| Show written for this paper MONEY IN COTTON copyrighted 2696 by br frank 0 carpenter spartanburg S C november 1896 t WRITE this letter in one of the great cotton manufacture ing cities of the south this I 1 county has seventeen cotton factories now working and a of others are bein being g built here at spartanburg there is an enormous cotton milland mill and one which is to cost coat is being erected just beside it the company which owns these two mills has other factories at pacolet J 0 within a few miles of here t 0 and when the new mill is completed their pay roll will be about per month at pacolet they have built a town towns for their factory em aloyes it is much like pullman near chicago and is managed much the same way the president tells me that their laborers are as good as any you vou can find in the union and says sacs that his workmen are equal to any of the north now that mckinle mckinley yo is elected there will be an enormous increase in cotton manufacture in the south new mills have been go going g up p steadily during the hard times within bituin the past five years more than have been in vested in southern factories for the making i in of 0 cotton goods this is an average of more than a million dollars a month in coming south over the southern rail way I 1 struck a big cotton factory at lynchburg va and from there to atlanta ga along the line of this road there is an almost continuous line of cotton factories and they dot the cotton belt now as far south as new orleans there is a big cotton mill at richmond va I 1 found several factories at atlanta and georgia has mills which are making all kinds of cotton goods these southern mills are surrounded by the cotton fields and the cotton is brought almost directly from the plants to the factory the mills here are shipping goods to china and the output of manufactured cotton is steadily increasing I 1 find in fact that times are not at all bad in the south this section of our country is growing as a manufacturing center and I 1 am told buld that its output of manufacturing of different kinds amounts to more than every month A large part of this product is made up of cotton and disinterested parties tell me that the business is still in its infancy I 1 find it very hard to get the mill men to give any information about the cotton business they dont seem to want the rest of the united ted states to know how much money they are making and they do what they can to keep other factories from coming south the truth is there are few businesses in the united states which are paying so well as that of the cotton factories such mills as are ordinarily well managed are mak ng all the way from 6 to 35 per cent a year on their capital stock the average dividend paid is about io 10 per cent and a large amount is put aside every year for improvements and surplus take the pacolet mills which are located within twelve miles of here they have now a plant which experts say is worth more than one million dollars they have a surplus of about and they have for years been paying semiannual semi annual dividends of 5 per cent these mills were organized in 1883 with a capital of which has since been increased to the mills made profit the first year they were in existence and since then they have paid out more than in dividends they started with one mill but this has since been increased to three and the surplus is nearly twice the amount of its on original i inal capital stock these mills eat up about about eighty bales of cotton every day and they make every year more than yards of cot ton cloth I 1 met the president of the pacolet mills here his name is captain john H montgomery he is also the president of the spartan mills milb which are located in this city and which have a capital of boo he began life on a farm and his arst first work was as a clerk in a store at 5 a month at the end of one year his employer concluded that he was not worth his wages and let him go montgomery mety then went back to farming he soon left the plantation however and started a little store he sold fertilizers and took pay in cotton about seventeen years ago he had saved enough to buy the water wate rp power ower which runs the pacolet mills he organized the company to build these mills it is safe to say he is now very close to being a millionaire and his salary as president of the works is I 1 am told greater than that of the chief justice of the united states he very kindly had me shown through his mills stipulating first that I 1 should not ask questions of the operators about wages etc he told me that the china trade was becoming a great one for our cotton mills and if our chinese exports were entirely cut off some of the mills would not be working he complained about the low freight rates which were awarded to the new england mills by the ships which carry the texas cotton from galveston and gave me to understand that the competition in making cotton good was becoming so great that it would hardly pay to build new mills As he said this I 1 looked out of the window and saw the new plant which he was himself constructing and it seemed to me that his new invest ment was at variance with his statement I 1 have found the same condition existing existing in in georgia at the town ot of columbus us there are five cotton mills which make colored goods they turn out bout millions of yards of shirting towels and other goods every year and they give employment to thousands of ef people the eagle and phoenix factories there have eighteen hundred ands and they use fifty bales of cotton every day these mills paid good dividends for years and since their organization they have doubled their capital stock they ship bickings tic kings to canada and other parts of the north and they compete with the new england mills am told in the differ ent nt markets it is said that the swift mills of columbus made more than ii 11 per cent above the dividends ot of 8 per cent which they declared last year or a profit of about ig 19 per cent on their investment these mills make cheviots chevious chevi denims hickory stripes fancy skir tings and other goods of like nature they make turkish towels and other fine goods they do beautiful coloring and this notwithstanding that the cotton men of new england used to claim that the south could never do fine work because the southern streams were muddy and would not bleach the goods properly this is the case with many of the streams but the swift mills got over this by bleaching their water columbus is on the chattahoochee river the water of which is something like pea soup this is the water used for bleaching the goods it is clarified by running it into an enormous tank and then putting a little alum in it the tank contains gallons of water and it is filled every afternoon into it at inter vals every week is dropped about fa forty arty pounds of alum this p precipitates api tate S the dirt and makes the wa water r as C clear ae r as crystal and the cost a all I 1 to told d is is not more mor ethan than 50 50 dents cents per wee week another great cotton making center in georgia is the city of augusta it has twelve factories with a capital stock of more than it pays out more than a year to its factory to employed emp loyes and during the hardest 0 of times its mills have been running at full speed and paying full wages they ey have all along paid dividends of 6 per cent and upward and they are making big money today some of these mills make shee tings and different kinds of fine colored goods some of the augustu augusta cotton goods go to england and a part of their output is sold in boston one of the reasons the south can make money in in manufacturing is that there are practically no labor organizations here there is so far no chance tor for the walking delegate in south carolina and trades unions are practically unknown there are but few strikes and you hear no talk of the eight hour law the laborers work from eleven to twelve hours they work hard too and they are glad to get a chance to work they are almost altogether white people the negroes are not employed in the cotton mills I 1 have been told again and again that they do well on the plantations and for rough work but they are of no value in handling machinery the factory labor of the south comes from the farms it is largely made up of what used to be called the poor white trash of people who are accustomed to living off of little and who did not see a jio 10 bill from one on years eyears end to the other it was like the millennium for these persons to get their wages regularly twice a month and they are happy in their work although their pay is much less than that of the northern laborer who works fewer hours they live much better now than they did when working on oil their farms their log cabins have been changed to pretty little cottages such as you may see by the hundreds scattered around every big cotton mill center of the south they are it seems to me more happy and better situated than the fac tory operatives of the north they are equally intelligent and the mill men tell me that the supply of labor is practically unlimited ted in some places the factory employed emp loyes are saving money some of the mills have savings banks connected with them and business has generally improved in the cotton milling centers it will I 1 believe continue to improve and nd today there is no part of the united states in a better financial condition than that through which I 1 have been traveling the increase in the money thrown into circulation by such means is enormous in 1880 the south bad in round numbers invested in different kinds of manufacturing by 1890 the capital stock had increased to six hundred and fifty nine million dollars the gain during this time was thirty six per cent greater in the south than in the rest of the country and the increase in the wages paid was greater than the increase in the capital stock in 1880 the factory hands of the south got about in wages and in zap 1890 they received more than or just about three times as much at the present time the south has in round numbers about five hundred cotton mills and the amount of money invested in cotton manufacturing is I 1 am told in the neighborhood of one hundred and twenty million millien dollars the cotton factories of the south are fitted out with the finest of machinery they are equipped with the latest inventions ve vent il ions and everything that will save a cen cent t is bought without regard to cost I 1 went through the big mill at spartanburg today the plant cost about it covers several acres of ground it has three stories and every bit of it hums with machinery much of the cotton is brought directly from the gin to the mill and in this case there is no freight to pay other cotton is shipped in from the plantations near atar by and today a great part of the cotton used in the factories of this company has to be imported let us follow one of the cotton bales through the factory and see it turned from lint into cloth the bale is first broken open and the cotton is thrown upon an endless chain or belt which carries it up through the mill breakout break sUt skit up and picks it to pieces it is passed through machines which take out the dirt run through great rollers which separate the little strands of the lint put them together again and finally leave them joined almost into yarn the cotton finally comes from these machines in a continuous web which looks like cotton batting handle it now and you will find that it is much finer and whiter than when it was in the bale it next goes to the carding machine where it is run through wheels or cylinders covered with wire teeth these teeth are so fine that there are thousands of them on a square toot foot of surface they brush and comb the cotton as it goes through them and it comes out finally in the shape ot of a seemingly endless strand or rope of soft yarn this rope at the beginning is bigger around than a mans thumb it is almost an inch in thickness but it is as soft as down it passes from these machines on through other twisting machines being gradually twisted finer and growing smaller and smaller until it at last is of about the size of a fishing line feel it now it is still soft another strand of the same size which has been reduced from another rope is is united with it and the two are twisted and re twisted by machinery until they are of the size of the finest cotton thread the rope of an inch in thickness is now so small that it would thread a needle the fibers have been doubled several hundred times and they are now down to the strength and size needed for the making of cloth As they come from the machine they are rolled upon spindles or long spools and are ready for the beaving Vea ving room another set of threads are wound upon rollers of the width of the cloth these are to make the long threads of the cloth the s spindles P are to move in and out between the long on threads rea s an and m make e the e s short or threads r which go across the piece of cloth in the weaving room there are thousands on thousands of these spindles flying to and fro back and forth through the cloth each loom is attended by a airl girl or man and a great factory like din fills alls the room thread by thread the great rolls of cloth are turned out but the spindles work so fast that thousands of yards are woven every day and the shuttle flies from one side of the loom to the other about one hundred and fifty times every minute the cloth has to be cleaned and smoothed up after it is finished it is then packed up in in bales much like cotton bales and is shipped to south america and Asia and even to europe it is important in preparing cotton for the foreign market that it be put in tain kinds of packages some of that which goes to south america has to be shipped so that it can be carried over the mountains on the backs of mules and the factories find that each country has its own special kinds of cloth and special bundles we study the foreign markets less than any other nation and I 1 am told that our raw cotton goes to europe in worse shape than that of any other country the covering of the bales is so coarse that the cotton often comes in full ot of dust and a percentage has often to be deducted for loss the r indian cotton is shipped in well packed bales and egypt sends its product out in beautiful shape our consul at trieste lately sent to the state department pictures of the different cotton bales as they come to the markets of germany these pictures show that the american cotton is the worst packed of all there are cotton seed oil mills now to be found in all parts of the south there is one here at spartanburg run in con necton with a large cotton gin until a few years ago the cottonseed cotton seed went to waste it was burnt up or thrown away as useless now it is one ot the most valuable products of the country and it is estimated that the product is worth more than one hundred million dollars a year much of it is used in makin making 9 oil the seeds are ground up a and nd t the he oil squeezed out oui of them after this it is reft refined ned and is used for all sorts ot of manufactures some of it goes into soap A large amount is used in making oleomargarine and different kinds of patent butters and a large part of the salad oil which is sold under the name of olive oil is is in in realia reality made from cotton seeds experts testily testified before the tariff commission in 1881 that ninety per cent of the oil sold in the united states was really cotton seed oil and the use of such oil for salads and cooking is increasing every day it is said to be better than lard for cooking and when properly made it is hard to distinguish it from the best olive oil the oil mills are often run by companies with a large capital and there is already I 1 am told a cotton seed oil trust at first the oil was shipped |
