Don McKee and Sol Stetin Interview 3



SOL STETIN: Do you remember--

DON MCKEE: You know we had a Stevens -- a Stevens plant in Rock Hill?

STETIN: Sure.

MCKEE: When it came to renew the contract, they, uh--

GEORGE STONEY: The next thing you're going to be seeing--

MCKEE: (inaudible) strike.

STONEY: The next thing you're going to be seeing is troops, so I want to get your response to this. Ok, you ready? Let's go. (inaudible)

STETIN: There's the troops, look at that!

[background audio from the newsreel, inaudible]

STETIN: What is he doing? Smoking a cigar or a cigarette?

MCKEE: That's the thing.

STONEY: Yes, sure I'm sorry, it thought this was all on—sorry. And here's the bit, just, yeah--

STETIN: Is he going backwards?

STONEY: Yes.

STETIN: Trying to keep them from going in.

[background audio from the newsreel, inaudible]

MCKEE: Fix bayonets, Sol.

STETIN: What?

MCKEE: Fix bayonets.

STETIN: Fix bayonets, yeah I see that. Oh boy.

[background audio from the newsreel, inaudible]

STETIN: There's the tear gas.

MCKEE: Tear gas

STONEY: See to me this documents what you've been saying about the kind of violence that you saw.

STETIN: Yeah.

MCKEE: Yeah.

JUDITH HELFAND: Oh, you know what?

STONEY: Yes? You want to go just beyond that?

HELFAND: Yes.

STONEY: (inaudible)

STETIN: Where is this Judy?

HELFAND: This I believe is in Fort Mills.

MCKEE: Fort Mills, ok.

HELFAND: You've said you've never been there?

MCKEE: Horse Creek Valley.

STONEY: Woman preacher.

MCKEE: Oh yeah--

HELFAND: Should I stop it?

STONEY: Yes.

[background audio from the newsreel, inaudible]

MCKEE: That just looks like Sister Macabee. She used to pray for the union in Gaffney.

STETIN: Beautiful.

STONEY: (inaudible) go back any we're going to hear a little more about her.

MCKEE: Alright.

STONEY: Ok, that's enough. Notice the—notice the machine gun to your right there, Don.

MCKEE: Where? Look the machine gun.

STETIN: Look at there! There's a machine gun.

MCKEE: Well that's what they had on the roof of the [Alba?] Mill in Gaffney when I was there.

MCKEE: That looks -- that's what Sister Macabee used to do in Gaffney, in front of the Gaffney Manufacturing Company, whenever we had a union meeting. She would get down on the side walk and pray. She said, and I'll quote her, 00:05:00"I'm a union and I'll always be a union.", and then she'd start praying on her knees--

STETIN: Beautiful.

MCKEE: For all of the union workers. She -- she came to all our meetings and would always get down on her knees and pray before--

STETIN: Beautiful

MCKEE: -- the union meeting began.

STETIN: Beautiful.

[background audio from the newsreel, inaudible]

STONEY: Don? Don, speak about this woman as being anti-union.

STETIN: She was an anti-unionist.

MCKEE: Well, that's typically what happened every time we tried to organize a plant in the South, when we confronted a labor board election. What happen is we 00:06:00would be inundated with jack leg preachers, who come in. Here's what used to say, "the CIO means Christ is out, Communism is on." There's machine gun again.

STONEY: (inaudible)

STETIN: They're there to protect the interest of the employer, not the interest of the workers.

HELFAND: Do you think --

STONEY: Did you have it cued up on the other tape?

HELFAND: Yeah I did. So I'll get it.

MCKEE: Amazing.

[background audio from the newsreel, inaudible]

STETIN: It's amazing all the hats and caps that were worn in those days.

MCKEE: Sure. And the overalls.

STETIN: And the overalls. Boy isn't that intimidation.

MCKEE: Yeah. Fix bayonets.

STETIN: They are intimidating the workers.

MCKEE: Tear gas.

STETIN: Oh boy.

STONEY: Comment on these.

STETIN: What are the standing -- are those guns there?

MCKEE: Those are rifles--

STETIN: Yeah, yeah. But they're not policemen, what are they detectives?

MCKEE: (laughs)

STETIN: Private detectives?

MCKEE: Looks like--

STETIN: Employed-- goons employed by the company?

STONEY: These are local citizens that have been deputized.

MCKEE: Yeah.

STETIN: Ohhh.

STONEY: Repeat that Don.

MCKEE: They're local citizens who've been deputized to serve as policemen. Intimidate the workers.

STONEY: Now connect that up with the uptown and the-- (pause) Now let's back this up again. Now Don--

MCKEE: Yeah.

STONEY: I want you to connect these people up with

[break in video]

HELFAND: George should I start here or close to the gun?

STONEY: Start there.

HELFAND: This is fine?

STONEY: Cause I got a lot to say. No that's fine.

HELFAND: Ok right here.

MCKEE: Look at that Sol, those aren't policemen. They are people who have been deputized to serve as policemen. Probably uptown people who don't -- who have no use for lintheads. But it may be, some of them may be actually anti-union people working in that factory. Maybe some of the second hands, and those who are so afraid of losing their jobs that they play along with the employer against the workers who are trying to get collective bargaining.

STETIN: I bet you there were no working class people who belong to the union that were deputized to protect the interests of the people to make sure that they weren't harmed by them.

MCKEE: S-- sure. They don't look like they are very well trained to me. I'd be a little intimated to see all that firepower in the hands of people who don't have much practice on how to use it. Look at that a tear gas gun. That's for firing tear gas.

STONEY: Ok I think that does it.

STETIN: Ok.

[break in video]

HELFAND: And I wonder if -- if

MCKEE: I never saw--

STETIN: I never saw them but I would think that they might have been shown like Pathè News.

STONEY: We know they were shown because we see -- because we've got the conversion.

MCKEE: Yes.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Flying squadron's methods. National Guardsmen at Newnan Georgia, round up a group of pickets and place them under arrest. Women as well as men are taken in the militia's net. The strikers submit peacefully and are hustled off before bristling bayonets. State highway trucks are used to 00:12:00transport prisoners, numbering about 200, many of them women and girls.

MCKEE: State highway troops. State highway vehicles

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Specifically those arrested are charged with attempting to prevent the reopening of the Newnan mills. Reminiscent of World War days--

STETIN: Look at that. How do you like that?

MCKEE: A bullpen.

STETIN: Governor Talmadge was acting like a fascist in those days.

NEWSREEL ANNOUNCER: Armed guards patrol the enclosure and the prisoners' learn how it feels to be on the inside looking out. Chow time finds a lot of healthy appetites and the incarcerated ladies make the best of their predicament. Its good old army grub, plain but nourishing, and the state is paying for it.

(laughter)

STETIN: It's a shame--

STONEY: That was the cut version. That's what actually went out on the newsreel.

STETIN: I see.

MCKEE: Yeah they all are very happy right?

STETIN: Yeah they should them--

STONEY:-- this footage shows something --

(Cough)

STONEY: (inaudible) and what people went through.

STETIN: Sure.

STONEY: And we have testimony from one of the people who was there.

STETIN: Oh boy.

HELFAND: Sol did you hear about this at all?

STETIN: I think so, yes we heard about that. I think this episode was carried quite dramatically throughout the country. But I'm not sure. But I have a vivid memory of it. (pause) In a vague sort of way.

STONEY: Could you talk about how the, the, uh media, particularly the newspapers talked about the strike? Was it in favor of union, was it against the union, what was it?

STETIN: I would say that the media was not sympathetic to the strikers.

STONEY: In the North you mean?

STETIN: In the North. They certainly weren't in the South.

MCKEE: They certainly weren't in the South Sol.

STETIN: But you know it's so long ago. I said I have a vivid memory of it, it's so long ago that I really -- look at this guy, what's he doing?

MCKEE: (laughs) He's being arrested.

STETIN: Oh god. It's most unfortunate that the labor movement in September 1934 did not come to the aid of the strikers. As the union movement is now 00:15:00coming to the aid of the workers in the daily news strike.

MCKEE: Well you have to remember Sol that they only really union movement was the AF of L, it wasn't interested in the mass production industries. And as a matter of fact about this time they only had about a million members in the whole nation, in all of their AF of L craft unions.

STETIN: That's very true.

HELFAND: What do you think the overall effect of this intimidation (inaudible.

STETIN: It created fear in the hearts of the workers no question about that. It weakened their efforts to be progressive or militant. They were afraid, they were afraid of their jobs, they were afraid of their livelihood, they were afraid for their children. And the federal government stood be and permitted 00:16:00this to go on. That was a terrible image of our country to have something like this.

MCKEE: Well there they are in the bullpen.

STETIN: Yeah.

MCKEE: Behind the barb wire.

HELFAND: These were all members of a flying squadron in the Newnan area.

STONEY: Don could you talk about the flying squadron and the rumors of the 00:17:00flying squadron as you heard them later.

MCKEE: Well, what the flying squadrons did was to spread the strike. I another words workers who were on strike in one community, one town, would go in tin Lizzes and other transportation to other textile mill community, where the mill was working. And they would persuade the workers to walk out and join the strike.

STONEY: Do you think that was a wise technique?

MCKEE: Well it was a technique which made this one of the largest strikes in the history of the United States, because it involved textile mill worker almost throughout the whole South. And the flying squadrons actually were a way of trying to persuade workers who weren't involved to join in the tremendous 00:18:00demonstration against low wages, and the stretch out and other horrible conditions in the textile mills.

STETIN: 50 percent of the strikers were in the North, especially in the Northeast and the Middle Atlantic states. Most--

STONEY: -- the role of the women there, Don.

MCKEE: Well, oh, --

STONEY: We're going to be rewinding it back because, I want you to be talking about, talking about the role that women there-- The fact that there were so many women involved. Now.

MCKEE: Now there is a typical union member joined by another. Women played a 00:19:00very prominent part in union organization in the South. As a matter of fact they were almost as numerous in men, as men in most of the factories that participated in winning labor board elections in. And look Sol, what a prominent role they are playing throughout this demonstration. '34.

STETIN: I'll tell you women are beginning to play a much more major role in our society, in political as well as economic action. They are becoming more prevalent in equal rights, in the trade union movement.

MCKEE: Some of the best local union leadership I encountered consisted of women. 00:20:00Down at, uh Anniston Alabama in the Utica Knitting Mills for instance, Virginia Browning was the predominant leader of that union and was so effective that she was put on the executive board of National Textile Workers' Union CIO. When we organized a couple of factories in York South Carolina, which was near Rock Hill, the organization was almost, predominantly done by women.

STONEY: Ok, I think we got it then. Thank you.

STETIN: Ok.

MCKEE: Are those were the National Guard—the National Guard tents?

STETIN: I think so.

[break in video]

(skyline shots of New York city at sunset)

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