CHAPTER VI. _financing the Mills (continued)_

FINANCING THE MILLS (Continued)

An eminently successful mill president in Augusta was full of pessimism toward all the problems broached to him, but three characteristic sentences as to the capacity of Southern cotton manufacturers for financial administration fit the case of too many mill officials, undoubtedly:

"The people of the South have got no business sense; I am a Southern man, and I say that. Back yonder before the war what money they had was in land and niggers. They knew nothing about financial management on close make-or-lose propositions." This judgment is borne out by that of one of the foremost newspaper editors of the South, who is also a large investor in cotton factories, who said: "The history of the industry abundantly vindicated what Edward Atkinson said about the South not knowing the difference between a penny and a nickel. None of the projectors, with the exception of H. P. Hammett and a few like him, could carry to the mills more than a general business and executive capacity." Because of prosperous conditions, he said, most of them made money in their ventures, despite their lack of business experience, but he added "... when depression came, when it was necessary to discriminate between a penny and a nickel, the mill went to blazes. It was the exceptional man who could endure the test of the penny rather than the nickel."

Similarly, a Charlestonian who had just returned to the city after attending the reorganization of one of the most famous mills in the South, in which he is a heavy investor, was moved to declare: "Mismanagement and incompetency (the Southern people are the poorest business men in the world with a few exceptions) ... are responsible for most failures."

Mr. August Kohn, in Columbia, who is himself a broker and the historian of the South Carolina mills, while recognizing the fact of these shortcomings in Southerners, as obtaining in the past and yet not overcome, held out a more hopeful view for the future: "Lack of capital and lack of trained management have been the great difficulties where mills have failed. We are developing management of the trained sort in experience and in the improvement in the business tone of our people."

With this introduction, it is convenient under the general topic of financial administration, to dispose of several random points at the outset of the chapter.

Until the outbreak of the European war, two great cotton mill combinations in North and South Carolina, were those controlled by Mr. James W. Cannon, and centering about Concord and Kannapolis, North Carolina, and that of the late Mr. Lewis W. Parker, with principal offices at Greenville, South Carolina. The former consists of thirteen plants, and the latter, which is no longer in existence, once numbered as many as sixteen mills. These combinations were financed on opposite plans. A gentleman trained by Mr. Parker, and at one time in a leading position in the management of the mills in the Parker Merger, so called, explained that "... Lewis Parker in his merger thought that amalgamation would reduce over-head expense; that he could get cheaper money and cheaper supplies by buying in quantities." He "... was offered immense sums of money at 3 per cent. when his merger went together, although before he had never gotten money at least than 5 per cent. for the individual mills."

In distinction from this plan, the Cannon mills have not been constituted into a merger in the same sense, though they are all under the presidency of Mr. Cannon, who said: "The management of each of the ... mills is distinct, though there are practically the same stockholders in all the mills. Lewis Parker had a merger, and tried to run it all from one office. my view is that each mill must have its own management and separate attention to secure success." He admitted that "There is not much saving on concentration where each corporation is a separate organization. Each mill has its own directors. Each mill must stand on its own financial strength. In many instances where the quantity is large, supplies are purchased for all the mills together, but where the quantity is less, this is not done."

These two plans are brought nearer together, however, by Dr. Beattie's opinion that in practice Dr. Parker's idea of the saving to be derived from the merger would not work out, from the fact that all officers and higher employees of the combination would want increased pay for additional work, and not in proportion to the extra labor and responsibility imposed. To this is to be added the caution that Mr. Cannon probably does, in borrowing and in administration generally, accomplish many economies not indicated in his statement.

An editor said that there was no "graft" particularly in the promoting of the mills; that the minutest details of an enterprise were watched by the people of the community. This tends to be a confirmation of the view the writer brought to take of the development of the industry in the South, that it was to a larger extent the child of the public initiative and concern than most economic movements.

Mr. Thompson says that "The North Carolina mills have been almost invariably managed honestly in the interest of all the stockholders." This is true of the entire South. There have, however, been two instances of fraud, one chargeable to Northern selling agents, but the other, unhappily, though also inexplicably, the result of wrong-doing on the part of a Southern man who had drawn together a number of mills. The former case was one in which a New York commission firm which had taken the president of a successful plant under its patronage, and placed him at the head of a mill in which the firm was sinking large sums, was angered at his effective attempts to free the second mill from the influence of the selling agents, and sought vengeance by ruining the original mill of which he was president. In the second instance, it is said, the president of the merger, during years in which his associates and the general public had every confidence in him, had been owing, unknown to a soul, $400,000 to the holding company and to the constituent mills. When there was a directors' meeting of the holding company, the constituent mills would appear to be the ones involved, and when the several companies met, the sum seemed due to the general company. One of his intimate co-workers stated that "His failure shook this whole section, not only in a business way, but in a moral way." And of both incidents, it was believed by another that to them was attributable a loss of interest by the Southern communities in mill building.

The depression following the panic of 1873 gave trouble to most of the cotton mills established in the years before the period of the industrial revival. During the hard times, for instance, some of those who had gone into Colonel Hammett's enterprise for the Piedmont Factory declined to pay their subscriptions. For the three months during which the machinery was being installed, the only pay the workmen got was credit for groceries at a small store in Greenville, two officers of the company giving their individual note of $500 as guarantee. Colonel Hammett drew upon every resource of business and personal friendship to tide the venture over from 1873 to 1876. He went so far as to mortgage his horses and carriage to buy the belting for the plant.

In some of the mills, the treasurer has the largest part in financial administration. In such cases he is frequently a younger man, a product of the newer South, who has pushed his way up in the enterprise to the position of real power, leaving the president, who is perhaps a man better equipped in community esteem than in specific training, as nominal head of the concern. This has happened at Gastonia, North Carolina, a particularly progressive spinning place. But in most of the companies, especially the smaller concerns, the president is in chief control of financial affairs. He often stamps his personality deeply on every department of the business of the mill and village and region even. A case in point is that of Mr. Charles Estes, when interviewed 98 years old, and for twenty years before his retirement in 1901, president of the John P. King Manufacturing Company, Augusta. With some show of pride, he related how during his active career the manager of the R. G. Dunn commercial agency in Augusta one day called him into the office and let him see the report of the King Mill. It read: "John P. King Mfg. Co. Capital Stock $1,000,000. 3 per cent. semi-annual dividends. President calls directors together once in six months and tells them what he has done." "And that was the way I ran the mill," he declared.

The Salisbury, N.C., Mill has a singular plan. Financial administration is concentrated in the hands of a finance committee composed of the president, treasurer and agent, or manager. The directors do about as the finance committee indicates; they hold a less important place because of the ill health of several of their number. Though nominally the whole finance committee passes on questions, the president does not attend regularly, and one of the directors not on the committee always agrees in the action of the smaller group.

The effect of strong personality in a promoter and of the business reputation of his enterprise upon impressionable Southern communities has been mentioned in a previous report. This came out clearly in the ease with which money could be borrowed. It was said by an old gentleman who knew Colonel Hammett in South Carolina very well that "The few capitalists we had then (we didn't have many) just came to his assistance whenever he asked them." With respect to certain wholesale merchants of New York, Philadelphia and Boston, the writer was made to believe that they have so much confidence in a particular North Carolina manufacturer, that they give him any amount of capital he needs. Mention has already been made in another connection, of the fact that Mr. Parker was offered large sums of money at 3 instead of 5 per cent. when he broached his merger successfully. The recent depression of the famous Graniteville mill, one of the first in the South, was accounted for by the statement that everybody was ready to lend money to Graniteville as an old and reliable mill, and never thought of requiring it back, until all at once all the lenders wanted their money, and this fortuitous trend made reorganization necessary.

During the war the old Augusta Factory was sold into new hands at, ostensibly, $200,000. The new company capitalized the plant at $600,000, about what it was worth. It must have been a device to lend financial prestige to the mill that Governor Jenkins of Georgia was given $100,000 stock for his influence as a director. He did nothing to earn this, was the writer's assurance.

Perhaps it was to facilitate financial management of his mill that William C. Sibley preferred New York and Cincinnati subscriptions to large blocks of stock, to local subscriptions in smaller amounts, when soliciting backing for the Sibley Mill at Augusta.

Turning now from the subject of financial administration of the mills to that of profits; it is not clear that gratifying earnings were usually due to good management; it is, however, true that poor profits or no profits were due oftener than otherwise to faulty executive control. It is meant by this to indicate that the industry in the South has shown itself, on the side of profitableness, singularly responsive to the material condition of the section, and to the state and trend of public opinion. The degree of success of the mills has displayed the fundamental fact that the South has in the past forty years been above all else in a process of growth, and has given fresh proof of the intimate connection between the fortunes of the companies and the changes in the whole section--economic, mental and spiritual. The profits of the mills have constituted a good barometer to the evolution of the South since Reconstruction. Graphically represented, the earnings of the plants would exhibit a curve of decided aspect. It is sought by specific references to make this curve appear, and afterwards to sum up the results with several reasons therefore.

Tompkins, by many believed to have been the best authority on cotton manufacturing in the South, wrote: "It has been abundantly proved by experience in the Carolinas that cotton mills on every class of goods manufactured there, can make a profit of 10 to 30 per cent. This has been done by the smallest as well as the largest mills on the coarsest and the finest yarns, single as well as twisted; and on the heaviest as well as the lightest weight cloths; and on dyed and undyed yarns and cloths. The variation in profit between 10 and 30 per cent. is caused by variation in prices of cotton and of manufactured goods, and also by variation in management."

In another passage he has said: "From the experience of the best mills that have been running in the South for twenty years and over, and which have always been kept well up to date, it would appear that about 15 per cent. is the average annual profit in clear money for the whole time."

The writer was given the opinion by Mr. Thackston of Greenville, South Carolina, in whose knowledge and judgment great reliance is put, that for the last ten years the average earnings for well-managed Southern mills have been $2.50 per spindle, which, reckoning the average cost of the plants at $20 to the spindle (leaving aside other capital invested) is a profit of 12.25 per cent.

A banker of Winston-Salem, which is an industrial community, could not understand how the Southern mills succeeded "as well as they have." When there were mentioned to him several mills which have been consistently profitable, he found special advantages accountable for their favorable showing. In one case it was tidewater freight rates, in another skilful cotton buying by a manager of long experience. It was his belief that the average profits of Southern mills from 1880 to 1914 (omitting, that is, the years since the outbreak of the war) were not as much as 10 per cent.

So much for the gains over the whole period. The earnings at several points in the development of the industry show a wider range.

A nephew of Mr. Tompkins, quoted above, who has succeeded in considerable measure to his uncle's manufacturing interests, and who is of too practical a turn of mind to be affected by the enchantment of distance, speaking of the success of mills right at the opening of the era, said that some made from 30 to 70 per cent. profit. In a previous chapter, it has been seen how many mills at this juncture increased their plants from earnings. A Utopian tinge may be suspected in an article appearing in The Daily Constitution, Atlanta, in March of 1880, which, in urging upon Southern communities the establishment of spinning mills, stated: "At prevailing prices there is nearly or quite six cents per pound profit over all expenses in spinning No. 14 yarn, or three cents per spindle per day; this would give $9 per spindle per year, and as spinning mills can be built for less than $18 per spindle, no other figures are required to demonstrate the statement that the spinning mills in the South bid fair to realize this year fifty per cent. on the capital invested. Nearly all of these mills are running night and day, and every one of them is realizing handsome profits. These are facts." The goods of the Wesson Cotton Mills, Mississippi, took a premium at the Centennial Exhibition in Philadelphia in 1876. The company started with one mill and a capital of $300,000. This plant made 30 per cent. profits, so another was built and the stock increased to $1,000,000. A North Carolina newspaper trying to encourage cotton manufacturing in that State, stated in 1880 that upon the $2,288,000 invested in the mills in South Carolina, the profits ranged from 18 to 25 per cent. The Boston Journal of Commerce in 1881 gave the opinion of an Englishman visiting the Eagle and Phoenix Mills, Columbus, Georgia, that the No. 3 Mill, then new, was the best equipped in the world, and said that "The profit of these mills last year was 20 per cent. on a capital of $1,250,000 or $5.76 per spindle."

Saffold Berney, in his Handbook of Alabama, published in 1878, made a rather elaborate computation of the earning capacity of a 4,000-spindle, 125-loom mill, making 6,000 yards of cloth per day. It may not be uninteresting to see how he worked out a considerable rate of profit for a small plant. His calculations are:

3,000 yds. 7-8 shirting at 6 cents $ 180.00 3,000 yds. 4-4 sheeting " 7 " 210.00 -------- Total gross income $ 390.00

Cotton on a basis of 10 1-2 cents, 15 per cent. waste $220.94 Labor and mill expenses 63.44 Office and general expenses 9.62 Coal, gas, oil, starch & supplies 19.00 Insurance 3.11 Charges in selling goods, 2 1/2 per cent 9.75 Wear and tear machinery 5 per cent 13.69 339.55 ------ ------- Leaving a net profit per day of $ 50.45

Or for 300 working days or one year of $15,135.00

Figuring the cost of this mill at $20 per spindle, and leaving aside, as before, money otherwise invested about the business, there is a capital of $80,000, upon which a profit of $15,135.00 is 18.8 per cent.

"Profits in the past," says Mr. Thompson, "have been so large that often before the last payment on the stock is due, a sum sufficient to pay all obligations has been accumulated." He cites as a particularly favorable instance, that of a mill which required no further instalments on subscriptions after a little more than one-third of the instalment-payment period had run out.

A little incident is interesting as involving two of the most important and picturesque personalities and one of the chief mills connected with the rise of cotton manufacturing in the South, and it bears directly on the topic now being considered. It seems that the founding of the Piedmont Factory by Colonel H. P. Hammett in South Carolina inspired a notice from Mr. Edward Atkinson, of Boston, in which he reasoned that cotton manufacturing in the South could never pay. This came under the eye of Colonel Hammett. To the article he pinned his annual balance sheet, showing a profit of 20 per cent., and sent the two to Mr. Atkinson.

In regard to these first years of the large establishment of cotton mills in the South, it is common to hear the opinion that the big profits made attracted the energies of the people to mill building. Going a little further back, the mills in operation just before the textile era, though few in number, showed gains that bore a part in the boom about 1880.

Twelve years after taking charge of the plant, Colonel Hickman had earned by the old Graniteville mill sufficient surplus to build the Vaucluse Mill at a cost of $361,513.24 without calling for assessments upon stockholders, and five years later had accumulated a cash surplus of $220,831.86. He had doubled the production of the original Graniteville Mill. The statement of the affairs of the two plants in 1804 showed:

Gross Profits:

Graniteville $82,724.69 Vaucluse 37,131.31 ----------- Total profits $120,856.00 Net profits 80,701.71

This net profit amount represented 13.5 per cent. profit on $600,000 capital.

Coming down, now, a decade later in the period. There is shown a degree of success pretty much uniform for the various mills.

The first plant of the Gaffney Manufacturing Company which was paid for when operation commenced, in three years earned enough to build an additional plant of two stories. This mill indicates very well a fact brought out in the preceding chapter, that many additions to plant, which were being made after the mills had been a few years in operation, were accomplished from earnings. The Salisbury Mill is a case in point. Its inception and that of the Gaffney Mill the two being projected at about the same time had many things in common (as did the towns in which they were built). Increases in plant of the Salisbury Mill have been greater proportionally than the increases in capitalization.

From manufacturers, from investors, and from persons acquainted with the public economy, have been had statements, each reflecting an individual bias, but each showing unmistakably that there was a general and marked decline in profits in the second decade of the development. A retired mill president, whose decision to leave the field was perhaps affected by the condition she described, regretted that the companies are still laboring under decreased profits as a result of the fact that mills were built more rapidly than the market for goods expanded to meet the development. Another mill president thought that no more mills are likely to be built in his section too many years. "They went it too rank, you know," he declared with some feeling. "Once in a while you hear of a new mill starting up, but its not as common as it was ten or fifteen years ago." He put the date of the fall-off in profits at about 1900. The son of Colonel Hammett, several times mentioned, who is a successful manufacturer, deplored the building of too many mills in a short period, and said that profits fell away abruptly.

A bank president whose institution has played a leading part in the textile prominence of Columbia, South Carolina, said that "1890 to 1900 was the heaviest borrowing period, as this was the greatest period of development. Profits were poor, especially from 1895 to 1903."

Though he does not believe selling agents have taken much stock in North Carolina mills, Mr. Thompson attributes many failures of mills to "slavery to commission houses through which they sell their product." He implies that it was the grip which the agents got on the mill by the loan of running capital that brought the ill effects. At any rate, the commission houses became more deeply interested in the mills as the plants increased in numbers, and profits were hurt by this fact, he believes. This influence continues, thinks a former president of the great Graniteville Mill, who said: "The commission merchants take the very heart out of the mills. The commission houses of New York, Philadelphia and Boston get more out of the mills than the stockholders in the South."

While it is true that "most of the mills of the South have succeeded," there have been, besides some concerns which have stood still, neither making nor losing, a few notable failures. It is the common opinion that failures have been due almost entirely to lack of capital and bad management. Probably these faults and a good many others contributed to the ill success of the old Charleston Manufacturing Company, which began life with such high hopes at the outset of the cotton mill era. If any enterprise was an expression of the motive forces in the South in 1880, this one was. It supplied a potent example to communities all over the South contemplating cotton factories. The property of the Charleston Manufacturing Company was sold under the hammer to the Vesta Cotton Mill Company, which was not more successful with the plant. After standing a year idle, the attempt was made to operate the mill with colored help, and a reorganization of the Vesta Company was had for this purpose. A large proportion of the subscribers to the original company remained in the two reorganizations that followed. In the experiment of negro operatives the old factory was again opening up a vista to the South, for, as it was vainly pointed out to the negro population of Charleston, if the trial of colored operatives in the Vesta Mill had succeeded, plants all over the section would offer employment to negroes. When this third effort to use the plant for a cotton mill came to nought, the machinery was moved to Gainesville, Georgia, and though the top of the new mill was carried away by a cyclone almost as soon as completed, the company is now doing well in its new location. The great, gloomy pile that thrice held so much of the confidence of the South and the best hopes of Charleston still flanks the railway tracks and rears itself above the depot, and seems all very silent in spite of the fact that it is now occupied by tobacco manufacturers.

The grandfather mill, as it might be called, of the Southern textile industry, is that of Graniteville, established by William Gregg in 1846. The factory nearly failed in 1867, but was saved by the genius of H. H. Hickman, a merchant of Augusta, who became its president at the critical juncture. He died in 1898, and his son came in as president. At his retirement and the reorganization of the mill, a business man of Augusta has been elected the new president, but it will require, it is said, from seven to ten years for him to build up the organization again.

The Royal Mills, the only cotton factory now operating in Charleston, was built eighteen or twenty years ago, in the period of stress just noticed. George Wagener, the original manager, left the mill at his death with a surplus of $90,000. It went into slovenly hands, and failed. It has been remodelled, however, and is now making money.

The small mills' success inspired the belief that large plants would succeed. The Olympia, until recently the largest mill in the world, was built at Columbia, and the Loray Mill, with more than half as many spindles, was founded at Gastonia. It is the general opinion, whether colored too largely by the unsatisfactory history of these two conspicuous factories or not it cannot be told, that there have been more failures among the large than among the small mills. It has been said of the North Carolina manufacturers as opposed to those of South Carolina that they "are not so ambitious for big places, (at the head of large companies) and a lot of those little fellows are getting rich." The North Carolina mind seems to run on smaller things. I am not sure but what the North Carolina mills have been more successful than the South Carolina mills.

A committee representing New England manufacturers has stated in spite of an advantage over the Eastern mills of 25 per cent. in labor, and 50 per cent. in respect to taxes, the Southern mills have made less profits than their older competitors because of poor financing. However this may be, the total losses on $100,000,000 invested in cotton manufacturing in the South in thirty years does not represent more than 20 per cent., is the belief of Mr. Thackston, of Greenville.

To go to a lyceum lecture on a sultry summer night and be whisked away by picture and description to the snowy peaks and green glaciers of the Canadian Rockies is not a more complete or refreshing transition than that experienced by the traveler who lumbers along the Southern Railway for weary, slow miles of sodden country and ill-kept settlement, all at once to alight at the neat station and view the trim town of Gastonia, North Carolina. It is not attempted here to account for the New England psychology that animates this nonetheless Southern place, but it is deserving of better praise than its harsh name gives it. Neither is it proper in this place to seek to account for the success of its score and a half of cotton mills. The recital of the profits they have made since the European War is astounding, but there is every cause to believe in the accuracy of the information given.

In the first place, while the big Loray Mill, as has been seen, has not reflected much credit upon the community of factories at Gastonia, and is spoken of not very warmly there, no mill in Gastonia has ever had a receivership.

The mills at Belmont right near Gastonia are making on the average 25 per cent profits. The Treanton Mill at Gastonia, paid 100% in cash during the first five years of its operation. The Majestic Mill, at Belmont, was expected to make in 1916-1917, 100 per cent., or the price of the plant in a single year.

In cataloguing the notes from a summer trip to the mill towns, the writer feared he had made some mistake in setting down the results of an interview with the vice-president and cashier of the First National Bank, Gastonia, which is most largely interested in the mills of the place, as to the earnings. He therefore wrote for a restatement on doubtful points, and found himself confirmed. To quote the case of one mill from Mr. Robinson's reply. "We have a mill here that had $150,000 capital paid in, and after a short time issued a stock dividend of 20 per cent. which gave them (it) a capital of $180,000, and this mill made $155,000 net profits for the year 1915. I am satisfied that this same mill will make 125 per cent. profit this year (1916) on their (its) $180,000 capital, or around $225,000 net profit."

From the interview, there is the instance of a 12,000 spindle mill; not one of the most successful in Gastonia, which made $2,500 the week previous.

While the mill expected to make 125 per cent. net profits for 1916 is said to be exceptional, a number of mills were, as near the end of the old year as November 28th, expected to show from 75 to 100 per cent. net profits for 1916, the writer was told that it would be a pretty poorly managed plant that did not clear the lower percentages.

A burly, forceful man in middle life, who has risen from foot pedlar to mill president, said with frankness: "I am making more money than I know what to do with. I am ashamed to take it!" He showed me the statements of the orders for product with which his four mills would be kept busy for the next four or five months. He expected to clear $60,000 on the output of each plant for this period. Mr. Robinson, previously quoted, recognizes that the cotton mills at Gastonia are more prosperous than those of any other section of which he knows. Not even early in the period, when mills were first building, did they make such profits as now, is the opinion of an old manufacturer at Gastonia.

The foregoing citation of the earnings of various mills at various points of time in the period since their establishment has served to exhibit the general movement of profits. At the outset, most conditions were favorable to large gains--there was little competition, labor was most plentiful and cheap, the lack of advantageous marketing facilities was to some degree offset by purely local demand for the product, and the deficiencies of management tended to be neutralized by the presence of physical advantages which disappeared when a more advanced development increased the size of plants, widened the area from which raw cotton was drawn, and extended the market for product. It is said repeatedly that in those days any fool could make money in cotton manufacture in the South.

With the closing years of the second decade of the mill growth, most of these advantaging circumstances were fading before the increase of competition. Their very success was proving fatal to the mills. They had ceased to be local affairs. When outside influences came in--commission and machinery men--new and difficult problems had to be faced. The factories were assuming the physical proportions which they were bound to assume, and which it was right they should assume, but they ran ahead of the development in the textile industry, and in the South of expertness of management, business resourcefulness and economic outlook. The spirit could not keep up with the flesh, and the mind lagged behind the body.

The prosperity which the mills are now enjoying they very well understand to be hectic, the result of the European War. They were having a hard time enough until the war came and put them all on velvet, as someone expressed it; 25% of the Southern Mills were in bad shape, defaulting an interest, etc.

There are in the industrial community of Gastonia, however, and in certain individual mills and managers, particularly in North Carolina, signs, that point to a catching up of internal capacities with external maturity. There is being developed--not yet clearly seen by any means, and in not a few points apparently contradicted--a manufacturing spirit in the South, an industrial faculty that is able to cope with difficult conditions, the results of economic progress. This promises that the South is learning after forty years what Edward Atkinson said it did not know, the difference between a penny and a nickel. It indicates that the South will be meeting narrow margins of profit with close figuring of the costs of production.

It is natural to turn from the subject of profits to that of dividends. There is in the history of the mills a general parallel between the two, with, however, certain variations arising from the fact that the industry has been and is now in constant process of growth. With the exception of perhaps a few years, earnings could always be profitably invested in the business, particularly in expansions of plant. As will be seen in more detail later, the peculiar conditions under which the mills took their rise involved indebtedness for plant and for running capital, and earnings had to go to pay interest and principal of this.

The Augusta Factory was founded in 1847, and, with Graniteville nearby, though in South Carolina, resembled in its earlier years, and to a diminished extent still does, the English and Continental textile manufactories. They have both fallen upon evil days more recently. The Augusta Factory made 5 per cent. quarterly dividends for eight years and nine months from its founding. In 1858, eleven years after establishment, the plant was sold to a company with Wm. H. Jackson at its head, for the sum of $140,000. Though the stockholders in the Jackson Company paid $60,000 for repairs to the property, the purchase price, payable in instalments for ten years, was made up from profits. The mill at the close of the war was the wealthiest in the South. It was said in 1884 that it had had an uninterrupted course of prosperity since the war. From 1865 to 1880 the company paid average annual dividends of 14 21/32 per cent.

In 1880 the stock of the mills at Augusta, Georgia, paid about 8 per cent. interest per annum, in semi-annual and quarterly dividends.

Under Col. H. H. Hickman's management of Graniteville there were regular dividends of 10 per cent. The son of this former president, and until recently himself president of the mill as his father's successor, said: "Graniteville was so successful it had a large influence. It never ceased operation, and to my certain knowledge it had a fifty-year record of dividends."

Perhaps some indication of the widespread popularity of cotton mills as an investment from a purely dividend-seeking point of view is contained in a newspaper notice of 1881 setting forth that a large mill at Nashville, Tennessee, had declared a dividend of 14 per cent. and another was built. In 1881 the Enterprise Factory, in Georgia, declared a 10 per cent. dividend, and decided to increase its capacity by 125 per cent. or more--from 13,890 spindles to over 33,000, and from 264 looms to more than 600. Mills as Pulaski, in the same State, were anxious to double their capacity; $50,000 was subscribed for a mill at Jackson, West Tennessee; Dallas, Texas, was starting a $200,000 spindle plant, and the town of Sherman wanted a $75,000 factory. The following year, the same paper printed an item showing further that dividends were being paid to stockholders in factories all over the South: "The cotton mills in Mississippi have proved bonanzas for the owners. The one at Wesson (it has been seen that this company made 30 per cent. profit from the plant) pays 26 per cent. dividends...." The mill established by Mayor Courtenay, of Charleston, at Newry, South Carolina, paid no dividends for the first seven years of its life; this distinction from the earlier mills in regard to dividends, bears out what was said of profits in the period in which this plant was built (1892-3). Over the whole twenty-four years of its history, however, the company has paid an average of 6 per cent. to its shareholders.

The building of the Salisbury Mill was completed December 1, 1888. The first cloth was turned out February 9, 1889. The first dividend of 5 per cent. was declared January 11, 1890. The mill has missed only one dividend payment, a quarterly one, since this time. It is true that for the first three or four years of its life, the concern was in an uncertain way, the panic of 1893 proving embarrassing to it, though not as seriously so as in the case of the Newry Mill, just cited. For a long time the investment paid 8 per cent. dividends, then for several years of late 10 per cent. On July 10, 1916, the directors declared an extra dividend of 5 per cent., paid August 1. A part of the profits has for years and years gone back into the business, enabling it now to earn good sums.

In the first ten years of its operation, the Laurens Mills were very profitable. Borrowing money to bring its spindleage up to thirty thousand, it expanded to 43,000 spindles on earnings. At the end of the ten-year period there was the plant worth about $800,000; the company owed no money, and the only liability against it was $350,000 of common stock. There was a cash surplus, probably small. For six years it had been paying 12 per cent. annual dividends. The mill was incorporated in 1895. It is not certain that dividend payments were made by this company while it was carrying its debt, but the Anderson Mill, Anderson, South Carolina, paid interest on its indebtedness and 8 per cent. dividends as well.

Reference has been made to Mr. Thompson's statement that large profits have frequently enabled mill companies to discharge all obligations before the last subscription-payment was due. He cites the case of an enterprise of $100,000 capitalization, with shares payable in weekly instalments of 50 cents, which after 70 weeks, with only $35 on the share paid up, declared a dividend of 4 per cent. on the capitalization. This plant, which he says is by no means universal, has, besides building large additions from profits always paid 4 or 5 per cent. in dividends each half-year. This is probably the Cabarrus, one of the Cannon mills, at Concord.

From Mr. August Kohn was had a valuable estimate of the whole matter of Southern cotton manufactories as investments, assuming, that is, that the mills of his State have been typical in this respect of those of the rest of the section. He said: "If the people of South Carolina had put their money into farm loans at 7 per cent.--the same people and the same money--they would have been better off personally than they are after having invested in cotton mills. There are no failures in real estate mortgages at 7 per cent., but in cotton mill investments, principal and interest has frequently been lost."

If this opinion is to be believed, had Mr. Goldsmith taken all the factories of the State, and not "the fifty more important cotton mills of South Carolina," he would have found an annual average dividend for 1905, 1906 and 1907, not of 7.56 per cent., but something below 7 per cent.

It is well to conclude this random review of the dividends paid by the textile enterprises of the South with a thoughtful caution from Mr. Thackston, of Greenville, who has been of chief assistance to the writer in the financial aspects of the problem: "When it is said that the mills (have) made such and such dividends, it is to be remembered that in many cases the plant had cost more than the capitalization would show. Twelve or 10 per cent. on a $50,000 investment is very different from 12 or 10 per cent. on $30,000 paid up. The mills made so much money that they could pay off their indebtedness frequently in a few years, but the returns on capital paid up were not so great as might appear in some statements.

"Piedmont is capitalized at $800,000. The plant probably cost $1,500,000. When they pay 10 per cent. on the investment, it is because they are neglecting to reduce the debt on the plant. They are really paying about 6 per cent. on the investment, considering the total liabilities of the stockholders."

Tompkins has placed a useful modification upon the nominal showing of dividends which finds place here, and has application to what was earlier said of profits as well: "The tables ... showing range of profits, are made up from exhibits as usually made in annual reports. This is exclusive of depreciation, or wear and tear. Even in cases where an item of depreciation is carried in the accounts, it is often simply a matter of bookkeeping, and not a sum set aside for replacing of machinery.... Where large profits are reported, and large dividends paid, it is always a question whether the vitality of the mill is not suffering. There is a number of cases where mills have paid several large dividends at the start, but, on account of making no provision for depreciation, have finally collapsed."

Some mills to continue Mr. Thackston's statement, cost in plant, he said four times their total capital. A man would build a 10,000-spindle mill and add to it greatly, not increasing the capital at all; he trusted to earnings to care for the debt, and delayed payments on common stock.

A remark of Mr. Goldsmith, though he unfortunately does not give the source of his information, confirms this calculation. He says: "The average South Carolina weaving mill costs about $20 to $21 per spindle; it is capitalized at about $12 per spindle, and earns from $2 to $4 per annum per spindle."

A statement covering five years for average well-managed mill properties in and around Greenville, South Carolina, shows, he said:

Average earnings on plant cost 13.47 per cent. " " per spindle $ 2.94 " cost " " 21.08 Capitalized at " " 12.72

His conclusion was that "In general, the dividends on the actual cost of the plants have not been over 12 per cent."

As to the development, nature and persistence of a market in the South for cotton mill securities, the principal partner in a firm dealing in stocks, bonds, real estate loans, and fire insurance, who has besides long been identified with the cotton manufacturing industry in the Piedmont region, said: "... as far as I am able to recall, the stock market began to develop in this section about 1898 to 1901; and referring to some old records, as of March, 1901, I find such entries as this:

"5 Monaghan at 95 3 Brandon at 90"

with other entries of the same kind.

"About this date, in the up-country there were several young men who began trading in these stocks largely on a brokerage proposition. I recall the names of:

A. M. Law & Co Spartanburg, S.C. W. D. Glenn Spartanburg, S.C. F. C. Abbott & Co Charlotte, N.C. George E. Gibbon Charleston, S.C.

and a few others whose names I do not recall just now.

"In Greenville, there was Mr. A. G. Furman.... All these men are still in the same line of business, and from small beginnings, have developed satisfactory business in the buying and selling of these securities.

"One element that lends itself to this business was the fact that in a number of instances builders of machinery would take part of their bill in stock, and later dispose of these holdings at concessions. I recall in one year that I disposed of about $2,000,000.00 worth of such stocks."

An investor with considerable cotton mill holdings, in his replies, threw a little different light on the matter in some particulars: "A market for cotton mill securities developed between 1890 and 1900. There is less sale for them now, but in those ten years they used to go like hot cakes. All these brokers take a whack at them, but any man would starve that tried to deal in them exclusively. I had a friend that tried to make his living from dealing in them, but he didn't make his office rent, I deal in them a little, more than anything else for accommodation to friends. There is practically nothing in it for me."

Mr. Buist has here placed the commencement of this market as far back as 1890. But in the early months of 1881 M. J. Verdery & Co., brokers of Augusta, were negotiating for the entire issue of $350,000 extra capital stock to be made in connection with enlargements to the Enterprise Factory. It was said that one man and his friends would take $140,000 of the stock. This was, however, an underwriting transaction, such as those of which the first quotation speaks as being conducted on a brokerage proposition, rather than the regular marketing of stocks indicated by Mr. Buist.

Another said: "Nobody deals exclusively in cotton mill securities, and they are not quoted on the big exchanges either." There is no doubt about either of these points, judging from all the information received. And further: "At the opening of the period, the sale for cotton mill stocks was very local, and each mill took charge of its own sales."

A mill president of Augusta said that he frequently has inquiries for stock; he refers these applicants to brokers in the city.

It has been seen that the curve of dividends of the mills shows a rough correspondence to that of profits; it may be observed in the paragraphs that follow that the third curve of market values of mill stocks follows more or less the other two curves. There will be mentioned first the cases in which the securities sold, for one reason and another, at low figures, and second the instances of more advantageous quotation, with some comments on the occasion for the high and low prices.

The cotton manufacturing business in the South has been a precarious one; it has proved quixotic, and there have been intervals of sterility. This may be taken as accountable for the fact that "mill stocks usually sell below their book value." This consideration has not, however, as will appear more clearly a little later, prevented great variation in the selling price of securities of mills in different sections of the South, at the same point of time.

"Mill shares have been a drug on the market and confidence in them has been lost to a large degree." In conformity with this, an ex-manufacturer, now a cotton factor, of Augusta, Georgia, explained that: "Stocks of mills in Augusta haven't sold at par in twenty years. You can buy preferred stock of mills in Augusta at less than par. You can buy the stock of the Augusta and Enterprise mills at 20 or so. The Augusta Factory hasn't paid a dividend in twenty years." He could not understand why this was true of the local manufacturing community, which is one of the most notable in the entire South.

These considerations are in contrast to the statement of Mr. Goldsmith: "The market value of the stock is almost always above par, increasing in proportion to the age of the mill." The writer inclined to doubt this accuracy of Mr. Goldsmith's information.

Referring now to the sale of stock at less than its book value, it may be noticed again that during the war the Augusta Factory was sold into new hands at, ostensibly, $200,000. The new company capitalized it at $600,000 about what it was worth. F. W. Wagener and Julius Koester bought in the property which is now the Royal Mills, at Charleston, at about 20 cents on the dollar. An indication of the prevalence of this condition is seen in the fact that the people of Charleston, who previously had been generous subscribers to cotton mill stock, every promoter going to Charleston for the placement of a large block, "about 1905 or 6 ... got canny, and quit subscribing to the stock of new mills, for they found they could wait and buy the stock at less than par. For twelve or fourteen years Charleston has not contributed to new mills." The reason for the general drop in the value of mill securities twelve or fourteen years ago lies in the depression in the industry caused by the ill-considered boom in mill building, already dwelt upon; a cause which had its rise earlier, but which no doubt continued to operate through this later period, was set forth plainly by a banker of Columbia. He said:

"Suppose a Southerner was promoting a mill that was to cost $1,000,000. In contracting for $600,000 worth of machinery, the machinery people would take half of the amount in stock. Machinery was in great demand, and high in price. The machinery manufacturers could throw their stock on the market quickly at 50 cents on the dollar, and make money. But in doing this they hurt the price of the stock of the mill."

There seems to be pretty clear cause for the sensational drop that once occurred in the selling price of the stock of Pacolet, one of the greatest of the Southern mills. The factory had been making heavy goods for the Chinese market; this market was so unfavorably affected by the exclusion act that the goods became unprofitable to the mill. It cost money to change the machinery. So much preferred stock was issued that the common stock of the mill fell from 300 to a point below par.

It has been seen that for the last six years of the first decade of the operation of the Laurens Mills, 12 per cent. annual dividends were paid. Within two years after the fight between local shareholders and Northern selling agents, the dividends got down to 5 per cent. and the stock fell from 175 to par. A similar decline has been very apparent in the stock of Pelzer, in the same State, which ten years ago was selling at 175 or 180, and which now may be bought at a little above par.

T. C. Duncan built the Union Mills, and these succeeded. The stock went to $150 a share in 1900 or 1902. Then he built the Buffalo Mills. The projector of these mills was, however, a cotton speculator, it is said, and the market went against him. The town of Union, South Carolina, "busted with Tom Duncan", as it was expressed.

At the opening of the cotton mill period, it was said of the Rock Bill Cotton Factory that "The best evidence of its success is that not one dollar of its stock can be bought." In the same month of the same year it was published that of the successful Mississippi mills, "The one at Wesson pays 26 per cent. dividends, and the stock is worth over 300." Pacolet was built in 1880. The architect suggested a certain firm as selling agents for the mill, and Captain John H. Montgomery, the projector of the company, was introduced to a member of this firm. In consideration of receiving the account of the factory, this official subscribed for the commission firm to fifty or a hundred shares of Pacolet's stock. He told a friend shortly afterwards that he did not know why he bought the stock, and offered to sell it at $50 on the share. It happened that he held the stock, and he afterwards sold the stock at $300 per share.

This buoyant success of the early mills, previously remarked with reference to profits and dividends, and here seen in the advance in the price of stock, is further illustrated by the history of some plants now having large capitalization. These sold additional stock to the original subscribers at a reduction--say at 75 or 80 when the par was 100. The ventures were so profitable that the stock remained at par value. The same observation comes out, as applicable to a still earlier time, in the circumstance of the issue, in 1865, when the Augusta Factory was paying more than 14 per cent. dividends of three shares for one, bringing up the capitalization to $600,000.

Fifteen years later it was said: "Augusta is becoming prominent in the South as a manufacturing city, there being eight cotton factories running here successfully.... These factories aggregate about 2,500 looms and 10,000 spindles; they consume about 50,000 bales of cotton annually, manufacture about 50,000,000 yarns (yards) of cloths, (this besides yarn mills) and employ 2,000 operatives. The capital stock of nearly all these factories is at a high premium."

If the success of the Augusta Factory in 1865 was sufficient to maintain at par issues of extra stock, as just noted, the reverse was true of Graniteville two years later, when the elder Hickman took charge. Twenty years earlier, the plant had cost to build $375,000. By 1867 the stock had increased to $716,000, and the shares had fallen to $62.50 in value. The mill was $50,000 in debt. Colonel Hickman cancelled $116,000 capital shares, bringing the interest-bearing stock of the company down to $600,000. He restored the depreciated stock to its proper value. Reference has been made to a stock dividend of 20 per cent. issued by a mill of Gastonia within the last few years.

A very present instance of this same quality, reflected this time in the recuperative power of a mill, is contained in a prediction made by the gentleman who knows most about the Graniteville Mill, that the stock which then, at reorganization, sold for $60 the share will in a year, if all goes well, sell at par.

It has been said that the stock of the Rock Hill Cotton Factory could not be bought, and that the stock of several mills sold for $300 per share. That of the Tucapau Mills, in South Carolina, is not to be had today, or it can be had only at 3 or 5 for one. This is by some regarded as the most successful mill in the State.

It would seem that absolutely no stock of the Salisbury Mills is on the market. Recently an energetic young man anxious to buy stock of the mill for principals, went to the treasurer of the company and to shareholders individually, without success. The treasurer said that by looking long enough, and waiting for his chance, he might induce some stockholder to sell at 200. This comparatively low figure in his prognostication is perhaps accounted for by the conservative character of the company from the start, and the uniformly satisfactory, though not brilliant dividends of the enterprise, together with the fact, maybe most potent of all, that sixty of the one hundred and five shareholders in the Salisbury Mills are ladies, the majority of whom have received their holdings through inheritance.

The Majestic Mill, Gaston County, North Carolina, which in 1916 after nine months' operation declared a dividend of 10 per cent., sold three shares of stock which in some way had not been marketed, at 150 each.

In mentioning the contrast between the market price at this time of the stock of mills in various localities. Thought was particularly of the facts as to the Augusta mills' securities and those of the plants in and about Gastonia. The latter are as optimistic as the former are the reverse. Mills in Gastonia making in 1916 from 75 to 100 per cent. net profits, are represented by stock selling at figures ranging from $150 to $250 the share.

VITA

Broadus Mitchell was born at Georgetown, Kentucky, December 27, 1892; he attended a primary school in Richmond, Virginia, and then, for four years until 1908, Richmond Academy; for one session, 1908-1909, attended the Hope Street High School, Providence, Rhode Island; in 1909 entered the University of South Carolina; in the summer of 1911 was a member of the reportorial staff of The Daily Record, Columbia, South Carolina; graduated from the University of South Carolina with A.B. degree in 1913; from June, 1913, until October, 1914, was a member of the reportorial staff of the Richmond Evening Journal; entered The Johns Hopkins University in 1914; was a Hopkins Scholar during this and the succeeding session; was Fellow in Political Economy, 1916-1917; in July, 1917, became special staff writer The New Leader, Richmond, Virginia, and was given furlough from this position to return to the University in the fall of 1917; Fellow by Courtesy and instructor in Courses in Business Economics, 1917-1918.

FOOTNOTES:

P. H. Goldsmith, The Cotton Mill South, p. 4.

D. A. Tompkins, in The South in the Building of the Nation, Vol. II, p. 58. A more summary statement by the same author is the following; after speaking of the prominence in the South of manufactures in the early years of the nineteenth century: "The profit of cotton raising with slave labor drew people away from manufactures to cotton planting. On the abolition of slavery, the capabilities of the people to organize and conduct manufactures showed itself again.... The re-establishment was not commenced immediately after the civil war, because of the chaotic disorder brought about by the abolition of slavery and the enfranchisement of the negro." But now (1899) "every obstacle to the development of manufactures has been removed. In many parts of the South the development is already well advanced and in others it will undoubtedly grow rapidly." (Ibid., Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, pp. 108-109.)

The South's Position in American Affairs, p. 1. Cf. "Upon the whole, the last half of the Eighteenth Century, before the influence of the cotton gin and Arkwright's inventions were fully felt in the South, was a period when agriculture yielded some ground in primary manufactures and household industries." (V. S. Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, p. 308.)

Holland Thompson, From the Cotton Field to the Cotton Mill, p. 25. "Except in the East, the feeling against slavery was strong during the first quarter of the nineteenth century", and there is remarked the foundation in 1816 of the Manumission Society, which had thirty-six branches in 1825 and 1600 active members in 1826. (Ibid., pp. 26-27.)

August Kohn, The Cotton Mills of South Carolina, pp. 10-11.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, pp. 9-10.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, pp. 10-11. In 1809 the legislative committee on incorporations reported unfavorably a request of John Johnson, Jr., President of the Homespun Company of South Carolina, for a loan on account of a patent, but it was recommended that he be allowed until the next meeting of the legislature "to report on the utility of the machine called the Columbia Spinster, so as to entitle, in case the same be approved, the inventor of the same to the sum provided by law for his benefit." (Ibid., pp. 11) Cf. Ibid., pp. 11-13.

For these facts the writer is indebted to an unpublished manuscript of M. R. Pleasants, "Manufacturing in North Carolina before 1860", to which reference will frequently be had.

Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, p. 310.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, p. 7.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, p. 7.

Ibid.

Ibid.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, p. 7. His citation is of the South Carolina and American General Gazette, Jan. 30, 1777. Cf. Ibid., pp. 6-7.

Ibid., p. 8. Reference is particularly to the City Gazette and Daily Advertiser, of Charleston, January 24, 1779.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina. Citation is of the American Museum, VIII, Appendix IV, part II, July 1, 1790. The question mark is Mr. Kohn's.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, pp. 8-9.

W. W. Sellers, A History of Marion County, p. 26.

Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, p. 312. Cf. Ibid., pp. 328-9. Referring to the manufactories near Charleston and Statesburg, and to carding and spinning machinery set up in eastern Tennessee in 1791, he concludes, "However the industrial progress of these years was irregular and local rather than general and permanent." Ibid., p. 310.

Clark, History of Manufactures in the United States, 1607-1860, p. 537. As indicating further the lack of causation in these earliest ventures, it is said: "Maryland is hardly typical industrially of the Southern States. Its factories date from the Revolution...." (Ibid., in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, pp. 328-9.)

"In this country, as well as in England, the germ of the textile industry existed in the fulling and carding mills; the former, dating earlier, being the mills for finishing the coarse cloths woven by hand in the looms of our ancestors; and in the latter, the carding mill, the wool was prepared for the hand-wheel. At the close of the Revolution the domestic system of manufactures prevailed throughout the states" (Carroll D. Wright, "The Factory System of the U.S." p. 6, in U.S. Census of manufactures, 1880.)

The Bolton Factory was built in 1811 on Upton Creek, nine miles southwest of Washington, Wilkes County, Ga., in 1794, on this site had been erected one of Whitney's first cotton gins, propelled by the water power that later ran the cotton mill. It is said that here Lyon conceived important improvements on the Whitney invention, making a saw gin. (Southern Cotton Spinners' Association proceedings seventh annual convention, pp. 41 ff.) Here is a rather striking indication of the fact that the South was on the right road--a gin, so far from diverting attention entirely to the cultivation of the staple, gave way to a cotton mill which was located on the same site and operated by the same water power.

H. R. Helper, The Impending Crisis of the South, (ed. of 1860) pp. 161-162.

W. F. Marshall, interview, Raleigh, N.C., September 16, 1916.

"The first cotton mill built in North Carolina was built at Lincolnton in 1813 by Michael Schenck.... This mill was the forerunner of that remarkable industrial development which has taken place in North Carolina since that time." (Pleasants, ibid.)

John Nichols, interview, Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 16, 1916. A. A. Thompson, President of the Raleigh Cotton Mill, expressed about the same view in an interview at Raleigh on the same day.

J. L. Hartsell, interview, Concord, N.C., September 2nd 1916.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, p. 15. Cf. Charlotte News, (N.C.) Textile Industrial Edition, Feb., 1917, with reference to the Rocky Mount Mill.

Though their father had been prominent for his conduct of the mill and had displayed in his personality a generous disposition toward the community, the sons were said to be wild and reckless, and when they fell heir to the plant alienated the sympathies of the people of the vicinity. Any possible public character for the business was thus destroyed.

Charles E. Johnson, interview, Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 16, 1916.

C. D. Wright, "Factory System of the U.S.", p. 6, in U.S. Census of Manufactures, 1880. Cf. Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V., p. 319.

For a careful narrative of the establishments of the settlers who moved into South Carolina from New England about 1816, with details of the mills of the Hills, Shelden, Clark, Bates, Hutchings, Stack, the Weavers, McBee, Bivings, etc., consult Kohn, Cotton Mills of S.C., and The Water Powers of South Carolina; for those in North Carolina H. Thompson is useful. Cf. also Southern Cotton Spinners' Association proceedings seventh annual convention, pp. 41 ff. and Tompkins, Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, pp. 301-302.

Wood for the boiler of the Mount Hecla Mills, growing scarce, the machinery was taken to Mountain Island, and there run by water. (H. Thompson, pp. 48-9.)

Cf. Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, p. 14.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, p. 14. Cf. Charlotte News, Ibid., with reference to the Rocky Mount Mill.

H. Thompson, pp. 45 ff.

Ibid.

J. B. Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.

H. Thompson, pp. 42-43. Cf. p. 12.

Theckston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

Theckston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V., p. 321. Cf. Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, giving quotation from Columbia Telescope.

Charlotte News, Ibid. The McDonald Mill at Concord during the Civil War dealt in barter. A gentleman in a nearby town told the writer that he remembered as a boy trading a load of corn for yarn to be woven by the women at home. (Theodore Klutz, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.) In 1862 the Confederate government commandered the Batesville factory in South Carolina, and took nearly all of the product. That portion which was allowed to private purchasers was always sold by ten o'clock in the morning. (Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.)

Thompson, pp. 48-9.

Tompkins, Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, pp. 183-4.

Walter Montgomery, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5th, 1916.

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12th, 1916.

John W. Fries, interview, Winston-Salem, N.C., Aug. 31, 1916.

Another with a broad view of the history of the industry in the South was willing to include in a similar statement the Graniteville mill about which a good deal of controversy has clustered: "The cotton mills in the South before the war were third-rate affairs. I speak of Graniteville and Batesville and such plants as these. I remember my mother's telling me that the warp ... used to be supplied by the mills for use in the homes of the housewives. They were not regular cotton mills as the plants of later establishment have come to be." (W. W. Ball, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 1, 1917.)

Figures of Thompson give 700 ______ and 7000 bales of cotton consumed. (Thompson, pp. 49 ff.)

U.S. Census of Manufactures, 1900. Cotton Manufactures, pp. 54 ff. A map showing the distribution of cotton spindles in 1839 indicates a good representation for all the Southern States, except Mississippi, Louisiana, Arkansas and Florida, as to mills of small size, but the localization both as to plants and spindles in New England is marked. (Clark, History of Manufactures in the U.S., section on cotton manufactures, pp. 533-560. See the whole section for a masterful discussion of both historical and economic phases.)

Cf. Thompson, pp. 49 ff.

Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, pp. 319-320. "Few mills south of Virginia had power looms prior to 1840." (Ibid., p. 321.) Cf. omission of looms for Southern States in the census figures quoted above.

Clark, South in Building of Nation, Vol. V. p. 322.

William E. Dodd, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V. pp. 566-7.

Quoted in Pleasants.

Quoted in Pleasants.

Quoted from Niles' Register, May 10, 1828, in Pleasants. Mr. Pleasants remarks that not until the late twenties did the leaders of thought awaken to the disintegrating process that had set in two decades before, and he notices the striking fact that in a report to the legislature in 1828 it was said: "Nothing but a change of system can restore health and prosperity at large. With all the material and elements for manufacturing, we annually expend millions for the purchase of articles manufactured in Europe and in the North out of our own raw material. At this rate the state is on the road to bankruptcy. There must be a change. But how is this important revolution to be accomplished? We unhesitatingly answer--by introducing the manufacturing system into our own state and fabricating at least to the extent of our wants.... Our habits and prejudices are against manufacturing, but we must yield to the force of things and profit by the indications of nature. The policy that resists the change is unwise and suicidal. Nothing else can restore us."

Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg County, Vol. I, p. 124. Cf. Ibid., pp. 126-7.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, pp. 18-19.

Clark, History of Manufactures in U.S., pp. 553 ff. Cf. Ibid., in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, pp. 213-214, and pp. 316 ff.

Kohn, Cotton Mills of South Carolina, p. 16.

"Cheapness of cotton, abundance of water-power, the resources of the coal-fields, when steam began to supplant the dam, the other mineral resources, and the wealth of forests of pine, live oak, cypress, and other woods in which the South abounded, did not even attract from other parts sufficient capital to develop the section to anything like its full extent. No artificial expedients were necessary there. But capital did not come." (Ingle, Southern Sidelights, p. 73.)

Quoted in A. B. Hart, The Southern South, pp. 231-232.

Helper, p. 25.

Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg, Vol. I, p. 100.

Ibid., Vol. II, pp. 200-201.

Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg, Vol. I, pp. 98-99. This statement is strongly influenced by Tench Coxe. Cf. Ibid., Cotton Growing, pp. 3-4. It has been said of the Irish people by Lord Dufferin that "the entire nation flung itself back upon the land, with as fatal an impulse as when a river, whose current is suddenly impeded, rolls back and drowns the valley which it once fertilized", and Sir Horace Plunkett comments, "The energies, the hopes, nay, the very existence of the race, became thus intimately bound up with agriculture." (Sir Horace Plunkett, Ireland in the New Century, p. 20.)

Tompkins, Building and Loan Associations, p. 43. Cf. Ibid., The Cultivation, Picking, Baling and Manufacturing of Cotton from Southern Handpoint, pp. 5-6.

Tompkins, Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, pp. 109-110. It is interesting that this occurs in a book by a practical manufacturer intended to point the way to technical success in mill management. It is perhaps an indication of how social the South is in even its most distinctly industrial aspects.

Another has used the expression that "the South was throttled by an out grown Economic System." (F. T. Carlton, History and Problems of Organized Labor, pp. 19-20.)

Tompkins, Cultivation, Picking, Baling and Manufacturing of Cotton, pp. 5-6. "Agricultural Methods were 'stereotyped'." This writer did more than any other in showing the character of the equipment for cotton cultivation and the alterations made therein after the war.

W. H. Gannon, The Landowners of the South, and the Industrial Classes of the North, pp. 7 ff.

William Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, pp. 18-19.

Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg, Vol. I, p. 194. "The price which America paid for the introduction and use of cotton was sectionalism, slavery, and war." (James A. B. Scherer, Cotton as a World Power, p. 243.) For a careful description of the circumstances surrounding the invention of the cotton gin, and the legal documents in the dispute over the rights to it, cf. ibid., Cotton and Cotton Oil, pp. 19 to 31, inclusive, and appendix. "We abandoned a once leading factory system; we imported slaves; we let all public highways become quagmires; we destroyed every possibility for the farmer except cotton and by cut-throat competition amongst ourselves we reduced the price to where there was not a living in it for the cotton producer. We made cotton in a quantity and at a price to clothe all the world excepting ourselves." (Ibid., Road Building and Repairs, p. 24.)

Ingle, Southern Sidelights, p. 49.

Scherer, p. 253.

Scherer, pp. 168 ff. Cf. Walter H. Page, The Rebuilding of Old Commonwealths, p. 139.

A. D. Mayo, In The Social Economist, Oct., 1893, pp. 203-204.

F. L. Olmsted, The Seaboard Slave States, pp. 140-141. Cf. Ibid., p. 185, pp. 213-214.

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, pp. 298-299. Cf. "The amount of it, then, is this: Improvement and progress in South Carolina is forbidden by its present system." (Ibid., pp. 522-523. And for his general philosophy on the subject, Ibid., pp. 490-491.)

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, pp. 179-180.

Ibid., pp. 288 ff.

Plunkett, p. 147.

Ingle, Southern Sidelights, pp. 68-69.

Ingle, Southern Sidelights, p. 11.

Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, pp. 213-214. Not only did slavery deter from coming to the South immigrants opposed to the institution, but the Southern whites were indisposed to welcome those who refused to grow into the system. A Southern Newspaper of the fifties betrayed this: "A large proportion of the mechanical force that migrate to the South, are a curse instead of a blessing; they are generally a worthless, unprincipled class--enemies to our peculiar institutions, and formidable barriers to the success of our native mechanics. Not so, however, with another class who migrate southward--we mean that class known as merchants; they are generally intelligent and trustworthy, and they seldom fail to discover their true interests. They become slaveholders and landed proprietors; and, in ninety-nine cases out of a hundred, they are better qualified to become constituents of our institution, than even a certain class of our native born.... The intelligent mercantile class ... are generally valuable acquisitions to society, and every way qualified to sustain 'our institution'; but the mechanics, most of them, are pests to society, dangerous among the slave population, and ever ready to form combinations against the interest of the slave-holder, against the laws of the country, and against the peace of the Commonwealth." (Quoted in Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 511.)

Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg, Vol. II, p. 204.

Cf. Ibid., Vol. I, p. 153.

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 511.

Sidney Andrews, The South Since the War, pp. 342-343.

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 543.

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 210.

Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 10.

Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, pp. 9-10. "He who has possessed himself of the notion that we have the industry, and are wronged out of our hard earnings by a lazy set of scheming Yankees, to get rid of this delusion, needs only seat himself on the Charleston wharves for a few days, and behold ship after ship arrive laden down with the various articles produced by Yankee industry." (Ibid.)

Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, pp. 9-10. "He who has possessed himself of the notion that we have the industry, and are wronged out of our hard earnings by a lazy set of scheming Yankees, to get rid of this delusion, needs only seat himself on the Charleston wharves for a few days, and behold ship after ship arrive laden down with the various articles produced by Yankee industry." (Ibid., p. 11.)

Helper, pp. 21 and 23. See these pages also for interesting illustrations of dependence upon the North, some of which plainly influenced Henry W. Grady.

William Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 8. Nothing is more frequently remarked as indicative of the exclusive attention to the cultivation of cotton than the large reliance of an almost purely agricultural country upon other sections for many articles of food. And not only subsistance for the people, but subsistence for the plantation as such often had to be imported. Missing nothing, Olmsted said, in a description of a rail journey in North Carolina, "The principal other freight of the train was one hundred and twenty bales of Northern hay. It belonged ... to a planter who lived some twenty miles beyond here, and who had bought it in Wilmington at a dollar and a half a hundred weight, to feed to his mules. Including the steam-boat and railroad freight, and all the labor of getting it to his stables, its entire cost to him would not be much less than two dollars a hundred. This would be at least four times as much as it would have cost to raise and make it in the interior of New York or New England.... He had preferred to employ his slaves at other business." (Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, pp. 376-379.)

But Gregg gave encouragement in any brighter aspects that he found, as when he said, "Limited as our manufactures are in South Carolina, we can now, more than supply the State with Coarse Cotton Fabrics. Many of the fabrics now manufactured here are exported to New York, and for aught I know, find their way to the East Indies." (Ibid., pp. 11) And he held out to his State the prospect of the results that might reasonably be expected from adoption of his proposals: "Were all our hopes ... consumated, South Carolina would present a delightful picture. Every son and daughter would find healthful and lucrative employment; our roads, which are now a disgrace to us, would be improved; we would no longer be under the necessity of sending to the North for half made wagons and carriages, to break our necks; we would have, if not as handsome, at least as honestly and faithfully made ones.... Workshops would take the place of the throngs of clothing, hat, and shoe stores, and the watch-word would be, from the seaboard to the mountains, success to domestic industry." (Ibid., p. 17.) When Southern resources were exploited, the total benefit might not come to the locality; "The great abundance of the best lumber for the purpose, in the United States, growing in the vicinity of the town, has lately induced some persons to attempt ship-building at Mobile. The mechanics employed are mainly from the North." (Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 567.)

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 544.

Quoted in Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 175.

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 363.

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 166.

Tompkins, Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, preface to appendix. This is one of a thousand incidents which bring to mind the similarity between Irish temperament and that of the people of the South--how prone both have been to obscure to themselves real issues in public affairs for a joke's sake. And the reflection would be dismal for both peoples but for the finer discernment of which each, at other times, has shown itself capable. Cf. Plunkett.

Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 18.

Ingle, Southern Sidelights, p. 47. Cf. Burkett and Poe, Cotton, pp. 312 and 313, and E. C. Brooks, The Story of Cotton, p. 157.

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 169.

Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 20. "Lamentable, indeed is it to see so wise and so pure a man as Langdon Cheves, putting forth the doctrine, to South Carolina, that manufactures should be the last resort of a country. With the greatest possible respect for the opinions of this truly great man, and the humblest pretensions on my part, I will venture the assertion, that a greater error was never committed by a statesman." (Ibid., p. 14) For a very fine passage, omitted here only because of its length, showing the fallacy of Cheves' position, and defining what Gregg meant by "domestic manufactures"--not household industry, but the erection of steam mills in Charleston, of cotton factories there and throughout the State; "I mean, that, at every village and cross-road in the State, we should have a tannery, a shoe-maker, a clothier, a hatter, a blacksmith ... a wagon maker ... this is the kind of manufactures I speak of, as being necessary to bring forth the energies of a country, and give healthful and vigorous action to agriculture, commerce and every department of industry"--See Ibid., pp. 14-15-16. The Southern Quarterly Review in 1845 quoted Cheves: "'Manufacturing should be the last resort of industry in every country, for one forced as with us, they serve no interests but those of the capitalists who set them in motion, and their immediate localities'." And Mr. Kohn remarks, "This expression was not peculiar to any one class of leaders in South Carolina at that time," and he instances other examples. (Kohn, Cotton Mill of S.C., p. 13.) Cf. also references to Burkett and Poe and to Brooks.

Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 14. See p. 52.

Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, pp. 19-20.

Ibid., p. 20.

Gregg, Speech on Blue Ridge Railroad, p. 67.

Gregg, Speech on Blue Ridge Railroad, p. 29.

Quoted in The News and Courier, Charleston, March 9, 1881. Said Olmsted in 1856: "Singularly simple, childlike ideas about commercial success, you find among the Virginians.... The agency by which commodities are transferred from the producer to the consumer, they seem to look upon as a kind of swindling operation: ... They speak angrily of New York, as if it fattened on the country without any good in return." (Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 138.)

"... the labor of negroes and blind horse can never supply the place of steam, and this power is withheld lest the smoke of an engine should disturb the delicate nerves of an agriculturist; or the noise of the mechanic's hammer should break in upon the slumber of a real estate holder, or importing merchant, while he is indulging in fanciful dreams, or building on paper, the Queen City of the South--the paragon of the age. No reflections on the members of the City Council are here intended, they are no doubt fairly representing public opinion on this subject...." (Gregg, Essays on Domestic Industry, p. 23.)

"The State of South Carolina has been extremely guarded in extending grants to banking institutions, and in this she has shown her wisdom, for it is an extremely dangerous power to exercise." He hoped, however, that the danger to be apprehended from banking privileged would "not be confounded with, and brought injudiciously to bear against the charters which are necessary to develop the resources of our country, and give an impetus to all industrial pursuits.... The practice of operating by associated capital gives a wonderful stimulus to enterprise, and where such investments are fashionable, no undertaking is too great to be consummated. Why is it that the Bostonians are able in a day, or a week, to raise millions at one stroke, to purchase the land on both sides of a river, for miles, to secure a great water power and the erection of a manufacturing city?... The divine, lawyer, doctor, schoolmaster, guardian, widow, farmer, merchant, mechanic, common labourer, in fact, the whole community is made tributary to these great enterprises. The utility and safety of such institutions is no longer problematical.... If we shut the door against associated capital and place reliance on individual exertion, we may talk over the matter and grow poorer for fifty years to come, without effecting the change in our industrial pursuits, necessary to renovate the fortunes of our State. Individuals will not be found amongst us who are willing to embark their 100, 200 or $300,000 in untried pursuits: ... If liberal charters were granted, one hundred successful establishments would spring into existence, where one, of feeble order, could be expected from individual effort.... About three-fourths of the manufacturing of the United States, is carried on by joint-stock companies: ... We shall certainly have to look to such companies to introduce the business with us...." He showed the perpetuity of the corporate form by instancing one South Carolina cotton factory operated by a joint stock company; "... there is but one of the original proprietors living, yet the factory is still going on prosperously, producing as good results as it ever has done ...", and this mill he contrasted with the venture of an individual which was prosperous until his death, when the legatees, not able to carry on the manufacture, forced the sale of the property at half its value. (Gregg, An Enquiry into the Propriety of Granting Charters of Incorporation for Manufacturing and Other Purposes, in South Carolina, pp. 4-11.)

Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, pp. 314-315.

Olmsted, Seaboard Slave States, p. 361.

Ibid., pp. 358-359.

Ingle, Southern Side Lights, p. 32 ff. "There were 101 persons in the jails of Georgia on June 1, 1860; Virginia had 189; Massachusetts, 1161 and Illinois, 489. In the open life of the South and West, where men could easily get to the land, there was little crime and jails were often empty; in the industrial belt the prisons were always occupied. In like manner and for the same reasons Southern and Western hospitals for the insane and homes for the poor often showed very small percentages of these unfortunates." (William E. Dodd, Expansion and Conflict, p. 231.) Cf. the map on p. 188, showing the industrial belt of 1860 to extend along the Atlantic Seaboard from New Hampshire to the head of Chesapeake Bay, covering the coastal States, with scattering development indicated to the westward. The territory south of Maryland shows a few plants of an output of $250,000.

Upon this whole matter, see Scherer, p. 179 ff. "In 1816, when Webster opposed protection, there was a capital of only about $52,000,000 invested in textile manufacture, of which much still lay in the South. In 1828, when he reversed his position, this capital had probably doubled, and had become localized in and about New England." (Ibid., p. 181.) Cf. Ibid., p. 234.

Scherer, p. 152. "When the United States of America was formed, manufacturing interests were as well developed in the South as the North. Slavery ... existed under protection of law more than a hundred years in Massachusetts before it was tolerated by law in Georgia. At the beginning of the nineteenth century the tariff was not a matter which was exclusively political.... The subject ceased to be an economic one and became a political one in proportion as slavery grew in the South and diminished in the North, and in inverse proportion as manufactures dried up in the South and became of greater importance in the North.... The time came when the South stood for free trade and the North for protection. This was because slavery made agriculture more profitable in the South and protection made manufacturing more profitable in the North with the South as a protected market." (Tompkins, The Tariff and Reciprocity.)

Tompkins, Tariff and Protection.

Clark, in South in Building of Nation, Vol. V, p. 316 ff. See pp. 30-31-32. Contrast Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg, Vol. I, pp. 133-137.

But some of the agitation in favor of industries in this period, as in other ante-bellum and indeed post-bellum years, had a flavor not symptomatic of healthy desire for improvement. One hundred and thirty-one delegates represented nineteen North Carolina counties at a meeting held in Salisbury in 1836, at which resolutions were adopted asking the legislature to give assistance in the building of railroads; another evidence of this interest was the Knoxville railroad convention of about the same date. Of the advantages which it was agreed would flow from the building of the Charleston and Cincinnati Railroad, it was declared that "it will form a bond of union among the States which will give safety to our property and security to our institutions." (Tompkins, History of Mecklenburg, Vol. I, p. 125.) Of more positive character was the utterance of a Southerner who viewed with deep concern the danger that the North would crush slavery and place the South under complete submission to tariff aggressions, congressional representation for the latter section finding a stop in the limit to slave territory: "Under these circumstances, the true policy of the south is distinct and clearly marked. She must resort to the same means by which power is accumulated at the North, to secure it for herself. She must embark in that system of manufacturing which has been so successfully employed at the north.... All civilized nations are now dependent upon our staple to give employment to their machinery and their labor.... If, then, we manufacture a large portion of it ourselves, we reduce the quantity for export, and the competition for that remainder will add greatly to our wealth, while it will place us in a position to dictate our own terms. The manufactories will increase our population; increased population and wealth will enable us to chain the southern States proudly and indissolubly together by railroads and other internal improvements; and these works by affording a speedy communication from point to point, will prove our surest defense against either foreign aggression or domestic revolt." (J. D. B. DeBow, Industrial Resources of the South and Southwest, Vol. II, p. 127.) J. H. Taylor, of Charleston, combatted the antipathy toward massing the poor whites in factories with the reflection that small farming in competition with slave labor brought discontent that might mean social upheaval, whereas the factory opened a door of opportunity that allowed of intelligence and stability; with the chance of coming to own a slave, "they would increase the demand for that kind of property, and would become firm and uncompromising supporters of Southern institutions." (Ingle, Southern Sidelights, pp. 25-26.)

In earlier pages he has developed with much care the promising industrial status of the Colonial and Revolutionary South. "In the Southern colonies iron making became an important industry, even before the beginning of the eighteenth century." The activity in Maryland, Virginia, the Carolinas, Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia is shown: Governor's Spottswood's ventures in Virginia, the passage in 1727 by the Virginia General Assembly of "an act for encouraging adventures in iron-works"; South Carolina forges built in 1773 are dwelt upon. His original investigations reveal valuable facts as to iron-making in North Carolina and upper South Carolina--details are given of the works of E. Graham & Company, formed in 1826 and later merged with the King's Mountain Iron Company; the Magnetic Iron Company, 1837, near the former plant, and the South Carolina Manufacturing Company. It is to be noticed, however, as a modification upon the good effect which might have been expected from these enterprises, that the Graham Company had a considerable part of its capital invested in slaves, and sixty per cent. of the Magnetic Company's capital of $250,000 was used for the same purpose. (Richard H. Edmonds, Facts About the South, Ed. 1894, pp. 3 ff.)

Ibid., pp. 10 ff.

Edmonds, p. 18 ff.

In reference to the false idea of wealth and prosperity in the ante-bellum South, it has been said, "A delusion of great wealth was created in the listing as taxable property of slaves to the amount of at least two thousand millions." (A. B. Hart, The Southern South, p. 218.)

Edmonds, p. 2.

Ibid., p. 14.

Edmonds, pp. 1-2.

Ibid., pp. 2-8, 19-20.

Edmonds, p. 21. Cf. Ibid., pp. 19-20.

E. G. Murphy, The Present South, p. 97.

Murphy, p. 102.

Murphy, pp. 10-11.

Murphy, p. 21.

There were earlier expressions of the same spirit, some, as if in foretaste of the South's fate under the old system, before the Civil War, and others immediately following the war. But the motives were liable to be selfish and unsound, as for the purpose of retaining slavery, and if they did not lack, that fire and conviction which marked the full movement commencing fifteen years later, they were fruitless of large results. "We are going to work in good earnest, not only to repair the waste places of the war, but to build up and improve and prosper, and to show the world that we can be good soldiers in peace as we are in war." (W. J. Barbee, published 1866) Cf.

News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C., Nov. 9, 1880.

"... business is driving sentimental politics to the woods." (News and Observer, Dec. 31, 1880.)

Reprinted in News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., July 11, 1881.

"... they (the New York Times, which carried an editorial questioning the word of General Wade Hampton, and the 'malignants' of the Republican party) must realize the difference between a Southern gentleman and a Northern malignant. They know that the former cannot prevaricate, while the Northern leaders of the Republican party and the malignants are usually devoid of personal honor." This is from an editorial in the News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C., and is too characteristic of most of the political writing in the South which was an outcome of reconstruction.

Reprinted in News and Courier, May 14, 1881.

Reprinted from the Memphis Avalanche, in The Daily Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., March 30, 1880.

Reprinted in News and Courier, March 18, 1881. The writer had been a slave-holder.

A sentence occurring in an editorial of the News and Courier, in the issue of March 24, 1881, is indicative of the love with which this city looked upon the undertaking proposed: "A man who has been in the whirl of New York or in any of the brand new cities of the great West coming into Charleston might readily enough come to the conclusion that the old city was in a sad state of decadence ... but our own people ... if they have their eyes open (or hearts open would perhaps be the better expression) could not fail to see manifest improvement."

"They dub thee idler, smilingly sneeringly, and why?-- How know they, these good gossips, what to thee The ocean and its wanderers may have brought? How know they, in their busy vacancy, With what far aim thy spirit may be fraught? Or that thou dost not bow thee silently Before some great unutterable thought."

--Henry Timrod

"The people of South Carolina are nothing if not heroic, and right or wrong, they are sincere, earnest, and brave ... the same heroic qualities are now leading in the restoration of the South to prosperity, and on a basis that must speedily give the reconstructed States a degree of substantial wealth and power that was never dreamed of before the war." (A. K. McClure, "The South: Industrial, financial and political", p. 55, published 1886.)

The News and Courier, in an editorial on March 19, 1881: "Every true South Carolinian must rejoice at the prudence and energy exhibited by the citizens of Columbia in their management of the cotton mill campaign.... It will be a happy day for the whole State when the hum of myriad spindles is heard on the banks of the historic canal. Columbia will then grow rapidly, speedily rivalling Augusta in the number and success of the cotton mills. Thousands will be added to the population, and from our political center additional life and energy will flow to every part of the State.... we confess to having a weakness for Columbia, which suffered so sorely at the end of the war, and which is the only place of consequence in South Carolina that has not improved its business and enlarged its boundaries since the overthrow of Radicalism in 1876. But cotton mills will soon make amends for the vicissitudes and hopelessness of the past, and for that reason The News and Courier takes the warmest possible interest in the cotton mill campaign at Columbia." The Observer, Raleigh, N.C., July 11, 1800: "... when our people once begin to mingle freely, having a community of interests and a common purpose, sectional feelings will be obliterated, and we will forget that there has been an East, a center, or a West, and remember only that we are all North Carolinians, sharing the same fortunes, blessed with a common hope and ennobled with the same proud memories of a glorious past." The News and Courier, January 25, 1881, carried a plea for State aid for Columbia in her enterprise to build a 16,000-spindle mill, the same as forms the subject of the first part of this note. The editorial especially advocated the placing of convicts at work on the construction: "... The capital, because it was the capital, was laid in ashes by Sherman's troops. In the person of Columbia, all South Carolina was ravaged and laid waste. The city which suffered so sorely may reasonably expect the just assistance of the State in the endeavor to repair her losses caused by war, and intensified by years of contact with political profligacy and misrule."

"What the South should do is the caption that graces the editorial effusions of all classes cf papers, and especially those of our own deeply solicitous and anxious friends of the North. Many of us think we know. The South should depend upon its own virtue, its own brain, its own energy, attend to its own business, make money, build up its waste places, and thus force upon the North that recognition of our worth and dignity of character to which that people will always be blind unless they can see it through the medium of material, industrial and intellectual strength. We may proclaim political theories, but it is the more potent and powerful argument of the mighty dollar that secures an audience there, and the sooner we realize it the better for us." (News and Observer, Raleigh, N.C., Nov. 27, 1880.)

Editorial in News and Courier, Mar. 9, 1881.

It is interesting and pathetic to observe how unaccustomed the South was to the most obvious facts of business. Concentration upon one crop had precluded from the Southern mind--speaking in the aggregate, of course--the first reasonings springing from diversification of industry and from ordinary competition. But once the necessity for a different attitude became apparent, the statesmanlike manner in which this was pressed must provoke admiration. The article in J. D. B. DeBow's "Industrial Resources", etc., pp. 124-125, presents the consideration that the cotton crop of Tennessee, amounting to 200,000 bales, 90,000,000 pounds at 6-1/2 cents an average pound, gave the producers 11-1/2 per cent. profit on their investment, while the manufacturers of the same crop made 24 per cent. profit--more than twice as great. "Are there any so blind as not to see the advantages of the system?" Much earlier Southern statements of the true fact from manufacturing cotton was to be found, but in the delirium of the latter days of slavery these were lost sight of. Wm. J. Barbee, in his "The Cotton Question" pp. 138 and following, commends for the reflection of capitalists in 1866 the "Manufacture of Cotton by its Producers, suggestions of S. R. Cockrill seventeen years ago." Cockrill speculated as to the gain to be derived from cotton mills in the cotton states, and said: "Facts like these should fix the attention of the cotton planter, teach him his true interest, and stimulate him to become the manufacturer of the product of his field, instead of permitting others to reap the entire profit."

News and Courier, Feb. 2, 1881. The editorial appeared apropos of the opening of books for subscriptions to the Charleston Manufacturing Company, which occupies a prominent place in the history of cotton manufacturing in the South. The editorial concluded: "This is the logic of the investment of money in cotton mills in Charleston. It will pay the stockholders their ten or twelve per cent., and the city at large will get a dollar's profit on every dollar's worth of raw cotton that the mills consume."

While the manufacture of cotton was the most prominent manifestation of the newly quickened spirit in the South, it was by no means the only one. Every opportunity for productive enterprise was eagerly investigated; the discovery of one of these was hailed in the papers with an enthusiasm like the joy of a child in a new-found plaything. Properties of soils, the use of the telephone, the most profitable employment for State convicts were some of the topics of interest. There was, of course, a complete absorption for a time in railroads in the Southern Atlantic coast states, either for the further building of small independent lines, the merging of these into systems, or the extension of the coastal lines over the mountains into Tennessee.

There was also a phase of the movement distinctly moral in tone, as, e.g., the wide formation of temperance societies about this time.

News and Courier, Aug. 1, 1881.

While it is clear that the purpose to build cotton mills in the South arose irrespective of the means at the disposal of the people with which to do so, and would have come about had their financial limitations been even more discouraging, it is certainly true that a revival of business at the time of the commencement of the cotton mill campaign was a spur to the widespread investigation into the profitableness of cotton manufacturing. That there was coming to be money seeking investment, or at any rate capable of investment, was good reason for the searching out of opportunities for productive industry. The following gives an insight into the better times that had begun: "The year that is just finished will be to the present generation a red-letter one, for it brought to an end the long and weary period of enforced economy and restricted business that followed the panic of 1873, and put every branch of industry at work. Agriculture was encouraged in the West and South by good crops and remunerative prices, the factories received more orders than they could fill, the railroads were blocked with freight, the mines were pushed to a greater extent than ever, and all other interests were quickened towards the end of the old year in a way that was full of promise." This summary of the year 1879 appeared in The Daily Constitution, Atlanta, January 7, 1880. The return to specie payments did much to stimulate trade. A contribution to the Savannah, Ga. Morning News, quoted by W. H. Gannon in "The Landowners of the South and the Industrial Classes of the North", pp. 6, 7 and 8. The article was probably written by Mr. Gannon himself.

Quoted from Savannah Morning News by W. H. Gannon, The Landowners of the South and the Industrial Classes of the North. "The cotton mill to the cotton field" was the familiar dogma which crystallized out of the course events were taking.

The term is taken from The News and Courier, where it was used first, perhaps, in the issue of January 31, 1881. Before long it had come to be a phrase in everybody's mouth, and proved to be apt beyond any thought, probably, of the editor who first ran the line over a column of notices of new mills established.

"The News and Courier busies itself with every enterprise, big and little, that will turn a dollar's worth of raw material into more than a dollar's worth of manufactures." (News and Courier, Mar. 19, 1881.)

Reprinted in Daily Constitution, Mar. 9, 1880.

News and Courier, Jan. 12, 1882.

Ibid., Feb. 22, 1881, see p. 11, note 3.

Ibid., January 26, 1881.

"While Charleston and other points in the State are discussing and initiating their cotton manufactories, Spartanburg is pushing ahead with her grand enterprise. (Spartanburg correspondence of News and Courier, Feb. 4, 1881.) The same purpose to encourage new mills actuated the News and Observer, December 24, 1880, in referring to Edward Richardson, of the firm of Richardson and May, cotton factors, in New Orleans ... the cotton king of the world. He runs ten to twelve plantations.... Has built a town (Cresson) ... where he has factories employing 400 looms, 18000 spindles and 800 hands. He is worth from $15,000,000 to $18,000,000, all accumulated in the South, the poor South." The encouragement lent by one mill to others to come into the field was recognized. In working for the establishment of the Charleston Manufacturing Company, the News and Courier was starting a force that would grow in power through the years: "When this pioneer company shall have made a good start, other companies will speedily follow...." (January 28, 1881). And again (Observer, January 2, 1880): "Another large cotton factory. The Charlotte Observer chronicles the erection in the immediate future of a cotton factory in that city, and regards it as the beginning of a prosperous growth of manufactures." An item in the Barnwell, S.C. Sentinel, reprinted in the News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881, declared: "The people of Charleston should have never hesitated as long as they have about embanking in the manufacture of cotton goods, and we firmly believe, as the ball is started, that it will be kept moving...." The Keowee Courier, in an editorial also reprinted in the Charleston paper, commended Charleston as setting an example to the entire State. A Georgia note, carried in the News and Courier of February 24, 1881, is especially specific in this connection: "If the organization of this manufacturing company (the Enterprise Factory, Augusta, Georgia, which was to be greatly enlarged after making good profits) proves a good omen--its extension may work as an invaluable stimulus to other enterprises now. It will hurry up the walls of the stupendous Sibley Mill, where 25,000 spindles will soon mingle in our industrial acclaim. It will quicken the shuttles of that giant corporation, the Augusta Factory." "It will spur on the Globe Factory and the Summerville Mills to renewed effort, while our South Carolina neighbors cannot but catch the spirit of improvement."

Reprinted in the News and Courier, Jan. 31, 1881.

Reprinted in the News and Courier, Feb. 23, 1881.

Ibid., Jan. 27, Mar. 20 and May 4, 1881.

The commencement of the movement was right clearly marked in the minds of the people. The News and Courier (August 1, 1881) in an editorial commenting on the address of Major Hammett on cotton manufacturing in the South, printed in that issue of the paper, had these words: "Major Hammett was the founder of the Piedmont Factory, which, under his management, is one of the finest and most profitable cotton mills in the South. The Piedmont Factory was projected and built before the opening of the cotton mill campaign in the South, and Maj. Hammett ranks, therefore, as one of the pioneers in cotton manufacturing in South Carolina."

News and Courier, Oct. 13, 1881.

"We people of the South should embrace every opportunity which, like the opportunity offered by this exposition, will bring among us intelligent and interested observers of our industrial condition, resources and aptitudes. We have in the midst of us the raw material, so to speak, of a magnificent prosperity. We lack knowledge, population and capital. These may be slowly accumulated in the course of years, or they may be rapidly by well directed efforts to obtain them from beyond our own borders. We advocate the latter plan." (Interview with one of the officials of the exposition, printed in News and Courier, Mar. 14, 1881.)

News and Courier, Dec. 27, 1881.

An Atlanta dispatch to the News and Courier, February 25, 1881, said the executive committee of the exposition was fully organized, with H. I. Kimball, chairman and J. W. Rickman, secretary. By March 8 (News and Courier) $20,000 had been subscribed in Atlanta, and General Sherman had headed the Northern subscription to the capital stock with $2,000. By the 17th (News and Courier) the stock had reached $40,000, four subscriptions of $1,000 each having been received from private individuals, and eleven of $500 each from like sources. Railroad subscriptions at this date were: Western and Atlantic Railroad Company, $10,000; Louisville and Nashville, $5,000; Richmond and Danville Road, $2,500; East Tennessee, Virginia and Georgia Road, $2,000. By the first day of April (News and Courier still) New York bankers seemed likely to increase by $5,000 the amount of subscriptions sought from them, and make their shares $30,000. Inman, Swan & Co. subscribed to $2,000 worth of stock Drexel, Morgan & Co. took $1,000; and Brown Bros. & Co. $1,000. Before the week was out, (News and Courier, April 5) the Boston Herald had taken $1,000 worth of stock. The executive committee had sent an agent to Europe and had made a tour of investigation through the North earlier.

News and Courier, Oct. 21, 1881.

Ibid., Oct. 7, 1881.

News and Courier, Oct. 10, 1881.

November 1, 1881. This paper maintained Mr. Hemphill as staff correspondent at the exposition for some time after its opening.

News and Courier, Dec. 5, 1881. The speech details the number of miles of railroads that spread like a web over New England. "I have said that there is no better simple standard than the proportion of railroads to the square mile of territory of any State, by which to gauge the condition and prosperity of the people. I ask you, gentlemen of Georgia, if you will lag behind. I ask you men of the South what you will do in this matter." "I told you last year you needed the savings bank more than any other institution; there is a vast unused capital in your Southern States in the hordes of the working people waiting for us, but there is one condition precedent to the savings bank--you must set up schools." This paragraph illustrates Mr. Atkinson's ideas singularly well. His advocacy here of common schools was a part of his great desire to see the South rebuilt, and so was his proposal of savings banks. But he could not understand how the South wished to see money taken out of savings banks and placed immediately in cotton mills, where it would be more productive to its owners, and to the country. As far as Mr. Atkinson went, his reasoning was astonishing sound, but where he stopped, he stopped irrevocably.

"Where are your dairies? You farmers of the hills of Georgia, from the mountains of the Carolinas and Tennessee, aye, from the North Cumberland valley, from the French Broad River, even from that great blue grass country of Kentucky. Where are your dairies?" he seemed to think of everything but what to his hearers seemed most obvious. He suggested stock raising as profitable in the South, and finally the culture of Pongee, Tussah or Cheefoo silk worms, though the latter would be, he thought, perhaps of doubtful success. A week after this speech, Mr. Atkinson had a talk, reported in the News and Courier of May 8, 1881, with the press representatives in their pavilion. He discussed first "whether a single roller gin, operating against a saw gin, will do an equal amount of work with less motive power and less labor." He had arranged to take to Boston to lay before the New England Cotton Manufactures' Association samples of cotton from all the gins on the grounds. "Mr. Atkinson has proposed another trial of every kind of gin, cleaner, press and picker, to be made in the building of the New England Mechanics' Institute in Boston, in December, 1882. Every man in the South who is especially interested in cotton production and manufacture will be invited to plant a specific acre for use at this trial, which will be the second step in what has been so well begun in Atlanta. The picking and saving the cotton wasted on the ground, the cleaning, ginning and packing of the staple in good condition, offers to the Southern States a branch of manufacturing the most important in the whole series of operations which neither the Northern States nor Europe can share, but in which there is greater opportunity for profit in ration to the capital invested than in any other department of manufacture. 'No staple in the world,' said Mr. Atkinson, 'except the sugar raised by the Maylays, is treated so barbarously as the cotton produced in the Southern States of the American Union'." Tests, Mr. Atkinson thought, showed that cotton from the Charlotte steam compress worked up more smoothly, though the yarn was somewhat weaker, perhaps, than cotton from the county compresses and loose cotton just as it came from the field. It may be that this interview was written by Mr. Atkinson himself, and run into the reports of the day at the exposition as sent out by the correspondents.

Examples of this abound. The Manufacturer and Industrial Gazette, Springfield, Mass., was quoted in the News and Courier, Feb. 3, 1881: "They (the Southern States) have the advantage of cotton location, and, when they have secured new and improved machinery, will do any unrivalled business. They can save freights, buy cheaper and hire cheaper labor. They save buyers' commission, and warehouse delivery and cartage, sampling, classing, pressing, shipping, marine risks and freight and cartage to interior towns, which amounts in all to some seven dollars per bale. The Northern mills also lose from receiving cotton poorly ginned, containing a good deal of leaf and sand, which is computed at six per cent. of the entire crop. The difference between the cost of a bale sent to Fall River, Mass., and a bale sent to Columbia, Ga., is eight dollars and six cents. This makes a tax of eighteen per cent. which Fall River pays in competition with Columbus. It is estimated that, if the planters could manufacture their cotton near home, they would save $50,000,000 in transportation.... As yet the South manufactures principally coarser goods, yarns, ducks, unbleached muslins, sheetings, shirtings, osnaburgs, jeans, etc., but the time is not distant when it will come to make prints, cambrics, laces, and all the finer qualities of staple goods."

News and Courier, Dec. 5, 1881. (In the same issue excerpts from the address were printed.)

News and Courier, Oct. 13, 1881. In the following editorial comment of the Augusta, Ga., Chronicle and Constitutionalist (reprinted in the News and Courier, Dec. 8, 1881) the contrast between Mr. Atkinson's views and the facts as the South was finding them is made sharp: "Augusta has an abiding faith in her manufactories, despite Mr. Edward Atkinson, and people outside seem to think as well of them, at any rate they are willing to invest their money in such enterprise.... For such factories as the Augusta, the Enterprise and Sibley and the King are of immense importance to a city. There will be when all of them are at work, fully twenty thousand people dependent upon them, including the operatives and their families, to say nothing of the stores that will be supported by their trade. Each factory like the Sibley or the King adds five thousand to the population."

"We have found that we cannot stand alone, that our fight must be made within the Union." (News and Courier, Oct. 24, 1881.)

News and Courier, Charleston, S.C., July 13, 1881. When Garfield was shot, July 2, this paper carried an editorial of similar content. Five days after the appearance of the editorial here quoted, when recovery seemed assured, the paper said this: "One thing the President's desperate illness has unquestionably effected. It has done more than years of ordinary events in bringing the North and South together--vainly will the politicians flourish the 'bloody flag'. The people will not rally on the ensanguined colors again. For the Republic, as well as the President, the danger line is well nigh, passed."

News and Courier, Sept. 20, 1881. Garfield died at Elberton, N.J., September 19. That Charleston meant what she said is shown in the reception which was accorded the First Connecticut Regiment, invited to visit the city after attending the Centennial Celebration at Yorktown, Virginia. The New Englanders came six weeks after the death of Garfield--October 24. On this day the newspaper carried at the head of the first column the Connecticut and South Carolina flags crossed, above them the words "Yankee Doodle Came to Town", and below "A Welcome Invasion!" An editorial headed "Happy Day" had these words: "It does not strain the probabilities to believe that the visit of the First Connecticut Regiment to Charleston is the outgrowth and sentiment and interest which found expression when the President of the United States lay dying, and when after his long agony he died. Had not President Garfield been slain, and the South felt differently and, therefore, acted differently, this present unpremeditated fraternization would have been impossible. There is no shock now in removing mourning trappings to make room for the wreaths and garlands of joy. It is the fit succession of events, a consequence of the murder of the President. The blood of the Chief Magistrate is the seed of union. Yorktown in itself a reminder of the days when North and South had felt one aim and purpose, furnished the opportunity or occasion, and the unselfish sorrow of the Southern people during the President's mortal illness furnished the motive. The relation of the two events is too plain to be ignored or misunderstood. This is the significance of the coming of the Connecticut First from the land of abundance and diversified wealth to battle-scarred and struggling Charleston."

Interview with C. C. Baldwin In the New York Herald, reprinted in News and Courier, July 11, 1881.

The Daily Dispatch, Richmond, Va., March 5, 1880.

News and Observer, Dec. 1, 1880.

News and Observer, Mar. 25, 1881.

Mar. 18, 1881. In this instance also it is apparent that the State was looked to as a natural unit upon which the company had claims. The dispatch says: "The estimates of the subscriptions here has (have) been raised, in view of the encouragement received already, to at least $125,000, and it is believed that with this substantial backing the whole State will be assured of the character of the organization, and join in the enterprise."

News and Courier, Jan. 14, 1882.

News and Observer, Raleigh, Nov. 9, 1880.

Dec. 24, 1880.

Newberry Herald, quoted in News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881.

Quoted in News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881.

January 28, 1881.

The same dual basis of appeal was recognized in a notice supplementing an advertisement of the company appearing the day before the editorial here quoted (Jan. 27, 1881): "The advantages, direct and incidental, accruing to every citizen of Charleston from this industry about to be started in our city are so manifest that those who have inaugurated the enterprise have every reason to feel confident of a ready response to the call for capital and for abundant success."

News and Courier, Apr. 13, 1881.

Quoted in News and Courier, Mar. 31, 1881.

Quoted in News and Courier, Jan. 31, 1881.

News and Courier, Sept. 1, 1881.

Thompson, P.

Rock Hill Correspondent in News and Courier, Jan. 12, 1882.

News and Courier, Dec. 17, 1881.

Yorkville Correspondence, Ibid., March 25, 1881.

Ibid., Feb. 26, 1881.

Ibid., Apr., 6, 1881; see p. 19.

The Observer, Sept. 10, 1880. The Daily Constitution, Atlanta, on Mch. 9, 1880, carried from the Columbus Enquirer: "... there are 213,157 spindles to Georgia's credit.... Of this number Columbus has 60,000--near a third of the whole.... The Eagle and Phenix mills alone operate 44,000 spindles. All this has been done since 1866 ... with Southern capital and brains." The editor of The Observer, Raleigh, paid a visit to Durham and Winston, North Carolina, and went back to his desk glowing with enthusiasm for what they had accomplished. In an editorial (May 19, 1880) headed "Manufacturing Towns"; he wrote of Durham: "Literally the town has been created through the energy and enterprise of its inhabitants. They began with no capital to speak of, and now they levy contributions on hundreds of thousands of people who live in distant parts of the Union, and with their gains have built and beautified a town whose history should be continually kept in view by all who would have their own homes to prosper."

C. C. Baldwin, president Louisville and Nashville Railroad; the interview was reprinted in News and Courier, July 11, 1881.

Staff correspondence from Spartanburg to News and Courier, May 21, 1881.

Ibid., Feb. 4, 1881.

News and Courier, Oct. 24, 1881.

News and Courier, Mch. 8, 1881.

News and Courier, Mar. 19 and 25, 1881. The personnel of committees appointed from among the early subscribers is significant. The names are all, or nearly all, old ones in South Carolina, and some of the men are still among the first citizens of the capit. The committees were made up of W. A. Clark, Jno. C. Seegers, Nathaniel B. Barnwell, F. W. McMaster, Preston C. Lorick, T. A. McCreery, Jno. T. Sloan, Jr.

Ibid., Mar. 17, 1881.

Columbia Dispatch, Ibid., Mar. 31, 1881.

News and Courier, Jan. 28, 1881.

See p. 14.

News and Courier, Jan. 9, 1882.

News and Courier, Dec. 14, 1881.

Ibid., Mch. 25, 1881.

"Brutus", writing from Barnwell to News and Courier, May 25, 1881.

Sumter, S.C. Southron, quoted in News and Courier, May 14, 1881.

News and Courier, June 28, 1881.

Ibid., Mar. 14, 1881.

Quoted News and Courier, Aug. 18, 1881.

Observer, June 27, 1880.

Dispatch quoted in News and Courier, Mar. 25, 1881. Francis Fontaine, commissioner of immigration for Georgia, did not represent the method of appeal of his fellow Georgians, when he said tritely and smugly: "The truth is only to be made known, when capital will find its own way to the sunny land." (Observer, Mar. 20, 1880.)

Gannon, W. H., The Landowners of the South, and the Industrial Classes of the North, pp. 6, 7 and 8.

News and Courier, Aug. 9, 1881.

Quoted in News and Courier, July 7, 1881. The isolation of this editor and the provincial quality of his utterance are clearly seen in such phrases as "we welcome foreign capital down here". Even without the context.

Quoted from New York Herald, in News and Courier, July 11, 1881. Hon. Cassius M. Clay, writing in The Industrial South declared: "I am tired of hearing the deprecating cry of 'We want Yankee brains and enterprise.' We don't want any such thing; We want Southern brains and enterprise." (Quoted in Gannon, pp. 18 and 19.)

Quoted in News and Courier, Nov. 5, 1881.

Feb. 13, 1880.

News and Courier, Nov. 5, 1881.

Quoted in News and Courier, Mar. 8, 1881.

Quoted in News and Courier, Annual Trade Summary, Sept. 1, 1881.

Winnsboro (South Carolina) News, quoted in News and Courier, Feb. 8, 1881.

July 30, 1881.

Quoted in News and Courier, Apr. 25, 1881.

Ibid., Apr. 9, 1881. The Batesville Cotton Factory, built by William Bates forty years before, was bought by G. Putnam, of Massachusetts for $8,000, and he invested $10,000 additional in the plant. The building was frame, two and half stories high, all was burned in March of 1881, catching from sparks from the boiler room. It was believed that Mr. Putnam would rebuild the plant on better lines. (Ibid., Mar. 2, 1881, et seq.)

Ibid., July 11, 1881.

Ibid., Nov. 10, 1881.

News and Courier, July 11, 1881.

Ibid., Jan. 14, 1882.

News and Courier, Jan. 12 and 14, 1882. When the Sibley Manufacturing Company of Augusta, Georgia, was increasing its capital by $400,000, President W. C. Sibley received from Boston a telegram ordering $20,000 of the new stock. (News and Courier May 21, 1881.) Cf. Thompson.

News and Courier, Apr. 6, 1881.

Ibid., Mch. 15, 1881.

Ibid., Mch. 29, 1881.

News and Courier, Apr. 1, 1881. These subscriptions may have been partly influenced by the purpose of Mr. Atkinson to have the Exposition further the cultivation and preparation, and not the manufacture, of the staple.

Jan. 27, 1881.

March 21, 1881.

News and Courier, Jan. 21, 1881.

It seems to have been usual to call first for a payment of 10 per cent. of the stock subscribed, rather than to require a certain proportion in cash at subscription. Thus the books of subscription of the Charleston Manufacturing Company were opened January 27th; on March 29th the directors called for the payment of the first instalment of 10 per cent., and at 2 o'clock on the morning of April 9th--how closely the progress of the undertaking was watched by papers and public!--more than half of the amount was in the hands of the officers of the company.

Ibid., Feb. 10, 1882.

Ibid., Feb. 5, 1881.

Ibid., Feb. 7, 1881.

News and Courier, Mar. 25, 1881.

Hartsell, J. L., interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.

C. B. Armstrong, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Joseph Separt, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

S. N. Boyce and J. Lee Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Ibid., Feb. 26, 1881.

News and Courier, S.C., Feb. 24, 1881.

Augusta Trade Review, Augusta, Ga., Oct., 1884.

News and Courier, Apr. 9, 1881. This paper in the issue of Feb. 26th spoke of the additional stock as being $350, but puts the amount at $100,000 lower in this later notice.

North Carolina Herald, Salisbury, N.C., Nov. 9, 1887, quoted in minute book of Salisbury Cotton Mills.

The meeting was held Dec. 2nd; the minute book record is signed by F. J. Murdoch, sec. pro tem.

Klutz, Theodore F., interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1918.

J. B. Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.

News and Courier, Mar. 31, 1881.

Barbee, Wm. J., The Cotton Question, pp. 138 ff.

March 18, 1880.

Clement F. Haynesworth, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.

J. L. Hartsell, interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.

W. R. Odell, interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.

L. Baker, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

News and Courier, Feb. 23, 1881.

Haynesworth, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.

From Cotton Field to Cotton Mill, pp. 82 ff.

Hartsell, interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.

L. G. Porter, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Potter, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.

B. B. Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.

Baker, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Ibid.

Hartsell, interview. Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.

Rogan, G. W., interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Sterling Graydon, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916.

C. S. Morris, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

Hartsell, interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 2, 1916.

Charles McDonald, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 3, 1916.

Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.

J. W. Norwood, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916. J. A. Chapman, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5, 1916. The mills around Spartanburg had a nucleus of local capital, and the commission houses and machinery manufacturers took an interest in the development.

Baker, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Wood, Interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.

Chapman, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5, 1916.

A. A. Thompson, interview, Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 16, 1916.

Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.

Clark, David, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916.

C. D. Morris, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

Seport, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Wood, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Separk, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Charles E. Johnson, interview, Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 16, 1916.

Bernard Case, interview, Greensboro, N.C., Aug. 30, 1916.

Chapman, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5, 1916.

Haynesworth, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.

Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.

Haynesworth, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.

Odell, W. R., interview, Concord, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

Norwood, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.

Ibid.

Norwood, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.

Clark, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916.

Ibid., Also Separk, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916; also H. D. Wheat, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

Ibid.

Graydon, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916, also J. A. Brock, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.

Separk, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916; also Thackston, ibid.

Graydon, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916.

Boyce, and Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916; also Ragan, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14th, 1916.

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Chapman, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5, 1916; also Boyce and Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Boyce and Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.

Wood, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

News and Courier, Apr. 29, 1881.

April 28, 1881.

News and Courier, Apr. 28, 1881.

Ibid., Apr. 29, 1881.

One commission house thirty years ago took all the bonds of a mill. A. A. Thompson, interview, Raleigh, N.C., Sept. 16, 1916.

Wheat, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

News and Courier, Jan. 12, 1882.

Ibid., Jan. 14, 1882.

Boyce, and Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Bernard Cone, interview, Greensboro, N.C., Aug. 30, 1916.

Henry E. Litchford, interview, Richmond, Va., Aug. 29, 1916.

News and Courier, Jan. 14, 1882.

Klutz, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

O. D. Davis, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

McDonald, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 3, 1916. The Caborrus Mill, at Concord, previously referred to as having been financed on the co-operative plan was begun by others and taken over by Mr. Cannon when its prospects had declined. (Ibid.)

Interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 5, 1917.

James W. Cannon, interview, Concord, N.C., Jan. 6, 1917.

J. H. Meaus Beattie, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 3, 1917.

W. W. Ball, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 3, 1917.

Thompson, pp. 82 ff.

W. W. Ball, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 3, 1917. A minor episode partaking of the character of both of the above may be worth mentioning. Mrs. M. Putnam Gridley, who, until her retirement from the presidency of the Batesville, S.C. Mill, was the only woman cotton mill president in America, said that the Boston commission house which owned and operated the factory under her father's control, was "about to commit a wrong" when the enterprise failed of its own accord. (Mrs. M. Putnam Gridley, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.)

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

Jas. D. Hammett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.

Marshall Orr, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 10, 1916.

Charles Estes, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916. "When I was mayor of Augusta and Black was City Attorney, we ran the city on the commission plan and didn't know it. I used to draft ordinances in my own handwriting, show them to Black to see whether they were legal, and to Blum to see if they were grammatical, and that was all there was to it!"

David, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916. The financial administration of this mill is attributable in its form to the conservatism of the company, and to the peculiar conditions of its inception. One director has nervous prostration, and another is too aged to attend meetings, but none have been elected in their places.

Samuel Stradley, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

McDonald, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 3, 1916.

Thomas W. Loyless, interview, Augusta, Ga.

Estes, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

T. S. Raworth, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 30, 1916.

D. S. Thompson, Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, p. 51.

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

John W. Fries, interview, Winston-Salem, N.C., Aug. 31, 1916.

Graydon, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916.

Mar. 18, 1880.

News and Courier, Aug. 12, 1881.

Observer, Feb. 13, 1880.

Quoted in News and Courier, Mar. 22, 1881.

p. 271.

Thompson, pp. 82 ff.

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

Orr, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 10, 1916.

Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.

Augusta Trade Review, Oct., 1884

Baker, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Morris, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

Mrs. Gridley, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 9, 1916.

J. A. Brock, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.

Jas. D. Hammett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.

Washington Clark, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 1, 1917.

Thompson, pp. 89 and 90.

Tracy I. Hickman, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

Thomas Purse, interview, Savannah, Ga., Dec. 26, 1916.

Geo. W. Williams, interview, Charleston, S.C., Dec. 27, 1916.

W. P. Carrington, interview, Charleston, S.C., Dec. 27, 1916.

Geo. Williams, interview, Charleston, S.C., Dec. 27, 1916.

H. R. Buist, interview, Charleston, S.C., Dec. 28, 1916.

Julius Koester, interview, Charleston, S.C., Dec. 27, 1916.

Boyce and Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916.

Boyce and Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Royan, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

J. Lee Robinson, letter, Gastonia, N.C., Nov. 28, 1916.

Boyce and Robinson, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916, and Robinson, letter, Gastonia, N.C., Nov. 28, 1916.

C. B. Armstrong, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Robinson, letter, Gastonia, N.C., Nov. 28, 1916.

Rogan, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Estes, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.

The trained men in the industry are in the technical branches, and that when a leader is wanted at the top, as for the president of a mill, a man is still chosen who enjoys a general business reputation rather than specific mill experience.

Morris, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

Graydon, interview, Charlotte, N.C., Sept. 4, 1916.

Augusta Trade Review, Oct., 1884.

G. T. Lynch, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 30, 1916, and Tracey I. Hickman, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

Estes, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

Augusta Trade Review, Oct., 1884.

News and Observer, Nov. 16, 1880.

Augusta Trade Review, Oct., 1884.

Hickman, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

News and Courier, Feb. 24, 1881.

Ibid., Aug. 12, 1881.

Ibid., Aug. 12, 1881.

Buist, interview, Charleston, S.C., Dec. 28, 1916.

Keatz, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

Davis, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

Ball, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 3, 1917, and Davison's Textile Blue Book, 1916.

Brock, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916. See p.

Thompson, pp. 82 ff.

Interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 5, 1917.

Goldsmith, p. 6.

Tompkins, Cotton Mill, Commercial Features, p. 172.

Goldsmith, p. 6.

Thackston, interview, Greenville, S.C., Sept. 12, 1916. A mill man near Greenville said: "The money actually paid in was more or less local in those days (the early years of the period) but not much paid in." (Gossett, interview, Anderson, S.C., Sept. 11, 1916.)

W. J. Thackston, letter, Greenville, S.C., Nov. 28, 1916.

Buist, interview, Charleston, S.C., Dec. 28, 1916.

News and Courier, Feb. 24, 1881.

Raworth, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 30, 1916. He knew of no Southern mills quoted on any of the exchanges.

Hickman, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

Raworth, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 30, 1916.

Ball, interview, Columbia, Jan. 3, 1917.

Ibid.

Ragan, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Hickman, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

Goldsmith, The Cotton Mill South.

Estes, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

Buist, interview, Charleston, S.C., Dec. 28, 1916.

Ball, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 3, 1917.

Washington Clark, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 1, 1917.

Wool, interview, Gaffney, S.C., Sept. 13, 1916.

Ball, interview, Columbia, S.C., Jan. 3, 1917.

A Rock Hill correspondent in News and Courier, Jan. 12, 1882.

In ibid., A Rock Hill correspondent in News and Courier, Jan. 12, 1882.

Walter Montgomery, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 5, 1916.

Cleveland, interview, Spartanburg, S.C., Sept. 8, 1916.

Augusta Trade Review, Oct. 1884.

News and Observer, Nov. 16, 1880.

Augusta Trade Review, Oct. 1884.

Hickman, interview, Augusta, Ga., Dec. 29, 1916.

Davis, interview, Salisbury, N.C., Sept. 1, 1916.

Ibid.

Ragan, interview, Gastonia, N.C., Sept. 14, 1916.

Robinson, letter, Gastonia, N.C., Nov. 28, 1916.

Transcriber's Notes:

Underlined passages are indicated by underline.

The original text includes a blank spaces in Footnote 49 which is represented by ______ in this text version.

The following typographical and spelling errors have been corrected:

"evidenes" corrected to "evidences" (page 2) "be lieved" corrected to "believed" (page 4) "American" corrected to "America" (page 15) "powerul" corrected to "powerful" (page 16) "controservy" corrected to "controversy" (page 16) "Carolinaian" corrected to "Carolinian" (page 17) "Id" corrected to "If" (page 18) "build" corrected to "built" (page 19) "newsness" corrected to "newness"(page 19) "propserous" corrected to "prosperous" (page 22) "mangers" corrected to "managers" (page 22) "temas" corrected to "teams" (page 26) "tage" corrected to "stage" (page 29) "advances" corrected to "advanced" (page 29) missing "in" added (page 29) "steambot" corrected to "steamboat" (page 31) "sucess" corrected to "success" (page 33) "delcared" corrected to "declared" (page 45) "Calhoung" corrected to "Calhoun" (page 46) "feel" corrected to "fell" (page 48) "quote" corrected to "quite" (page 49) "imiginary" corrected to "imaginary" (page 52) "repating" corrected to "repeating" (page 58) "reproahced" corrected to "reproached" (page 59) "expression" corrected to "expressing" (page 67) "tectile" corrected to "textile" (page 69) "warm" corrected to "war" (page 71) "seaw" corrected to "sea" (page 75) "where" corrected to "were" (page 75) "perosns" corrected to "persons" (page 76) "charged" corrected to "changed" (page 77) "an" corrected to "as" (page 82) "advances" corrected to "advanced" (page 83) "repvailed" corrected to "prevailed" (page 89) "understodd" corrected to "understood" (page 95) "munitiae" corrected to "minutiae" (page 95) "Herland" corrected to "Herald" (page 98) "sawrm" corrected to "swarm" (page 100) "officiaals" corrected to "officials" (page 100) "Sate" corrected to "State" (page 105) "and" corrected to "an" (page 112) "grow" corrected to "grew" (page 117) "happaned" corrected to "happened" (page 123) missing "is" added (page 126) "back-bitting" corrected to "back-biting" (page 127) "wlecomed" corrected to "welcomed" (page 128) "bounds" corrected to "bound" (page 128) "adhorred" corrected to "abhorred" (page 129) "whol" corrected to "whole" (page 129) "di" corrected to "do" (page 130) "pilosophy" corrected to "philosophy" (page 132) "telehone" corrected to "telephone" (page 133) "capaign" corrected to "campaign" (page 134) "loca" corrected to "local" (page 134) "natice" corrected to "native" (page 137) "capitalists" corrected to "capitalist" (page 139) "urges" corrected to "urged" (page 139) "Souther" corrected to "Southern" (page 148) "anive" corrected to "naive" (page 150) "hav" corrected to "have" (page 150) "struglle" corrected to "struggle" (page 159) "renumerated" corrected to "remunerated" (page 160) "Crhonicle" corrected to "Chronicle" (page 162) "If" corrected to "It" (page 170) "And" corrected to "An" (page 171) "Heraldn" corrected to "Herald" (page 173) "1811" corrected to "1881" (page 174) "pressent" corrected to "present" (page 181) "porblem" corrected to "problem" (page 181) "he" corrected to "the" (page 181) "ot" corrected to "to" (page 182) "aided" corrected to "added" (page 184) "wss" corrected to "was" (page 186) "neat" corrected to "near" (page 189) "mil;" corrected to "mill" (page 194) "sotkc" corrected to "stock" (page 201) "sone" corrected to "some" (page 202) "in" corrected to "is" (page 203) "orgin" corrected to "origin" (page 205) "yed" corrected to "yes" (page 207) "ouright" corrected to "outright" (page 211) "consideraion" corrected to "consideration" (page 218) "intented" corrected to "intended" (page 221) "build" corrected to "built" (page 221) "or" corrected to "of" (page 222) "propsered" corrected to "prospered" (page 222) "Unitl" corrected to "Until" (page 227) "annul" corrected to "annual" (page 232) "Salsibury" corrected to "Salisbury" (page 233) "wanters" corrected to "wanted" (page 234) "deciaion" corrected to "decision" (page 242) "theys" corrected to "they" (page 251) "unproftiable" corrected to "unprofitable" (page 266) "laides" corrected to "ladies" (page 270) "inheirtance" corrected to "inheritance" (page 270) "Commerical" corrected to "Commercial" (footnote 2) "us" corrected to "up" (footnote 19) "2n" corrected to "2nd" (footnote 17) "destroyer" corrected to "destroyed" (footnote 29) "Commerical" corrected to "Commercial" (footnote 45) "Grenville" corrected to "Greenville" (Footnote 47) "suidical" corrected to "suicidal" (footnote 57) "Ibis." corrected to "Ibid." (footnote 82) "sgainst" corrected to "against" (footnote 86) "Olmstead" corrected to "Olmsted" (footnote 97) "Ble" corrected to "Blue" (footnote 110) "itno" corrected to "into" (footnote 114) "intenal" corrected to "internal" (footnote 123) "1811" corrected to "1881" (footnote 144) missing "to" added (footnote 147) "solicitious" corrected to "solicitous" (footnote 148) "to" corrected to "the" (footnote 150) "ot" corrected to "to" (footnote 162) "acaclim" corrected to "acclaim" (footnote 162) "Nasvhile" corrected to "Nashville" (footnote 170) "unusued" corrected to "unused" (footnote 175) "you" corrected to "your" (footnote 175) "rebuilt" corrected to "rebuild" (footnote 237) "Bid." corrected to "Ibid." (footnote 237) "Grenville" corrected to "Greenville" (footnote 291) "Grenville" corrected to "Greenville" (footnote 421)

Other than the corrections listed above, inconsistencies in spelling and hyphenation have been retained from the original.