Eula McGill Interview 4

 GEORGE STONEY: The first thing, maybe before that, is the -- remember that you told us that the first fellow who asked you to join was manage-management to tell about it. So-

Eula MCGILL: Oh, yeah.

GEORGE STONEY: When you're ready, Jamie, we'll --

MCGILL: Well, OK, to go back, uh -- uh, at first, uh, um -- the first time I heard of the organizing was just or -- told me second hand. He's large in the management.

GEORGE STONEY: I'm sorry. Want you start again and name the mill?

MCGILL: I worked for Silver Manufacturing.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, but you see, the audience hasn't heard that.

MCGILL: Oh, yes.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, so look, OK. Now.

MCGILL: Yeah, well, at the mill and Silver Manufacturing Company, I learned later that, uh, that people were still a bit leery about letting me know about it because they didn't know me and I lived in a different part of town. But one night, or afternoon, but that time we'd gone on eight hours a day and the 00:01:00NRA pass was working two to ten in the afternoon and night. And the second hand, I was working Silver Manufacturing Company, and the second hand came down and he said, "You know, I here they're organizing a union and they're gonna have a meeting Saturday morning over at East Birmingham at the Masonic Hall." He said, "I'd like for you to go and see who's there and come back and tell me." Well it was (cough) the first I'd heard about the union and I perked my ears up because I was raised to believe in the union. And nobody wouldn't have to ask me to join, I'd hunt up the first person. So he was telling me news not knowing that. So, I went to the meeting and... And, uh, of course I didn't come back and tell h im nothing. And, uh, but I signed the union card. After I 00:02:00got off that night at ten o'clock the -- had the union cards out by in the vacant lot by the mill. And it was a little stump and there's a lantern. The guys had a set a lantern on a strip outside my union card. And we had to a dollar to join and 25 cents a week dues when we joined because back then the union didn't have any -- Each local had to carry their own weight. We had to raise our own money and carry our own -- all the organizing. Because the, uh, union didn't have the money to furnish paid organizers. And, uh, from the very beginning we paid initiation fee which we kept -- Could keep 50 cents in our treasury and send 50 cents to the international union. And we paid 25 cents a week dues.

GEORGE STONEY: And now, tell us about the -- what the meetings were like.

MCGILL: Well, we had meetings every Saturday morning because -- working, uh, three shifts, that's the only time that all of the people could be together. And we had good meetings, very good meetings. And lively discussions. Because I 00:03:00think, uh, at that time most of the people, uh, had a taste of a little better conditions during the Labor Act. And they had so much confidence in our -- our government that they would back us and enforce the laws, that we wouldn't be discriminated against. In the old days, back then, the way you'd get a union, if somebody started organizing the union one person got fired. They pretty much had a -- a pack of it all quit and go out on strikes. Sometimes they won and sometimes they didn't. Well, I don't think that because of the fact that, uh, the -- the whole political climate had changed. Give people encourag -- encouragement that they weren't as, uh, afraid of losing their job. And if they did lose their job, they felt that they had the law that would be enforced. And, uh... The y were out more open. And the -- After we got en-enough signed 00:04:00that we felt safe and the majority, we ca-became more open. But we still to get in the -- in the union hall at the meeting. You had to have it -- We had a door keeper. And you had to have a password. And we changed this password every three months. And if you didn't get your password, if you didn't have your dues paid. Because you had to have money to pay hall rent and, uh, that was sometime we'd sk -- We'd get -- I -- I was elected treasurer of the local. And I'd -- I'd have to stay and go out and collect my quarters every pay day. Umm... To get -- I had -- We wore big aprons to put our waste in and, uh, that's what I kept my -- my dues -- my -- my quarters in for dues paying. For a while, our local got down to -- we -- we had to have certain amount of members, paid members, to hold our charter. And at one time, we got so low that I had to put 00:05:00some extra money to -- to, uh, keep our charter. And, so, I had to -- I had a hard time myself. I enlist ed some of the people to help me collect dues so that, uh, we could hold our charter. Because people just -- Worked so cheap we couldn't have hardly -- quarter was a quarter back then.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. I want you to go back and, uh, tell me what the meetings were like.

MCGILL: Well, they were mainly organizing meetings.

GEORGE STONEY: Yeah, just say the meetings were (inaudible).

MCGILL: Yeah.... The meetings that we'd have on Saturday morning, we'd usually have a speaker. Uh, we'd usually have someone from another union. I remember very well we had a young man who worked at the U.S. P -- st -- Pipe Shop. And they were trying -- They were -- Their plant was near our mill and they were trying to organize the same time. His name was Cecil Curr. And he used 00:06:00to come a lot and speak to us and encourage us. I think we encouraged him, too. Because they were trying to organize. And, uh, somebody from the or -- other unions of the, uh, central labor union here and the speakers, William O'Hare and time, too. He was Secretary of the, uh, State Council. But, since the union hadn't -- didn't have but a couple of paid organizers, they had -- everybody's meeting on Saturday morning. And it took them -- if they met with us once every six months, they were lucky that -- we was lucky to get a union representative from the textile union there. But Ike Robington, who, uh, really started our union in Birm ingham, he was a general organizer for the, uh, AFL. And, uh, he, uh, really started the union, uh, in Birmingham among us as well as 00:07:00other workers. Other -- other shops he was trying to organize. And Ike was a very, very good speaker and, um, he -- he attended our meetings as often as he could.

GEORGE STONEY: Did you -- Did you have music? Did you have prayer?

MCGILL: Oh!

GEORGE STONEY: Did you have fun?

MCGILL: Oh, yeah -- Um -- I don't remember. I don't think we opened. I can't remember when the opening meetings with prayer started. I don't think -- We always, we sang. And not necessarily union songs, but, uh, I know that, uh, we sang a lot of Woodie Guthrie songs 'cause everybody knew that. "This land is my land and this land is your land." And very popular back then. Of course, I got acquainted, uh, with "Solidarity Forever." And that was my favorite song. And it is-

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

MCGILL: It is today.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Let's start over again. Now, I'm gonna tell you that Woodie Guthrie didn't write that "This land is your land," until 1941.

MCGILL: But he sang it.

GEORGE STONEY: Nope.

MCGILL: Who that did it?

GEORGE STONEY: Nope.

MCGILL: No -- that's right!

GEORGE STONEY: No, that's right. You're good.

MCGILL: But we did sing that song.

GEORGE STONEY: Let's say-

MCGILL: All right. What a time-

GEORGE STONEY: Let's start over and talk about.

MCGILL: A time I had.

GEORGE STONEY: Talk about solidari-

MCGILL: That's right, 'cause it.

GEORGE STONEY: Start by -- Start by saying that we used to sing and I learned solidarity. It's been my favorite song ever since. And maybe you could even start to sing it.

MCGILL: Oh... When we sing, we always opened our meetings with song. We s -- We textile workers and the clothing workers has always been a singing union. And even -- even in the mills, we used to sing 'cause we'd sing. Couldn't -- Nobody couldn't hear us. But we'd sing, I'd sing constantly when I was working. Umm... Mainly the popular songs of the day or "Let Me Call You Sweetheart" and "I'll Be Loving You." All the popular songs in the '20s. Uhh... Wouldn't -- I didn't know anything 'bout country music in that time. That come later. But we always opened our songs with the union songs -- something about having a union song book. And "Solidarity Forever," uh, was kind 00:09:00of easy to sing and was a favorite. We'd sing the chorus and the words that the verses, lot of them couldn't sing. When you hit the chorus, they could all sing that. And, uh, it's, I still think it's one of the most -- the best union songs that was ever written.

GEORGE STONEY: How's it go?

MCGILL: Well -- It --"When the union's inspiration through the worker's blood shall run/There can be no power greater anywhere beneath the sun/Yet what force on Earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one/But the union makes us strong/Solidarity forever/Solidarity forever/Solidarity forever/For the union makes us strong." Now, during the strike (coughs) of '34 we changed that 00:10:00chorus to say, "Solidarity forever/Solidarity forever/Solidarity forever/We'll stick until we win." Another song that -- the -- I don't know if it was then or not but later, that "We Shall Not Be Moved." I got the feeling that about it, like one of the young fella on the picket line said to me one day, "Eula, I have heard that song 'til I can't stand it." And he said, "I will picket as long as they don't start singing that song. When they start singing that song, I'm leaving! I've had it with that song!" (laughter) And this was easy to sing and it was constantly sang on the picket 00:11:00lines. "We shall not be/ We shall not be moved/ We sh all not be/ We shall not be moved/ Just like a tree that's standing by the water/ We shall not be moved." Now you make up your own verses. Let's see. "We're fighting for our union/ We shall not be moved/ We're fighting for our union/ We shall not be moved/ Just like a tree that's planted by the water/ We shall not be moved." And anybody could just start off with a verse and anything that come in their mind and then they just start singing it. And it was easy to sing and I guess -- it's one of the most sung union songs on the picket line.

GEORGE STONEY: OK, now, we want to move on to -- And I'm gonna take those pictures away from ya it -- They're reflecting on your face. Uh, we want ya to go on now to when the strikes started.

MCGILL: Well...

GEORGE STONEY: 1934.

MCGILL: We presented the contract to our, um, the Selma Manufacturing Company. And, uh, they used it as an excuse. I don't know if they really, uh, felt they'd break the union by closing down and scared us. And then, yeah, closed down saying that they couldn't operate a un -- Uhh, under those conditions of that contract. So they shut down. And we were out before the, uh-

GEORGE STONEY: Now, I'm gonna start you -- Start over again because I want you to say the -- the time, the -- the month.

MCGILL: I can't-

GEORGE STONEY: The date.

MCGILL: Remember.

GEORGE STONEY: I'm gonna give it to ya. Because we've got it out of the studies.

MCGILL: I don't know why I can't remember it. I hear it all the time.

Judy HELFAND: It -- You know what also might be helpful would be to know, you know-

MCGILL: A lot of (inaudible).

HELFAND: Realize it was x amount of months.

GEORGE STONEY: OK.

HELFAND: And then we give a time for that.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. We'll get to that.

MCGILL: What?

GEORGE STONEY: Strikes started in Alabama on the 12th of September and middle of September -- I meant middle of July until through the general strike until the mill opened up again, when?

MCGILL: I don't know when they reopened.

GEORGE STONEY: The mill 'bout-

MCGILL: We went to work-

GEORGE STONEY: --Right after the strike.

MCGILL: --after the strike. I know the strike started at--

GEORGE STONEY: --The end of September.

MCGILL: Strike was called off.

GEORGE STONEY: So, you were out for... For...

MCGILL: May, June, July, August. Almost four months.

GEORGE STONEY: Almost four months. So tell us, then, all of that. And then tell us how you lived.

MCGILL: Uh-huh.

GEORGE STONEY: OK?

MCGILL: All right.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, just wait a minute. Are you ready, Jamie?

JAMIE STONEY: Yeah. Yeah. We've been rolling.

GEORGE STONEY: OK. Great. OK.

MCGILL: All right. Uhh... We'd been organized 'bout a year or so when manufacturing company when we felt that it was time to present the contract to the company. And, uh... Steve Nance, who was, um, director then of state from 00:14:00Atlanta was, uh... Uh, Director of the Union and he was a leader of the organizing committee. And I'm in the, uh, negotiating committee. And, uh, we presented the contract in a meeting. And the company shut down, saying that they couldn't operate and they wouldn't sign the contract because they didn't -- couldn't operate under those conditions. I just wonder if that's the reason or if they had some other reason. In fact, maybe that they shut down and make us forget the union. But anyways, then we were on strike and we were out and then when the Alabama people came out first before the general textile strike was called. And then other sh -- other locals in Alabama struck. So we were out there from the latter part of May until in September. Uh, of course people, uh, back in those you didn 't have much to eat. I remember, I'll 00:15:00have to go back a little bit, and I first broke the news to the -- my family that we was organized a union and that I had joined. We were sitting at the table and I said, "Well, we've organized a union. We organized a union now that the -- the mill." And I said, uh, "I've joined." And my sister said, "Yeah, and you lose your job." I don't know why she felt that way about the union because her husband was a union man and was working under union conditions as a plasterer. And I guess she felt like that if I lost my job that she'd have to take (laughter) take care of us, I don't know. Anyhow Mama spoke up and said, "Well what's she gonna lose if she loses a job?" Says, "She's not doing anything but eating and sleeping. And she's gonna eat and sleep some way." Momma said, "I never seen any skeletons of people laying around where they've starved to death." And, uh, that's, uh, where my 00:16:00mother -- She was a -- our mother had plenty of old fashioned guts. She believed something, she just believed it. And backed me all the way and my whole family did back me all the way. And I -- f -- well they just left it up to me. Figured I was doing the job, I was doing the work, I knew what the conditions were and what I had to do about it. So we were out -- we were out all that time. And we'd have teams that'd go around. Back then, people would -- is -- two miles track, uh, then we'd get help from all the locals. Maybe not in so much money, we'd take anything they'd give us. Uh, and stores would give us. One of the people who trade with grocery stores when there's working ran accounts there. And they would go and they'd get a sack of flour or a bag of beans or a bucket of lard or margarine or whatever, powdered milk. Well we'd come back to the little shack we had there and we'd, uh... parcel it out. We'd have sacks and 00:17:00we'd give it out to the people who needed it. Uh, living with my sister and, uh, there's a good friend of mine who, uh, was on strike. She, uh, moved in with us because she couldn 't pay her room rent. Because she's -- so, she moved in the house and -- uh -- moved up with us. And, uh... We would hitchhike. Was always somebody back then who'd come along with (inaudible) and it was very easy to get rides into town. I remember when I used to be standing by the -- waiting for the street car. Somebody come along in their car. They knew what having seven cents mean. And you didn't have no quibbles about riding with them. They was really urged to -- would you like a ride into town. And I got save a lot of car tickets sometime by. It only saved me two cents but I was good 00:18:00to save the two cents. So we take -- Sometimes on other people, union people, would pick us up and take us. And, uh, when we didn't have car fare. So Ruth and I, uh... She stayed with us and -- and, uh, she lived -- Her folks lived in Cordova and they was on strike, too, in Cordova. And we would -- We survived as good as if we'd been working. Because most people -- We had no mill village. But most of the people, I guess the p eople they was renting from, rather have them in the house than vacated. Otherwise it would destroy their property. I heard lot of people say that they'd rather have somebody in the house if they couldn't pay the rent right then than to have it stand vacant because it would deteriorate. That might've been why weren't nobody getting' evicted.

GEORGE STONEY: Now during that time, there was a lot of violence and your... Your, uh, the head of the, uh, [inaudible]. I mean, the head of the union for Alabama got, uh, picked up in all of this.

MCGILL: Yes.

GEORGE STONEY: Could you talk about that and how that affected you?

MCGILL: Well, uh, John, uh, John Dean, who was the, kind of the leader of that time. Uh, Albert Cox, uh, was from Columbus, Georgia. And he was first to come. And then John Dean came down from New York and he was heading up. And then -- then, uh, headed Molly Dowd, and Alice Berg, who worked in the mill with us. She went on the staff for a while. So there was four people. Well of course Huntsville -- All of the mills in Huntsville were very, very militant, the Huntsville area was. And a lot of the time had to be spent in there because there was so many people there. And, uh, the -- lot of the activity in the -- in 00:20:00the, uh, publicity was focused on Huntsville because is -- because of so many people in that one area. In fact, that was predominant place to work. That was about the only -- the only -- the only work there was. So, um, they stayed at the Erksine Ramsey Hotel. Erskine Russell Hotel, it's the Erskine Ramsey here. And I get them mixed with Erskine Russell. So, John was kidnapped, uh, taken out of his room, uh, and taken over the line. Into Fayetteville, Tennessee and let off at the Pope Hotel, where he called the people back and they went up and got him. And those people up there were like John and they stuck together. And they furnished him protection from then on. And, uh, as -- as they did all organizers, they felt they owed it to the organizers to protect them from, uh, 00:21:00the few people who, uh, did try to fight the union in Huntsville. Of course they were fighting losing battle, because overwhelming majority of the people in Huntsville's depended on the cotton mills for their living. One way or the other.

GEORGE STONEY: Now you mentioned a bridge?

MCGILL: Oh, across the Tennessee River. The bridge going across the Tennessee from Decatur. Decatur, years ago, uh, they had a railroad shop there back in the '20s and they had a strike and, uh, and I'm told by the railroad workers' union that the -- They really didn't need that since they running from -- They had to stop to have the trains serviced in Decatur from Nashville to Birmingham. And later on, as improvements came, they didn't have to stop Decatur, they could run on to Birmingham without getting the cars serviced. So, uh, it was more or less, uh, not as much of the union shutting the -- the -- the car works 00:22:00down as the uh -- didn't -- wasn't any need for it. That they could --

GEORGE STONEY: But --

MCGILL: -- run the --

GEORGE STONEY: You mentioned that there was a --

HELFAND: Toll bridge.

GEORGE STONEY: Toll bridge.

MCGILL: Well, I'm talking about the background about how Decatur was anti-union.

GEORGE STONEY: Yup. Yup.

MCGILL: And Decatur was, uh, anti-union.

GEORGE STONEY: Just started, Decatur was an anti-union.

MCGILL: Yes. And the whole atmosphere in Decatur. Which was about 30 miles from Huntsville, across the river. And that was a toll bridge.

GEORGE STONEY: No, sorry. You have to start out by saying, "Now, Decatur was an anti-union town."

MCGILL: Yeah, the sentiment in -- in there. And the Goodyear Tire and River Company.

GEORGE STONEY: No, sorry, you see the audience won't hear anything until I cut in.

MCGILL: Oh.

GEORGE STONEY: So --

MCGILL: Oh.

GEORGE STONEY: So you want to say is, "Decatur was an anti-union town."

HELFAND: George had cut you off, though. So we need-

MCGILL: OH.

HELFAND: You to say that.

MCGILL: Decatur was an anti-union town and, uh, this bridge that crossed the Tennessee River there, going to Huntsville and back, there was a toll bridge. And it was -- You would get waylaid there when you stop to pay a toll. You had 00:23:00to watch very careful. That's where the vigilantes in Decatur, uh, would loiter on the bridge in order for you to stop to pay your toll and you was fair game if you had -- If suspicion that you was a union organizer. And of course they hear about the flying squadrons. Of course the, uh, textile workers who were militant in Huntsville was coming down to hall meetings to try to get those, uh, people at Goodyear Mill there organized. They made fabric for automobile tires. And, again, they held their meetings down on the river. And, uh, but they didn't fare well in Decatur than they did in Huntsville because you had a hard core of anti-union people from those, uh, railroad yards closing down. They blamed the union. And everybody you talked to, it was the union that closed down like t he railroad yard. You could not get it out of their mind. 00:24:00And, uh, two of the hosiery mills that were there, the hosiery mills tried to organize and they some full-fashioned hosiery mills there. And those people made good money by the standards that was being paid. They were making anywhere from 20 to 25 dollars a week. While full fashioned knitters in union shops is making 75 to 100. These people had no way of, uh, gaging what their jobs were then. They had nobody to compare. And they felt that they was being paid -- You couldn't talk to those people. You just might as well, uh, talk to a stone wall. They just thought that they was doing good and they was doing so much better than everybody else that the union couldn't do anything for 'em. They don't realize that you have two alternatives in a non-union shop. You work on the boss's conditions or quit. I joined the union mainly for conditions more than I did -- I needed the money. But it was right to -- to talk back for myself when I felt like I was right wit hout being in fear of retaliation. I felt like 00:25:00my rights as worker to be able to talk back for myself and my fellow worker.

GEORGE STONEY: Now, many people have told us about the particular helplessness of women in -- in the textile plant. Uh, could you talk about that?

MCGILL: That went on.

GEORGE STONEY: The -- the -- s-- what went on?

MCGILL: The -- oh, um... The -- the, uh... Sexual harassment-- of course we didn't think about it in those terms in those days. More of people didn't think about women's rights and most of the women looked to women, men for leadership. But the boss, uh, if he took a notion he wanted to date a girl and sh -- either by innuendo or actions or actual threats, uh, they feared for their job if they didn't submit to him. And, in fact, in some of the hearings we've had in Huntsville, some of the women got on the stands and told how they 00:26:00were, uh, threatened by their jobs if they didn't date the boss. And some of the men, it's their wives were subjected to the same thing. Uh, it was a shame. And I saw it happen in the mill I worked in. Uh, I know that it happened in the Dwight Mill. I remember one night that part of the spinning room was a huge spinning. In fact, they had two spinning rooms. And the spooling room was in the middle. And for some reason or other, we had two types of yarn in the spinning room. And they d idn't need. And they shut down and cut off the lights. And, uh... Right there in the mill, uh... The bosses took girls back there during that time. I know that went on. I'm glad I never had to be 00:27:00subjected to it. I wasn't very attractive. (laughter) Some reason, I wasn't bothered. I was glad. I don't know what I would've done.

GEORGE STONEY: You think they're afraid of you?

MCGILL: I -- no, I don't think so. I was skinny and tall and not very attractive and -- and I guess they didn't have -- I didn't have any, uh -- They didn't have no, no... Weren't interested.

GEORGE STONEY: I think there was a glint in your eye that they were afraid of. (laughter)

MCGILL: I had a guy, a good friend of mine tell me one time, uh, that I scared men. And I, uh, I said, "John, what are you talking about?" And he said, "Well, Euly, you do. You intimidate men." I guess it's because there's very few women that was outspoken and is as progressive as I was. And I never have had much patience for women who -- who stand back and say so much of it. It wasn't that the men was keeping them down, it's that the women weren't 00:28:00trying to get ahead. And I think a lot of that happens today and go on and look up to the men. And I never did feel like I had to look up to a man. I felt I like I had as much sense as anybody else.

GEORGE STONEY: That's great.