Eula McGill Interview 8

JUDITH HELFAND: Are we rolling? OK, start again. They kept you in the dark --

EULA MCGILL: They kept me in the dark because they was afraid to approach me about the union. I told you that because I didn't have no dealing with them. I came to work and went home. I lived on the other side of town. I didn't know any of them outside of the plant, didn't know anybody outside the plant. I had no friends in the plant that I associated with. My whole -- I went there to work, I lived in [East Isles?]. They lived there in East Birmingham and North Birmingham near the mill. I had no friends in that mill. I knew nobody. They didn't know me. Consequently, I can understand, they was afraid to approach me to know how I felt until that boss come down there and told me they was having a union meeting and he's the first one that told me there would be one, practically had the people signed up. The hall was full of people when I 00:01:00got there. So they did it themselves with the union organizer coming in once in a while. Now Alice got involved because she got pregnant with John Dean. Alice Berry who worked in the plant, she worked in another department. I did not know Alice until I joined the union. But I learned later that she was one of the beginning because -- that's how I got acquainted with John Dean. And her and John started going together and he later got her on the staff. And John got pneumonia and died not long after that.

HELFAND: So when you went into that -- where was this union hall?

MCGILL: It was the old -- it's the masonic -- we meet in the masonic hall over 00:02:00in North Birmingham -- I mean East Birmingham. I get North and East Birmingham mixed up. You had to walk up the railroad track was the quickest way to get there. We'd get off work. We'd walk up the railroad track to the union hall. We had a union meeting at ten o'clock when we got off from work. We usually had ones ten o'clock Saturday morning when all of them would meet. Sometime we'd have a -- after at close of the shift, second shift would have a meeting at ten o'clock at night when they get off from work. And we'd go to the masonic -- it was the masonic lodge over in -- it was up over a drug store in East Birmingham.

HELFAND: Now was this -- by the time that you joined the local union, did they have officers in place? What was in place?

MCGILL: Yeah. They had officers in place. I don't even remember. I think one guy's name -- every one of them damn officers scabbed on us during the '34 strike. Humphries -- what was that other guy's name? I had a big 00:03:00argument with Humphries the day he went in worked over -- went in over our picket and went to work, chickened out. That's the reason why I have more -- I don't always think the person who joins the union the fastest is going to stick the hardest. Some it takes time to make up their mind, might be your best members in the long run because every one of those guys that helped -- that was active in the union when I joined scabbed on us during the '34 strike.

HELFAND: Why?

MCGILL: Why? They had good jobs. They were fixers. They had the best jobs in the plant. I mean, for what they were, they made more money than the loom fixers and the fixers -- I call them the aristocrats.

HELFAND: You -- so -- did they have -- could you describe --

MCGILL: They might've got promised a raise if they did something -- you know, I don't know why they did.

M1: Can I ask a question?

HELFAND: Please.

M1: Did you organize any of your fellow workers once you got involved in the local union or did you become -- did you try to organize anybody else?

MCGILL: That one girl is the only one I remember because most of them were already in, like I said, when I joined.

F1: Eula, was your whole mill organized? Did you say that by '34 was your entire mill --

MCGILL: Oh yeah, I think we was about at 100% because those people weren't afraid. That weren't in the paternal -- paternal attitude among them workers. There are a lot of mills where the boss tries to run the people's lives. Over in our mill was -- the mill where I worked in is mostly people who didn't give a damn. And the boss's work meant nothing much to them. In fact, the 00:05:00owner lived in Mississippi. And I don't know what went on in the other department, but Joe Davis was a nice. He was a good boss. And a lot of people might misunderstand when you say that but all bosses ain't sons of bitches. There's plenty of good bosses that's sympathetic with the workers because they was workers once themselves. And in fact I've had bosses to tell me they'd rather work in the union shop with a system to it. They don't have to listen to all the people. They can listen to a committee. They don't have to be listening to everybody running to them with this little tale and that little tale. It makes their job easier to work through a committee if they want to understand and see what the people's problems are.

HELFAND: So in -- in -- in -- in your -- in your -- how many people worked in your entire mill?

MCGILL: I can't remember.

HELFAND: Didn't you say you found a number?

F1: I think it was about 450 people at the time of the strike.

MCGILL: Now we worked three shifts. I can't remember. I don't remember if I ever knew. There was three shifts. That seems like a little small for three shifts. There was more than 100 a shift I know. There must've been 100 in the spinning department and then you had the weaving, you had the opening room, you had the carting, you had the spooler room. It wasn't a big mill by no means, but it seems to me there'd be more than that on three shifts.

F1: As far as the national [UTWA?] and their preparation for the strike, there are a lot of people who thought that they weren't really -- they didn't have the resources to back up all of their local unions down in the south.

MCGILL: Yeah, they didn't have no money.

HELFAND: Could you talk about that?

MCGILL: I don't know that much about it. I just know it went broke during the strike. We didn't get no strike benefits.

F1: Did you feel the repercussions of that though as a local --

MCGILL: We didn't have -- I didn't draw -- I didn't ever get a penny of benefits. I never got one -- my shoes got sewed out of it, that's all. I was 00:07:00able to get by without taking anything. There was a lot of people that we'd go around the stores and ask for donations. Other union would bring us donations and we'd go to union hall and we'd take a sack of flour and break it down among the people. We lived mostly off donations kept, people that had to have very little money was involved.

F1: So was it a community where you all -- you all helped each other out?

MCGILL: We'd go to stores and ask for donations, grocery stores. We'd go to union halls and ask for donations. But you must realize that there wasn't much unions and we didn't get much help from craft unions because they had told me back then we didn't have enough sense to organize. They didn't much -- give us much encouragement, state labor council, AFL labor council had been doing that.

HELFAND: Was there -- did you have a relationship with other local unions in other towns around here or --

MCGILL: There wasn't none. Gadsden was the nearest and Anniston. Of course, Anniston got organized real good. Anniston was like Gadsden during World War I. They had a heavier industry that backed them. And that was one of the districts where they had good local other -- they had a more friendly city because of the other industry there in Anniston. Anniston had a heavier industry as well as the knitting mills and things.

HELFAND: So from the --

MCGILL: It was organized.

HELFAND: Like Birmingham in the same way?

MCGILL: Anniston.

HELFAND: Before you started to say that your local union was started by two railroad men.

MCGILL: No, I said that they worked in the railroad yards up in Decatur. They 00:09:00was electricians. And one had been a machinist at Humphrey's. He had been a machinist and had been in the machinist union. Now they were an all craft union, you see. And that was their function there in the mill. One was a millwright and one was an electrician there in the mill. They had their trade and they had their union cards from their craft union in their pocket. It kept them up. And they run the union, you see. They were the ones that probably started it. I don't know.

F1: Eula when they called -- when the national union called for the end of the '34 strike, how'd you feel about that? Did you think that they should've ended the strike when they did?

MCGILL: We weren't gaining nothing. I felt that they had more knowledge over [southwide?] than I did. I thought they certainly knew more about it than I 00:10:00did. I shouldn't second guess them. I think that was what was wrong with a lot of the textile workers second guessing the leadership, thought they were smarter than the leadership. That still runs -- it Burns Cox. He's bad to criticize. He thinks the leadership lost it. But you can't change it. Burns is older than I am he can't change his head. But I know how hard they worked. With two representatives for the whole state can't do that much. And they worked hard. Those guys worked hard. And they did halftime, was getting half pay. And they'd come to our house and use their -- what little money they had to help buy some groceries and they slept in at our house out there in Ensley and ate pinto beans with. And they had it hard. I knew because I knew how hard they had it. They weren't making that much.

F1: Do you think that the national union really knew what was going down in the 00:11:00field and in the south?

MCGILL: Well hell they lost one once before. Of course that was -- they got mixed up with the communists in the '20s -- in the '20s.

HELFAND: Can you tell us about that?

MCGILL: No, I only know what I read.

HELFAND: What did you read?

MCGILL: I read different things about what happened during that '20s strike, then the communists got involved. And that always hurts you just like the -- when the communist party when they come to get involved, they was more interested in building their party than they was helping the people. They used it as a stepping stone to build their party. That's the same thing with the blacks in Mississippi. Most of them black people would've never had the trouble they had if the communists hadn't busted in and fighting communism because communists come in, they want to build a party instead of helping -- they come in to help that person?-- come into build their party because I know how they operated here. And I fought them just like I fought the [Gerald RK 00:12:00Smithson?] bunch who was with Nazis.

F1: Then after did the strike, how did you -- did you think that the Wagner Act was one of the positive things that was a result of the strike?

MCGILL: Well they saw that they had to have a better law. The NRA was not a very strong law. They needed to have to get a better law. But a little law ain't going to organize nobody. The law can't protect you. There's always loopholes. Law, only good people obey the laws. It don't take more than two unscrupulous bosses to tear down the whole thing. And they'll find ways and they don't care. They'd rather pay the fine than to deal with the union. They think if I violate the law and I'm fined, I save money in the long run than representing the union -- than having the union in here for no telling how long. They feel that they're -- come out more ahead money-wise to 00:13:00violate the law and pay a fine. Only during -- the best time I thought that was the best time for labor in that regard was during -- when -- let me think when it was. It was must've been the late '40s when Schwellenbach was secretary of labor. They had -- made a rule that if the person violated the law, flagrantly violated the law, they couldn't get no government contracts. That was just before World War II. And that had a lot of effect. He refused to give orders to companies that violated the law, the labor laws.

F1: What about the positive things that came out of the '34 strike? Do you feel that there were -- did labor gain anything positive out of that strike?

MCGILL: Yes, yes, as I've said, they, uh -- we organized all of Huntsville, was state organized. Huntsville, Alabama was a cotton mill town. There was no 00:14:00other industry there. Those big mills were not locally owned. They were owned by owners in New England which is to a certain degree had had union experiences before. In Huntsville, you had a better chance to get a contract because of that. Most of the mills in Alabama were owned -- the Comer mills definitely. They had brainwashed their people so thoroughly you could not -- they had their people under control. The other little mills like the one I worked, little old fly by night mills, they weren't too many mills to amount to anything in Alabama except Huntsville. You had Huntsville which become unionized, every mill there. And in Jasper, in Cordova which was in mining areas which had the union. They got contracts and they stayed and existed as long as until the 00:15:00depression came and unfair competition from overseas put them out of business. But that Cordova mill down there in Cordova, Alabama which was one of the best locals and stayed union for years and years and years until the mill finally closed because of unfair competition. It was part of the -- But it was part of a big chain. I can't think of the name of the head of the company. It's not -- it's not [Thatcher?]. It's -- well I'll think of it. It's a big chain out of New England too, see. They had a little better chance because it wasn't controlled by local people or southern people, people who was used to unions up in New England. And then we had Winfield, Alabama which had a local union organized there in one of our mills. That was -- I don't know why I 00:16:00can't think of names of big companies. But all of --

F1: So do you think -- so do you think the '34 strike brought out a lot of --

MCGILL: Listen, out of the '34 strike, we organized all of the big mills in Huntsville, [Marry Mack, Gardner Mills, Lincoln Mills,?] and there's another one I keep forgetting. I can't think of it right now -- [Irving Mills?]. Then you had Winfield, a big mill there and Cordova, a big mill there. And in Florence you had hosiery mill that unionized during that time, stayed. Prattville, Alabama just out of Montgomery, Anniston -- maybe one or two others. 00:17:00But that was all of north Alabama practically except Prattville is down near -- but out of that was a big, big group of workers in the those mills. And they were unionized during the '30s and stayed unions as long as the mill was in existence. So to me it wasn't a failure certainly in Alabama. But these were in areas, except Huntsville, where the area wasn't controlled by textile manufacturers.

HELFAND: Why did Alabama go on strike to begin with and then lead the general strike?

MCGILL: I don't say that we led it. We just had -- was in a better position to win than other areas.

HELFAND: What I mean is -- you all came out first.

MCGILL: Yeah -- no, we were locked out.

HELFAND: You were locked out.

MCGILLS: You see, we went and asked for something and he shut the mill down on 00:18:00us. We never struck. He shut the mill down and then we put up a picket line, then the strike occurred. See they closed us and he closed the mill down at Selma. We didn't strike.

HELFAND: But what I'm trying to --

MCGILL: He struck against us, old Daddy [Ames?] we called him. They did, I didn't. A lot of people called him Daddy Ames. He wasn't no daddy of mine. By that time I had got involved with the Women's Trade Union League and started working to get women's auxiliaries of these craft unions in to try to strengthen unions through the Women's Trade Union. [Molly Dowd?] who went on staff of the United Textile Workers, Molly Dowd had been active -- well she was 00:19:00an old woman when I met her. To me she was old. I guess she was in her late '40s. She was on the staff here and she was from Huntsville originally. And she had been in the retail clerks union. In fact, she organized this League of Women Voters chapter here in Birmingham in '29. But Molly worked in department stores and had been a member of the retail clerks union. And she went on staff with the United Textile Workers. I guess she was on about a year. And she worked mainly within Huntsville because that's where she was from. She worked mostly at Huntsville, Molly did, because like I said, nobody fooled us. We pretty much was running our own business here. We was too -- not big enough to worry about. And we had good capable leadership I think. We had good capable leadership.

HELFAND: How soon did you -- once you joined, how active did you start to get? Once you joined -- and I'm -- do you remember at what you point you joined before the escalation of events?

MCGILL: I don't remember. All I know is when I joined is when that second hand told me that they was organizing a union. I don't remember. No way to try to remember or make myself remember. But I didn't do too much because I lived so far away. I came to the meetings every Saturday. We met every Saturday morning and I came to the meetings and had to come across town with carfare to come to the meetings.

HELFAND: Who spoke at the meetings?

MCGILL: Different people, local -- oh everybody would come to the front, you know. You start organizing a union, usually you have people come in and tell you what to do and how to do, you know, active members, [Cecile Curr?] with the 00:21:00-- what union was Cecile? He was always in our meetings, very good man too. He was a rank and file member of his own union. I can't remember what union Cecile was in, but he was very helpful to us and would give us advice. He attended just about all of our meetings and talked because he -- I can't remember what union he belonged to. Well he worked in a plant in North Birmingham. I can't remember what -- and [Ike Robinton?] was another guy here that was a volunteer organizer for the AFL-CIO, a general organizer for the AFL-CIO. Uh, he -- I don't know how Ike -- his background, I don't know. But Ike was what they call a general organizers. He wasn't on a staff. He didn't get paid. He got half of the first initiation fee. I don't know how 00:22:00he earned a living otherwise or where he signed enough people up. But he was active around here at organizing any union because a lot of these -- a lot of these internationals weren't in existence at that time. And a lot of internationals didn't have the money to hire representatives. So Ike was what they call a general organizer with the AFL. And he wasn't on no regular salary but he got -- all of us back then had to pay when we joined. We had to pay an initiation fee. And Ike got half of the first initiation fee when he signed people up. That's what he got paid. And Ike was active during that time and helped advise us too. And I don't know what happened -- what ever happened to Ike. I don't know what happened to him.

HELFAND: And so what happened at your meetings? You said you opened with song.

MCGILL: We usually would open with some song and we always had prayer. Of course somebody had to pray. I told them one day, I said, "What are you all asking the Lord in heaven for. The Lord is supposed to be neutral." I said, 00:23:00"You all be taking unfair advantage of God. He's supposed to be neutral." They didn't understand me. Most of them people didn't -- they look at me queer-like.

HELFAND: What kind of songs would they sing?

MCGILL: I can't remember, just songs and different things, whatever somebody wanted to sing. But Solidarity was a song that we sang later and Glory Glory Amalgamated that we got -- Amalgamated got active in the CIO when they moved south.

HELFAND: Did most of the people when they were coming --

MCGILL: I can't remember. We sung, always singing, I don't know.

HELFAND: Was Solidarity Forever was what you sang at the UTWA?

MCGILL: No, nu-uh, nu-uh, nu-uh, nu-uh, nu-uh, because you must remember the Amalgamated was independent. They wouldn't take the Amalgamated in because they had the United Garment Workers. The Amalgamated organized in competition 00:24:00to the United Garment Workers because the United Garment Workers weren't representing the workers. And Amalgamated was organized -- organized in women's clothing.

HELFAND: But -- but -- but for these UTWA meetings, where you organized to have songs or -- at the -- at the -- at the union meetings for Selma Manufacturing Company?

MCGILL: We always sang. That's because of [Willis?].

HELFAND: So what --

MCGILL: Whatever we took at that, I can't think. I mean I don't know. We sung some anything we could sing. We sung popular songs. We sung whatever anybody wanted to sing. But we did sing Solidarity and I remember that because -- and I don't know how -- well I read -- I was involved in a lot of other things outside of the textile union and with other union members. [Paul Stiles?] worked with the National Labor Relations Board later on and he was a 00:25:00good friend of ours. He was an old printer out of -- he worked out of the printing trade out of Huntsville. And I was in a position where I could -- I was circulating with a lot of people around town. And my brother-in-law was in the union, plaster's union, and he had meetings at his house. Sometimes they'd meet at his house. And we'd go down in the basement and he made them room and we sat around. I was exposed to a lot of different unions as well as textile because of my association with my brother-in-law in the plasters and they all met regular where they -- where they had the work or not. And it was just -- we just congregated our house. People just knew they was welcome at our 00:26:00house. And we just -- we was always singers. When I was a kid growing up, we all sung at home. But tell me what we sung? I don't know.

HELFAND: Some folks have told us that because a lot of the cotton mill workers, and I'm talking in the broadest sense, because they really have never been organized together, had never part of the union, they didn't know union songs so they sang hymns [and some?] popular songs.

MCGILL: Yeah, yeah, or they would sing and somebody would come along -- once in a while you might meet up with somebody who had a guitar that may have been doing Woody Guthrie, somebody like that, a hero song, you know, and especially that Jimmy Rogers, you know, the guy that sung all of the yodeling songs. They were very popular back then, Jimmy Rogers. I wish I could remember that song. I still like it today. But nobody else sung it, but it was one of my favorite songs of Jimmy Rogers, (singing) "Way out on the windswept desert, where 00:27:00nature favors no man, I met my long lost brother asleep on the windswept sands. I said what ails you my brother? Has sickness got you its way? But my brother never said because my brother had been dead since away last May. Yodela-he-ho, yodela-he-a, la-he." That's part, I can't remember the rest of it, but sung like that, and yodeling blues and all about -- I can't remember them all now. But he was the first really country singer was Will Rogers -- I mean Jimmy Rogers out of Mississippi. He was a railroad man. That's one of my favorite songs he sung. And I can't -- I was trying to think of today of some of his old songs, some pretty ones.

HELFAND: Did your local union have a strategy? This is what -- what were they going towards?

MCGILL: Contract. We didn't get very far. They shut the mill down, first meeting, bam, the mill went down. First meeting we called to negotiate the contract, they shut the mill down.

HELFAND: So what did you all do?

MCGILL: Well the strike occurred then. We stayed on strike and then went back to work like we come out. No union and start over. And eventually, become organized and got a contract at that very mill. And it was a union mill for a long, long time until it closed down. I had done left here, gone with the Amalgamated and I never worked on a union contract, but they had a union there later. They never gave up and probably a new set of people because like I told you the labor turnover was something terrible out there. It would've been pretty hard unless you did have some way to hold them to sustain membership 00:29:00because the labor turnover like it was, like I told you. Conditions were so bad and the mill was filthy. Unless they got a big change in, nobody wouldn't want to work if they could do any better.

HELFAND: Now did -- did -- did you ever meet with a lot of the other locals for a big meeting in Alabama?

MCGILL: Nu-uh, until we organized at -- started organizing at, uh, Auburn Textile Council. I think I met twice with that group. I think I was in there twice. The first meeting we had was at the Thomas Jefferson Hotel. Then I think they met one time up in North Carolina. Of course I didn't have no way to go up there.

HELFAND: So maybe we could talk -- right before your Selma manufacturing plant went -- after you went out, that was at a point when you started to send 00:30:00messages to the larger national union that you needed -- that -- that Alabama was very frustrated and was ready to go out on a general textile strike. Is that right?

MCGILL: I don't understand that. I never heard tell of that.

HELFAND: Well the --

MCGILL: I think that's when, uh, uh, at that meeting they had in Charlotte where Molly Dowd went and they said that Alabama was ready. I think that I wasn't involved in that. Like I said, most of the men was -- women -- we didn't have a chance, you know, as men being officers, they didn't have trips to go on, the men went.

HELFAND: But you must've done some local organizing on your own. I mean the men couldn't have been such a big force, huh?

MCGILL: Well in the textile union the men run it. Yeah, the men run the textile union. No, what I did, I did through the Birmingham Labor Council when I was 00:31:00chairman of the union labor committee trying to organize these German tailors and, uh, get the union label in the stores which I did on Saturdays in my spare time. And I went to a lot of the -- well that was later on when I got fired. The year I fired, it didn't -- I went on the staff that I worked with the women's auxiliaries to try to revise them to get them their support for the locals that they was auxiliaries of and then the Women's Trade Union League.

F1: But when you were secretary of your local at Selma, what were some of your -- what did you do as secretary besides collecting the dues?

MCGILL: Kept the books, paid the bills, send in per capita tax. You had to pay a certain amount of what you collected to the international union. Kept the books and sent the -- I wish I had -- I had all that until it burned up. I kept all of that stuff. The local went defunct. I don't know what happened to the 00:32:00charter. I don't know who had it. But anyhow, that's why I kept the -- I was what you call a financial secretary. I wasn't a recording secretary, I was financial and handled the money which we didn't have much of. A lot of people didn't pay their -- very few people -- like I say, we had to have 25 members to hold a charter. A lot of times I had to make it up.

HELFAND: Did it -- did it feel like you were part of a larger national movement at the time?

MCGILL: No, it didn't. It really didn't because being -- I wasn't in no big textile area and I didn't feel that. I didn't feel like an average textile worker if I could explain it like that because there wasn't nothing -- just a little old mill. And there wasn't -- I was more a part of the labor 00:33:00movement as a whole than I was textile workers. The typographical union was very helpful to us. In fact, one of the guys the textile union used to -- in the typographical union used to give me a little money for the treasury to keep it -- help me keep the dues paid. [Hugo Bulls?], he had run a print shop when he was a member of the typographical union. Typographical union was the only craft union AFL that really backed us as industrial workers. Charlie Howard was president, but it got him defeated. He wanted to come in CIO and become a part of the CIO. It got him defeated. See the typographical union is in two groups because they have two -- they call them progressive and independents. But 00:34:00progressive call the independents the [Juanitas?]. And it makes them mad. I don't know why they call them the Juanitas, but they call them the Juanitas. Those two factions, one is more progressive and more radical than the other. And somewhere along the line there the Juanitas got a little control and they kicked Charlie Howard out. But that old -- there's something about those printers. I learned more of unionism from the printers than anybody else because when Hillman started to drive to the south, practically every person he picked as a director came out of the typographical union, and Steve [Nance?] in Atlanta, and Roy Lawrence up in North Carolina, and another one -- I can't think of the name -- Ray -- Ray Dixon here came to Birmingham as director. And 00:35:00I learned more about unionism really, union and parliamentary procedure and things like that, from the people in the typographical union than any other. Most of the others, they didn't have no system until today, they get up and they don't follow no order or nothing. They just get up and have a meeting. And it always frustrated me. I used to write it down for the president of the local how to run a meeting and what to take up so he could run an orderly meeting, but people just get up and say anything out of line and he never called nobody out because he was afraid to hurt their feelings. They just run all out on them. It was crazy. You didn't have that in the typographical union. Everybody knew how to take up business and get business attended to faster. I never could get my locals could run their according to the procedure taught because the members felt like they wanted -- they'd get up and say what they want to say and then they'd leave the hall. They'd come over and say what 00:36:00they had to say and then they'd get up and leave the meeting before the meeting was adjourned. So they talk out of turn and everything else and the president couldn't control the meeting.

F1: Do you think that's because of the lack of the national's ability to give you more support?

MCGILL: No.

F1: Why do you think that was then?

MCGILL: Like the ignorant people that don't know how to act. I'd get up and I'd tell them, "Now look, we get this meeting over with. Let's run by the rules." I just finally give up. I just finally give up. They'd meet after work, women wanted to go home and cook supper and think about what was going happen for supper and they'd come over there and they started wanting to take up what they wanted to take up before you get the minutes read or before you get the financial report. And by the time we got down to the later part of the union, you wouldn't have nobody in the hall.

M1: Can we cut for a minute?

HELFAND: Sure.

[break in video]

M1: You sure?

MCGILL: Hell no, you don't have to worry about me. If I get tired -- my mouth, I don't get tired running my mouth.

M1: You're in good company.

MCGILL: Somebody said, "Eula's talking." I said, "When do I ever stop?"

HELFAND: Eula, I'm under the impression that -- I mean your mill didn't go up -- didn't get locked out by itself. A lot of the mills in Alabama went out first didn't they? They went out first.

MCGILL: I don't remember.

HELFAND: Really?

MCGILL: No I don't. Like I said, I had little communication with what was going on in the other areas because we hardly ever saw an organizer. They was in those big places where they had bigger mills and more -- we only had two representatives for the whole state.

HELFAND: So when people say --

MCGILL: As a matter of fact, after John died that just left one. John Dean died with pneumonia not long after the strike.

HELFAND: So when people say that it was outsiders who organized your locals --

MCGILL: No. The local people were organizer themselves with the help of those two guys in the plant, like I said, who had been union members before. Organize ourselves, very, very few times we ever had a union representative come to our meetings. Of course that was what made the thing Robertson was fussing about. While me and him -- he was always fussing about the representatives. And I said we don't need them. We run our own business. And I upheld for them. Hell, they got the rest of the state to go to. They can't come here every meeting. They'd never come to our union meetings, but like I said, we was small potatoes and they had bigger fish to fry. I don't blame them. We didn't need them no how. We was doing all right.

HELFAND: Now why did -- why did -- why was there a general strike?

MCGILL: To try to get a contract.

HELFAND: For the whole country though?

MCGILL: To try to get a contract. Each person was supposed to come out together hoping they could be able to put enough pressures on the mills couldn't shift their workers one place to the other, that way we'd get some contracts out of it. It's easier to strike a whole chain than it is to strike one or two plants. They can shift the work away from you. I told -- you know, I -- can you cut that off a minute. I don't want this on the record. It makes me think of something.

[break in video]

MCGILL: -- in these contract negotiations. Well I said, "What do you want?" "Oh well they just go once in a while." I said, "That don't make no difference." We got in our contract that you could only work a part time worker 30 days. At the end of 30 days, if you think you only need him another 30 days, we'll give you an extension for another 30 days, but at the end of that if they were still on staff they'd go on the payroll as a permanent hand 00:40:00and become a member of the union. Teamsters just didn't do that. Anybody could drive as a casual driver any time they wanted to as long as they wanted to. Anytime I have a strike, them casual drivers take their jobs. Without being a member a union, they have no obligation, no allowance to nobody. And I tried to tell them, you're making a mistake.

HELFAND: Didn't listen, eh?

MCGILL: Well that was true when they could've controlled it. And another thing too, another thing that hurts the teams is they're not controlled with international. Each district controls its own self. A lot of people don't know that. But the international union -- that's why I think Jimmy Hoffa was unduly persecuted because a lot of those districts, the heads of the district runs that district because what one district does, the other district may not want to do it that way. The international union does -- they have complete 00:41:00autonomy. The district has complete autonomy over the international.

HELFAND: Now back to the -- back to the '34 strike, do you know how big this strike was in terms of it particularly in the south?

MCGILL: No. How many people involved?

HELFAND: How many people or how many states it went to?

MCGILL: I don't know. I don't know. There ain't many mills if you stop to think about it in Alabama and there weren't then. You had only had the Huntsville district. And you had -- they had one mill down at Bay Minette, which I didn't ever know much about south Alabama either. But there weren't too many cotton mills.

HELFAND: You know we have a list of --

MCGILL: In -- in -- in -- in -- in relation to the other southern states.

HELFAND: You know, we found a list of union locals in Alabama, there were lots of them. I mean, lots of them.

MCGILL: Well some of them were hosiery. They were listed as textile. See 00:42:00hosiery was a division in the textile industry. They were part of the textile workers although they were hosiery workers. But they were affiliated with the textile workers because it was called a hosiery division. Now there was a lot in Chattanooga, a lot of hosiery mills right in the Chattanooga area. You had Nashville. You had Sealing in Nashville. You had Humming Bird in Chattanooga and a lot of these sock factories that made socks. We didn't call that hosiery. We called them socks. But a lot of them -- they was considered textiles but they weren't mills, cotton mills like we [were?] spinning and weaving and they were sock factories or hosiery mills.

M1: But wasn't the 1934 strike a significant -- I mean it seems from our distance it was big and exciting. I mean, what was it like?

MCGILL: I don't know what can I say. It was fun to me, exciting, fun, something I'd always believed in. And I was seeing it happen. And as I say, I don't like people saying it was a failure. I don't think nothing is a failure once you make some ground. You don't stand still. You go forward or backward. And we certainly didn't go backward. We certainly come out with more than we had when we went in it. So how can it be a failure? And I think it was -- it was to the people's credit too. It showed that -- what I've always said is there's good intelligent people in them cotton mills. They weren't lint heads and they weren't cotton mill trash. They were good people in there who thought. If they hadn't had been, we wouldn't have had come out like we did because we only had two representatives. It couldn't be the leadership that did it. It had to be the people in the mills that did it. The Monroe Adcocks and people like that in Huntsville who was leaders and who 00:44:00were actually caused the thing to happen. You can advise and help, but some of the people wouldn't listen to no advisor. If they didn't agree with it, they didn't listen to you. Sometimes they're sorry they didn't, but it was pretty hard to tell textile workers anything. They'd argue with the representatives. And sometimes I think some of them resented them. They thought, "You're on the staff. You ain't one of us." And most of them weren't one us. Albert Cox certainly had never been a textile worker. John Dean had never been a textile worker. Molly Dowd had never been a textile worker. Alice Berry who went on staff briefly had been in the mill. Molly Johnson and Eddie Johnson had never been a textile worker. So really in a way 00:45:00they felt -- they didn't disregard them, but they just felt like we know more about the industry than you do. They didn't follow leadership too good sometimes.

HELFAND: Now did you hear on the radio, did you read in the newspapers that this had become a national strike of great significance, that there was attention being paid all over the country to what you all were doing?

MCGILL: Uh-huh. Well, like I say, I was in this -- I attended -- I didn't get elected to no office in the textile council, but I attended a couple of the meetings. And the delegates who were elected were men. And my little old mill over there, we was just nothing. You know, we never got no recognition or nothing because we weren't big enough. That's hard for you -- maybe you to understand. But most of the people over there didn't feel a part of the 00:46:00industry because maybe they'd been -- like it's a hobo mill. You had very few stable workers, me and Alice Berry and maybe that Robertson fellow was the only ones really that were stable in the factory or in the union because the others were on the fence. They was union while they was there, but hell they may be gone tomorrow. It would have been hard to maintain the union there if we would've got a contract because of the labor turnover. You had to constantly been in an organizing situation to hold a membership because the hobo mills is what I'm saying.

HELFAND: Did you know about that convention in August of 1934 right before they called the general textile strike?

MCGILL: Yeah, I knew about it. And Alice and them went. But like I say, Alice went because she was a friend of John Dean's. That's the only reason why Alice went. She was -- out of my shop, she went along with John. But I never 00:47:00had a [chimer's?] chance to go over. Like I said, there were men over there run our union. They'd only give us the jobs they didn't want to do theirself. How I ever got to be treasurer, I don't know.

HELFAND: Why do they call this convention? Do you remember?

MCGILL: It was time. They have conventions every so often. Like we have one -- we used to have one every two years. Now we have it every three years. But they had conventions, it was in the constitution that you have a national convention every so often.

HELFAND: What I understand that national convention in August of 1933 was specifically about deciding whether they'd go on --

MCGILL: That's right.

HELFAND: Could you tell me about that and almost repeat what I said?

MCGILL: If I knew anything about it I would. But I was not in the inner circle. I wasn't in the inner circle. Huntsville had more influence in international 00:48:00than we did because of their big market. And out little old mill wasn't thought much of, we didn't amount to nothing.

HELFAND: But you probably know enough about this to be able to say --

MCGILL: We never had nobody that ever got to go to anything except Alice and she did only because of John Dean. It was a personal thing.

HELFAND: But did you -- I think this convention was about deciding -- I know a number of people from Alabama -- Alabama was already out by the time they had that convention in August. So I believe that --

MCGILL: Well I think Gadsden came out -- actually came out on strike. We got shut down. And I think Gadsden went out next as I remember or maybe Anniston. When the national strike was called, other mills came out like -- well in Talladega, the company down there bought the people guns because they heard 00:49:00about the flying squadron. The Talladega Cotton Factory and the Sommerset Mills down there, I was told and later it's been publicized that they bought them guns to protect themselves with. And at one time, they thought they was coming and they let them out of work and they went on top of the mills with their guns. And then coming from Columbus somewhere, some prominent person, they thought there was organizers coming out of Columbus, Mississippi -- Columbus, Georgia. And they stopped and almost shot some prominent because they didn't know them and they thought they was organizers coming out of Columbus, Georgia over here in the valley down here where them mills are down in Fairfax. I forgot about them damn mills. I never knew much about them and I still don't know much about them.

HELFAND: And did they use flying squadrons here in Alabama?

MCGILL: Well that's what they called them. We had groups of committees that go in trying to shut down the mills and they didn't come out to join us and they called them flying squadrons.

HELFAND: Did you go?

MCGILL: It was more -- more talking than it was anything else. You can do sometimes more with propaganda than you can actually. It has the same effect.

HELFAND: What do you mean?

MCGILL: Well you can say they are going to do so and so and if the word gets around then everybody prepares for it and it don't happen. Next time you catch them, they'll be asleep, like playing fox. Holler wolf and it don't happen and then it does happen, you ain't prepared.

HELFAND: Now Donald Comer was here in this down during this strike --

MCGILL: I don't know -- I don't know where -- his headquarters are [Silica?].

HELFAND: His headquarters were Silica.

MCGILL: But he had brainwashed -- he'd always run his mills on a paternal 00:51:00basis. He'd always take them a week down to his camp. I understand he charged for it, I don't know. But I know that he had closed mill villages. He watched them people like a hawk. He had guards out here in Birmingham. You couldn't go into a village without talking -- stopping at the guard house. I was run out of there one time when I went with a girl down there to visit her sister. And we went down to [Creek Bank?]. They lived down in the village and she wanted to go there and see her sister. And me and her went over there. We weren't in the house very long until the guard come down there. Here, her brother-in-law came back and he was just as white as a sheet. He was scared to death. And I don't know how they knew -- things got around -- they put out letters about me, you know, union organizer, although I wasn't on nobody's 00:52:00payroll, but I was active in the union. And the guard came down there and he come back in and he said, "I'm sorry." He had come down here to tell me to tell you all to leave. He said you all stay as long as you want to. But I saw he was scared to death. And I said, "Let's go Ruth." And he said, "No you don't have to leave. I ain't going to let you -- you ain't have to leave because he said so." Well I knew his job and his wife's job was in jeopardy. I said, "No, we don't want to jeopardize your job. We're going to leave." So he told me that the guy come and said, "I know who's in there and you better get them out if you want your job."

HELFAND: And was this during '33 -- '34?

MCGILL: No, it was after the strike. And I think it was after I was fired because Ruth got fired too right after I did, she got fired too. Ruth [Stifford?], she worked in the mill with me. Because after she got fired, she come out there had to stay because she didn't have nowhere to live. We weren't that well off, but we was better off than a lot of people and she 00:53:00stayed at our house. She went to work with the WPA.

HELFAND: Now the general strike as we know it lasted 21 days, but you were out much longer than that.

MCGILL: I don't remember. I don't know how long we was out before the strike occurred. I can't remember. I can't remember. In fact, my span with the textile was very short after I remember about it. And I was only in the textile involved there since '33 to '36, about three years. And some of it -- it's flighty. You know I can't remember a lot. And two, I was younger and I was having a lot of fun that way too along with it and it all gets mixed up together. I had to have my social life too, you know. I was down on the river bank a lot of times having them fish camps, having fun.

HELFAND: Now did the union -- did the union from '33 to '36 become part of your social life?

MCGILL: No. The people I met in there became part of my social life. I went with a lawyer here in town and he had got his education -- he was a member of the machinist union, worked in a railroad shop. He was a lawyer. And we got acquainted and we got in a big fight. I was a delegate to the trades council, Birmingham Trades Council. And every -- their thing was political. Every member -- every officer of the Birmingham Trades Council worked at the courthouse as a bailiff or were lawyers and had no connection except held their union cards. And I was on a committee, a group of us, and this is when we was 00:55:00getting -- trying to -- we was trying to straighten up the AFL. And I was on a committee and we got a bunch of us steel workers and miners and we had a committee to propose a resolution that to be an officer of the Birmingham Labor Council, you had to be a representative in the union or actively working at the trade. Well my way of thinking -- and I think I'm right -- although they were good friends of mine, when Johnny Carlton, a lawyer, who I said -- he was our lawyer. He was treasurer. He was a lawyer. Buck [Themond?] was the president and he was a bailiff at the courthouse. It was run politics. They used that to get jobs at the courthouse. It wasn't serving the labor movement. So when the miners come in and we came in and other industrial -- come later industrial 00:56:00unions, we was trying to get it straightened up to be a labor council. Well we passed the resolution, got the resolution passed in the Birmingham Labor Council, but one of the state workers who was also an officer of the labor council -- I don't know who paid his way, but he went to Chicago and saw Bill Green. And Bill Green said it was unconstitutional, we couldn't do that. And it may have been. But I still think it was right. So that's how I met Johnny. And Johnny was on our side. He thought it was a good idea. He was on our side. He thought that they should be workers of the trade or connected with the union, they should not be politicians and head our -- it wasn't a labor council to me. And of course, our -- [Maurice Parding?] when CIO come along because they was all -- John [Busby?], he was another lawyer who came out of the 00:57:00railroad workers union, lost his job in the 1919 strike. He studied law to become a labor lawyer. And he -- and they was the people who was running the Trades and Labor Council. I thought it ought to be run by the rank and file members. I appreciated their advice, but they shouldn't be officers of the Trade Labor Council.

HELFAND: Yeah, we'll change the tape.