Joe Jacobs and Ethel Barber Interviews

 GEORGE STONEY: The strange thing is that Roosevelt has always been hailed as -- I think he --

JAMIE STONEY: And we're rolling

GEORGE STONEY: You're going.

JOE JACOBS: Looking back at the –- what happened at that time and the settlement of the strike and the aftermath of it. It had been my feeling and its been my theory that what happened was that Roosevelt, who had gotten to know those who I call textile barons, like the Comber family and the Bibb people, the ones who ran the big textile mill chains in this end of the country. When he had talked with the committee that they had formed and had the assurance that they would not blacklist anybody and that they would bargain with the union that he took them at their word. And it has been my opinion that he was double 00:01:00crossed. He not only was double crossed but because he believed in them, he was able to persuade [Norman?] and the trade union people that the thing to do was to go back, to call it off. I think he also knew that they were the edge of the precipice with their strike and that this was the right time. And because they did what they did, he then pushed for getting the Wagner Act, for getting the collective bargaining laws through for getting all of the other things that I call part of the New Deal, that dealt with labor relations. Because he came to the conclusion that you can't trust them to give their word, you've got to put it into a law so they have to comply with it. And that's been my theory all these years gone by. And it was fortified to some extent by the fact that 00:02:00in the organization called the Southern Conference of Human Welfare that Eleanor Roosevelt was in, that in a number of conversations I had dealing with the textile strike I got the same impression. That she felt that the top man in the United States on whom the union people said if he says call it off, if he says we've got an understanding, and whom they had relied that he had been double crossed. That they had said something that they did not intend to do when they said it, and then didn't keep their word. And I've held that theory for a long time and I think that a lot of the New Deal legislation that dealt with workers' problems, workers' rights were the outcome of the experience that Roosevelt had. Because prior to that time I don't know of any experience that 00:03:00he had of a situation like this where he had involved himself to the extent of being a mediator, really, between two warring factions.

GEORGE STONEY: Good. Okay, now is there anything --

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JACOBS: (inaudible) to the workmen's circle and he ran one of those little grocery stores there too. Mr. Bass did something that, he's the only one that I've known that's done it, much less a workmen's circle member, he raised rabbits. He raised prize rabbits. He used to show them off in shows. Why did I just think of it? When you said show the places, I remember he had this little place, here comes the strike, he's a poor guy just making a living in this poor community, in this little grocery stores. And I remember he says, "I'll 00:04:00give some food too." And then he talks to me right at the inception of our figuring on the food, he says, "You know stuff in the store cost me money," he says, "I haven't got that kind of money but," he said, "I got rabbits." And he says, "Rabbits, you know how they do, they have rabbits and rabbits and rabbits." He says, "I can give them all the rabbit meat that they want." (laughter) We had rabbit meat, they had rabbit meat, all that you want during the course of that strike. That's what made me think of it when you said we go out there – I – I had completely forgotten about it.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay.

JACOBS: That's amazing an amazing (laugher) an amazing episode.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay good. Okay.

JACOBS: I'll have to do this [break in video]-- Cause a year or two years later they were beginning to call some of them back cause they figured that they'd starved them out enough. Anyway, he became secretary, treasury of the 00:05:00union. He and his father began to be active in it, and one bright day a group of men come to his place, they knock at the door, they want to talk to him, he goes down to the car, they grab him, they put him in the car, they drive him out on a country road, they beat him up. He knows who they are. One of them is an insurance man who deals with the Callaway Mills. One of them is a, uh, owner of a general store there that's right where the Callaway Mills are and a lot of the people trade with him. One of them is one of the, uh, supervisors at the 00:06:00Callaway Mill. And I forget what the other one was, it had something to do with the mills. And they beat the hell out of him. They throw him out of the car. And he finally gets back home. When he gets back home he talks with his father. And his father is one of those tough Georgia crackers, who says, 'By God they can't do it. We going to go down, and we going to swear out a warrant against them, if we can't do that we're going before the grand jury." And his father says, "We're going to get our guns and if they going to do like that, then we're going to do like that." So sure enough, they go down to the court house. I don't remember now whether it was the sheriff or whether it 00:07:00was the justice of peace, that they tried to swear a warrant out against them, but they would not swear the warrant out when they heard who he wanted to swear it out against. And the grand jury was going to meet very shortly, so they said, "You have to appear before the grand jury, if the grand jury finds there is reason to believe they did this, the will issue an indictment." In the meantime they come up to Atlanta they talk to George Googe. George Googe puts them in touch with me. And I listen to them, I ask them, uhh, what about the sheriff. "Oh we've known him for years, he's a good man, he's alright." Well, why is he with the Callaways?" "Oh, oh, I don't want to get lined up with them, I don't think he'd side with them, I think he'd 00:08:00be alright." I said, uh, "Did he tell you when the grand jury would meet?" "Yeah he told us when they would meet, he told us to see the, uh, district attorney." They didn't call it a district attorney though, the prosecuting attorney. And he would arrange for us to appear before the grand jury. And I said, "Okay." And I said, "What about the guns?" And the said, "Oh yeah we –", the father was there, he said he had the permit for a gun and that the son was going to get a permit for the guns, so he could carry it. Okay, so I said, "Well if you can trust him, go down and see the grand jury, and then let me know what happens." I get a call. I believe it was the mother, I don't think it was either the father or the son. They had gone down to the grand jury, and when they got to the court house. Before they went into 00:09:00the grand jury, they sheriff arrested them on a law in Georgia which says you cannot carry a gun in about the courthouse. The only one that can is the sheriff. After they put them under arrest they ushered them into the grand jury room. When they ushered them into the grand jury room, they look around, there are some supervisors from Callaway, there are some business people that belong to the Kiwanis Rotary or whatever it is with the Callaway people. And he spends his time arguing with them, that he knows that these are the people who did it. And they keep telling them that they couldn't have been. These are good people, they're nice people, they're outstanding citizens, they can't be. Anyway, so they charge them with carrying guns in and about the courthouse. 00:10:00They charge them with not having a permit for the gun, and I think that there was one other charge against the son and the father. So, when is the case going to be set? They didn't know. I called the prosecuting attorney, he told me. We arranged to go down, in the meantime I say to them, "How come? You told me you had a permit and here they are charging you." and they said, "Look, here it is." And he shows me the receipt, where he'd gotten – paid for and gotten and so forth. So, I wait till its time for the case to come up, the case is due to come up during the course of the day, I go down there, I see them. I talk to the prosecuting attorney. I try to get him to drop it, he won't drop it. Finally I say, "Well we'll talk with the judge." Meantime I go down 00:11:00to the probate court where you get your license for it. And I ask the lady there, "Where have you got entered this man's license?" "Oh," she says, "we're running behind on entering from our receipt book into our list of permit books. And she said, "I don't remember if I've listed his or not, but," she says, "I've got the receipt book." I said, "Would you show it to me?" and sure enough there it was. So they call the case. We go upstairs. Want to know whether it should be a jury trial or a judge trial. I said, "Well, let's try a jury trial.", cause I was afraid of the judge. I said, "Which ones are we going to charge, how are we going to do it?" "Well," the prosecuting attorney says, " I tell you what, we got 6 cases here, means we got to try 6 separate cases. Is there any way we can consolidate 00:12:00them or what?" I said, "I'll make you a proposition, if you let me pick the case to try first, if I win it, then you turn us loose on everything, not guilty. If I lose it then we're guilty on the rest of them." "Oh sure," he figured why not I'm going to beat him anyway. Guilty one I got 'em and I don't have to try them all. I said, "Okay, now let's try the one on the permit. For the son." (laugher) and my dice are loaded. Okay I put him on the stand, meantime I say send down for the probate court record keeper, the clerk. Have the clerk bring up all the records that deal with permits, including the permit book. I didn't mention the receipt book. Sure enough they send word 00:13:00up, just let us know, whatever time, she'll come up. And I put him on. Shows the receipt. We've already picked the jury, I tried to pick people that didn't work for Callaway. (doorbell in background) Show the receipt to the judge, show it to the D.A. and his eyes pop. I said, "Please send down for the probate court." By that time he wants to get the book because he knows he didn't see it in the book. Up she comes, sworn in. "Do you keep records?" "Yeah." And we go through the routine. "How do you do it?" "Receipt first, from the receipt to the book." "Let's see your receipt book." Bang! "Let's take a look at the permit book." Not there. "Did he have a permit?" "Sure did." "Your Honor, I move to dismiss. The evidence 00:14:00shows he did." He turns to the prosecuting attorney and says "Your Honor, he was not listed in the permit book and that's the reason why we had the warrant listed against him dat-da-da-da-dat, and if it wasn't in the permit book."" Judge says "When he got the receipt and paid the fee, well, he had the permit, case dismissed." I said to the man, I can't fully remember his name, I said, "now let's dismiss the other case." We're not through, he says we got to write up the orders. I tell Henry George, I says, "Now you get the hell out of here in a hurry.", and his father was there with him. I said, "You both get out of here. Go down the road, and when you go down the road stop at a certain place that was some 5, 6 miles out of the county, and I'll meet you there." And the reason I said that was because when he had to 00:15:00dismiss the case –- So the sheriff was standing there and he went over and talked to the sheriff, and while I couldn't read his lips I –- the sheriff was shaking his head, shaking his head , they, they're concocting something here. I smell it. That's what you call intuition. Sure enough we wrote them up and everything else. While we're doing it out of the corner of my eye, I see the sheriff head down. I go to the window, while the prosecuting attorney is writing. I see he's going around real fast with a couple of deputies trying to find where the hell my man is. Can't find him, he comes back up. We sign the stuff up. I go downstairs. When I go downstairs, the sheriff has already had a couple of deputies down there to follow me. Out of the corner of my eye, I see he's coming up behind them. I go to my car. I get in my car. So I decide I'm going to get on the highway right now. I'm going to go over 00:16:00like I'm headed to house where this man's father lived. Because by that time we had already brought him up to Atlanta and got him a job with the power company. (laughter) I look in my rear view mirror, they're following me. I ride down the street till his father's house. They're behind me. They park back a piece. I don't get out of the car, I start back up again, I ride around they – I watch in the mirror they're following me. I get on the highway I start heading out they're following me on the high way. Now what they are intend to do, I don't know. Except, I think they would've found another reason to arrest them and charge them with something else. I met them down the road, I told them what they did and I said, I said to George "It's a good thing you people left, otherwise we'd be trying some more cases down here."

GEORGE STONEY: And that meant they had to move out of the county then.

JACOBS: He moved out of the county completely. His father stayed on. I think his father lost the job at the Callaway Mill as I remember it. And he wasn't bad at carpentry work, so he did a little carpentry work.

STONEY: Now, now that's what he said.

JACOBS: Okay.

GEORGE STONEY: Okay. Okay well

JACOBS: Talk to you—

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JOYCE BROOKSHIRE: -- the day they closed the mill?

ETHEL BARBER: Yeah. If it serves me right, it was a Wednesday evening or a Thursday. I know it was to far back for us to get our payday(?). We had to come out. And he told us when we come out that until they got it completely settled, get the people reconciled without getting anybody hurt, and we'd have to stay off of the job till it was done. So we all agreed, because they was 00:18:00many, many more than didn't want the strike than wanted it. A lot more didn't want it, but when we went to where we'd go in the front gate and we had a little path to go across from the main office over into the mill yard because they couldn't open that main gate because them strikers would go in there. So we'd go through that walkway ever night and every morning to our jobs, because they could keep 'em off of that, but they couldn't keep 'em out of this gangway. So that's the way we went. That morning before they closed the mill down, most everybody was there at 6 o'clock and we went in. And then Ginny Simkins, Jim -- 00:19:00well, she come over there. He was our secretary, you know, Jim Jenkins was. He come ov -- she come in there and started up that ramp and the strikers grabbed her and the guards got her by the waist and they had her by the feet, and they liked to pulled her in two. She's an invalid this day, and I believe she's still living. I haven't seen, nor heard of Ginny in a good while. She lived at the corner of Pearl Street and (inaudible). She owned that home there. And I don't know. She had one son, and I don't know if she's still living with him or not.

BROOKSHIRE: She's not. I know who you're talking about now.

BARBER: You do? Well, she's the one. And they injured her and she was crippled the rest of her life. But we all come out and they tried to kill a 00:20:00good many of 'em as they come out the gate there, but there was no bad injuries. But they wanted to turn over a lot of cars. They tried to turn my car over, but they didn't turn it over. And they tried to hurt everybody that they could. So when we got out of there and come home, we didn't go back till they notified us that we could go back on our jobs. And I don't -- I never did want to be in one more strike as long as I live. (laughs) I don't want no part of it. It's rough.

BROOKSHIRE: But you's talking about Ginny. The guards was trying to pull her in and the strikers were trying to pull her out?

BARBER: Yeah. See, two of the guards had her by the arm and shoulders and these men had her by the legs and they was pulling against one another. And they injured that woman very, very seriously. They had to put her in the hospital. And that evening was the very evening that the main head man of the 00:21:00Fulton Bag Cotton Mill broadcasted that it was going to shut down, for everybody to throw their machines off and come out quietly. And that's what we did. When they told us -- it was between 5 and 6 o'clock when they told us to close our machines and walk out of there, but come out quietly and peaceably and not have no disturbance whatsoever. And they shut our machines down and they let us stay in there long enough to clean the machines up, and we come out. But it was rough (inaudible). Oh, Lord (inaudible).

BROOKSHIRE: So you feared for your life, huh?

BARBER: Uhm-um. Well, you -- you just hated to go out on that sidewalk. It was so ugly you just didn't want to get out there on that sidewalk. But you knowed you had to come out of there because they was going to close the whole 00:22:00thing down. And they closed it down, too. But I was glad that they wasn't no killing, but I just knew there would be.

BROKSHIRE: And these were all the people that you knew?

BARBER: Yeah. Lots and lots that I worked with that I didn't want to see hurt. I didn't want to be hurt myself. And I didn't want to see none of them men and women hurt, but, honey, they would (inaudible). Don't you think they wouldn't. They was determined to show us that they could take that mill and do what they wanted to do with it. We won out. They did, because we stayed away from there, and it was then, I think, two weeks before they ever decided to leave there and let us alone and open that mill back up. I don't know --

BROOKSHIRE: So what was it like when you came back to work?

BARBER: Well, just like I first started. It was very quiet. Everybody was satisfied and happen that they was going to get to go back to their job, and 00:23:00they all was very happy. And we worked every day. That's what I think about young people today. They don't want to go to work till they get top notch, but yet they don't know the job. But we started at $10 a week and loved it. And there ain't none of 'em that'll do that now. They won't start at no $10 a week. If they can't get top pay, they won't work. They try to get the welfare to feed 'em. Now I don't love to beg. (laughs) No, I don't love to beg. I love to work for what I get.

BROOKSHIRE: So that $10 was enough to --

BARBER: Well, back then -- I want to tell you, Joyce -- back then $10 is as much as $50 now. Back then you could buy with $10 what you could give $50 now. 00:24:00But, Lord, I'm telling you, these children ought to live the life I lived, because they wouldn't want -- they sure wouldn't want to go through what I've been through 88 years -- 84 years! (laughs)

BROOKSHIRE: But you got through it.

BARBER: Yeah, and lived to tell the story. Sometime I'm going to write a book of my life, Joyce.

BROOKSHIRE: Well, I think you ought to start. (laughter)

BARBER: I'm going to write a book of my life -- how mean I was and how hard I worked! (laughs) Yeah.

BROOKSHIRE: I'll be glad to help you.

BARBER: I sure am. I enjoyed it, but I don't know -- back then, the teenagers, they enjoyed one another and they had have their parties and there wasn't no 00:25:00fussing or no disorderly. And the neighbors liked children and you got along good in the neighborhood. Joyce, I'm sorry that they build them houses up there now. Ain't I ugly?

BROOKSHIRE: No. No.

BARBER: Yeah, I am.

BROOKSHIRE: I know you've been having a lot of trouble.

BARBER: I am sorry. If I could have stopped that -- if I knowed now what I know now, I'd stopped that. I'd said, "Oh, you-all can't buy this and build it. We don't need them houses here, 'cause you ain't putting good people in 'em." Ooh, I'm telling you. And -- and another thing. I appreciate good friends and neighbors and I want to be a friend to everybody and I want to be treated like I want to treat everybody else. But I don't know. They won't cooperate. They want to do what they want to do and not do right.

BROOKSHIRE: Well, talking about cooperation, what happened between the strikers and the non-strikers after it was over?

BARBER: Well, when the strike was over with and the mill was closed down and everybody at home, well, the head of the strike, union strikers, met out there. And they told him that they was not going to have a union in that mill because all of the employ-- foremans and all agreed not to have no strike -- ah, no union there in that mill. And so they left and they never did come back out there and try no more union in that mill, because everybody that had growed up there, like myself, was raised there in that mill, and we didn't want to see that mill go up. So they agreed that they wouldn't be no more union at Fulton 00:27:00Bag Cotton Mill, and they was not. Nobody else ever come out there and wanted to start a union in that mill. It was real peaceful.

BROOKSHIRE: But were people able to go back being friends and co-workers?

BARBER: Yessir. Yessir, just like the strike hadn't ever been pulled off.

BROOKSHIRE: Is that right?

BARBER: They were just as friendly and everybody tried to help one another, and they was just as friendly as they could be after that strike. And the jobs run good. We didn't have a bit of trouble with our work. I really run good. And you enjoyed it. (inaudible)

BROOKSHIRE: Well, what was your job in the mill?

BARBER: The first job I had at Fulton Bag Cotton Mill was filling batteries to weave cloth. Well, I did that about two-and-a-half years. And the next job I had was a-spooling in the spool room.

BROOKSHIRE: When did you start? What year?

BARBER: Well, I'm 84, just say 84. And I started when I was 16 years old. Now count back. (laughter)

BROKSHIRE: I'm bad at arithmetic.

BARBER: Well, I am, too.

BROOKSHIRE: Let's see -- 16 from 84.

BARBER: That's how old I was when I went to Fulton Bag now. I worked a year in Exposition. I's 15 then, but when I went to work in Fulton Bag I was 16 years old, because had to take my family Bible to prove I's 16 years old before they'd give me a job.

BROOKSHIRE: Must have been after the Child Labor Law.

BARBER: Well, I don't know. They didn't let me do it. So then I spooled till I got tired of that. I transferred there to the old mill and I run warpers, which made the beams to make the cloth. I run that for about five years at 00:29:00night 3 to 11. And I creeled warpers. And I got tired of that, and I went back to the weave shop and filled batteries. And then they wanted me in the twine room, and I went from the weave shop to the twine room and run the rewinders, you know. And that was where I's at when the strike come off. But when I went back, Joyce, I went back in the weave shop to filling batteries in the old mill.

BROOKSHIRE: You liked doing filling them batteries(?), huh?

BARBER: Yeah. Yeah. I'd go out there and tell Mr. (inaudible) I didn't want (inaudible) spools or run warpers; I wanted to fill batteries. He said, "Well, ah, so-and-so, transfer her to wherever you need her. Let her fill batteries." And I'd fill in the new mill. They'd pull me into the old mill. And I'd go to the basement in the old mill and run that ilino(?) (inaudible). I got a 00:30:00privilege of going anywhere. The only thing I regret, I should have went to the card room and I'd had it all made then. But I didn't. I don't know. I just shunned off from the card room. I didn't much care about the card room. I loved the spool rooms, weaving rooms, and I didn't want to spin, because I spinned a year at the Exposition and I didn't want to do that no more. I wanted to try all the rest of it, and I enjoyed it.

BROOKSHIRE: Good.