Strikers
take to the streets of GastoniaApril 3, 1929
(Charlotte Observer)
When Fred Beal gave a speech in the Loray
Mill yard on April 1, 1929, he had no way of knowing what was to follow.
What did happen was that 2500 skilled workers walked out of the mill
on April 2, and joined the National Textile Worker's Union. Chief
of Police and Sheriffs deputies attempted to stretch a cable across the
street in front of the mill to separate the unionized strikers from the
workers who remained at the mill. As the Gastonia Gazette records,
"The strikers, with great crowds of hangers-on, seized the ropes and cables
and dragged them several hundred yards form the office. Immediately,
the temper of the crowd changed. From a happy, laughing, joking crowd,
the demonstration became a belligerent, threatening mob, which threatened
violence. Jeers, cat cries and howls of derision greeted the deputies
as they entered their cars for the trip back to town. Fists were
shaken and sticks and clubs waved in the air," (Gastonia Gazette, April
4, 1929).
On April 3, 1929, Governor O. Max
Gardner ordered two local National Guard units out to the strike, they
set up a tent camp near the mill. From the initial stages
of the strike, the newspapers and mill officials worked hand-in-hand to
sway public opinion against the strikers. Countless articles and
advertisements appeared in the Gazette explaining the Communist Unionís
stance on everything from open marriage to the race question. Rarely
did the papers or the official organs of the mill address the serious problems
of malnutrition, debt-ridden servitude, and poor shelter facing the mill
villagers. It was simpler to lump the strikers and organizers into
the category of Bolshevist Revolutionaries; outsiders who were only striking
to make trouble.
As the strike progressed, the
mill officials announced plans to evict 62 families of workers who were
on strike, and who could not pay their rent. The strikers built a
tent city for the evicted people and stockpiled relief supplies.
The strike headquarters was ransacked by a group of 50-200 men, and their
relief supplies destroyed. The NTWU and other union groups organized
relief efforts for the strikers, but the money that trickled in was not
enough to feed and house all the families. People drifted back to
work at the mill, and the strike had dwindled by June. On June 9,
Chief Adderholt was called out to investigate a disturbance in the tent
colony outside the Loray Mill. According to the Gazette, he and his
men were ambushed in a trick by Beal and Pershing, who orchestrated the
call to murder the police chief. Although this is unlikely, Adderholtís
real murderer has to this day remained undiscovered, though the NTWU's
official stance is that, like the previous monthís raid, Adderholt and
the deputies had some to the mill village to ransack the headquarters.
The National Guard camps out in front of the Loray Mill
(Charlotte Observer)
Links
Demands
made by the strikers
A
Deep Laid Scheme -- editorial
Editorial
Letter, June 8
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