trac es
In August of 1919, the normally bustling streets of Charlotte, North Carolina, were emptied of the ringing streetcars that normally shuttled textile workers and businessmen from their homes in the suburbs to work in the city.1 On August 10
,
the workers who conducted and maintained the electric streetcar system refused to begin weekly operations. Dissatisfaction with their salaries and the length of their workweek kept workers on the picket lines and the streetcars in their barns for two weeks.2 By August 25, city officials and the Southern Public Utility company, which owned the electric car system, brought in armed police officers to break the strike. Though a tenuous agreement was brokered between management and union officials, the workers were as dissatisfied as ever, and that night a mob of streetcar workers formed at the Dilworth street car barn. Charlotte police were called in to disperse the riotous crowd.3 Tempers flared and the mob quickly turned violent. By dawn the strike had found its end, as1 “Workers Prepare to Strike,” Charlotte Observer, August 10, 1919.
2 Harley E. Jolley, “The Labor Movement in North Carolina 1880-1922,” North Carolina Historic Review (1956): 361.
3 Charlotte Observer, August 26, 1919.
Andrew
Loyd Craig
Paternalism and the First Red
Scare: Anti-Union Tactics and
the Failure of Early Twentieth-
Century Southern Unionism in
Charlotte, North Carolina
had five workers shot by police.4
The Charlotte strike exemplifies the Southern labor movement during this period. Plagued by paternalism and deeply rooted social traditions, the labor movement in the US South often met with failure. Scholars have illustrated this failure through a wide range of examples. Much like the Charlotte streetcar bells in August of 1919, however, scholarship remains largely silent on the Charlotte streetcar strike: only two works address the strike in any detail. This is unsurprising, as a lack of primary sources makes the strike difficult to assess. At the same time, these works examine the strike strictly on the local scale. This article takes a new approach by focusing on the role of American industrialists, arguing that placing the Charlotte strike into a broader historic context demonstrates the influence that industrial magnates like James B. Duke held over local political officials. Focusing on the role of the industrialist reveals that the failure of the Southern labor movement was due in part to the industrialists’ manipulation of local politics, which undermined the ability of union activists to organize workers.
4 Jeffery Leatherwood, “Battle of the Barn,” Journal of the North Carolina Association of Historians (April 2011): 52.
Phasellus in molestie mi, eu rhoncus diam. In eu odio sed arcu dapibus dictum. Suspendisse mattis eleifend feugiat. Vivamus ultrices mi at felis ultrices tempus. Suspendisse a quam ex. (Photo by Xxxx Xxxx.)1
A Changing Postwar South
The world that gave birth to the Charlotte streetcar strike was in seemingly constant motion. The largest, deadliest, and most industrialized war to date had ended the year before. Countries across the globe were left to deal with a new balance of power. Russia was still trying to piece itself together after the October revolution of 1917, leaving many to fear that communism would spread if Lenin were able to retain power. The United States was abuzz with the Red Scare. Across the country, unionists and anarchists were attempting to disrupt the capitalist system.5 The front pages of every major newspaper were filled with coverage of strikes, anarchist bombings, and race riots. Streetcar strikes in major cities across the country paralyzed means of transportation.6 The US government, heavily influenced by industrialists, was busy “protecting” American citizens by suppressing these disruptive parties. Even as a world war ended in Europe, an economic war was raging on America soil.
The South experienced the Red Scare as strongly as the rest of the country, if not more so. Until the turn of the century, the South was still a rural region whose economy relied almost entirely on agriculture.7 The South had been slow to industrialize following the Civil War, but by the early 1910s industry was booming across the region, especially in areas such as the North Carolina Piedmont. Urban areas like Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Raleigh, and Charlotte experienced population explosions as families parked their plows and turned in their hoes in hopes of finding better lives for themselves working on the floors of the textile mills that were appearing seemingly everywhere.
As Southerners started to identify less as farmers and more as industrial workers, well-established unions in Northern and Midwestern industry strongholds began unionizing Southern workers. Unionism was by no means popular initially. In 1900, Southern union membership was well under
5 Robert K. Murray, Red Scare: A Study in National Hysteria, 1919-1920 (Minneapolis, 1955).
6 Mallach, “The Origins of the Decline of Urban Mass Transportation in the United States, 1890-1930,” in American Cities, A Collection of Essays (New York: Garland Publishing, 1996), 7-13.
7 Michael Sistrom, Documenting the American South, “North Carolinians and the Great War: Introduction.”
the national average of 8.1 percent.8 North Carolina’s union membership stood at a mere 0.3 percent in 1900.9 But as the southern economy shifted increasingly from farming towards industry, union membership rose.
By 1916, membership in Amalgamated Association of Street and Electric Railway Employees (AASERE) had reached 60,000 in the Southeast and was even gaining some political influence.10 But despite unionism’s gains, it was still not as fully embraced across the South in the years before the Charlotte streetcar strike as it had been in other industrial regions across the nation.
Scholars continue to debate why unionism experienced such a difficult struggle in the South. According to historian W.J. Cash, the answer can be found in Southern “exceptionalism,” which began developing with the slave-holding planter class of the antebellum South and evolved after the Civil War into a unique brand of conservative individualism.11 The South functioned much like a country unto itself, with “natives” and “outsiders”
easily identifiable. Southern planter culture gave birth to a unique brand of “authoritarian” politics tinged with racism.12 Many antebellum sources portray the slave owner as a nurturing “father figure” who had a responsibility to care for his slaves because the slave’s social status prevented them from caring for themselves. As the economy changed over time and the planter class found new opportunities for wealth in industry, the planter-cum- industrialist searched for a new way to control his workforce and prevent it from disrupting his income.13 Many Southern industrialists did this by backing state and local governments, giving them influence over labor laws and police forces.14 Arguably, union growth was most hindered in the South by this combination of the Southern individualist spirit, which extended beyond the former planter class, the always present sense that the South was a country and culture unto itself, and the continued influence of the
8 Gerald Friedman, “The Political Economy of Early Southern Unionism,” Journal of Economic History. 60.2: 390.
9 Ibid.
10 Leatherwood, “Battle of the Barn,” 53.
11 W. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Vintage Books), i-xii; 29-31.
12 George Sinclair Mitchell, Textile Unionism and the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1931), vi.
13 Gerald Friedman, “The Political Economy of Early Southern Unionism,” Journal of Economic History 60.2: 385
14 Ibid.
Southern elite, developed before, during, and after the Civil War.
Southern Industrialists Battle Unionization
Perhaps no one exemplifies this type of Southern industrialist quite like James Buchanan Duke. Born on his father’s farm in Durham County, North Carolina, Duke turned his father Washington Duke’s regional tobacco manufacturing and trading business into an international corporation.15 In 1892, Duke partnered with his brother to invest part of their returns from American Tobacco Company in the growing North Carolina textile industry.16 In 1905, as part of his effort to create a profitable trust for himself after the federal government took anti-trust actions against his company, Duke began building a hydroelectric plant on the Catawba River to provide power for his textile mills in the region.17 Within six years he founded the Southern Utility Company, which grew to operate four hydroelectric dams and provided electricity to industries across the North Carolina Piedmont and the upstate region of South Carolina. Duke’s company grew by absorbing and buying out utility and railroad companies across North and South Carolina, including the acquisition of the trolley and gas properties of the Charlotte Consolidated Construction Company in 1910. Southern Power acquired the rights from Edward Latta, an industrialist who had built suburban communities to house his mill workers in areas of Charlotte such as Dilworth.18
In 1913, James Duke appointed Zebulon Vance Taylor to manage the new branch of his utility empire, Southern Public Utilities (SPU). After a career as a successful business attorney specializing in strike breaking for Duke, Taylor served as mayor of Greensboro before being appointed manager of SPU. As a member of the Charlotte Chamber of Commerce he vehemently opposed all forms of business regulation.19 Headquartered in Charlotte, the new branch of Duke’s budding empire managed the growing number of
15 Robert Franklin Durden, Bold Entrepreneur: a Life of James B. Duke (Durham, NC:
Carolina Academic Press, 2003), 6-15.
16 Ibid., 87.
17 Ibid., 119.
18 Tom Bradbury, Dilworth, The First 100 Years (Charlotte: Dilworth Community Development Association, 1992), 46.
19 Jeffery Leatherwood, “Between the Wheels, Quest for Street Car Unionism in the Carolina Piedmont 1919-22” (Ph.D. dissertation, West Virginia University), 53.
contracts with the textile mills and private individuals, while South Power was left to focus more on the infrastructure of the business. The new SPU would also control all of the railway systems of Duke’s Southern Traction Company, which included Duke’s urban electric transit holdings as well as Piedmont and Northern. By 1919 Duke would own and operate a majority of the mills, electric rail and trolley companies, and utility businesses surrounding Charlotte and across the Carolinas. The vertically integrated trust he had envisioned was a growing reality. He operated the main method of transporting goods made by the mills through the Piedmont and Northern Railroad, the streetcars on which the mill workers rode to their jobs, and the companies that provided the utilities with which workers powered their homes. Duke’s empire seemed to control almost every aspect of the regional economy by the summer of the Charlotte streetcar strike.
Like many other Southern cities, Charlotte became a center for textile manufacturing after Reconstruction. Beginning in the 1880’s, industrialists began building large-scale textile mills in North Carolina’s “Queen City”
that provided the region with a much-needed economic boost, which in turn sparked a population boom. In 1890 North Carolina was home to forty- nine textile mills. By 1910, the number exceeded 300.20 For the next three decades farmers left their profitless farms and flocked to Charlotte in hopes of finding opportunity. By 1920, the year after the Charlotte strike, the city’s population had grown to 46,338, compared with 7,094 forty years earlier.21 With a growing number of mills and workers, the city needed a place to house this expanding population. Mill town suburbs such as Dilworth were organized and built by industrialists such as Edward Latta, who built the first electric streetcar system in Charlotte in order to shuttle workers to the mills.
Charlotte’s suburbs and mill industry continued to expand during the First World War. In 1917, Camp Green was established in Charlotte as the home of the 3rd and 4th infantry divisions of the US army, giving the city another economic and population boost. Many of the city’s textile mills also experienced a surge in growth due to contracts from the US War Department. By 1918, as the war ended, many of the men who had been stationed in Charlotte returned hoping to find work in the bustling textile
20 Ibid., 62.
21 1880 United States Census, Mecklenberg County, North Carolina.
industry and to settle, like the previous yeoman farmers, in suburbs such as Dilworth.
When Duke acquired the rights to the Charlotte street car system in 1910, the system consisted of fifteen miles of track serving approximately 2.75 million passengers.22 Zeb Taylor used his power as head of the SPU to expand the system five more miles and increase rail lines going to his friend and boss James Duke’s plants.23 The company employed 95 streetcar men prior to Duke’s acquisition of the company.24 These men were considered literate and required a great amount of technical expertise to perform their jobs, even though most did not have extensive schooling.25 The standard workweek for a streetcar man before Duke’s acquisition of the company consisted of twelve-hour shifts, six days a week for approximately $1.44 per day, with no vacation days.26 This was a low wage when compared to other electric railway workers across the country.27 According to 1910 Department of Labor data, the streetcar workers in Charlotte were making thirteen cents less than the national average for all workers skilled and unskilled, even while street car work was considered by most to be skilled labor because of the amount of mechanical and regulatory knowledge the job required.28
The company was no stranger to worker strikes. In 1903, when the company was still under the leadership of Edward Latta, streetcar men walked off the job after Latta turned off the electric heaters in the cars during the middle of winter to save money.29 The unorganized workers turned to mob violence in efforts to regain their jobs, but this only resulted in Latta firing all of the workers and hiring others in their place, and business carried on as usual. By the time the Southern Public Utility company took control of Latta’s streetcars, eighty-three of the ninety-five employees had organized in AASERE Division 901.30 The AASERE had been a conservative trade union and had won acceptance in some Southern states such as North
22 Leatherwood, “Between the Wheels,” 50.
23 Ibid.
24 Ibid., 68.
25 Ibid., 69.
26 Ibid., 45.
27 Ibid., 45
28 http://usa.usembassy.de/etexts/his/e_ prices1.htm.
29 Leatherwood, “Between the Wheels,” 46.
30 Ibid., 67.
Carolina, which was beginning to experience a new era of Progressivism.
However, men such as Zeb Taylor proved extremely hostile to these “outside influences.” In 1916, Taylor made an offer to raise the workers’ pay if they agreed to nullify their union charter, an offer the streetcar men could not afford to refuse at the time.31 By this time the workweek had dropped to a ten-hour shift, six days a week, but the disparity between the wages of the streetcar worker and the average daily wage of a worker in North Carolina had grown.32
By 1919, unrest had grown among the workers as the company increased the fees for riding the streetcars, while workers’ salaries remained stagnant.
Across the country, union sympathy was growing. The Charlotte Observer’s front page was covered with reports of streetcar strikes across North Carolina and the country during the summer of 1919, including the strike of Piedmont and Northern workers.33 On August 1, Taylor gave streetcar men a modest raise in efforts to calm the growing tensions, but it was not enough to hold off a strike. Disgruntled workers in Charlotte saw their opportunity to better their working conditions by joining the growing wave of unionism.
Albert Essex Jones of Ohio was one of the men who had helped organize the groups of workers that the Charlotte streetcar engineers had read about. As an organizer for the AASERE, he had gained a reputation among anti-union leaders as a force to be reckoned with. He was eager to lend his assistance to the Charlotte streetcar workers, after recently having organized streetcar men in Spartanburg, South Carolina. The week before the Charlotte strike, Jones set to work with the help of Charles O’Donnell of the American Federation of Labor and D.L. Gooble of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers. He began by gaining the support of the local textile workers and unions who had led a large strike under the United Textile Union earlier that year in February.34 The textile workers were after all the main users of the streetcars. He then rallied streetcar men employed by Taylor and the Southern Public Utility company in Charlotte, Winston- Salem, Greenville, and Anderson, South Carolina. By the end of the week,
31 Ibid., 54.
32 Ashe interview; Thirtieth Reports of the Department of Labor and Printing of the State of North Carolina, 1916 (Raleigh: Edwards & Broughton Printers, 1917), 30.
33 Charlotte Observer, August 10, 1919.
34 Le Gette Blythe and Charles Raven Brockmann, Hornet’s Nest (Charlotte: McNally of Charlotte, 1961), 372-3.
Jones had gained the support of a total of 200 workers, 120 in Charlotte alone.
Charlotte Streetcar Workers Decide to Strike
On August 8, the Charlotte constituents gathered at Woodman’s Hall in Dilworth to present their demands to Zeb Taylor.35 The workers demanded the following: that they be allowed to continue their association with the AASERE; that wages for those with less than a year’s service be raised from forty-one cents an hour to forty-three, and those with more than a year of service be granted a raise to forty-five cents an hour; and that the work day be reduced to nine hours and that men might be compensated more for any time exceeding those nine hours.36 In response, Taylor said he refused to work with the men as long as they associated themselves with the ASSERE or any other outside influence, but he suggested that he would be willing to consider a union among the men themselves.37 As he later claimed, his reason for not negotiating with the AASERE was to protect the workers from involvement with a violent union and to protect the public from any harm that might come from violent workers.38 On August 10, with support from the three other cities, and one hundred percent of the Charlotte streetcar men, they officially announced their strike and walked off the job until Taylor would agree to negotiate with them according to their demands.
The tone of the initial strike was set by Monday morning. As reported in that morning’s edition of the Charlotte Observer, the strikers were orderly, with no need for police intervention. Taylor continued to refuse to negotiate with the streetcar men as long as they associated themselves with the AASERE, saying that the Southern Public Utility company held no resentment against its workers, “its boys,” only resentment against the union. Taylor also suggested that workers would not have walked off the job had the union organizers not incited them to do so. On Tuesday, electricians from SPU were asked to join in solidarity with their fellow SPU employees who worked on the streetcar lines and unionize with the International
35 Charlotte Observer, August 10, 1910.
36 Ibid.
37 Ibid.
38 Ibid.
Brotherhood of Electricians. Early in the morning of Wednesday, August 13, 300 men, including electricians who sympathized with the streetcar workers, took over a utility sub-station that controlled electricity and gas flow, pulling the switch and leaving nearby homes, hospitals, and streets without lights.39 This situation was resolved when Police Chief Walter B. Orr and twenty men dispersed the mob. By Thursday, Taylor and representatives of the now combined force of streetcar and electric utility workers met to discuss a possible solution, but no agreement was reached.
For the next week, after negotiating in talks ranging from small table talks with SPU leaders and union organizers to large courthouse meetings with the workers themselves and their employers, a solution seemed closer every day. However, it was still a distant hope amid the constant anti-union propaganda, which took form in editorials and letters written by Taylor that were published in local newspapers.
39 Charlotte Observer, August 13, 1910.
Phasellus in molestie mi, eu rhoncus diam. In eu odio sed arcu dapibus dictum. Suspendisse mattis eleifend feugiat. Vivamus ultrices mi at felis ultrices tempus. Suspendisse a quam ex. (Photo by Xxxx Xxxx.)1
Zeb Taylor’s “Red Scare” Anti-Union Campaign
An anonymous letter to the editor published in the Charlotte Observer suggested that public opinion at the time was much the same as Taylor’s:
had it not been for the intervention of the union, the workers and the SPU company would have been able to work through the issues without a strike.
Another letter published described strikes as a luxury of the wealthy and suggested that no one truly in need of the raise requested by the streetcar men could afford to strike. According to the author, all strikes must be the result of a political agenda that streetcar men must be pushing.40
A private ad in the Observer during the first day of the strike provides a lens into the possible origin of public opinion. Toward the back of the paper, a full-page anonymous letter was published with the following opening line:
“Tolerance does not mean consent.”41 What follows is a scathing letter about the ways in which toleration has a limit. It asks the question: how much more of the men who preach class hatred and direct action can the American public stand before it begins to encroach upon democracy and the American individualistic tradition? It suggests that union agitators are outsiders who could not possibly understand the tenants of American democracy, and evokes historic examples of Americans fighting for democracy, from the Revolution to the Great War. It goes on to suggest that these streetcar men will meet the same fatal end that those who have disrupted American freedom in the past have. This ad reflects the Red Scare, anti-union mindset of the public and local leaders at the time the streetcar workers started their strike. This sort of rhetoric poured forth from SPU leaders and the public while strikers continued their protest over the next week.
The letters that Zebulon Taylor published in the Charlotte Observer over the course of the strike provide valuable insight into the paternalistic, anti-union mindset and propaganda of the SPU and its leaders. Taylor’s rhetoric resembles that of a general rallying his troops before a fight or a revivalist preacher warning of fire and brimstone unless salvation is found.
The following selection from a letter published two days into the strike is quoted at length because it provides a particularly vivid example of the Red Scare tactics that Taylor used to disrupt the strike and silence the unions:
40 Charlotte Observer, August 12, 1910.
41 Charlotte Observer, 1910.
What we are fight!:
Reports have come to us of the intention of the individuals directing the strike of the streetcar men of this city to bring about a strike of the electrical workers who man our sub-stations and the operatives of our gas plant as a means of forcing compliance with their demands. We do not know whether or not these reports are true, but in order to prevent the disorganization and danger that would accompany a cessation of light, power and gas service, the men in our executive and engineering forces all of whom have grown up from the ranks are ready at a moment notice to don their overalls and man these substations and our gas plants. It is only when you realize how far-reaching would be the effects of a cessation of service of electricity and gas that you can get a full conception of the diabolical purpose behind this move…. These are some of the things that would add to the demoralization, the discomfort, the suffering and the danger that would result if success should attend this last effort of those responsible for the direction of the streetcar strike. AND WHO WOULD BE THE GREATEST SUFFERERS? THE SAME CLASSES WHICH SUFFERED MOST IN BELGUIM AND FRANCE AS A RESULT OF GERMANY’S ATTEMPT TO ENFORCE ON THE OTHER SIDE THE DOCTRINE OF “MIGHT MAKES RIGHT”—THE WOMEN AND CHILDERN.
We have always been proud of the personnel of our car men.
Almost without exception they are native Carolinians. We do not, we cannot, impute them the dastardly, unfeeling, cunning motives behind the order for the workers in charge to abandon our substations and gas plant with the exception that the city would be without electricity or gas service. We know our “boys” too well. They are of our blood. They were raised by the same kind of mother as our mothers. The conception of the atrocious plan above described could not have been in their minds. THE OUTSIDE INFLUENCES WHICH PRECIPITATED THE CAR MEN’S STRIKE AND IS
DIRECTING IT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR THIS ATTEMPT AT THE “FRIGHTFULNESS.” And all to force recognition of the organization responsible. TO RECOGINIZE OR HAVE ANY DEALINGS WITH SUCH AN ORGNIZATION WOULD BE A CRIME AGAINST THE PUBLIC WHICH WE SERVE.42
The language used throughout this letter is common to the series of letters Taylor published daily over the course of the two-week strike. In fact, the language in this anti-union propaganda only intensified as the strike continued. By referring to the union organizers as “foreign, outside influences” or even “Foreign Professional Agitators,” he associated them with Bolshevik and anarchistic activities.43 One could even go so far as to suggest that Taylor exhibited an anti-Northern agenda in his claims regarding the foreignness of the union organizers, as many, including Albert Jones from the AASERE, came from Northern states. He presents himself and the company as a protective father figure acting as a shield placed between these foreign invaders and the public, saving them from anarchy. He describes the workers, “his boys,” as children who have misbehaved and must be brought back into the fold to keep outside influences from corrupting them. On Sunday, August 18, Taylor’s letter even demands action of the governor and the use of the power of the state, if it becomes necessary, to bring the strike to an end. Nowhere in the literature surrounding the Charlotte strike is the paternalistic mindset or Red Scare tactics more widely used to turn public opinion against the strike.
Over the course of the first weekend of the strike, the negotiations that had recommenced between the union organizers, workers, and SPU proved fruitless. Police were placed at the utility sub-stations in order to keep a mob of workers from trying to take control of them again. Taylor ramped up his Red Scare propaganda campaign in the pages of the ad section. This appeared to work, as letters from the public published in the editorial pages of the Charlotte Observer started to reflect a growing sense that the workers were doing the public a disservice. The beginning of the second week of the strike remained quiet, and no progress was made from either side, until
42 Charlotte Observer, August 12, 1910.
43 Charlotte Observer, August 18, 1910.
Taylor addressed the workers for the first time in a written public statement, presenting them with an ultimatum: return to work or lose their jobs. The following day, an ad was posted looking for their replacements.
The Strike Turns Violent
The week passed with more public hearings and growing discontent from the public, the workers, and the SPU. On Friday, Charlotte Mayor Frank McNinch, a product of North Carolina’s progressive era of politics who had remained relatively quiet on the matter up to this point, called for hearings to settle the strike and to resume service.44 Over the course of the weekend the mayor, city commissioners, and a citizens committee proposed a settlement in which the SPU would recognize the unions of the streetcar men and the electricians and these men would be allowed to return to work.45 The unions unanimously adopted the resolutions on the second Sunday of the strike, but Taylor refused to accept them. As part of his official statement, Taylor announced that he could no longer extend reemployment to the striking workers because others had already been hired in their place.46 He promised the public that service would resume first thing Monday morning, with power stations protected by armed guards to assure that there were no disturbances. In his letter to the public published that day, he concluded by proclaiming that he was doing the public a favor in not hiring the strikers and was saving them from the forces of a “Foreign Autocracy” that was forcing America to surrender to a new brand of industrial slavery.47
Frustration among the workers was higher than ever. In the morning of August 26, a mob of workers gathered outside the Dilworth car barn, where police continued to stand guard. As tension flared on both sides, a fight broke out between the police and the strikers in which more than one hundred shots were fired, leaving five workers dead and twelve injured. It would later be revealed that Police Chief Walter Orr fired the first shot after one of the strikers was pushed toward the police line, which he interpreted as a charge on his officers.48 The next day six National Guard units were
44 Charlotte Observer, August 22, 1910.
45 Charlotte Observer, August 24, 1910.
46 Ibid.
47 Ibid.
48 Leatherwood, “Battle of the Barn,” 74.
sent to the city to maintain order. As the city entered an undeclared state of martial law, Taylor continued to provide the public with his interpretation of the situation. His letter published the day after the riot at the Dilworth barn can be summed up as a simple “I Told You So.” The Charlotte public saw the riot in much the same way, claiming it would not have happened had it not been for the “false leadership” of the union organizers.49 Another city paper, the Charlotte News, filled its pages with claims that “Red terrorism was attacking the Southern way of business.”50 The immediate ramifications were few after order was restored a few days later. Streetcars began running again the next morning, with armed guards on board to protect against possible disturbances from strikers.51 Things returned to normal. Many workers felt that their efforts had been completely in vain.52
Strikes Alter Charlotte’s Political Landscape
The strike did have some lasting ramifications. The SPU eventually gave in to the raise requested by the strikers, though it only affected the new workers they had hired during the strike. Other cities that had joined in support of the Charlotte workers were able to resolve their labor battles relatively quickly in order to avoid riots like the one in Charlotte. Investigations of the Charlotte police department’s handling of the situation led to the firing of Chief Walter Orr and exposed deeper levels of corruption within Orr’s organization. A citizen petition led to a mayoral recall election because of Frank McNinch’s handling of the strike. He was able to hold his seat as mayor, though he resigned in 1920 and went on to serve as chairman of the Federal Power Commission and the Federal Communications Commission.
Zebulon Taylor would die of a heart attack in 1921 while riding in Duke’s private railcar headed north.53 Many would suggest that it was induced by the stress of his ongoing battles against labor and business regulation.
Charlotte worked hard to put this violent part of its history behind it, but the strike had an immediate effect on the balance of power within the city’s
49 Charlotte Observer, Tuesday 26.
50 Leatherwood, “Battle of the Barn,” 71.
51 Ibid.
52 Loy Cloinger. Interviewed by Allen Tullos on June 18 1980. Tape recording and transcript.
53 “Obituary,” The Greensboro Record, April 18, 1921.
municipal government.
While the Charlotte strike and many others like it have been forgotten, examining these strikes helps to explain the failure of unionism in the South during the early twentieth century.54 First, the unique brand of Southern paternalism meant that great industrialists like Duke used their system of trusted, like-minded lackeys such as Taylor to control empires consisting of large populations of employees. By presenting themselves as “fathers” who graciously provided employees with jobs and the means to support their families, they were able to control their workers. These workers felt they owed their employers something for protecting them against poverty and unemployment. Industrialists were able to win over the public by presenting themselves as these father figures, by giving generously to charity, and by supporting local governments, creating the impression that they had the public’s best interests in mind. In addition, by associating union organizers with anarchist activities, industrialists were able to convince the public that these foreign organizers were a threat to their traditions and way of life.
This threat was especially powerful for people with deep-rooted traditional identities and proved to be an effective tactic for turning the public against the unions. Without public support, even workers who were able to overcome paternalism would rarely succeed in unionizing. With Southern industrialists presenting themselves as shields between these outside threats and the interests of the public, unionization had an uphill climb.
54 Cloinger. Interviewed by Allen Tullos on June 18 1980. Tape recording and transcript.