacks in the mills.

JAMIE STONEY: Just a second (overlapping dialogue; inaudible).

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MCGILL: (inaudible).

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MCGILL: -- history in the '30s.

JAMIE STONEY: Just a second, just a second. Let us catch up here.

GEORGE STONEY: I'm sorry.

JAMIE STONEY: OK.

MCGILL: There was --

HELFAND: (inaudible).

MCGILL: -- practically no blacks worked around, or in the mills. In the Selma Manufacturing Company --

GEORGE STONEY: No, sorry. You have to say during the '30s and before, there were no black people.

MCGILL: During the '30s and before.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah no, sorry. When I lower my hand, you start.

MCGILL: Yeah, OK.

GEORGE STONEY: Ready Jamie?

JAMIE STONEY: Mm-hmm.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Now.

MCGILL: During the '30s and before, there was very few blacks worked in the textile mills. And uh, their jobs were certainly jobs, none of them operated any machinery. They were sweepers, or yard people, according to the size of the mill, they usually did yard work, or uh, sweeping. And the restrooms was usually cleaned at night by the watchman, supposed to be, but I never did see much cleaning done. But when we started organizing, my boss said to me, the woman who 00:13:00uh, worked in the section of the spinning mill that swept, her name was Mary. And uh, he was talking to me one night, because he was, of course hardly a night would pass he didn't come chat with me about the union. And uh, tell you the truth, I read a lot, and I brought books with me to work to read back and forth on the streetcar, I spent so much time on the streetcar, and he'd come down and get my book, read it while I was working. And we usually had a conversation about the union. And one night, he says, "Hey, by the way," he said, "are you goin g to ask Mary to join the union?" I said, "Yeah." He says, "You going to call her sister?" I said, "Yeah." I said, "It's a lot better than some of the things I've heard you call her." (laughter) So, I remember -- the best I remember, I can see them sitting now in our union meetings, and they sat -- now although no one said so, they would just sit among themselves, 00:14:00they sat on the left-hand side of the building, and near the back. And I believe there was five that came to the union meetings from the mill that I worked in. And they were always there.

GEORGE STONEY: That's good.

MCGILL: Always at the union meetings.

HELFAND: During the strike, were they picketing with you?

MCGILL: Frankly, I don't remember. I just don't remember whether they picketed.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, now tell us about conditions, working conditions in the mill, and all of the hygiene and so forth.

MCGILL: The only -- in the cotton mills, when I worked in them, fortunately I didn't have to work -- I spent, I'd say all together, about six or seven years in the mill. I don't know what would have happened to me if I hadn't got fired, and got out of it. I don't think I'd have been living. But, the mill I worked in was a very, very poor mill. It was known as a hobo mill. But 00:15:00the old man wouldn't spend any money. That's what we called the owner, the old man. And he wouldn't spend any money to keep the machinery up. It was hard to run the machinery, because they wouldn't keep it up right. I might have been a better spinner if I'd have had better equipment to work with. I don't know. But, and it was never cleaned up. And uh, the lint was never cleaned -- maybe once a year they would go over and wipe the dust off of the lights in the top of the building. It's only when it would might endanger the running of the mill, or the yarn, that they seemed to want to correct something that was wrong. They'd never take the workers' health and welfare under consideration. Because you could always -- they was very quick to tell you, if you ever opened your mouth to complain about something, there's the door if you don't like the conditions you're working in. There's more people outside waiting to get in. And they'd very quickly tell you that there's the door if you don't 00:16:00like what's going on here. There's plenty more out there looking for your job. And uh, some mills may have been, I don't know, at the very best, the mills were a bad place to have to work. And I think later years, with the black lung and things -- and I believe that all of that was known even back then. So much was kept from workers. There was nobody that I knew of that was interested in looking at the welfare of any workers, of the conditions they was working under.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, um, you mentioned that uh, your employer made a speech.

MCGILL: Right after I uh, it was quite funny, uh, I went to work there in that mill, I was operating when I went there. And I don't know how long it had been 00:17:00operating, but uh, I went to work there, and uh, 12 hours a night.

GEORGE STONEY: Why don't you start over and mention what -- Selma Manufacturing.

MCGILL: Yeah. I went to work in the Selma Manufacturing Company in, I think it was 1929, something like that, or '30. And 12 hours a night, and uh, I don't know how long it had been operating, but we were, like I mentioned before, kind of a hobo mill, it wasn't too constant.

GEORGE STONEY: Now let's start over again, and cut out all of that bit about the hobo mills.

MCGILL: Oh.

GEORGE STONEY: Uh, I've been working in the Selma Manufacturing Company, and the boss.

MCGILL: I've been working --

GEORGE STONEY: And uh, the paper's making noise.

HELFAND: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: I'm sorry. (laughter) OK now.

MCGILL: I'd been working there, uh, went to work there in the -- in the '30s.

GEORGE STONEY: No. I'm sorry. I've been working Selma Manufacturing --

MCGILL: Yeah, I went to work at Selma Manufacturing --

GEORGE STONEY: Sorry. Sorry, we've got to start all over again.

MCGILL: Ah well.

GEORGE STONEY: I know, it's uh, sorry to do this to you, Eula. But I want to get it --

MCGILL: Well, I thought (inaudible)?

GEORGE STONEY: I know, the trouble is, you see, we've got to get it all in one piece.

MCGILL: OK. Uh, well I went to work in the Selma Manufacturing, uh, mill there, I guess it's in the latter part of '29 or '30, and uh, and I knew nothing about the history of the company. But after Roosevelt got elected, uh, with his program he ran on, a lot of the mills anticipated that a law would be passed for the eight-hour day, and the minimum wages and hours law would be passed. A lot of the mills started going on eight hour shifts. And the uh, other big mills in the town, the Avendale Mill, started on uh, three shifts. Eight hour shift, in a week, at night, sometimes we wouldn't have enough people to start up. And have to call some people off the day shift to come in and double over, and work at 00:19:00night, in order to operate. So uh, one night we were called down to the -- into the weave shop, all the mills shut down, and the owner came up to make us a speech, and we were told to come down for a speech with the owner. First time I'd ever clapped eyes on him. And uh, in -- in talking to us, he was talking a bout when he came there and opened that mill, how the people uh, was so hungry and they had needed the jobs so bad they could hardly work a shift without fainting. Well, he painted a dismal picture of what all he had done for the people there. And that he was -- had lost money constantly, and was still losing money. And he says, "Now," he says, "people are quitting and leaving me, and that's the gratitude that they're showing for my efforts in creating a 00:20:00job for them." So when he finished his speech, I asked him, could I ask -- I -- could I ask a question? And he said, "Yes." I said, "Well, if you're operating, you're telling me uh, that you're operating this mill at a loss, and uh, begging us to stay, if you're losing money, if we can get jobs and go somewhere else and work, we'd relieve you of the responsibility of looking after us." He didn't say nothing. He didn't answer me. So, I went on -- nobody else asked nothing, or said nothing. I went on back upstairs to the spinning room, and Joe come over to me, who's my boss, he said, "Are you crazy?" He was -- he knew I needed to work, he knew how bad I needed a job. I said, "Joe, no, I'm not crazy," and I didn't want him to think I was, either. I said, "I couldn't stand there and listen to that without saying something."

GEORGE STONEY: OK, that's great. OK. Now, one more thing before we move on. You said that the boss, looking back on it now, the boss maybe did you a favor when he fired you, because it forced you to go on to do something else. Looking -- just looking back on it.

MCGILL: Uh, after the textile strike, uh, was over, of course we lost and we had no union, we lost our local union, people quit paying dues, and we lost our charter. But I had joined an organization called the Women's Trade Union League. Which Miss Molly Dowd who had been uh, an organizer for a while for the textile workers, and later worked for the State Labor Department, she was on the national board of the Women's Trade Union League, and she had uh, helped to organize a chapter here and in Huntsville. And uh, I was very active in it. And 00:22:00uh, they had a convention in 1936, in Washington. And uh, they asked me uh, the national league called and said I was given a scholarship. And they offered me a scholarship to come, uh, would pay my expenses and my lost time to come and attend the convention. So, I asked Joe, I told him I wanted off a certain week. And didn't he ask me why I wanted off? And I didn't tell him. And he said, "Well let me know near the time, and remind me, and if I can possibly let you off, I will." So, he let me uh, off. And uh, on the Friday, I went off on a Friday afternoon. We was working there, I was working the second shift, 10:00 -- 00:23:00uh, 2:00 to 10:00. So I had to take off that afternoon, because we was going to leave that -- that -- late that evening, driving to Washington. It was uh, four other people besides myself, going from Birmingham, and then the -- there was three women from Huntsville going. Of course, they were going another way, not with us. But the afternoon that -- that I got off, when was going to leave, the newspaper printed our picture and a story in the paper about us going to this convention in Washington, and because Mrs. Roosevelt had asked us, the delegates from Alabama, to be her guests in the White House. Of course, that made news, it never would have made the paper if she had not invited us to stay at the White 00:24:00House. Well, when I came back, the old man was there, and I -- the office set out a little bit from the mill, and you had to walk around it to get into the mi ll. And he knocked on the window and motioned to come inside. And I went in there, and he says -- his daughter was sitting there, I found out later it was his daughter. He said uh, "I didn't know we had a union here." I said, "We don't." And he said, "What's this thing you've been to in Washington?" And uh, I began to tell him, but his daughter was so interested in finding out from me what it was like to be in the White House, and she began wanting to find out from me about that. That was her purpose being in there, she thought it was great. And he told her to shut up very quick. But anyhow, I didn't get a chance to explain, uh, he fired me. And that -- he did me a big favor, I guess. I always had uh, family to support, I uh, didn't think about 00:25:00trying to quit and look for something else to do, I don't know what I would have done, because jobs was hard to find then anyway. But he did me the best favor I guess anybody -- he made me get out and do something else. I was forced by the system to do something else.

GEORGE STONEY: What did you do?

MCGILL: Well, for about a year, I almost starved to death. And well, not literally, because I had a lot of friends. I was still active in the Women's -- took all my union work, and uh, some of the members, we did a lot of organizing, volunteer organizing, worked for the union label. I spent most of my days in stores and talking to uh, stores about buying the union label. Union-made goods. The uh, a lot of the women, um, in these different unions, the men had auxiliaries, and their wives were -- had auxiliaries, and they kind of 00:26:00took me under their wing and saw that I had something to eat, but the main person that I have to give credit for keeping me from going hungry, Ruth Stedham, who stayed with us during the strike, because she had nowhere to stay, she got a job on WPA. I never applied for a job on WPA, I don't know if I -- it never entered my mind, I just didn't go down to sign up for a WPA job. But she had a WPA job, and she had a furnished room, I slept with her. And she bought me a donut and a cup of c offee every morning, and Birdie Maxwell and her husband, he worked at U.S. Pipe shop, a good union man. And we ate supper at their house every night. But the other women in the auxiliaries, every time they'd have a meeting, they always had covered dish dinner, they always saw that I -- I was there. They'd have me come to speak to them about the union 00:27:00label, and different friends, they'd slip me a dollar or two now and then, in uh, in my pocketbook. And didn't have no money. Didn't need much money, as long as I had a place to sleep, a place to sleep and something to eat. But I toughed it out for the -- for the -- for the year. And then, when they started organizing the uh, textiles, and uh, started the TWOC, and uh, Mr. Mitch called me up one day and he was uh, Bill Mitch was district president of the district, of united mine workers. And uh, he called me, said, "You want to come down here? I want to talk to you." I didn't have a car, so I walked, raining, pouring the rain that day. And I walked down to his of fice downtown. And he told me that they was going to put on some organizers, to try to organize the textile mills. He says, "Why don't you apply for a job?" And I said, "I 00:28:00don't know if I can do it or not." He said, "Well what in the hell do you think you've been doing?" So, he had his secretary write the letter, and that's how I became a staff member of the TWOC. And I worked for that for about a year. And uh, then they had a layoff, and I was laid off, along with Homer Welch. And uh, then again I was without a job, and back where I started, same old routine. But the typographical union, the international typographical union, had their national convention here, in '39.

GEORGE STONEY: Twenty-nine? Or '39?

MCGILL: Thirty-nine. And uh, I was very active in the, uh, thing. So they asked me to be one of their hostesses. They didn't have many women members. I had a good friend who was a proofreader out in Birmingham, and she used to say to me, come in there, and I -- I was interested in newspapers. I spent -- I -- back then, they didn't worry about you coming into the plants, like the -- like 00:29:00they do now usually. They use the insurance now, but I think it's to keep union agitators out. (laughter) But I'd go in, and Miss Robinson just was a proofreader in the news. But anyway, uh, they asked me to be one of their hostesses, since -- and uh, I had been to the convention all day, and they have been a union, the typographical union, but (inaudible) political outfit. It wasn't called the progressives and the independents. Progressives called the independents the Juanitas. I don't know why, but they resented being called that. But uh, they uh, had -- it was quite a rivalry in their union about their uh, electing their --