FRED TURNER: -- try to organize and we would fail and things, but we kept
it up on through and we had to just try to organize this one mill. It wasn't anybody else, that we'd try to have our own organization to go join the union. But the union would come in and -- and help us. But you couldn't get the textile people, I mean the cotton mill people to go along with ye' cause they was just living from week to week and they'as afraid that if they didn't get a payday a week, well, the union said if they got formed a union and if they come out on strike for anything, they would furnish 'em a weekly allowance.JUDITH HELFAND: What did the union mean for you guys then? What was the union
going to do for Cherokee Cotton Mill? 00:01:00TURNER: What did the union mean to me? Well, I'll tell you, my father was a
railroad man and I was raised up and he talked to us about -- the six boys. He'd sit us down in a room and talk to us about the organized labor, that they could take you in unorganized labor and do you any way. Organized labor, you had to abide by -- the union would step in, the rules. They had to go by the rules, but these companies that didn't have no organization or nothing, you went by their rules. If they wanted to cut your pay, they cut your pay. There wasn't nothing you could do about it but quit and starve. I mean people that had families and things. I was lucky that I was staying in a home and my father 00:02:00had a good roof over our head, a place to sleep and we got one pair of shoes a year. In October we got a new pair of shoes. They had to do us till the next April and then we went bare-footed all summer. And then when school started, we get a new pair of shoes, a pair of overhauls and a blue shirt. We had something to wear and we had a little suit that we wore to Sunday school and church. I was raised up all of us went to church. My daddy was a Sunday school teacher for 35 years. And we went to church and everything, but they made fun of us, how we dressed and everything. Couldn't afford many -- my daddy made a fair living with the railroad company, but it wasn't enough to keep 12 mouths. But we did have something to eat. He said he'd rather pay a grocery bill any time 00:03:00as to pay a doctor bill. He wanted everybody to eat. He had something on the table three times a day. It was breakfast, dinner, and supper. He had three meals a day and if you'as there for each meal when it was put on the table -- if you wasn't there and it was taken off the table, you done without till the next meal. You didn't go and like this day and time they come in midnight. If they want to fix something to eat, they do. Mine does the same thing. He would settle it, everybody to get their jobs back and their wages like they was making, and they'd start to work, marry, and they could do like they wanted to. But it was never settled. He never did settle it. They never did say why. It was never mentioned no more about the textile. They's a lot brought it up, but it never did get into the Senate or the Congress or anything it wasn't brought up. 00:04:00You talked to your representative back then, you could talk to your representative, but they'd promise you anything to get in. After they got in, they'd go with the ones up there.GEORGE STONEY: Now ask him about the uh, the -- listing the union
[break in video]
TURNER: I didn't write to 'em. I was just selfish about my pride and
everything --GEORGE STONEY: I'm sorry Judy ask the question again.
HELFAND: Um ok, you-- A lot of people in your local, Local 1878, wrote letters.
They still continued to band together, many of them who were blackballed, and they continued to lobby to try and get your jobs back. Did you know that they were doing that? What did you think about it and what was your role?TURNER: Well, when they were writing about their jobs to get back, they asked
00:05:00me and my brother and we had -- I don't know -- the pride of my daddy being a union man and everything, we wasn't going to beg nobody back for our job and wouldn't write for it. That we would go elsewhere and get us a job, because that wasn't the only textile there was, that we'd have to leave the state and we was young and wanted to run around and see the country. And we did. We seen our part of it and everything and we enjoyed it and we'd go from one little mill. They'd have anywhere from 15 to 40 looms in these little mills and they'd make expensive beach cloth and stuff like that. The Louisville Textile Mill in Louisville, Kentucky, on Goss Avenue(?) was famous for this beach cloth. We went up there and where we were running 4 and 8, 6 and 8 looms, we would run 3 and 4 looms up there and make more money. But it wouldn't last but three or 00:06:00four months out of the year. And they'd go down and work the people that was there and things. We'd move on and we went to several different places like that. And when we landed in Kramerton, North Carolina on Christmas Eve night and spent first Christmas day away from home, but we loved that little town. And we just, my brother and myself, we said, "One of these days we might get married and want to live here." We loved the little town. It was small and everything and the people were so nice to us and everything, and we stayed in the little old hotel there. The Kramers had a long hotel. The women stayed on the first floor and the men, they hired comers and goers from everywhere. But we made a -- we got in with Mr. Dawson. Mr. C.C. Dawson was the head man there 00:07:00and he thought (inaudible) and myself, because we dressed for twins and we went to church and went to different things and participated in what the community meeting's and things was, that sort. We just enjoyed it. We wouldn't get out and to go these honky-tonks over on the boulevard and everything like that. And they wanted to get out and have parties and we refused to go to them kind. We worked there and the biggest check we'd bank. We'd work piecework and which one -- we worked side by side. We'd have a job side by side everywhere we went. And if he wanted to take a break, I'd run his looms and he'd run mine. And the biggest check -- wasn't too many much difference in 'em, but the biggest check, we would bank it and take the other check and split it. And during the week if one run out of money, we'd split what the other'n had. We'd split our money 00:08:00till payday. But we'd always bank one payday. Then when we'd get ready to leave, we'd draw that money out and we'd divide it.HELFAND: Let me ask you a question. Can we stop—
[break in the video]
TURNER: Our recommendation that we had with us telling us
HELFAND: Can you start this again?
TURNER-- they asked us why we didn't go back to this mill. We'd say --
GEORGE STONEY: No, no we want to start—
HELFAND: Could we start again and could you preface this by saying "Each time
we went to another mill and we applied for a job, and this is what happened." I'm trying to get a sense of the kind of feelings--TURNER: Let me start. During that—after they blackballed us here at Cherokee
Spinning Company. The other mills would take anybody that come with a recommendation, with a good recommendation from the company that they worked for. And the recommendation for my brother, Hicks, Lane, Earnest, Clayton and Floyd Henderson and I could name a lot of others, we all had good records and 00:09:00was a top-notch production, putting our material, cloth and everything. And they paid a bonus, a 10% bonus for your week's pay if you had less than 10 yards seconds for the whole week. And they--HELFAND: How did you get this kind of recommendation if you had been
blackballed? I'm trying to understand.TURNER: How I got the recommendation? Mr. Banar thought a lot of my brother
and myself and the other fellas that worked there. He thought a lot of the people that were top-notch workers and he give 'em. And I don't know whether it come out through Congress up there or the representative or some way that the company had to give the people a recommendation if they was capable of running the job. Now that's the way --GEORGE STONEY: No, I don't think there was any such agreement.
00:10:00TURNER: I think they come out, the representatives, and trying to get that, but
they never did pass it. But they the companies. Now a lot of companies --[break in video]
GEORGE STONYE: Just a moment, just a moment actually—
TURNER: And a—
GEORGE STONEY: I know this is confusing.
JAMIE STONEY: And we're rolling.
GEORGE STONEY: Alright now start, "When I got blackballed, we had to move out
of town, but we could move with a recommendation because," and then tell about your man.HELFAND: But look at me sir.
[break in video]
TURNER: The Cherokee Spinning Company was the only place I was blackballed.
They refused to hire us back there, but they would give us a recommendation to work other places. They didn't -- they refused to hire the people back there on account of the strike, but they give -- they -- I don't know whether the representatives or somebody talked to the officials at the Cherokee Spinning Company that they had to -- that they either should or had to give 'em a 00:11:00recommendation so they could get work other places. But they couldn't work at Cherokee Spinning Company after they blackballed 'em. I don't know of anybody. They might have been a few that got back and got refused to work 'em, and over the years of time they hired 'em back.HELFAND: You started to tell me that sometimes when you went to the other mills
they wanted to know why you left.TURNER: No. They asked for a recommendation. The first thing you'd go in --
when you'd go to a mill -- you could go in a mill back then. You could quit one mill, before the strike, because they needed the help so bad, you could go out of one mill into another'n and get a job and they'd want to put you to work right on the spot because they needed people. They didn't have people to operate their machinery. And the strike, they'd say, "Where you been? Where'd you work at?" They'd ask that. "Have you got a recommendation from this 00:12:00company?" They would ask you if you'd ever been on strike or anything. They didn't ask ye' if you believed in the union or if you participated in the union or anything like that. They needed you for that job and they knowed -- in the Kramers' mill there, I'll tell ye', the people there got hurt more in the strike than they gained. Now I wasn't there, but I'm going to tell ye' something. You don't have to published unless'n you want to. The people lived there at Kramerton, they give 'em a job, they give 'em a house to live in, they kept the house up, they paid, ah -- well, the house I lived in was a five room house. I paid $2.60 a week for that house. That's about the highest -- I had one when I lived on the main street and how I got on this main street was through my big 00:13:00boss. He liked me and his wife, they run -- my wife and his wife run around together. She thought the world of (inaudible), I mean Lynn. And she talked to Jesse and he was over all the houses for the weave room. Mr. Reese was over the houses for the yarn mill, and they had one for the finish in the plant, and they had one down, just a regular yarn mill. They had different section of houses for these mills. And the Kramers owned four mills there before Burlington bought 'em out. But they'd let ye' -- ye'd go in there and get a job. And I went in as a ballplayer. I was a pretty good --not bragging. You've seen my suit I would wear? I was a second baseman and I was a pretty good ballplayer and I got a job in the mill is how come us to get a job there, to play ball. 00:14:00Well, they didn't have a job open then. Well, we set around of a day in cheers or anything and not do nothing because we'as ballplayers. They'd give us -- make a job later on for us. And so they'd get a set open for us, they'd give 'em to us. And I played ball with 'em for several years there and we went to several championship games and -- and won some and lost some. And we had a little world series -- this is a younger team now -- Gastonia, North Carolina, in 1935 played in the little world series.[break in video]
HELFAND: Please look at me.
GEORGE STONEY: Just a moment, just a moment. Wait a minute, wait a minute
we're not quite ready yet. OK go!HELFAND: And please look at me when you're talking. Ok you had started to tell
me that Kramerton was hurt during the '34 strike.TURNER: The Kramerton
people was hurt after the strike, 'cause they lost the strike. Then went out 00:15:00and the Kramers tried to get 'em to work on and they refused to work on and they operated some of it. And they told the people before the strike, the people that worked there at the Kramers, if they didn't make more than $5 a week, they didn't pay no house rent, nothing. They got their $5 to buy their groceries, and they never did it, the rent was passed up. It wasn't marked down against 'em. Then when the mill picked back up, they would go back to work, you know, fulltime or four -- three or four days, five days. Back in the late '30s and early '40s the mills didn't run the year round. They'd run from about September till April of the next year. Then summer months, they would go down 'cause they 00:16:00had a sale in June, the Kramers Gaylord in New York had a sale --[break in video]
GEORGE STONEY: Ok Judy.
JAMIE STONEY: We have speed.
HELFAND: Ok. Tell me, Mr. Turner, how did you organize back then? What was
your strategy? Describe it to me.TURNER: We would go to people and talk to 'em and then we'd get a group
together and have a meeting and see how they felt. And that way, you'd get the majority, tried to get the majority of the working people and have a meeting. And then you'd form them. You'd appoint the leaders and the one the treasurer and that sort of -- and one would be the -- the leaders of it. And after that, why, they would have meetings. And more meetings, they'd invite more people. 00:17:00And when they'd get the majority of the people, why, they'd think they had enough to go and at times -- the company cut us back. One time I think they cut us about 30% wages and just take it on theirself, cause they was -- said they was up against it and they had to cut our wages down to nothing hardly. And, ah, so we voted to get our money back and organize and they'd have to have a meeting with us when they'd go to let anybody go or what the reason was and everything like a union stands for. And the company had their side and the union had their side. And they had to get together and work it out. And they'd pass it on to the -- the members. And, ah, the leaders back then that we had to 00:18:00organize, a lot of times they would go with -- there'd be loom fixers or things like that and they -- the officials would talk to 'em and say, well, if they come out on a strike they'll lose their jobs. They'd get 'em about halfway scared. And we had one treasurer to take our money and went to poker games and spent our union money we'as organizing with. And, see, that's why the textile couldn't organize and stick together, the cotton mills. They'd get people in there that would go along with 'em and they wouldn't have 'em on bond and they'd spend the money or maybe leave the count-- leave the town. Now that's what 00:19:00happened in several places way back in the early '30s, but later on they got the right ones in there and when they called this nationwide strike, the majority of the people was ready to strike for what -- and keep the textile peo-- I mean the cotton mills from just paying us what they wanted to.GEORGE STONEY: Why do you think—look at Judy. Why do you think that the
textile people will never be able to organize? Repeat my question.TURNER: Well, the reason that the textile people'll never be organized, because
they won't stick together. They tell ye' they will, then they won't. It's just one of these things it's -- it's been tried and tried and tried and I've never seen one yet that's tried a union that's worked. They won't -- the people'll go against the union. The ones that'll vote and go out with ye' and everything 00:20:00will go back to work -- they'd have like this nationwide strike. That proved right there that the people wouldn't organize the textile, that they talked 'em into coming back to work and everything and the people will say, "Well" -- like I said, they live in the company's houses, they use the company's power and all that stuff and if they wanted coal or wood, if they burned wood, if they burned coal, they hauled the coal and take it out of your wages so much a week. They wouldn't take it out at one time. They'd put your coal in to do you all winter and take so much out each week of your pay till you got your coal paid for and that's the way they operated. And people just got -- the textile people got to where they thought they couldn't live if they went against the companies. 00:21:00GEORGE STONEY: Good, that's very good. Ok, just hold, just a momen Jamie.
[break in video]
TURNER: Another thing I wanted to -- I told ye' about the Kramers let the
people live in their houses, wouldn't -- didn't have to pay no rent, and if they didn't make but $5 a week, they kept the $5 to buy 'em something to eat, but they was never charged for that back rent when things got better. That was one thing the Kramers done for the people there, that when the strike come along and they went back to work, all that was knocked out from under 'em. And they set the price of the houses, the rent, according to how many rooms there was in a house, things like that, and you had to pay for different things when before, you didn't. But that's the way I looked at it when I went over there after the strike and they tell -- they sit around and tell what a good time they had before the strike and what was knocked out from under 'em after the strike, that 00:22:00a lot of people had to live there. When the mill went down, they had to move somewhere else, get a job if they could. And it wasn't easy. That's just like we went over there in September -- ever Labor Day -- oh there's that phone—[break in video]
TURNER: They just paid them like I say, when I went to work there for 18 cents
an hour, when the NRA come in up there, they paid 30 cents an hour and, ah, when you was running your looms on piecework, if you maybe had 2 or 3 warps run out, you'd have to wait until they put warp back in there. You didn't get paid for that. But most of the union wanted to come in there and make 'em give you an average for those looms has to be replaced till they got back in production. A limit amount where you didn't get anything. See, if you run -- say, you run six 00:23:00looms in production, well, you have to have all six of 'em in high -- you'd try to keep 'em in high speed all time. As fast as they'd stop, you'd try to start 'em up as fast as they -- as quick as you could. Going in or filling in break or first one thing then the other, a loom would break down. You'd have to flag it for a loom fixer and had to stand and wait on him, well, we lost money.HELFAND: What about favoritism? What about the way the bosses treated the employees?
TURNER: Well, they had -- they had their ones they'd do favors for and others
they wouldn't do favors for. And they put some better than others and give 'em better production jobs and things of that sort. See, that had what they called, I'd say, good protection job was the light weight of material that you made, so you could run it and run more of it and make more money. But the more harness 00:24:00you had in a loom, say, they run from 12 to 20 harness, well, you've got all those hornets working up and down to make these -- this plaid in this material. Why, this here was made on a six-harness weaving up and down, shuttles going backwards and forwards, but each straps so many picks in there for each and so many picks, say, you've got about 10 picks of green there, you've got about 50 or 60 picks of this red here and the green the same way. You have to have -- the loom is operated that way.HELFAND: Ok.
TURNER: Now the more harness you got, the more trouble you have -- or got when
-- that the ends'll break out and things like that'll give you trouble. And the big head on there that's working all time where you've got six harness working, you've just got six little old harness working back and forth like that to pull 00:25:00these harness up and down. So the more you got, the more trouble you have and less production you can get. Well, the handkerchiefs -- when you was on the handkerchief material, they run 22 harness. They made a 20-harness loom. They put two extra things on the outside and hooked it to ye' jackside over here that operated that to work salvage on it. Then you put 20 harness on the body. Well, you had from 5 -- I'd say from 200 to 1,500 pattern change to come through there and that's all the trouble -- you had these pattern changes that runs up and down on rollers -- they would break and pile up and you'd maybe 2-3-4 hours for them to replace them. But, see, the weavers was losing their money. By 00:26:00that, not getting anything, and Burlington –HELFAND: Ok.
TURNER: I'll stop right there.
[break in video]
GEORGE STONEY: Ok.
JAMIE STONEY: So you don't magically appear. Uh back a little more. I'll
do a little wide shot here.GEORGE STONEY: Ok.
[break in video]
TURNER: I know him well and lived close to him there in Kramerton for years and
years. And, ah --GEORGE STONEY: How come all these people went to Kramerton?
TURNER: Well, I'll tell ye'. Kramerton was -- was a good location. They had
good mills there and they made all kinds of fancy material -- silk and all kinds of cotton. And we had mills there that we'd -- they'd pick the cotton out in the field and bring it to us. And when it come thru there and when it went out the front door, it was ready to wear. The other mills didn't have that. They'd have to order theirs and we sold a lot of yarn, that mill. Had spinning mills that made yarn. We sold it to the other mills.GEORGE STONEY: What I mean --
[break in video]
00:27:00GEORGE STONEY: So we'll start over here. I want you to find, uh just go down
here and find your own name and your brother's name.TURNER: You want to start again at my name?
GEORGE STONEY: Yeah that's right.
TURNER: Alright, there's a hundred, I don't have to tell you the number, do
I have to have a number.GEORGE STONEY: Yes.
TURNER: Number 105 is Fred Turner. That's me. And 106 is Elbert Turner, which
is my brother. Laura Turner is my sister-in-law, and, let's see, Tom Underwood, he was number 111.GEORGE STONEY: Now all these people were people who were blackballed and had to
leave town?TURNER: That's right. These people didn't get no jobs back at Cherokee
Spinning Company. And, ah --GEORGE STONEY: How did you feel about having to leave town?
TURNER: I felt pretty good, to tell you the truth about it. I felt pretty
good, cause I'd worked there -- I had quit there two or three times while I worked at Cherokee Spinning Company and one time I quit there and went to 00:28:00Louisville, Kentucky, cause they told me over there you could run 2 and 3 looms and make more money.GEORGE SOTNEY: So you didn't--
TURNER: And I was young, 22 years old, and my brother was 20 years old. And we
decided we'd just -- another boy was -- was going with us, but he backed out and took one of our jobs. When we got back, why, he wouldn't go. He was a good friend of ours. He run around with him. Well, he's in one of those pictures. I can show you in one of those pictures. We come back, but we did go back to work there.GEORGE STONEY: Ok, cut.