Harry Barton Interview 4

 GEORGE STONEY: Were you recording then?

M1: Yes I was.

JUDITH HELFAND: What were you saying about your wife before?

HARRY BARTON: Beg your pardon? What she—I don't understand.

HELFAND: What was that you said about your wife before?

BARTON: What I said about my wife?

HELFAND: Yeah. You said she was wonderful.

BARTON: I said she's wonderful. Yeah, she's a wonderful lady. I love her. I love her very much. I don't know what I could have done without her. In my period of life I went through surgery and, ah, 19-and-- I was 79 years old – 19-and-90.

HELFAND: Well you look great now. You look very healthy and strong. (inaudible).

STONEY: Speak very loudly.

HELFAND: I want to go back to the beginning of the union, before the strike. And I'm wondering why you joined to begin with?

BARTON: Why I joined?

HELFAND: Yes.

BARTON: Well, it was a new toy, I'd say -- a new toy to play with. And I don't know. I -- I was just like everybody else. We -- we weren't making any money. That's the fact. But, ah, we felt like after they -- they give us pretty -- you know, they pretty smart people, the union people are. They got a good story to tell you. I'm pretty sure some of these people in this room must be organized 00:02:00in a union and I'm not against 'em, but they got -- they got a good story to tell you. And I think the union has -- has done a terrific job. I think they've cleaned up their house as well as the people have, but we just thought it would help us. And I was one the ring leaders in getting 'em started here. And, ah, I sure was. And was glad to do it. But, ah, I don't know. I just -- I kinda got upset about that three-dollar job down yonder.

HELFAND: Could you tell me about -- how were you ring leader? How did you do that? You said you were a ring leader here in organizing in Hogansville. Describe that to me.

BARTON: How did I do?

HELFAND: How were you a ring leader? In the organization--

BARTON: Well, I've always been a ring leader. I've always been a leader in whatever activity was going on. Ah, never -- as a Boy Scout, in baseball. I managed a lot of baseballs teams and, ah, I was a pretty good baseball player, as well as musician. Ah, I was, ah, a song leader in the church. I like to lead people. I like to work with people to lead people and, you know, somebody forgot to do it and most of the time it come to me. As you say, Etta Mae talked for 20 minutes about Harry Barton before she said anything about the plaque over yonder. I don't know why, but I just love to work with people and work with 'em, not make 'em work for me. I mean I work with 'em and I was always one that 00:04:00they'd select -- and I was one that they selected to-- and we talked. We had some meetings, I would say before the union men ever come here. We had meetings for -- I hadn't mention this before. We had, I reckon, 8 or 10 meetings in different places in town and was very secretive because we didn't want to lose our jobs on account of it. But we thought it was gonna help us. And I suppose in the long run if both sides had run their house, kept their house in order like they should, it would have helped. It would have helped the people in Hogansville. But the mill company was a good company and they -- they overlooked a lot of things and they--they hauled coal to people's houses, had furniture -- had groceries put in people's houses that was one of the hardest drivers in this thing. They didn't do it just to my house. Others, they helped 00:05:00'em out. The mill company helped their employees where we didn't have to pay any house rent, we didn't have to pay any utility bill or anything like that. Everybody was alike.

STONEY: Now why did you have to do it in secret?

BARTON: Well, it just a certain amount of fear came up on us, you know. I don't know. I really don't know why. Well, I'd just say, "Well, listen, we're going to talk about this. Let's not talk around. We don't know who's going to be a spy in the crowd or somebody that talks out of turn or can't keep a secret like that." And I said, "We've just got to be careful about it" and we'as pretty selective when we first started who got in these groups and talked about it. And then it began to spread and -- and we got a large number of people, got 00:06:00the whole mill, just about. They, they, was working -- I suppose they was working about 7-800 people down there.

STONEY: And then you went to -- you told us that you went to LaGrange. Tell us about what -- how you got to LaGrange and what happened when you came back.

BARTON: Well, the -- the union people provided transportation for us.

STONEY: No, tell us why you were asked to go to LaGrange first.

BARTON: Well we were asked to go down there—

STONEY: No start off and say where going

BARTON: Going to LaGrange. We were asked would we go to LaGrange, Georgia, and -- and work signing up people for the union. I don't know why they selected Mr. Barker and myself, but we were the two that they asked. And, ah, we told them we didn't know, we was going to have to find out about it. And, of course, our 00:07:00supervisor, who was a second hand, Mr. Johnson, he come to us and said, "You boys go." I said, "Well, who's going to pay us?" Said, "Well, they're going to pay you." And I said, "Are you sure they're going to pay us?" He says, "I'm sure they're going to pay you." Now he couldn't belong to it, but he was very much in favor of it, this man was. And that's -- the rest of the story's what I told you about the $3 after 36 hours' work down there.

STONEY: Could you tell us that story again?

BARTON: Well, ah, they asked us -- they didn't us public in the union hall. They called some of us off to the side and he and I was the ones -- one of the four or five -- would we be willing to go down to LaGrange and work for -- work 00:08:00for 'em down there for the Calloway Mills people. I says, "Well, I don't know about it." I says, "I'll have to think about it a little bit." And I asked the other guy and he said, "Well, I think I'll be glad -- I'll be glad to go." And I -- I said, "Well, if he feels that way, I'll go, too." But I said, "I got to find from my boss." I knew that my boss was in that thing, on the side, he was. And so he come to me and said, "You and Luke go down there 'cause they need your help and you can both do a good job." And that's when I asked him about the pay. And he said, "Don't worry about your job here. You're not going to lose your job. I'll stand between ye' and your job. So that was it. When they paid us the $3, that was it as far as I was concerned. And Mr. Barker stayed in 00:09:00the union. He stayed in it till it was over.

HELFAND: Why do you think your supervisor was so -- had such an investment in the union being organized?

BARTON: I -- I really don't know. That's a good question. I really don't know why he was. We was real good friends. He and I bird hunted together, rabbit hunted together, lived across the street from one another. And our children played together. And we were real close friends in the hobbies we had. We were just -- we had a togetherness that -- that I liked and he liked and, ah, I -- I really don't know. I never did ask him why he was wanting us go down there and do it. He just said, "You're men that would do the job." And so went down there and worked and did the job. I was well pleased with what we did. 00:10:00Well, I tell you, we had some pretty tough-looking people come by there and look in that place that never would come in there. And I wondered sometimes if we were going to leave LaGrange that day every day. I haven't brought -- mentioned that before.

HELFAND: Who were those people?

BARTON: I don't know. Didn't know any of 'em. I don't know whether somebody had got 'em to come by there and have that bulldog look at us or what. I wasn't scared of 'em. I wasn't afraid of 'em a bit. They probably could have cleaned me up. One wouldn't, but two or them of 'em might. But they'd stick their head in the door and then walk out, see. We was just in a small room like this. I was in a small room like this and he was down, oh, four-five blocks away at another place.

HELFAND: Now was that secret, when you were signing the people up at Calloway Mills?

BARTON: Beg pardon?

HELFAND: Was it a secret when you were signing up those people at Calloway Mills? When you were organizing in LaGrange, was that a secret?

BARTON: No, it wasn't a secret. Uh uh. Uh uhm. Everybody that knew me knew I was -- and Mr. Barker -- they knew we were in LaGrange working for the union signing up people to -- in the union as a member. It cost 'em a dollar. And we turned the money, ever bit of the money and all the names over to the -- Mr. whoever he was, and I can't ever call his name -- Hollihan or something like 'at. That -- that sounds close enough. And he was a heck of a nice fella till -- up to that point and he paid me $3. I didn't think it was too much of nothing.

HELFAND: Now if you believed in the union -- did you believe in the union?

BARTON: Beg pardon?

HELFAND: Did you believe in the union at the time?

BARTON: Well, I -- I must have believed in something about it. I believe in anything that would give us a better living. I think this was -- people was starving to death -- for something that would give us a better living. Listen, the Hoover Administration, from -- up through the Hoover Administration in the 1920s, honey, the cotton fell from -- cotton price fell from about, ah -- I don't know -- around 60 or 70 cents a pound down to about 6-8 cents a pound. And I -- I saw bales of cotton that just rotted in people's yards. Ah, we had a hard time before -- well, let's see. Hoover taken off right after Coolidge, didn't he? Anyway, it was Coolidge that was in there and it got hard during his days -- his days in there. Now I'm not knocking Republican people. In fact, I was Republican for a long time, worked hard in the Republican Party getting Nixon elected.

HELFAND: The reason I asked that was I'm just trying to understand why --

BARTON: It wasn't political.

HELFAND: -- when your supervisor told you, "Don't worry about your job" when you went to LaGrange. I was wondering, if you believed in the union, why did that $3 bother you so much? What was wrong with $3?

BARTON: What was wrong with what?

HELFAND: With $3.

BARTON: $3?

HELFAND: Yeah.

BARTON: Well, it wasn't nothing wrong with $3 if it had have been for -- I figured we'd go down there work, that we should have been paid at $5 or $6 a day. And that was a little below what we was making in the mill. We were both good frame men. We'd make about $7-8 a day if -- if we worked hard enough. And, ah, you'd have a lot of breakdowns and you didn't get any time for that. You'd average out about, I'd say, $7-8 -- that's a little bit high because about 00:14:00$18 or $20 a week was all we was making along about this time. But there wasn't much of the mill running, see. There was a lot of people out of work.

HELFAND: So you went to LaGrange and you signed up these people. Let's start from there and – Could we start from there and how you then came back to Hogansville?

STONEY: What's she's saying is that you went to LaGrange, she wants the story of when you came back how they made you secretary, how you got up and told them about why you were through with the union. Tell that story again.

BARTON: I just went in there -- we had a meeting on Monday night. I talked to Mr. Barker on Sunday at church about this thing. He said, "Well, I'm not going to quit 'em." He said, "I'm not satisfied with what they paid us." He said, "Don't look like the union's going to help us any, if this -- if this is any 00:15:00indication of what the union does for you." I said, "Well, I'm though with the union, old buddy." And I said, "I'm going to tell the union so tomorrow night." And I did. I got up there and I told 'em -- I was recording secretary and I told the president of the union, who was Homer Welch, I said, "Homer, I want to say something before you get up here." He said, "All right." I called the meeting to order and I told 'em, I said what we had been doing for -- over the weekend. And I pulled my $3 out and I said, "This is what that gentleman paid me for three days' work. And Mr. Barker the same thing." And I says, "I'm going to tell you right now I am through with the union. I don't want to have nothing else to do with it. I love ever one of you in here. You's all my friends." And I walked out. That was it.

HELFAND: Why wasn't $3 enough?

BARTON: Why wasn't $3 enough? I don't understand why you ask a question like that.

HELFAND: I'll rephrase it. I thought you said that your second hand said, don't worry about your job, you'll get paid. Now did he mean you'd get paid --

BARTON: We made more'n a dollar a day in the mill, honey. We made -- at that time, this particular time we'as -- I'd say I was making around $16-18 a week. I got a little high while ago in my estimation, there, but we was doing very well. This was in 19-and-34. And it was a lot better than it was when this boy I's telling you about born in '32. In '32 it was bad, bad. It took me about -- 00:17:00ah, you'd pay a doctor $20 to deliver a baby and it took me about a year to pay him off, at 50 cents a week or whatever I could get. And it was rough, but things begin to pick up a little after that.

STONEY: Now when you went to LaGrange to do that work, was that on a weekend?

BARTON: Yeah, was on -- on a weekend. I could have worked Thursday and Friday in the plant. We didn't work on Saturday. At that time we wasn't working on Saturday. So I counted Saturday as a day that I would have donated for it. But, ah, I worked 12 long hours down there on Saturday, too.

STONEY: So you lost Thursday and Friday?

BARTON: I lost Thursday and Friday in the mill, yeah.

STONEY: And was there any talk about you getting paid for that time?

BARTON: Any talk about it? Nobody ever mentioned. I asked Mr. Johnson about it. He said, "Well, I don't think -- since things has happened like they have and you walked out, I don't know." I said, "Well, you told me that you'd see that we got paid." I say, "You encouraged us to go and we was working under you here in the plant." Well, he didn't want to get too involved in it anymore about -- since that came up like it did, because he had a family, too, and he had a job paying him $30 a week to the supervisor. They was wages. It wasn't salary now, but all of us on wages. The overseer made $55 a week. All of 'em was on wages. The salaried people were the people down in the office, top management.

STONEY: Well, did anybody in management ever ask you about the union after that?

BARTON: Oh, yeah. They -- ah, they know how I felt about the union. They took ad-- I wouldn't say they took advantage of, ah, me as an employee to be a -- a whatever you want to call it -- and to give 'em information. But I -- after that, I had gone on quality control, you know, and -- and I had three people that worked on quality control with me. And I observed people and I mean it was amazing how many people that still had the hatred in their heart about this thing. And I just didn't fool with 'em, but when I'd go around observing what 00:20:00they's doing, they could -- they could really give you a hard look. Well, you know, one particular woman -- I don't want to call her name -- I won't call her name -- still living -- she married a man that was a supervisor and they had been -- they put all the supervisors on salary, because my dad was one. They put them on salary. And they -- his wife had left him and she never had married, and so she -- she married this guy. And I'm not going to call the names, because this won't work. This won't do. And let me tell you something, she turned over -- she turned over on that union thing after she married this 00:21:00guy. But she was one of the hot-headed ones in it, I mean as far as -- and a fine lady, too, after all that happened. But she didn't have a bit of use for me after that. Never has since then. I don't have nothing against her. That's her -- that's her problem.

STONEY: Well, that illustrates what you were telling us about it splitting families --

BARTON: Splitting families. In my wife's family, she had two brothers in it and it split this family up. Now I tried to stay out from down there as much as I could. They lived about five-five houses from us, and I tried to stay out from around 'em because, ah, they were pretty -- they hit the liquor bottle pretty heavy. You know, people get intoxicated a little bit, they -- you can 00:22:00have serious trouble. And I stayed out from around 'em. But it busted up homes, families, churches, marriages. You just wouldn't believe it. And it was because people have their own opinion about things. We're all human beings, you know, and I got my opinion, you got yours. And man and wife. Sometimes I don't agree with everything she tells me to do, but I think it's true. I think you understand what I'm talking about. And this really drove a wedge in between the -- the people of Hogansville, between the merchants in town. A lot of people -- a lot of the people quit fooling with the merchants, some of the merchants that got in this thing. It was a bad thing for this town at that time. And they tried it several times later and because -- if they had a-handled that thing 00:23:00right, I think it would have worked. But, ah, they didn't handle it right. The people were too hot-headed. When the mill was closed down, they had a pile of rocks out there in the mill yard that they was going to do some work around out there in a big ditch out there. And they used that as a place to stand up on and talk to all the people. Well, ah, it was a good friend of mine in there -- we were just like brothers -- and he'd tell me everything that was going on. And so one day there they elected a superintendent to run the mill, an assistant superintendent, and all the different overseers and the second hands and the controller. I forgot who they selected as the controller of the office out there, of the company there, but, you know, they didn't have any -- they didn't 00:24:00have any idea in the world what -- well, they just didn't. It was ignorance there. That was pure ignorance.

HELFAND: I don't understand.

BARTON: I worked in there. I know. Go ahead.

HELFAND: I don't understand what they were trying to do on that rock pile. Could you explain what their intention was? Could you say the same story but say what their intention was.

BARTON: You gotta talk a little louder honey.

HELFAND: Could you repeat the same story, but explain what the intention of those people who were trying to take on those jobs, what their intention was.

BARTON: I don't believe I know what you said.

STONEY: Ok, I think, I think—

BARTON: I'm sorry.

STONEY: I get it but she doesn't so you gotta make it clear to her. And meanwhile could you wipe him down?

M1: Thank you George, I appreciate it.

[break in video]

STONEY: Did they have in mind to take over the factory and reorganize it?

BARTON: They were going to take over the factory and -- and hire the people and start all over again. And everybody was like me and there was a lot of people didn't have anything to do with the union, but they didn't have any problems. I mean a lot of people didn't want to have nothing to do with it, but they wasn't going to be hired back either. And the people, some of 'em they selected down there, they couldn't manage their own little affairs at the house.

STONEY: Now I want you to start again and tell us as though we've never heard this. Cause this is a very funny thing, that a group of strik – textile workers had come down and think that they could take over a mill, reorganize it, and appoint the officers. Cause I want that to be clear what you're talking about.

BARTON: Well, these guys, they were -- they thought everything was going just like they wanted it. And, as I say, the hands -- the management of the company was hands off. They wasn't giving 'em a bit of trouble. So they said, "We're going to reorganize the management of this company." And so that -- I heard 00:26:00about this. This guy told me about it. So it took about two -- about two or three days to come up with the men that they elected and all agreed on. And one man, Homer Welch, he stands up there and tells 'em, called the name of who was going to be superintendent of the plant. And those who are gonna be the -- let's see, they the -- the carding, the spinning, the twisting and winding and weaving and the -- and the finishing and packaging. Had five overseers. They had five second hands. They had more than that. They had one for each shift, second hand, but they had five overseers. They picked ever one of these people from out among some of the people -- some of 'em in there, I doubt if they could have read their name. And back in those days, ah, you had to have a little 00:27:00education to -- to figure the changes in the mill. You had to know what -- and I built with 'em in production later. They had to know some things that this group did not know. You had to carry this -- or you had to carry some things around in your head. In other words, your boss walks in the door and says, "Harry, when can you give me 5,000 pounds of a certain fabric?" Asbestos fabric or fabric from the-- cotton fabric, 5,000 yards, rather. I'd -- I'd get my schedule I had there. I had a schedule. I had ever loom scheduled. If this 00:28:00style, if we had the yarn coming through -- if you had to start from scratch, it took longer. If you had some of the yarn coming through that you could divert to it and if he wanted a special thing on it, you could give him a pretty good delivery. Well, these guys didn't know -- well, I didn't know all this stuff till I got into that kind of work, but somebody's got to know how to do something in something like that. And these guys wasn't -- there wasn't a man that the picked -- well, there was one man that later they transferred him to -- his name was Slim Aires. They transferred him from Hogansville to Shelbyville when they bought that plant and made him card room overseer. And Slim had a -- I'd say he had maybe an eighth or a ninth grade education. He was pretty good. He was a good man, but he was the only man that was ever put up in management 00:29:00out of all that group. They made him overseer and moved him up to Shelbyville, Tennessee.

STONEY: So Mr. Welch had somehow given these people the idea that the strike was going -- union was going to reorganize the mill?

BARTON: Yeah. Homer Welch was not elected as anything. I wondered about that. But, ah, he -- he didn't ever work there no more. He had to - he went to jail on account of this gun that -- that the boys from Atlanta took off of him. The rest of 'em shook their guns out on the ground, but he was -- he went -- he didn't go to the barb-wire fence. He went to the -- to the prison somewhere and it took him a long time to get out of that thing. He was such a nice fella. I 00:30:00don't know why he -- I mean, ah, I often wondered about him. He was such a nice man.

STONEY: Ok, Judy--