Donald Comer: New Southerner, New Dealer

INFORMATION TO USERS

The most advanced technology has been used to photograph and reproduce this manuscript from the microfilm master. UMI films the text directly from the original or copy submitted. Thus, some thesis and dissertation copies are in typewriter face, while others may be from any type of computer printer.

The quality of this reproduction is dependent upon the quality of the copy submitted. Broken or indistinct print, colored or poor quality illustrations and photographs, print bleedthrough, substandard margins, and improper alignment can adversely affect reproduction.

In the unlikely event that the author did not send UMI a complete manuscript and there are missing pages, these will be noted. Also, if unauthorized copyright material had to be removed, a note will indicate the deletion.

Oversize materials (e.g., maps, drawings, charts) are reproduced by sectioning the original, beginning at the upper left-hand corner and continuing from left to right in equal sections with small overlaps. Each original is also photographed in one exposure and is included in reduced form at the back of the book.

Photographs included in the original manuscript have been reproduced xerographically in this copy. Higher quality 6" x 9" black and white photographic prints are available for any photographs or illustrations appearing in ihis copy for an additional charge. Contact UMI directly to order.

University Microfilms International A Bell & Howell Information Company 300 North Zeeb Road. Ann Arbor. Ml 48106-1346 USA 313 751-4700 800, 521-0600

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Order Number 0118104

Donald Comer: New Southerner, New Dealer

Breedlove, Michael Alan, Ph.D.

The American University, 1990

UMI 300 N. Zeeb R& Ann Arbor, MI 48106

Michael A. Breedlove

submitted to the

Faculty of the College of Arts and Sciences

of The American University

in Partial Fulfillment of

The Requirements for the Degree

Doctor of Philosophy

History

Signatures__of Committee:

Chair:

Dean ofl the College

October 15, 1990 Date

1990

The American University 7133 Washington, DC 20016

THE JLI.SBIC.ilT U iriT Z IIS 'T Y LJSSra?

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 0 Copyright

Michael A. Breedlove

1990

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. To my mother,

Mary Watson Griffith Breedlove

(1920-1975)

and to my family

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. DONALD COMER: NEW SOUTHERNER, NEW DEALER

Michael A. Breedlove

ABSTRACT

Donald Comer became a leader in the cotton

manufacturing industry in the 1920s. That decade and the

next were a time when both the New South ideology and

labor-management relations underwent change. Those years

were also watershed years in terms of changes in the

political scene. During those years Progressivism changed

and the New Deal arrived.

As the son of Alabama Governor B. B. Comer, and as

the leader of both Avondale Mills and Cowikee Mills, Donald

was poised to act on those changes and to help shape both

the economic and political side of life in the South. The

Barbour County native acted to promote traditional New

South goals of industrialism and diversified farming. The

prominent Alabama cotton manufacturer also acted as a

Progressive and as a New Deal advocate.

The interaction of Comer with both the New South

philosophy of economic development and the political

reforms of both Progressivism and the New Deal are

explored. Both the extent of his acceptance and the limits

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. to his belief in both economic and political reform are

examined. Specific points investigated include New South

issues such as industrialization and diversified farming,

Progressive reforms such as education, the use of child

labor, night work of women and children, the development of

the Tennessee Valley, and Prohibition; New Deal issues of

relief and recovery, particularly rural relief, the ending

of tenant farming, and the limiting of cotton acreage, and

government intervention in the economy and in labor

relations.

iii

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

This project grew out of a graduate paper completed at

the University of Alabama in Birmingham under the direction

of Dr. Tennant S. McWilliams. Much of the credit but none

of the blame may be assigned to him and to Dr. Marvin Y.

Whiting. Both helped me to begin the study of Donald Comer

(1877-1963). It was Dr. Whiting, as Archivist and Manu

scripts Curator of the Birmingham Public Library Archives

who actually introduced me to the massive Donald Comer pa

pers. Both men have rendered significant help then and to

the present. Thanks also go to Harvard University for

recognizing that the Comer papers belonged in Alabama, which

led to their transfer to Birmingham.

The continuation of this study into its present form

has been significantly helped by Dr. Alan M. Kraut. He

helped me to choose this topic, and to write it without too

many gaffes, as did Dr. Jon L. Wakelyn and Dr. Michael

Kazin. They have also patiently helped me to overcome prob

lems of both style and substance.

Several institutions and individuals deserve my

thanks. Rather than leave any one person off of this list

who helped me significantly, I am not naming individuals,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. but rather sections and institutions. Chief among them are

the archivists librarians at the Birmingham Public Library,

who made my research as pleasant as possible, and who al

lowed me access to the Comer papers on weekends.

Other institutions who helped my include the Alabama

Public Library Service, the Library of Congress Manuscripts

Division, the Special Collections section of the William R.

Perkins Library at Duke University, the Southern Historical

Collections at the University of North Carolina at Chapel

Hill, the Special Collections section of the Samford Univer

sity Library, and the National Archives, not only its main

branch in Washington, D.C., but its branch in Atlanta, Geor

gia.

A special thank you goes to every person who works at

the Alabama Department of Archives and History, to its dir

ector, Dr. Edwin C. Bridges, and to my supervisor, Alden N.

Monroe. Not only was I allowed to take unpaid leave to fin

ish this monograph, every person there overlooked my petu

lance when my writing was not going well, and my absences

when the research and writing were going well.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... ii

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS ...... iv

INTRODUCTION ...... 1

CHAPTER 1. COMER AND THE NEW SOUTH, 1924-1940 .... 15

CHAPTER 2. COMER AS A PROGRESSIVE, 1924-1940 ...... 59

CHAPTER 3. COMER AND SOUTHERN COTTON, 1924-1940 . . . 106

CHAPTER 4. COMER AND COTTON MANUFACTURING, 1924-1932 . 142

CHAPTER 5. COMER AND PATERNALISM, 1924-1940 184

CHAPTER 6. COMER AND THE NEW DEAL, 1933-1940 ...... 228

CHAPTER 7. COMER, THE NRA, AND TRADE UNIONS, 1933- 1940 274

CONCLUSION ...... 341

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 348

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. INTRODUCTION

Why is Donald Comer interesting? He was not an im

posing man. Though tall, he was slim, balding, and quiet.

When he entered a room, "no one noticed."' In a 1936

trade paper article, Comer was described as:

Unpretentious . . . of slight, almost frail build, slightly stooped from intense work and lack of at tention to his physical well-being, quiet, retiring in manner, soft in speech, he is never spectacular, but always effective.2

The Alabama textile executive wore round, steel-

rimmed glasses, was asthmatic, and suffered occasional, but

severe attacks of malaria, an inheritance of his military

service in the Philippines from 1898 through 1903.3 Ac

cording to a friend, "his speech reflects his complete ear

nestness, sincerity, and integrity."4

1 Interview with Mrs. Virginia Durr at her home in Montgomery, Ala., 10 Jan. 1989.

2 "My Brother Donald," Cotton 100 (May 1936): unpagi nated reprint found in the Comer papers, 125. Comer was then fifty-nine. For another source on Donald and his fa ther, see Ann Kendrick Walker, Braxton Bragg Comer: His Family Tree from Virginia's Colonial Days (Richmond, Va.: Dietz Press, Incorporated, 1947).

3 Ibid, and Francis B. Hutman, Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1798-1903 Volume I (Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1903), 319.

4 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Part of the answer lies in what one textile manufac

turer wrote about him. He said that Comer inherited from

his father "a high standard of business acumen and judg

ment, a strong determination, implacable integrity, and

unalterable honesty of opinion", while he inherited from

his mother "a graciousness and kindliness of manner and

diplomacy."5 He also possessed an exceptional memory and

a fine analytical mind. Comer read newspapers, trade maga

zines, bulletins, and books dealing with the social and

economic problems of the South. Many other businessmen of

the era fit this description, however.

What really makes Donald Comer of interest to histo

rians is his connection with the New South movement, the

southern and national Progressive movement, and his accep

tance of New Deal ideas. It is my contention that not only

were there southern leaders within the Progressive and New

Deal eras, southern businessmen helped to shape those move

ments .

Donald Comer epitomized the southern businessman as

shaper. Contrary to popular opinion, the effect of south

ern businessmen was positive as well as negative. They

often promoted reforms that transcended business concerns.

5 Ibid, and see also Peter A. Brannon, "Donald Comer, Dean of the Alabama Textile Industry," Cotton History Re view 1 (1960): 118-121.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 3

Southern businessmen helped to lead the way in some battles

to promote Progressive reforms. In fact, the way that some

southern businessmen viewed the New South movement helped

those Progressives to promote reform and to promote the New

Deal. Donald Comer reflects that positive aspect. He also

demonstrates the limits of southern and business acceptance

of Progressive ideas and New Deal methodology.

Part of that reflection certainly has to do with his

upbringing. In the case of Donald Comer one sees a person

born in rural Alabama who was also a cosmopolitan. He vac

ationed in Europe, warred in the Philippines and married a

Pennsylvanian as a young man, and lived for some years in

New York City as an adult. Yet he remained by his own

admission essentially a rural person at heart.6

The New South movement haunts as well as helps histo

rians to understand the post-Civil War South. Defining the

New South movement alone has proved nearly impossible.

Just as debates rage over the definition of Progressivism,

historians disagree on what constitutes the New South move

ment, and even if there ever was such a movement.

Earlier twentieth-century historians, such as Broadus

and George Mitchell and Holland Thompson, concentrated on

6 See "James McDonald Comer," National Cyclopaedia of American Biography Vol 51 (New York: James T. White & Com pany, 1969), 648; and Hubert F. Lee, "South's Man of the Year," Dixie Business 19 (Winter 1947-8), 5-6 and 15-18.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4

justifying the Redeemer governments. Those historians also

emphasized the South's acceptance of the northern industri

al view and southern triumph of will in adopting that ap

proach. They accepted patriotism, Democratic Party rule,

white supremacy, morality in government, and determined

endorsement of industrialism. Most noticeable was the

total non-recognition of Populism.7

During the Depression the earlier view was chal

lenged. By far the most important book that offered a new

perspective was Tom Watson; Agrarian Rebel by C. Vann Wood

ward. This Beardian interpretation foreshadowed his most

important work, Origins of the New South.8 Those books

also became the new standard upon which controversy would

rage among historians from the 1960s forward.

7 Broadus Mitchell, The Rise of the Cotton Mills in the South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1921), vii; and Broadus and George Mitchell, The Industrial Revolution in the South (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins Universi ty Press, 1930), ix. See also Holland Thompson, The New South (New Haven: University of Connecticut Press, 1919), 7. V. 0. Key pointed out that other than defeating the Republicans and Populists, the Democratic Party itself lacked discipline and was dominated by localism, particu larly in Alabama. See Southern Politics in State and Na tion (New York: Random House, 1949), Chapter 3.

8 C. Vann Woodward, Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel (New York, Macmillan Company, 1938), and Origins of the New South, 1877-1913 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951), 22. See also Francis B. Simkins, Pitchfork Ben Tillman (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1944) and Stuart Noblin, Leonidas Lafayette Polk (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949).

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 5

Was the New South led by middle-class white business

men as C. Vann Woodward, Paul M. Gaston, and Justin M.

Fuller suggest? Fuller found less than one-third of the

business leaders in Alabama from 1865 to 1900 were from

agricultural stock, but that over half had fathers in busi

ness or in the professions. The change from planter rule

to business control would indicate a change from the Old

South to the New. If so, the New South movement meant an

acceptance of northern ways and an invasion of northern

capital. Both Woodward and Gaston argue that the Civil War

and emancipation destroyed the planter class. The New

South was built by business oriented capitalists. That

movement also led to one party politics, de jure segrega

tion, and wide-scale disfranchisement, particularly after

the failed Populist revolt.9

Or did the New South take a Prussian Road, as Jona

thon M. Weiner, Jay R. Mandle, and Dwight B. Billings say?

The Prussian Road indicates continuity in that the planter

class remained firmly in control, and the South stayed

outside the mainstream of American life. Paternalism and

social control by economic and political elites were the

9 Paul M. Gaston, The New South Creed; A Study in Sou thern Mythmaking (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970), 3-4 and 7; Woodward, Origins, 124, 145-148, and especially 151-158; and Justin Fuller, "Alabama Busi ness Leaders, 1865-1900," Alabama Review 16 (Oct. 1963): 279-286 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 6

hallmarks of the pre-Civil War South, and remained so after

the end of that conflict according to this school of

thought. At the core of this theory lies the thesis that

the South remained out of the center of the national and

world market economy, and that the South was thus much more

agrarian, communal, paternalistic, and politically and

socially conservative than the North.10

In some ways the entire debate seems to revolve

around the question of how capitalist the Redeemer govern

ments were. The two schools emphasize different aspects.

Where Gaston emphasizes scientific farming and industrial

ization, Billings emphasizes social control. In fact, the

debate between the two schools is one of degree. Both

schools agree that any changes that occurred came slowly,

and that the South remained poorer and less cosmopolitan

than the North.

In addition, was there a singular New South movement,

or was there at least a division between the upper South

10 Dwight B. Billings, Jr., Planters and the Making of a "New South." Class, Politics, and Development in North Carolina, 1865-1900 (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro lina Press, 1979), 25 and 32-39; Jay R. Mandle, The Roots of Black Poverty: The Southern Plantation Economy and the Civil War (Durham: Duke University Press, 1977), xi; and Jonathon M. Weiner, Social Origins of the New South: Ala bama, 1860-1885 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 3-10, and "Planter-Merchant Conflict in Re construction Alabama," Past and Present 48 (April 1975), 73-94.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. and lower South? After all, in Gaston's book particularly,

the "South" is apparently represented primarily by the

cities of Atlanta and Louisville. How typical could that

be? Further than that, what is the difference between

Gaston's New South movement and simple boosterism? These

two questions are viewed by example more than by direct

comparison. One can see in Donald Comer the life of an

Alabama New South advocate who refused to agree with earli

er pronouncements by Grady and others that the New South

had already completely arrived.

How did the New South movement, if it existed, change

over time? In particular, how did the New South movement

change with the advent of Progressivism and then the New

Deal? Where does "business Progressivism" fit into this

analysis?

The examination of the actions of Donald Comer during

the 1920s and 1930s help to address those questions. A

thoughtful man, he certainly was no intellectual. He was a

politically active business man who guided Avondale Mills

and Cowikee Mills from the 1920s into the 1940s, though by

1937 he left most of the day-to-day operation of Avondale

Mills to others. In fact, the reason why this dissertation

ends in the year 1940 is that Comer's thoughts and argu

ments after that date offer very little that he did not

propose earlier.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 8

This cotton manufacturer also was the son of former

Alabama Governor B. B. Comer. By looking at Donald one can

see changes between generations regarding not only the New

South philosophy, but also regarding Progressivism, the New

Deal, and labor relations. One can also compare how the

New South's impact on large cities such as Birmingham and

on the small cotton mill towns of Alabama. In particular

the bringing of more diversified agriculture and industry

to small-town Alabama occurred differently from the way

Henry W. Grady predicted in his New South address in 1880,

and certainly took longer.

One of the most valuable reasons for examining Donald

Comer is his typicality. He epitomized the southern manu

facturing and commercial class. He was born and raised in

Alabama, and educated in the South. He also often spoke of

relieving the plight of tenant farmers, particularly black

tenant farmers. As a youngster, Comer often saw tenant

families eking out an existence as he grew up in Barbour

County, and later as he traveled over Alabama and the

South. Further, his views about race were typical of his

era and class.

He also embodies the continuity thesis of Weiner and

Billings in several ways. He loved agriculture and prac

ticed paternalism, and many times one feels he preferred

the life and pace of farming to cotton manufacturing. In

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 9

that point Comer fits not only the non-market oriented per

spective of Billings and Weiner, but seems to fall into the

somewhat "prebourgeois ruling class" of Eugene D. Geno vese .11

Donald kept much of the farmland the Comers tradi

tionally held in Barbour County, Alabama. He retreated to

his farm near Hawkinsville, Barbour County, to rest and

relax. The younger Comer maintained and expanded the cot

ton manufacturing business his father founded in 1897.

Most obviously, he reveled in the tales of Redemption. He

proudly recounted the "stirring" story of how his father

and other Comers helped to throw out E. M. Kiels and the

other Republicans from Barbour County.12

As the son of a cotton manufacturer and grandson of a

plantation owner in Barbour County, Comer fits conveniently

into the pattern Dwight Billings sees in the continuation

and control of the planter class in the South following the

Civil War. The Comer family certainly maintained economic

11 Eugene D. Genovese, The World the Slaveholders Made: Two Essays in Interpretation (New York: Vintage Books, 1971), vi.

12 Donald Comer, Braxton Bragg Comer: An Alabamian Whose Avondale Mills Opened New Paths for Southern Progress (New York: Newcomen Society, 1947), 10-11. For the way B. B. Comer described the tales to his son Donald, see B. B. Comer to John W. DuBose, Montgomery, Ala., 14 Mar. 1913, ADAH, Adjutant General, administrative files. These files are unappraised.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 10

wealth and social control over their workers through their

entry into the textile manufacturing business. In addi

tion, B. B. Comer achieved political success unparalleled

by that branch of the family when he became governor. This

speaks well for the continuity thesis as B. B.'s father was

a state senator in Alabama, and their forebears occupied

high office in Georgia.13

Yet it is hard to say that B. B. Comer represented a

"hegemonic" class, other than in the obvious way whites

dominated blacks. The hard-driving, tough-rninded business

man left Barbour County in the 1880s. He moved to Anniston

and then to Birmingham to achieve his business success. He

remained very paternalistic, yet his philosophy became very

market-oriented. Certainly when Donald took over, adver

tising on a national level, and marketing on both the na

tional and international levels became paramount. This

hardly speaks well for the South occupying a unique and

non-market place in the world economy.14

13 For his Georgia forebears, See Carolyn White Wil liams, History of Jones County, Georgia: For One Hundred Years, Specifically, 1807-1907 (Macon, Ga.: J. W. Burke Company, 1957), 384-389; for his years as governor see several articles about B. B. Comer by James F. Doster, Rupert B. Vance, and Allen J. Going, "The Governorship of B. B. Comer," (M.A. thesis, University of Alabama, 1940). For the others, consult Walker, Braxton Bragg Comer, 72-84.

14 See also Sallie B. Comer Lathrop, My Mother (Bir mingham; Ala.: Birmingham Publishing Company, 1941, 121; (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 11

Thus the Comer family represents a clear break with

the past as well. Instead of establishing hegemonic rule

over the South, the Comers represent an acceptance of the

South's place in the national economy. In fact, Avondale

Mills would not have been founded without northern capital.

The fact that the Comers managed to gain control over Avon

dale Mills demonstrates the skill at making allies with

northerners, and the use of northern methods of consolida

tion and expansion to insure market share and flexibility

in the face of an ever-changing economy.

Yet the sense of place and belonging played a part.

The Comers clearly desired long-term profits over short

term gains in the operation of Avondale and Cowikee Mills.

That desire for long-term profits helps to explain the

Comers' brand of paternalism. Control over the lives of

the employees of Avondale Mills played a large part in

their paternalistic activities as well.

The conflict between short-term and long-term profits

also caused conflict between the New South philosophy and

Progressivism, at least for a time. To the Comers, howev

er, and particularly to Donald Comer, Progressivism meshed

14( . . .continued) and Grace H. Gates, The Model City of the New South; Annis ton, Alabama, 1872-1900 (Huntsville, Ala.: Strode Publish ers, Inc., 1978), 74-75, 130, 213, 217, and 259; and Bir mingham City Directory, 1898 and forward.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 12

with the New South philosophy. Donald believed government

intervention in and regulation of the economy essential.

He also believed the government ought to intervene in the

morality of its citizens, and in the education of its chil

dren. He averred that economic progress would fail without

that intervention.

The approach the Alabama textile manufacturer devel

oped toward attracting industry also fits in well with the

new chronology of the New South movement developed by Ten

nant S. McWilliams.15 In this chronology, Comer becomes a

transitional figure, spanning two "generations" of New

South thought. The first generation in which Comer partic

ipated as a leader was the Progressive generation, and the

second generation in which Comer participated was the New

Deal. Progressive era New South advocates emphasized effi

ciency, public health, public education, and better public

15 Tennant S. McWilliams, The New South Faces the World: Foreign Affairs and the Southern Sense of Self, 1877-1950 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988), 10-13, in which he divides the New South movement into five areas. McWilliams sees these as a proto-New South thought of the 1830s through the 1850s, the first New South of the 1870s and 1880s, the second New South of the 1900s, the third New South of the 1930s, and the fourth New South of the 1940s and 1950s. McWilliams considers the civil rights movement of the 1950s forward as a possible death knell of the New South movement, depending upon whether one sees that movement fo cusing "on the racial absolute" or not. If one focuses on the idea of progressive change as the centerpiece of the New South, then another wave of New South thought occurred.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 13

services in general. New Deal era New South advocates

viewed the South as extremely disadvantaged, with a low tax

base, a dependence on a single crop economy, poor education

and social programs, and a host of other problems.

By the 1930s, Comer clearly fit into the New Deal or

liberal New South element. He advocated change economical

ly, as has been demonstrated, and he advocated change so

cially, as shall be seen in more detail later. More impor

tant than any particular change, however, was Comer's atti

tude toward the South as the poorest part of the nation.

Whether the Avondale Mills leader looked at agricul

ture, freight rates, industrialization, or social issues,

he saw the South as part of the United States. Comer want

ed the South to have the same standard of living as the

rest of the country. This meant that the nation had to

prosper as a whole. As Comer said himself, "We don't want,

as we industrialize in the South, any program that is help

ing us that won't help the whole nation."16

16 Comer, minutes of meeting, Southern Governors Con ference, 15-17 Mar. 1941, New Orleans, La. in Graham pa pers, Southern Governors Conference file, Southern Histori cal Collection, University of North Carolina-Chapel Hill, referred to in the future as the Graham papers. See also "The South's prosperity need not be at the expense of any other region but rather it will add to our national econom ic strength." in Donald Comer, untitled speech, given on WAPI radio and reprinted, 30 April 1952, ADAH Surname Files.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 14

Nor did the Barbour County native believe in ignoring

blacks. He worked to insure that educational opportunities

and employment opportunities became available to blacks.

He recognized that blacks as well as whites must prosper if

the South as a whole was to prosper. He did not, however,

openly oppose the system of de jure segregation, much less

de facto segregation, or attempt to promote blacks in Avon

dale or Cowikee Mills beyond their "place." Instead, he

opposed lynching and other obvious cruelties against blacks

that made the South more openly racist and less democratic

than the rest of the United States. In short, the Alabama

cotton man fit perfectly with the rest of his peers regard

ing race and class.

The relationship, therefore, between Comer the New

Southerner, and Comer the Progressive and New Dealer, is

the central part of this monograph. His life and work are

examined in light of this relationship in a number of ar

eas, particularly regarding industrial development, agri

culture and tenant farming; Progressive issues such as

prohibition, child labor, and public versus private power

development; and New Deal issues such as labor relations,

increased governmental intervention into the economy, and

states rights. In this way the complexities of the New

South movement, as well as the complexities of Donald Comer

himself can be seen in a clearer light.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER ONE

COMER AND THE NEW SOUTH, 1924-1940

Donald Comer wanted to change the lives of the major

ity of southerners through economic, social, and political

reform. He also wanted to make a profit for the sharehold

ers of Avondale Mills. He combined both goals in striving

for a changed South. Though Comer said anything he did for

employees was "more for the good of the stockholders,1,1

Comer realized that reform was the shortest route to high

profits for his shareholders and his region.

A major goal of Comer's life, therefore, was to help

the South improve economically. He wanted to help all

southerners, black and white, poor and rich, urban and

rural. Examining Comer's approach to the economic problems

of the South allows one to see the South as a contemporary

saw it.

What did he see? The textile manufacturer saw a

rural region that was much poorer than the United States as

1 Donald Comer to Frank H. Lathrop, his brother-in- law, Birmingham, Ala., 14 Oct. 1930, Comer papers. Lathrop was the second husband of Sallie B., the eldest child of B. B. Comer.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 16

a whole. This led reformers such as Lucy Randolph Mason of

the National Consumers League to remark to Comer:

Several times I have thought of quoting your remark to me in the winter of 1931 that industrial wages in the South were largely determined by agricultural poverty. Dr. Odum has overwhelmingly proved this point in his excellent book, "Southern Regions of the United States", but it would be well to have a direct state ment from a leading industrialist.

In fact, the textile executive described the South as a

"Cinderella."3

He had cause. From the end of the Civil War until

the end of World War II "Cinderella" remained a much less

developed region economically than the North.4 The prima

2 Lucy R. Mason, National Consumers' League, N.Y., N.Y., to Comer, 25 Aug. 1936. See also Comer to Mason, 27 Aug. 1936, both in the Comer Papers, 127. In 1931 Mason worked for the Southern Council on Women and Children in Industry for two months. She tried "to create a better climate of opinion for child labor laws and shorter working hours for women," according to John A. Salmond, Miss Lucy of the CIO: The Life and Times of Lucy Randolph Mason, 1882-1959 (Athens, Ga.: The University of Georgia Press, 1988), 45-46. During that time she wrote Comer and several other cotton textile manufacturers. It was during that effort in 1931 that she and Donald Comer met and corresponded. See also Mason's autobiography, To Win These Rights (New York: Harpers, 1952), as well as Standards for Workers in Southern Industry (New York: National Consumers League, 1931) .

3 Comer, Eufaula, Ala., to David E. Lilienthal, head of the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA), Knoxville, Tenn., 2 Nov. 1936, Comer papers, 127.

4 Underdeveloped here means little "modernization." Taking Jack Temple Kirby's definition of modernization from Rural Worlds Lost, this means a lack of paved roads, auto- (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 17

ry reasons for this were institutional and ideological, as

pointed out by C. Vann Woodward, Jack Temple Kirby, Idus A.

Newby, Gavin Wright, and other historians.5

Donald Comer recognized the problems inherent in the

South's single crop agrarian economy in saying, "the South

ern cotton states are at the foot of the ladder culturally,

educationally, and socially."6 Comer knew that the South,

in raising cotton and other staple crops, competed against

less developed countries in a world market.7 He planned

to change that. Like Henry W. Grady, Daniel A. Tompkins,

i ( ...continued) mobiles, electricity, and commercial farming to the virtual exclusion of live-at-home semisubsistence farming, as well as isolation, animal power, and self-sufficiency. As Kirby also notes, the coming of some aspects of modernization, chiefly increased row crop agriculture and better transpor tation, initially reduced the South's standard of living.

5 Woodward, Origins, 107-141; Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), 1-2, 25-33; Gavin Wright, Old South, New South: Revolutions in th eSouthern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1986), 12-16; Idus A. Newby, The South: A His tory (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978), 279-284, 287-289, and especially 297-300. See also Howard Odum, Southern Regions of the United States (Chapel Hill; Univer sity of North Carolina Press, 1936), 93; William N. Parker, "The South in the National Economy, 1865-1970," Southern Economic Journal 46 (April 1980): 1019-1048, especially 1021. 6 Comer to Herman L. Upshaw, editor, Eufaula Tribune, 28 Aug. 1936, Comer papers, 126.

One example of this is the speech of Donald Comer before the American Cotton Manufacturers Association (ACMA), 13 May 1937, Comer papers, 127.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 18

Richard H. Edmonds, George Fort Milton, and Henry Watter-

son, Comer sought increased industrialization and diversi

fication of the southern economy.8 As Comer told Dr. H.

A. Morgan in 1936, "there should be a fair mixing of indus

try and agriculture."9 George Fort Milton, editor of the

Chattanooga News, in 1936 recognized Comer's New South

8 Comer to Robert W. Philip, editor, Cotton, Atlanta, Ga., 26 June 1936, Comer papers. For information on some of the New Southerners, see Gaston, New South Creed, 4, 7, 20-71, 84-126, and 136-161; Cobb, Industrialization and Southern Society, 13-26, 32, and the entire book; Newby, The South, 289-293. Tindall, Emergence, 357-368; and How ard Bunyon Clay, "Daniel Augustus Tompkins: An American Bourbon," (Thesis: UNC-Chapei Hill, 1950). For more Ala bama examples, see Justin Fuller, "Henry F. DeBardeleben, Industrialist of the New South," Alabama Review 39 (Jan. 1986): 3-18; and "Alabama Business Leaders," Alabama Review 16 (Oct. 1963): 279-286, as well as William H. Russell, "Alexander K. McClure, Promoter of the New South," Alabama Review 12 (April 1959): 95-104. Gaines M. Foster details how the "Lost Cause" affected the New South in Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913 (New York, Oxford University Press, 1987). See also Lawrence J. Nelson, "Memorializing the Lost Cause in Flor ence, Alabama, 1866-1903," Alabama Review 41 (July 1988): 179-192. More of Comer's ideas are presented in Comer, "Tex tiles and Southern Life," The South and World Affairs, May 1941, produced by the Southern Council on International Affairs (SCIR), which may be found in the Keener C. Fraser papers (noted as the Fraser papers) of the Southern Histor ical Collection (SHC) at the University of North Carolina (UNC), Chapel Hill, North Carolina.

9 Comer to Dr. H. A. Morgan, Tennessee Valley Authori ty (TVA), Knoxville, Tenn., 27 March 1936, Comer papers, 127 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 19

approach in saying, "our general points of view about

southern problems are very closely parallel."10

The Alabama industrialist keyed on interdependence

and economic expansion in both agriculture and industry.

He saw no prosperity without improving both segments. Milo

Perkins, Assistant Secretary of Agriculture, complimented

Comer in 1935 for taking that point of view in saying,

"that you are one of the few businessmen in the country who

realize the necessity for an ultimate partnership between

labor, agriculture, and industry."11

This partnership meant expanding industry first. As

Comer wrote in 1936 to John Temple Graves II, editorial

writer of the Birmingham Aqe-Herald, a southern industrial

program would give to farm boys and girls "a chance for a

higher level of reward, thereby raising the entire wage and

income structure of the whole section."12

This hardly meant that Comer abandoned hope for help

ing the agricultural segment of the southern population.

10 Milton, Chattanooga, Tenn., to Comer, 26 June 1936, Comer papers, 130.

11 Perkins, Washington, D.C., to Comer, 25 Oct. 1935, National Archives and Records Administration (NARA), RG 16, Dept, of Agriculture, General Correspondence files, 1906- 1975, Publications (outside), Oct.-Dec. 1935. These files will be called the Dept, of Agriculture General Correspon dence files hereafter.

12 Comer to Graves, Birmingham, Ala., 16 Dec. 1936, Comer papers, 126.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 20

He believed that industry got too much of the economic pie

compared to farmers. In fact, Comer argued in 1936 that

"laws have been written that have given the industrial

sections of our country an unfair advantage in the develop

ing life of our nation."13

Given those laws and the low economic status of the

agricultural South, Comer urged increased industrializa

tion. He noted that "our cotton farmers down here have

become poor and our lands poorer."14 Industrialization

would improve the lives of farmers and their children.

More money could be earned by either working in factories

or by supplying expanding cities with produce. Comer

clearly stated his position in a 1934 speech before the

National Recovery Administration (NRA) in pleading that he

was "a citizen of an area predominantly agricultural, who

wants to see his section, and others like it, given as fair

a chance for industrial development as the already estab

lished industrial sections have themselves enjoyed."15

13 Comer to Henry A. Wallace, U.S. Secretary of Agri culture, Washington, D.C., 12 October 1936, Comer papers, 126.

14 Comer to B. E. Hutchinson, 8 May 1939, Comer pa pers, 130.

15 Comer, 6 March 1934, address before the National Recovery Administration (NRA), Group I Conference Commit tee, 2, Comer papers, 132. This address was also reported favorably in newspapers outside of Alabama, i.e., the Nash ville Banner, editorial page, 17 March 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 21

The Avondale Mills owner also wanted better social

programs, particularly in the area of education, and hoped

that increased industrialization would allow increased

funding in that area. Comer frustratedly noted "that the

[staple crop] program that we [the South] have been follow

ing the last hundred years is largely responsible for the

present unsatisfactory condition of the South economically,

socially, and educationally .... we just haven't got

enough money [to fund those programs]."16

The Alabama cotton magnate believed that increased

industrialization was the key to southern economic develop

ment. How was this to occur? Before the 1930's Comer

appeared unsure of or was silent on the more general issue

of southern economic development. During the 1910's and

early 1920's the Comers were so busy expanding Avondale

Mills that Donald had not developed a coherent strategy

regarding economic development.

Some aspects of his attitude toward economic develop

ment are clear by the 1920's. Both he and his father, B.

B. Comer, strongly favored the development of the Muscle

Shoals area on the Tennessee River.17

15 Comer to U.S. Representative Sam Hobbs, 29 July 1937, Comer papers, 127.

17 See Donald Comer to U.S. Representative Lamar Jef fers, Washington, D.C., 17 Oct. 1923, Comer papers, 6, and (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 22

During the 1920's Comer also took up the cudgel

against discriminatory freight rates that affected the

South. This fight regarding railroad regulation clearly

took up where his father left off in terms of railroad

regulation. Where B. B. Comer as Governor wanted to regu

late railroad behavior in Alabama to protect shippers and

small farmers, Donald wanted to regulate railroad behavior

in the nation so as to avoid economic discrimination

against the South. By the mid-1930's, therefore, Donald

Comer had developed something akin to a strategy regarding

industrial development in the South. Ironically, he based

that development on a resurgence in the cotton textile

industry in the South. As early as 1929 Comer asserted

that with textile prosperity both farm and textile workers

should have more cash, and that cash, translated into dis

posable income, not only could support vibrant truck farm-

17( . . .continued) B. B. Comer (1848-1927) to U.S. Senator George W. Norris, Washington, D.C., 5 Mar. 1926, where the elder Comer sent Norris a copy of an editorial in the Birmingham Aqe-Herald, and commented, the editorial "is marked calling attention to what you are trying to accomplish at Muscle Shoals, and to assure you that I believe you are exactly right. It would be a crime for the Government to lease or sell it. The power there . . . should be used." This was found in the B. B. Comer papers, 258, SHC.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 23

ing enterprises, but numerous new industries that needed a

market close to production sites.18

This made the preservation of the cotton textile

industry vital. Without it, no other industries would have

the proper base upon which to succeed, and the South would

never rise out of its status as an underdeveloped region.

Comer's strategy depended upon saving the cotton textile

industry in particular and expanding southern industry in

general. This led him directly into the battle over rail

road freight rates.

The Alabamian and many other southerners argued that

the railroads discriminated against the South in the set

ting of freight rates. Southerners accused the railroads

of doing this to limit industrialization in the South and

to maximize profits in the North. Although he opposed this

discrimination over a long period of time, Comer's most

cogent statements came in the 1930s.19

10 One of the best justifications Comer wrote appeared in a letter to Rachel Geer, a college student and daughter of Benjamin E. Geer, treasurer of Judson Mills in Greenville, S.C., on 25 Nov. 1929, Comer papers. See also the letters of Comer to John H. Bankhead, (1872-1946), 26 Sept. 1936, on getting cotton consumption higher; of 22 May 1937 about increasing the buying power of farmers; and especially of 14 April 1937 about the need for those ex panding industry in the South to plan for permanent growth. All of these are in the Comer papers, 126 and 127.

19 Seo Comer to Governor Bibb Graves, 5 Dec. 1934, where Comer ties together freight rates, industrialization (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 24

His beliefs can be seen clearly in an article he

wrote for the Manufacturer's Record. In it he argued that

the South "doesn't want to be only a furnisher of raw mate-

rials." 20 In that same article Comer gave illustrations

of freight rate discrimination. Railroads charged double

the rate to ship southern cottonseed oil to Cincinnati as

they did to ship foreign cottonseed oil. House stoves were

shipped at a 26% higher rate if they were made in Birming

ham than if they were made in the North.21 At the

time, railroads charged less to ship textile products from

the Official Territory22 to the South and West than vice-

versa. That practice aggravated Comer the most. He

charged that when the ICC sided with northern interests in

19(.. .continued) in the South, sectionalism, agricultural diversification, and southern poverty in a long letter. This letter is in the John H. Bankhead (1872-1946) papers, Senatorial letters and correspondence, general, 1934, 15, ADAH.

20 Donald Comer, "Freight Differentials Hinder Nation's Develooment," Manufacturer's Record 108 (Mar. 1939), 26.

21 Ibid.

22 Official Territory included the U.S. North of the Potomac and Ohio rivers and East of the Mississippi River, and was so designated because it was the first area to use uniform rates. The Northeastern area became the first to use uniform rates because it possessed the most railroad track, was the first to react to the uniform gauge of track enacted during the Civil War, and because most of the fi nancial leaders and financial resources to create order and to rationalize economic practices existed in the North east.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 25

a rate case in 1936, that the ICC allowed Official Territo

ry "to erect trade barriers in the guise of a discriminato

ry freight rate against Southern products."23

Freight rate analysts and historians agree with Com

er's opinion that freight rates then discriminated against

southern manufacturers. As Sam Hall Flint pointed out,

discriminatory freight rates damaged the South in three

ways. First, low freight rates were established from the

South to the North on raw and semi-finished materials,

while higher, often prohibitive, rates were placed on the

resulting end products made from those materials when

shipped from the North to the South. Second, the rate

scheme, composed of three parts, adversely affected the

southern manufacturer's ability to compete anywhere in the

United States, even in the South itself, against northern

competition. Third, even when southern railroads wanted to

lower rates of manufactured goods from the South to the

North, northern railroads refused to cooperate, insisting

on the higher rates for the South.24

23 Ibid.

24 Sam Hall Flint, "The Great Freight Rate Fight," Atlanta Historical Journal 28, 2 (1984): 6, in particular, but the article gives an excellent analysis of how those freight rates harmed the South in practice. See also David M. Potter, "The Historical Development of Eastern-Southern Freight Rate Relationships." Law and Contemporary Problems 14 (Summer 1947): 416-448; Woodward, Origins, 312-315, and (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 26

Another New Southerner, Francis G. Hickman, editor of

Cotton Trade Journal told Comer "You are doing a splendid

job of awakening the entire industrial South to the real

ization of what discriminatory freight rates really

mean." 2 *"" In 1930 Comer began working seriously on the

freight rate problem. That year, he and other cotton mill

executives, along with the Birmingham Traffic Association,

attempted to get the railroads to equalize their freight

rates on shipping manufactured cotton, at least within the

n « . . x . u .j i. u /■> r r j 2 _ i m ______j_ _ 26 o u u l i i , wxL.li uiiiLidi xeiiituiy iaiea •

24 (. . .continued) 381-384, with an especially vivid description of the battle B. B. Comer fought in Alabama as Governor against Milton H. Smith and the L & N Railroad; Tindall, Emergence, 120-121, 125-126, 599-604, and on 599 Tindall asserted that the attack on freight rate discrimination "became the sectional crusade of the day".

25 Hickman, New Orleans, La., to Comer, 17 Mar. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

26 Fuller E. Callaway, Jr., LaGrange Ga., Callaway Mills, to Comer, 30 July 1930, and Scott Roberts, Samoset Mills president and Alabama Cotton Manufacturers Associa tion (A1CMA) president, to Comer 18 August 1930, both in the Comer papers, 56. Roberts worried that the present rate structure hurt the Port of Mobile as a shipping point, while favoring Savannah, Ga., and New Orleans, La., and damaged the com petitiveness of Alabama cotton manufacturers at the same time. Roberts wanted the Alabama Public Service Commission (PSC) to order the Warrior Barge Line to reduce their cot ton shipping rate to Mobile. If the rate of shipping by water went down to 38 cents per hundred pounds, the effect would be to help get the railroads to lower their shipping rates from 56 cents to 38 cents per hundred pounds, thus indirectly equalizing rates with New Orleans.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 27

Between 1931 and 1936 southern cotton manufacturers

appealed to the ICC to have manufactured cotton that was

shipped to the North from the South charged the same rate

as the northern (or Official Territory) rate. This at

tempt, largely made by Alabama and Georgia cotton manufac

turers, failed, despite Comer's testimony.27

When a negative decision was rendered, Comer wrote to

U.S. Representative Lister Hill in 1934 that the result

would "increase the rates on finished textile products 26%

and would make the rates from the South into the North 18%

higher than similar shipping from point to point within the

North." He wrote similar letters to Hugo L. Black and to

Alabama Governor Bibb Graves in the same year. 28 In the

27 Testimony of Donald Comer, U.S. Congress, U.S. Sen ate, Freight Rate Discriminations, Hearings Before a Sub committee of the Committee on Interstate Commerce, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 2 Mar. 1939, 137. For more on the strategy of the southern cotton manu facturers and lack of help from southern railroads, see William D. Anderson, chairman of Bibb Manufacturing Company and chairman of the Joint Traffic Committee, Georgia and Alabama Cotton Manufacturers Associations, Macon, Ga., to Donald Comer, 11 May 1931, and Comer reply, 12 May 1931. See also Anderson to Comer, 7 July 1931, about overturning the I.C.C. decision rendered in Cincinnati, and having the I.C.C. adopt the Taylor scale for determining rates. That idea was opposed by northern cotton manufacturers, as re vealed in Anderson to Comer, 8 Oct. 1931. All of these are in the Comer papers, 64.

28 Comer to Bibb Graves, Montgomery, Ala., 5 Dec. 1934, and Comer to Hugo L. Black, Washington, D.C., 10 Dec. 1934, in the John H. Bankhead (1872-1946) papers, 15, ADAH. Comer also urged Graves to support the naming of a southern man to the ICC when Mr. Farrell's term expired.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 28

same letter Comer plaintively asked, "How is the South

going to develop industrially?" 29

Comer continued the battle to educate the public in

1936, after the ICC decided fully against the southern

manufacturers. Acting as president of the American Cotton

Manufacturers Association (ACMA), Comer sent an editorial

from the Alabama Journal on freight rates to The Carolina

Publishing Company, publishers of Carolinas Magazine.

Comer ran the editorial as a paid advertisement from ACMA,

and requested that the heading read "Freight Rate Discrimi

nation Against Southern Manufacturers and Industries," with

the second heading to read, "Existing Freight Rates Favor

the East by Seventeen to Forty Percent." That editorial

used comments made by Jud P. Wilhoit, chairman of the Geor

gia Public Service Commission, in the Chattanooga News to

stress the cost to the South of freight rate discrimina-

. . 30 tion.

Comer encouraged other knowledgeable men to write on

the freight rate problem as well. When Fred C. Schneider,

Jr., of The Chattanooga News requested an article on

29 Comer to Lister Hill, Washington, D.C., 5 January 1934, Comer papers, 125; and repeated in more length in Comer to Charles G. Jones, Manager, Birmingham Traffic Association, 26 June 1934, Comer papers, 132.

30 Comer, Eufaula, Ala., to The Carolina Publishing Company, Charlotte, N.C-, 14 Sept. 1936, Comer papers, 126, ACMA files.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 29

freight rates, Comer asked that Charles Jones, traffic

manager of the Gulf Paper Company, write the article. In

the same letter to Schneider, Comer could not resist com

menting on the fact that Texas cotton growers exported most

of their cotton out of the South due to unfavorable freight

rates to southern cotton mills.31

The Alabama cotton manufacturer summed up the 1931-

1936 effort to the Birmingham industrialist Alvin W. Vogtle

by saying that he was "disturbed over the continued policy

toward the South by the ICC." In the same letter Comer

"strongly objected" to the southern textile industry paying

$1.10 for every $1.00 that the North paid, and that first

class freight rates were $1.39 to $1.00, respectively.

Comer also wondered "just how strongly" southern railroads

opposed that freight rate discrimination.32

He echoed that sentiment the next year, 1937, to U.S.

Senator Hugo L. Black when he wrote that New York Governor

Clinton in the 1800’s took public money to build the Erie

canal to facilitate Midwestern grain coming in to the

31 Fred C. Schneider, Jr., Chattanooga News, to Comer, 28 July 1936, and Comer reply, 11 Aug. 1936, Comer papers, 126, ACMA files. Charles Jones had been in charge of the Birmingham Traffic Association for years, and had recently accepted the job with Gulf Paper. Jones was perceived as a leading authority on freight rate discrimination.

32 Comer to A. W. Vogtle, Birmingham, Ala., 23 Aug. 1937, Comer papers, 128.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 30

North, but that in the 1930s, the ICC "has built freight

barriers all around this same territory to prevent a rea

sonable flow of manufactured things from the South and

West."33 Comer also stressed to Congressman Luther Pat

rick the argument that if northern consumers could be con

vinced of a broader market "we will probably reach the end

of the road [and win the case]."34

In 1938 Comer joined in the Southern Governors Case

with relish. He noted in June of that year that imported

cotton seed oil was transported at twenty eight cents, yet

domestic cotton seed oil was transported at exactly double

that rate.35 He wrote to Senator John H. Bankhead (1872-

1946) that the southern governors "are probably doing all

that can be done about it [freight rates] and as fast as it

can be done."36

33 Comer to Hugo L. Black, Washington, D.C., 7 July 1937, in the Hugo L. Black Papers (henceforth called the Black Papers) in the Manuscripts Division of the Library of Congress, in Washington, D.C.

34 Comer to Luther Patrick, Washington, D.C., 30 April 1937, which may be found in the 1936 cotton file of the administrative files of Governor Graves.

35 Comer to Birmingham Traffic Association, Birming ham, Ala., 15 June 1938, in which he quoted from an extract of a letter from the Southern States Industrial Council, Nashville, Tenn., of 8 June 1938, Comer papers, 130.

36 Comer to Bankhead (1872-1946), Washington, D.C., 22 June 1938. In that letter, Comer included a letter he wrote to the Southern States Industrial Council detailing (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 31

In July of 1938 the Alabama manufacturer looked for

ward "with pleasure" to U.S. Representative Luther Patrick

discussing freight rates at the Tutwiler Hotel in Birming

ham. In the same letter Comer also suggested that cotton

twine was shipped from the South to the North at a higher

freight rate than jute twine imported from India.37 That

same year, in December, Comer spoke to the Birmingham Rota

ry Club on the subject of freight rates. Comer's persua

siveness in that speech is seen in a letter to him from

Rudy Norton, Secretary-Treasurer of Bradford-Norton, Inc.,

Millinery Manufacturers. In his letter, Norton said, "If

you can ever use my hand and my mind in the cause for which

you are fighting, you have but to command me . . . all of

our difficulties could be overcome within the next decade

had we enough men of your caliber. Unfortunately the South

has but one Donald Comer."38

36( . . .continued) how the cotton seed and oil producers were being discrimi nated against in favor of imports. Bankhead replied 27 July 1938. All the letters are in the John H. Bankhead Papers.

37 Comer to Patrick, Birmingham, Ala., 14 July 1938. Comer also sent copies of this letter to U.S. Senator John H. Bankhead (1872-1946), U.S. Senator Lister Hill, and Montgomery newspaper man C. M. Stanley.

38 H. Rudolph (Rudy) Norton, Birmingham, Ala., to Com er, 30 Dec. 1938, Comer papers, 130.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 32

In 1939 Comer made his best effort. He testified

before the Interstate Commerce Committee of the U.S. Senate

in the first hearings held before the U.S. Congress on the

problem of freight rate differentials. Lister Hill, a

long-time proponent of ending discriminatory freight rates,

headed the committee.39

That year, Hill and U.S. Representative Robert Ramspeck of

Georgia introduced Senate Joint Resolution 99. They wanted

the ICC to investigate rates within and between the regions

of the country for the purpose of correcting unjust, unrea

sonable, and unlawful rates. The resolution amended Sec

tion 3 (1) of the Interstate Commerce Act to add "region,

district, and territory" to the parts that were illegal to

discriminate against. That resolution carried significant

influence when the Wheeler-Truman Transportation-Act of

1940 was enacted.40

Comer made a difference, too. Senator Hill and other

friends dined with Comer on the Sunday evening before he

testified, and Hill told Comer that he would "look out for

Tindall, 603; Virginia Van Der Veer Hamilton, Lis ter Hill; Statesman from the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987), 96; and Frank L. Barton, "Recent Developments Concerning teh South's Freight-Rate Problem," Southern Economic Journal, 6 (Apr. 1940): 475.

40 Tindall, 603-604; Hamilton, 96-97; and Barton, "Re cent Developments," 475-477. The bill was S. 2009.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 33

you" at the hearings, as they expected his testimony to be

persuasive.41

In his testimony, Comer hammered at the theme that an

improved southern standard of living would also improve the

standard of living for northerners. After all, asserted

Comer, "if we can change this farm hand into an industrial

worker we can put into his pocket more money . . . that

will largely be spent for things that are made in the

North."42 This would help the South and North to trade on

a more even basis. Comer said that every section of the

United States suffered without fair and equalized freight

rates.

Comer appealed to the Committee's sense of fairness

by saying that southerners and westerners were not inter

ested in forcing the railroads to set rates "lower than

they can bear."43 Instead, "we are simply asking and

41 Lister Hill, Washington, D.C., to Comer, 20 Feb. 1939, and Comer to Fred Morrison, Washington, D.C., 23 Feb. 1939, both in the Comer papers, 130.

42 Testimony of Donald Comer, Freight Rate Discrimina tions (1939), 135-151. Manufacturers Record article of 1939 summed up some of Comer's argument also. The corre spondence between Manufacturers Record and Comer on the subject of Comer writing an article on freight rate dis crimination may be found in the Comer papers, 130. R. L. Gould initiated the idea.

43 Ibid, 134.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 34

thinking about fair transportation rates as between sec

tions .1,44

The southern textile man also tied the work of Secre

tary of State Cordell Hull on reciprocal trade agreements

to the freight rate case and the case for more industry in

the South. Just as Hull commented that there must be some

balance of trade between nations, Comer asked "How can the

South continue to buy automobiles, electric refrigerators .

. . etc., unless they can pay for them with products that

they ship back to the North?"45

He also rejected the argument that freight rates were

of little or no importance to expanding industry. Using a

variation of the "timid" capital theory, Comer asserted

that industry goes the easiest way, and "Unfriendly freight

rates are decided deterrents."46 He also asked, if it

44 Ibid, 134.

45 Ibid, 135-136. A little later in his statement, Comer mentioned that if the South is to have some industry some factories will have to move there, and that northern factory workers would be temporarily hurt. Comer asserted that the hurt would only be temporary because just as Hull suggested, "If New England loses a textile worker to the South and we change an 80-cent-a-day farmer to a $3-a-day textile worker, we have furnished a purchaser or consumer for the work of a higher-priced mechanic in New England."

46 Ibid, 139

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 35

[the question of freight rate discrimination] is of so

little importance why such terrific opposition?"47

Furnishing specific examples of freight rate dis

crimination, Comer also quoted extensively from TVA lumi

naries Dr. Harcourt A. Morgan, and David Lilienthal, as

well as Harry Hopkins, and others. He did this to show

that leaders in the national government believed that the

rates for shipping freight were discriminatory. He also

repeated the argument that through discriminatory freight

rates, the North placed an internal tariff on the South.

The Alabamian protested the inequity of the internal tariff

when the one northern state of New York alone had 33,600

industries and over 1,000,000 workers compared to the ten

states of the South's 20,000 industries and about 1,000,000

workers.48 At the end of his testimony, Senator Tobey re

marked that "I suggest that we prevail upon Mr. Comer to

come to Congress. He is a splendid ambassador for the

South." Senator Hill replied, "I agree with you." 49

47 Ibid, 135.

48 Ibid, 143-144 and 151. Comer also tied education, labor, and the tariff into this testimony to indicate how all were keeping the South relatively disadvantaged to the North. Comer received many of the examples he used from R.H. Sheppard of the TVA. See Sheppard to Comer, 21 Feb. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

49 "Freight-Rate Discriminations," Senate Hearings, 1939, 149.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 36

The Alabama cotton manufacturer also spoke before the

Southern Governors Conference on the subject of discrimina

tory freight rates in 1939, and supported the appointments

of J. Haden Alldredge and William F. Lee, the latter of

Alabama, to the ICC. Comer worked with Senator Lister Hill

to insure that they would be named, and wrote to the Presi

dent in order to facilitate their appointment. Their ef

forts proved fruitful as both were appointed.50

In March of 1939 Comer summed up his position to

Governor E.D. Rivers of Georgia. Rivers was a leading

advocate of fairer freight rates and one of the leaders in

the Southern Governors (or Commodities) Case himself.51

Comer wrote that Hill "understands" the freight rate situa

tion, and that Hill's two amendments to end "undue discrim

ination" between sections would prove helpful.52

50 Lister Hill, Washington, D.C., to Comer, 10 Feb. 1939, Comer papers, 130; and M. H. McIntyre, Sec. to the President, 13 Feb. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

51 Flint, "The Great Freight Rate Fight," 11-14; and Tindall, 601-603. Other important governors in the freight rate battle were Bibb Graves of Ala. and Olin D. Johnston of S.C. Graves was a witness and litigant, and he joined the legal team after his term as governor ended. The case, filed in 1934, was settled favorably for the South by the I.C.C. on 22 November 1939, and was chiefly important for the sake of precedent rather than the broad resetting of rates.

52 Comer to Rivers, 6 Mar. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 37

Hill's actions and the favorable decision in 1939 by

the ICC on the Southern Governors Case cheered Comer, as it

fulfilled a dream he and his father had shared since the

early 1900s, and had worked together to achieve since the

1920s. He congratulated Rivers and the Southern Governors

Conference for progress made. Comer termed the decision,

written by ICC Commissioner William E. Lee, as "wonderful."

Rivers added that in Comer’s testimony before the Senate,

"you have given a very clear explanation of the situa

tion. 1,53

Besides testifying, writing the President and commu

nicating with governors, Comer wrote influential newspaper

men such as James Mills of the Birmingham Post and Russell

Kent of the Birmingham Aqe-Herald, as well as the earlier-

named writers. Comer wrote about Hill's efforts at ending

freight rate discrimination, using arguments made earli

er.54 He also wrote Commissioner Lee personally to thank

him for the encouragement his decision gave to southern-

53 Rivers to Comer, 27 Feb. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

54 Comer to Mills, Birmingham Post, 7 and 8 Mar. 1939; and Comer to Kent, 28 July 1939, both in the Comer papers, 130

55 Comer to Lee, Washington, D.C., 10 Mar. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 38

This dedication was recognized. As U.S. Representa

tive Luther Patrick of Alabama wrote U.S. Representative

Chip Roberts, "Donald Comer is one of my best friends and

his heart is in this [freight rate] movement."56 David E.

Lilienthal, Chairman of the TVA, showed his appreciation of

Comer's efforts by saying "You have shown such a clear and

effective understanding of what a change in this [freight

rate] situation can mean for the prosperity of the interior

regions."57

Some historians and economists see the freight rate

movement as chiefly a defensive, sectional reaction to the

lack of industrialism in the South. This must be consid

ered as the ICC did not deliberately discriminate against

southern industrial development. As Hugo Black wrote to

Comer in 1937, "if there had been no Interstate Commerce

Commission, the South would have been squeezed out of the

industrial picture."58

It is true that New Southerners like Comer attempted

to enrich themselves, to reduce poverty in the South, and

to create a higher standard of living for everyone in the

56 Patrick to Roberts, both in Washington, D.C., 31 May 1939, Comer papers, 130.

57 Lilienthal, TVA, to Comer, 5 Oct. 1942, TVA Ar chives, NARA, East Point, Ga.

58 Hugo L. Black to Comer, 12 July 1937, Black Papers, labor legislation files, 159.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 39

section. New Southerners also wanted to gain an economic

advantage over their northern counterparts, or at least to

play on a level field regarding transportation costs. To

Comer this meant the ending of a very harmful and discrimi

natory economic practice against the South.

He saw the practice of freight rate discrimination as

part of a larger problem involving tariffs and internal

tariffs in the United States that adversely affected the

South. Comer noted that northern industry began behind a

tariff wall. He believed that an internal tariff via the

use of discriminatory freight rates against the West and

South was unnecessary for the North now.59

Nor did Comer believe that an internal tariff on

oleomargarine (made mainly from cottonseed oil) was neces

sary. He testified that northern dairy interests "have

waged a most unholy fight against oleomargarine . . . so

that it is the only farm product in this country that had

an internal tariff against it."60 The cotton manufacturer

knew that western dairy farmers in Wyoming and Washington

59 Comer, "Testimony on Freight-Rate Discrimination," 138-144.

60 Comer, "Testimony on Freight Rate Discrimination," 148, and also Comer to Lister Hill, 8 Nov. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 40

had gotten those states to pass "a prohibitive tax" on

oleomargarine, which Comer deeply resented.61

The southerner went on to mention that tariffs af

fected "every farm product in this country except [south

ern] cotton."62 Even long-stapled California cotton was

protected by a tariff on Egyptian cotton. Dairy products,

corn, wheat, sugar, and other products all had tariff pro

tection.63

Comer believed there was a reason why northern capi

talists insisted on the freight-rate discrimination against

the South and the external and internal tariffs that hurt

the South. In 1930 Comer wrote Mervyn H. Sterne, a promi

nent investment banker in Birmingham, that there is "sec

tional jealousy because of the growing industrialization of

the South."64 Comer bluntly told Senator Hugo L. Black in

1936 that northerners "want the South to continue to be the

agricultural section," raising and exporting cotton, while

Comer to Earl M. McGowin, Alabama legislator repre senting Chapman, Ala., Montgomery, Ala., 1 Feb. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

62 . , Ibid.

63 Ibid, 149. Manufactured cotton received protec tion.

64 Comer to Mervyn H. Sterne, Birmingham, Ala., 7 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 131.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 41

buying the more expensive industrial products of the

North.65

That countered everything he wanted. The result, as

he proposed to John Temple Graves II, was that "the South

has been so long simply a step child in the Nation, raising

cotton, selling it to the world and spending our money for

things made in the North."66

The resulting discrimination damaged the South as a

section and hurt the nation as a whole. In the long run,

this discrimination hurt the North itself in Comer's view.

For example, when he looked at the move of northern cotton

mills to the South, he asserted that if northern cotton

mill owners:

had shown any reasonable interest in helping the cotton farmers get a living wage in raising cotton . . . the cotton textile industry would have stayed in New Eng land longer, and its movement to the South would have been very much slower.

In other words, an artificially cheapened labor force

caused by a lack of industry and low agricultural wages in

the South led to the movement of cotton mills from the

North to the South. This pitted northern workers against

65 Comer, Sylacauga, Ala., to Black, Washington, D.C., 15 May 19 36, in the Comer papers, 125.

66 Comer to John Temple Graves II, Birmingham, Ala., 17 July 1930, Comer papers, 57.

67 Comer to J. W. Porter, Rockingham, N.C., 20 May 1938, Comer papers, 131.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 42

southern workers, with the only gainers being northern

capitalists. As early as 1925 Comer candidly stated that

northerners wanted southerners to raise cotton at prices

that "have made practical slaves out of the people raising

it."68

This viewpoint led him to look at federal interven

tion with some suspicion, as he feared northern domination.

Eventually this affected his view of the New Deal. This is

particularly true of those programs in which the New South

idea of unlimited expansion and the New Deal idea of limit

ed, controlled growth collided. In a 1941 letter to Clar

ence Poe, for example, Comer stated his belief that north

erners supported wage and hour legislation not to help

workers, but "to stop the spreading of industry."69

The most explicit example of the bitterness he felt

occurred in a letter to Senator John H. Bankhead in 1939.

In that letter the Alabama manufacturer erupted that "there

is no such thing as justice for the South in our Federal

government." He went on to say that "the South gets noth-

68 Comer to Frederick I. Thompson, a long-time friend of the Comer family, but at the time a member of the United States Shipping Board, Washington, D.C., 30 September 1925.

69 Comer to Clarence Poe, Progressive Farmer, Raleigh, N.C., 17 Feb. 1941, in the Graham papers, Southern Gover nors Conference.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 43

ing for its solidarity except the portion of a

Cinderella.1,70

Comer also noted that the southern environment had

been hurt by exploitation, particularly the denuding of the

forests by the timber interests. Lyle Brown, an Extension

Service Forester at Alabama Polytechnic Institute, comment

ed on a speech Comer gave at Auburn in early August of 1938

emphasizing that damage. Brown applauded Comer's speech,

"especially that portion of it relating to the stripping of

our natural resources for the enrichment of northern capi

talists," and went on to comment that jobs were important,

but not as important "as the future of the land."71

In replying, Comer mentioned "I have said a thousand

times that we want industry in the South but we do not want

it to come down here to exploit us."72 He added, "we are

going to cherish our land."73

The Alabama cotton manufacturer refused to criticize

the paper mill men for buying timber cheaply, however, as

70 Comer to John H. Bankhead (1872-1946), Washington, D.C., 2 May 1939, Comer papers, 129.

71 Lyle Brown, Auburn, Ala., to Comer, 9 Aug. 1938, Comer papers, 128.

72 Comer to Brown, Auburn, Ala., 11 Aug. 1938, Comer papers, 128.

73 Minutes, Southern Governors Conference, 15-17 Mar. 1941, New Orleans, La., Graham papers, Southern Governors Conference file.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 44

he recognized that he bought cotton cheaply. Instead, he

urged the governors of the southern states to unite in

protecting the land by enacting laws to conserve and to

reforest timber lands. That would make every one equal in

competition and protect the land at the same time.74

If Comer and other southerners resorted to sectional

ism in the case of freight rates, they were at least look

ing forward, and anticipating concepts developed later by

economists. As George Tindall explains, these New South

advocates used the themes of government policy, agricultur

al readjustment and purchasing power to help remedy the

South's economy.75 Comer's primary goal for the South,

however, remained economic prosperity through diversifica

tion. This can be seen most clearly in his efforts as

Alabama Chairman of the Southern Governors Conference Ten

Year Program for Planned Prosperity in the South.76

Ibid. Comer also mentions Dr. Herty here, and his efforts at proving that southern pine trees could be made into usable products.

75 Tindall, 603-605.

76 This program operated from 1940 until 1950, and so goes well beyond the chronology of this paper. It must be admitted, however, that results of this program would be difficult to establish, given the structural changes caused by World War II.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 45

He received that appointment in 1940 from Birmingham

native Frank M. Dixon, then Governor of Alabama.77 The

balanced prosperity program was an outgrowth of the Balance

Agriculture with Industry (BAWI) plan originated by Gover

nor Hugh White of Mississippi. This particular ten year

program was the brainchild of Dr. Clarence Poe, editor of

the Progressive Farmer.78 Comer threw himself wholeheart

edly into this program, and eventually became Treasurer of

the Southern Governors Conference itself for a year.79

His support of the program surprised no one, but he

atypically interpreted some aspects of the Balance Agricul

ture with Industry (BAWI). One example illustrates this.

The BAWI program aimed to attract industry through tax

breaks or incentives. In his testimony before the Senate

on the problem of freight rate differentials Senator Tobey

77 Press release of Governor Frank M. Dixon, 25 May 1940, in the gubernatorial records of Governor Dixon, Ten Year Plan files, ADAH. It should also be noted that Presi dent Franklin D. Roosevelt saw this as a positive develop ment. He congratulated Dixon in participating in this in a telegram sent 6 Jan. 1940.

78 Transcript, planning session, "Ten Year Program for Balanced Prosperity in Alabama," held at the Capitol and the Whitley Hotel, Montgomery, Ala., 29 May 1940; Cobb, Industrialization and Southern Society, 38-50, in which Cobb provides an excellent critique of the use of tax in centives and municipal bonds to attract industry to the South.

79 Minutes, Southern Governors Conference, 15-17 Mar. 1941, New Orleans, La., Graham papers, Southern Governors Conference file.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 46

questioned Comer about tax incentives. Comer revealed he

refused to take tax breaks offered to him in the establish

ment of his last three textile mills. He was asked why.

Comer replied that "I would have a better relationship with

my neighbors if I went ahead and paid my taxes as they were

doing. "80

Comer nonetheless defended tax breaks as a strategy

by southern states. His argument again rested on the "tim

id" capital theory. First, he argued that New England

industry began and expanded behind a tariff wall. The

South and West thus subsidized the beginning and expansion

of northern industry, but reaped none of the rewards.

Next, he stated that internal tariffs such as freight rate

discrimination penalized the South and rewarded the already

established northeastern states. Finally, he argued that

southern tax exemptions, being more straightforward than

external or internal tariffs, were more ethical. Further,

tax exemptions meant that southerners subsidized their own

industry, by paying higher taxes themselves, unlike north

erners, who depended on other sections of the country to

subsidize their industry through tariffs.81

80 Comer, "Testimony on Freight-Rate Discrimination," (1939), 142-143.

81 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 47

In early May Governor Dixon wrote to Clarence Poe

that Comer had agreed to lead the program, "greatly to my

delight." 82 Poe reacted by writing to Dr. Frank Porter

Graham, President of the University of North Carolina that

"Mr. Donald Comer's leadership insures a magnificent re

sponse by public spirited men and women all over Ala-

bama." 83 In March of 1940 the noted newspaper columnist,

John Temple Graves, congratulated Dixon on his appointment

of Comer. "There is no more enlightened business man in

the South" opined Graves in his newspaper column.84 On 29

May 1940, at the initial planning meeting of the Alabama

balanced prosperity program, Comer urged coordination be

tween different groups to insure success. In typical New

South fashion he also said Alabama needed to "accelerate

the progress."85 Progress would occur when there were

more factories and less farms, better education, better

health care, better roads, better moral values, fairer

82 Gov. Dixon to Clarence Poe, 12 May 1940, ADAH, Gov. Dixon, Ten Year Plan files.

83 Poe, Raleigh, N.C., to Graham, Chapel Hill, N.C., 24 May 1940, Graham papers, Southern Governors Conference file.

84 John Temple Graves II, Birmingham, Ala., to Gov. Dixon, Montgomery, Ala., 16 Mar. 1940. The quote comes from a clipping of the same date included in the letter. ADAH, Gov. Dixon, Ten Year Plan files.

85 Transcript, "Ten Year Program for Balanced Prosper ity in Alabama."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 48

freight rates, better race relations, better housing, and

better farming methods.86

Comer began by dividing the program into fourteen

major areas: agriculture, industry, education, health,

conservation of natural resources, marketing, planning,

beautification, housing, publications and forums, finance,

recreation, tourist opportunity, and transportation. His

major interests lay with four areas: urban and industry,

rural and agriculture, women, and interracial. None of the

other areas was ignored, however. 87

He then involved faculty and deans from major state

universities, newspapermen, and businessmen in heading up

each part of the program. Comer appointed P. 0. Davis of

Alabama Polytechnic Institute, and head of its Cooperative

Extension Service, to lead the agricultural and rural part

of the program. For the sake of publicity and favorable

reporting, Comer then appointed Jimmy Falkner, a newspaper

editor in Bay Minette and head of the Alabama Press Associ-

ation, as the state chairman for the rural program. 88

86 Ibid.

87 "Permanent Committees to Be Appointed at the Orga nization of the Ten-Year Program for Balanced Prosperity," in the records of Gov. Dixon, Ten Year Plan files.

88 Comer to A. F. Harman, President, Alabama College, Montevallo, Ala., 8 May 1941, in the Graham Papers, South ern Governors Conference file.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 49

The appointees to the other three focal parts of the

program included Dean Bidgood, Dean of the School of Busi

ness at the University of Alabama, as the leader of the

program on industry and urban matters, with Ed Norton, a

Birmingham businessman as the state chairman. 89

Dr. Hallie Farmer, a prominent scholar at Alabama

College on the subject of Alabama state government and head

of the Women's Joint Legislative Council, received the

appointment to head up the woman's part of the program,

while Mrs. Mary McCoy received the appointment to head up

he interracial part of the program. Note that the interra

cial part was not an official area within the balanced

prosperity program. Comer's commitment to this aspect of

prosperity came from within himself, not from the agenda of

the program.90

Even before the organization meeting of May 29, Comer

wrote to Dr. A. F. Harman, President of Alabama College,

that the WPA survey would be used as "a starting point for

each County in many of the factors that go to measure their

economic, social, educational, and other values."91

8 9 TU-JIbid.

90 Ibid.

91 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 50

That survey, undertaken by the University of Alabama

and led by Dean Bidgood, appraised each county in Alabama.

It could be used "to measure the result of any and every

effort" made by the Ten Year Program.92 The survey would

bring forth the diversity within the state, and allow Comer

and the committee chairmen to visit each county and to

develop a program for each one emphasizing that county's

particular needs.93

Comer counted on support and favorable publicity from

newspaper men like Jimmy Falkner, who would be a state

chairman, and John Temple Graves II, who already had given

substantial support, as well as all the campus radio sta

tions. In addition, Comer appointed William Mitch, Presi

dent of the Alabama CIO, to the Southwide Committee, and

noted his enthusiasm. 94

The Avondale leader worked on the regional level as

well as on the state level. He attended the 1940 Georgia

meeting on encouraging balanced prosperity that was held a

few days before the Alabama meeting occurred.95 The fol

92 Ibid.T 7 - • J

93 Ibid. ,, . .

94 Ibid.t i ~ • j

95 Transcript, "Ten Year Program for Balanced Prosper ity in Georgia," held at the Henry W. Grady Hotel in Atlan ta, Ga., 23 May 1940, in the Graham papers, Southern Gover nors Conference files.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 51

lowing year the Alabama cotton manufacturer attended the

Southern Governors Conference in New Orleans, and spoke on

the need to improve economic conditions for all southern

ers. Comer stressed that the Ten Year Program "had to deal

with things that we can do ourselves and for ourselves in

the South."96

What Comer wanted to do most was create industry.

With industry came purchasing power, diversified truck

farming, and a higher standard of living. Without indus

trialization, Comer asked, "who is going to buy the diver

sified products?"97

As Alabama Chairman, Comer signed the full page news

paper statement submitted by the Ten Year Program. The

chairmen of seven other states and the governors of nine

states signed also. 98 That document outlined the goals of

the program. Among the more important goals were the di

versification of agriculture, the encouragement of indus

try, and the attack on discriminatory freight rates. All

96 Transcript of minutes, Southern Governors Confer ence, New Orleans, La., 15-17 May 1941, 75-76, in the Gra ham papers, Southern Governors Conference files.

97 Ibid.

98 Newspaper ad, "A Campaign for Balanced Prosperity in the South, 1940-1950," 1940 Jan., written by the Orga nizing Committee, and sponsored by the Southern Governors conference and Cooperating Committees of Citizens and Pub lic Agencies, Graham papers, Southern Governors Conference f ile.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 52

of the other goals outlined needed those three to be suc-

cessful.i 99

In addition, Comer helped raise and administer money

for the southwide balanced prosperity program. Comer head

ed the southwide finance committee and was instrumental,

along with Dr. Clarence Poe, in getting Dr. George Reid

Andrews to be the primary fund-raiser.100

One of the more interesting aspects of the Ten Year

Program was the involvement of the Tennessee Valley Author

ity (TVA). Comer started a very direct involvement between

the Alabama Ten Year Program and the TVA in June of 1940

with a letter to Dr. Harcourt A. Morgan requesting the

Authority's involvement.101 On 2 July 1940, an internal

conference held within the TVA leadership helped to plan

the participation of the Authority in the Ten Year Plan for

Progress in Alabama. At that same meeting the participants

agreed to encourage cooperation between state agencies of

99 Ibid.

100 George Watts Hill to Frank P. Graham, 4 Nov. 1940, and Dr. Clarence Poe to Graham, 13 Sept. 1940, as well as Poe to Comer, 29 Oct. 1940, where Andrews was characterized as "interested heart and soul in our effort to improve Southern economic conditions," all in the Graham papers, Southern Governors Conference files.

101 Memorandum, Robert E. Sessions, Asst, to the Gener al Manager, TVA, to Dr. Morgan, General Manager, TVA, 1 July 1940, in the TVA Archives, Federal Records Center, East Point, Ga.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 53

all the states "in furtherance of more fundamental region

al objectives."102

The conferees particularly wanted to encourage coop

eration between Alabama and Georgia, believing that Georgia

already had instituted several programs that Alabama could

copy. The most important program was a fact-finding mis

sion, headed by Dean Paul W. Chapman of the Georgia College

of Agriculture, with which they wanted to acquaint Co

mer.103 The other primary goal was to attempt to have the

TVA encourage diversification in industry and agriculture

within the South, using the Georgia model of fact-finding

to determine just which agricultural and industrial activi

ties should be stimulated in each of the southern states,

so that the southern economy would be both self-contained

and balanced.104

The TVA leaders met with Comer on 18 July 1940. In

that meeting the primary focus was on the TVA's involvement

in agricultural programs, and the effort needed by private

industrialists locating in rural areas to minimize "strand

ed labor and exploited resources" through greater responsi

bility to their work force. Comer agreed to that proposal

102 Memo to files, 2 July 1940, by Sessions, TVA.

103 Tl-Ibid. • J

104 Memo, Sessions to Gordon R. Clapp, General Manager, TVA, 23 July 1940, TVA Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 54

immediately and completely, believing that programs insti-

tuted at Avondale fit into that pattern. 105

In that same memo, TVA leaders recognized that World

War II could only help the diversification thrust, as the

nation needed more of nearly every industrial commodity to

successfully carry out the war effort against Germany and

Japan. That argument was buttressed by a letter sent to

Dr. H. A. Morgan by Comer. There the Alabama cotton manu

facturer argued for decentralization of industry away from

the coast lines and into the heartland of the United

States. This would make the nation less vulnerable to

attack by Japan and Germany. Just as importantly to Comer,

industrial plants and Army and Navy training camps could be

placed in agricultural areas in the South. Comer also

mentioned in the letter that Chester C. Davis of the Na

tional Defense Advisory Council strongly supported this

. 106 plan.

Comer knew he preached to the converted. In his

letter he mentioned Morgan's speech of 1925 on decentral-

105 Memo, Sessions to Morgan, 1 July 1940; and also see "The Relation of the TVA Program to the Ten Year Campaign for Balanced Prosperity in the South," n.d., for an analy sis by the TVA of the South's advantages and problems eco nomically, and how economic imbalances in the region could be corrected, TVA Archives.

106 Comer, Eufaula, Ala., to Dr. H. A. Morgan, Knox ville, Tenn., 10 July 1940, TVA Archives.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 55

ization in industry for social and economic reasons. What

the Alabama manufacturer needed from Morgan was an argument

for decentralized industry from the TVA that would link the

Ten Year Program to national defense. 107

The Alabama cotton man knew that the TVA could not

itself forward these arguments due to political pressures.

The reasons for this were several. First of all, the TVA

could not look as if it was placing its own welfare and

programs above the national defense. Secondly, many con

servatives wanted the TVA to remain as small as possible,

particularly disliking the planned economy and programmatic

approach the TVA took to solving problems. Third, private

ly owned power companies wanted no more infringement upon

their turf.

The Alabama manufacturer and men like Chester C.

Davis needed to put forth arguments by Morgan in the name

of industrial progress and national defense. Instituting

such a diversified industrial program would allow individu

als in agricultural areas with high unemployment, or low

wages even if employed, to have well-paying industrial

jobs. The fact that the South would have a better standard

of living could be presented as an incidental consequence

iO? TL.Ibid. •

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 56

to the halting of Japan and Germany. 108 Morgan quickly

responded. He sent Comer a statement on "Companionship of

Agriculture and Industry in Our National Economy," and

planned to send Comer the updated data on decentralization

as soon as the economist prepared it.109

The Alabama manufacturer did not stop there. The day

after the Southern Governors Conference was held in Mobile

in 1940, he met with Dr. Clarence Poe and Dr. Frank P.

Graham on the train to Birmingham. The three of them hud

dled together and Comer mobilized Dr. Graham to prepare

arguments for decentralization of industry. These argu

ments were to be made at the University of North Carolina

and would be used by southern governors to acquire more

defense-related industries in the South.110

Comer candidly stated that though economic and social

rewards accompanied the distribution of industry into rural

areas, "our arguments will have to include values that will

come to the defense program."111 He predicted that if the

108 . , Ibid.

109 Ibid, and Morgan to Comer, 16 Aug. 1940, TVA Ar chives .

110 Comer to Graham, Chapel Hill, N.C., 18 Sept. 1940, Gov. Dixon, New Industries file.

i n Ibid. T1_. .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 57

ideas were presented to the right people in the proper way,

they would prove to be effective. 112

The ideas regarding decentralization were quickly

used to attract industry. Even before this Comer realized

that capital in the South was insufficient. Ironically

this led him to propose the same solution as the first

generation of New Southerners, the introduction of outside

capital. He wrote in 1939 to John C. Persons, President of

the First National Bank of Birmingham, that "we must wel

come outside capital that will come in and give us indus

trial payrolls and do it without exploitation."113

He launched himself full force into attracting such

outside capital. The BAWI chair encouraged Governor Dixon

in September of 1940 to try to get General Electric to

build refrigerators in the South. Comer noted that the war

effort took up more and more of GE's facilities in the

East, and there was no reason the South could not share in

, , . 114 this.

112 Ibid. Those ideas were effective in getting the Billiten Company in the Gulf area to do tin smelting. Comer to Dixon, 8 Nov. 1940, Gov. Dixon, New Industry file.

113 Comer to Persons, Birmingham, Ala., 1 Apr. 1939, Comer papers, 130. Note how well this fits Gavin Wright's argument in Old South, New South; Revolutions in the South ern Economy Since the Civil War (New York: Basic Books, 1988) .

114 Comer to Dixon, Montgomery, Ala., 18 Sept. 1940, Gov. Dixon, New Industries file.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 58

As leader of the Alabama BAWI program, Comer worked

very hard in 1941 to get Du Pont to build a synthetic rub

ber plant in Sheffield, Ala. He met and corresponded sev

eral times with Dr. Ernest R. Bridgewater regarding the

construction of the plant. Bridgewater raised three prob

lems with the Sheffield site versus another site under

consideration, Louisville, Kentucky. Sheffield was farther

from the primary markets, which were in the North, had

higher property taxes, and had higher construction costs

than Louisville.115

The cotton manufacturer's interest in the Balanced

Prosperity Program and his New South approach illustrate

his commitment to improving the economic lot of southern

ers. Comer felt deeply obligated to end the cycle of pov

erty and the colonial economy in the South in a way that

would increase the wealth and employment of the nation as a

whole and without sacrificing the environment.

115 Bridgewater, Wilmington, Del., to Comer, 14 Feb. 1941, and Comer to Bridgewater, 12 and 20 Feb. 1941, Gov. Dixon, New Industry file. This effort apparently failed. See also the limited correspondence of March 1941 regarding the attempt to land a nitrate plant in Tuscaloosa, Ala., in which Comer was involved.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER TWO

COMER AS A PROGRESSIVE, 1924-1941

The 1920s saw the continuation of many progressive

programs. Donald Comer proved himself a model progressive

by continuing to work for prohibition, ending the practice

of employing women and children at night, improving public

education, building good roads, and enhancing public

health. Comer also opposed the convict lease system and the

employment of children as a Progressive reformer. These

efforts at reform placed Comer solidly within the 1920s

ranks of progressives.1

In fact, Comer went beyond most of the 1920s "busi

ness progressives", as Tindall identifies them. Those

"business progressives favored efficiency and public ser

vices, but tended to ignore wholly or in part democratic

reform, corporate regulation, and social justice. In fact,

as Tindall demonstrates, progress came not to mean social

or political advancement, but economic efficiency and de-

1 For example, see the two seminal articles, Arthur S. Link, "Whatever Happened to the Progressive Movement in the 1920s?" American Historical Review 44 (July 1959): 833-851, and George B. Tindall, "Business Progressivism: Southern Politics in the Twenties," South Atlantic Quarterly 62 (Winter 1963): 92-106; as well as Tindall, Emergence, Chap ters 7 and 8, 219-284.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 60

velopment. Chambers of Commerce and Rotary Clubs became

the prophets, not those advocating railroad reform and

limits to corporate wealth and power.2

As a businessman, Comer's interest in the two Pro

gressive areas of efficiency and public services is obvi

ous. He also favored improving public education, building

good roads, increased efforts at supporting public health,

the expansion of parks and recreation, as well as concern

for conservation. Comer favored some social legislation

also. He supported those reforms as a Christian.

He favored prohibition, ending night work for women

and children, and ending convict lease. In the area of

corporate regulation, Comer's support of regulating the

railroads on a national basis has been illustrated already.

His other anti-monopoly interest lay in regulating public

utilities, helping farmers, and in conservation. For those

reasons, the Alabama cotton manufacturer came to strongly

support development of Muscle Shoals by the government.

For the purpose of this chapter, only the areas of educa

tion, child labor, and prohibition will be discussed in

detail. The other aspects will receive brief coverage or

discussed as part of other chapters.

2 Tindall, "Business Progressivism," 93-96.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 61

Some of these reforms had an effect on more than one

area of Progressivism. Prohibition, for example, was fa

vored by those who wanted an efficient, educable work

force, rather than an inefficient, impaired work force.

Those who wanted to protect women and children, and to

limit abuse, favored prohibition as well.

The Alabama businessman favored public education for

more than one reason. He believed that education ought to

inculcate proper values, and argued that schools "must be

thoroughly alive to the necessity of building higher ideals

and a sense of religious duty and responsibility."3 Other

wise, schools failed "in a great opportunity for real ser

vice to society.1,4

He also knew education provided a knowledgeable work

force, a means for individuals to get ahead, and a method

of inculcating values. For those reasons Avondale and

Cowikee Mills operated their own school systems.5 As he

wrote to C.B. Glenn, the Superintendent of Education of the

Birmingham Public School System, "we operate several cotton

3 Comer to Guy Snavely, president of Birmingham-South ern College, a small Methodist college located in Birming ham, Ala., 18 Apr. 1927, Comer papers, 36.

4 Ibid.

5 The school system operated by Avondale and Cowikee Mills will be discussed later, as well as "Opportunity" schools in the chapter on paternalism.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 62

mills in Alabama, and in each cotton mill community we

operate schools up through the High School [level]."6

Comer wanted references from Glenn to books that discussed

health, kindness, and ethics, to help build a community

atmosphere in the mill villages.

The educational system in Alabama and Birmingham

interested the owner of Avondale Mills also. He knew that

if Alabama were to prosper, education needed upgrading.

This meant increased appropriations for education by the

state and by local government. For those reasons he served

on both the Birmingham and Alabama Boards of Education when

asked.

The Alabama cotton manufacturer served on the Alabama

State Board of Education (ASBE) from 1935-1949.7 Bibb

Graves first appointed him to that position in September of

6 Comer to Glenn, Birmingham, Ala., 23 March 1927.

7 See Alabama Dept, of Education, Educational Directo ry, for the school years of 1935-6 - 1948-9, as well as 1950-1. The latter directory names all of the appointed school board members from 1919-1949. Comer represented the ninth school district of Birmingham under governors Graves, Dixon, Folsom, and Sparks. The first meeting he attended occurred 8 Feb. 1936, according to the Alabama State Board of Education (ASBE) minutes of the same date. Those min utes are located at the Alabama Department of Education in Montgomery. At the same time, Comer did not merely accept every position offered to him. In 1924 he declined to be on the board of Athens college due to ill health. See Comer to B. B. Glasgow, president, Athens College, Athens, Ala., 15 May 1924.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 63

that year.8 Friends congratulated Comer immediately. Ar

thur Fort Harmon, president of the Alabama College for

Women in Montevallo, told Comer of his "great satisfaction"

and "hearty approval" that Graves appointed Comer.9

Because of Comer's other duties, he attended only

one-third of the meetings of the ASBE.10 Perhaps Comer's

most important function was indirect, that of supporting

vocational education and the Minimum School Program. The

latter program aimed to provide minimum funding for a base

level education for every county in the state.11 He long

8 Comer to Bibb Graves, 25 Sept. 1935, Comer papers, 125. In that letter Comer accepted the position, but men tioned that he was ill. As Comer put it, "If you are will ing to risk me in my crippled condition - I will try." Comer accepted reappointment, this time for a full six year term, in 1937. See Comer to Graves, 17 Nov. 1937, Comer papers, 127. Comer missed the majority of meetings both due to ill health and to his numerous other commitments. He remained interested and alert to the issues, however.

9 Harmon to Comer, 16 Sept. 1935, Comer papers, 125. Harmon went on to say that "I was over the years an ardent admirer and supporter of your distinguished father. I do not hesitate to express a like confidence in your higher character, fine impulses and great ability to serve humani ty. " The college is now the University of Montevallo.

10 Comer attended ten out of twenty nine meetings held by the ASBE between 1935 and 1945 according to the ASBE minutes for that period.

11 ASBE minutes, 1935-1949. Comer's support for the Minimum School Program and for expanding the Alabama School of Trades can be seen from the first meeting he attended, on 20 July 1936. Comer also eagerly supported WPA and PWA funding of buildings and programs in Alabama, though he (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 64

championed vocational education while a school board mem

ber. As Comer wrote in 1929 to Ben H. Harris, a vocational

education professor at the University of Alabama, vocation

al education simultaneously gave a person a skill, in

creased the efficiency of a business, and prepared a person

for a leadership role.12

In 1930 Comer wrote to U.S. Representative Lafayette

Patterson supporting the Capper-Reed Bill (HR 10821). That

bill aided vocational schools, and Comer supported it, as

vocational education helped those working to better them

selves through attending night classes. Patterson replied

that "I am strongly supporting this legislation."13

Philosophically, Comer saw vocational education as

more than a simple skill. To him, vocational education

meant learning a variety of skills, not just one. Comer

wrote that learning only one skill can "lead to some sort

of exploitation."14 He drew the parallel of using convict

11 ( . . .continued) knew that entailed interference by the national government. On construction, see particularly the ASBE minutes of 1939 May 25.

12 Ben H. Harris, Tuscaloosa, Ala., to Comer, 26 July 1929; and Comer to Harries, 6 and 7 Aug. 1929, Comer pa pers, 49.

13 Comer to Patterson, 5 May 1930, and Patterson re ply, telegram, 6 May 1930, Comer papers, 61.

14 Comer to Harry Denman, Nashville, Tenn., 20 June 1939, Comer papers, 129.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 65

labor in the cotton mill in Speigner as unfair competition

to the cotton manufacturing industry in Alabama.15

The commitment of the Birmingham businessman to edu

cation, however, may best be seen in his service on the

Birmingham Board of Education (BBE). His election to that

position by the Birmingham City Commission occurred in

1937. He replaced his brother-in-law, Herbert C. r, , . 16 Ryding.

Acclamation followed. As Harriett B. Amos of Bir

mingham wrote in 1937, "I think the city of Birmingham is

honored to have such a man as you on the Board of Educa

tion."17 Comer replied that he "hesitated for quite a

while" before accepting the post, and "I am coming on the

Board with a good deal of doubt but certainly I am coming

15 Ibid.

16 Ryding resigned primarily to move with his wife, Eva Jane, and his children, to Barbour County. They pur chased the birthplace of B. B. Comer, the former governor, and immediately began restoring it. Montgomery Advertiser, 14 Feb. 1937.

17 The quote is from Amos, Birmingham, Ala., to Comer, 6 Nov. 1937. See also Lorine Barnes to Comer, 4 Jan. 1938. Both letters are in the Comer papers, 128. The actual letter of appointment from Eunice C. Hewes, City Clerk, to J. M. Jones, Commissioner of the City of Birmingham, 1 Dec. 1937, may be found in the minutes of the City Board of Education of Birmingham, Ala., hereafter called the BBE minutes.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. with the determination to do the best I know how."18 The

Board itself said that

We feel that a man of recognized talent and ability of Mr. Comer, recognized both state and nationally, with his fine and outstanding character will contribute much to the solutions of the problems of the Board of Educa tion.

Quickly Comer and the Birmingham Board attempted to

solve a knotty problem. A short term and lower school

teacher salaries loomed. In fact, the school budget fell

short of needs by some $400,000. Even with stringent bud

get cutting and lowered teacher salaries, the Board needed

at least $200,000 more to hold a nine month term. Funds

only existed for an eight month term. In December of 1937

and January of 1938 the Board asked that the City Commis

sion equalize property taxes or raise sales taxes in such a

way that the school system receive $200,000 to $500,000 more.

18 Comer to Amos, 30 Dec. 1937, Comer papers, 128.

19 BBE minutes, 6 Dec. 1937. In the same meeting, the Board accepted the resignation of Ryding "with sincere regret."

20 Birmingham School Board to the City Commission of Birmingham, Ala., 1 and 23 Dec. 1937; and 5 Jan. 1938, Comer papers, 128. Members of the School Board at the time were: Erskine Ramsey, president; F. D. McArthur, Vice-Pres ident, Mrs. A. W. Bell, J. C. deHoll, and Comer. The ef fect of an eight month term would be the loss of accredita tion, thus limiting the chances of Birmingham students to enter college. In the 5 Jan. 1938 letter, the Board plead ed for $500,000 to fully fund a nine month term without reducing teacher salaries by the immediate enactment of a one cent sales tax. The sales tax required no constitu- (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 67

The request by the Board resulted in a $200,000 in

crease from the City Commission in early 1938. Comer then

strongly supported a motion by Mrs. A.W. Bell that $160,000

of the $200,000 go to increase the pay of teachers. The

motion passed in the meeting of 24 January 1938.21

The next month Comer initiated a motion to reduce the

salaries of school administrators from ten per cent to

thirty-three per cent. The higher the salary, the deeper

the cut. Thus Superintendent C.B. Glenn took a thirty-

three per cent cut. That motion passed.22 At the same

meeting, Erskine Ramsey appointed Comer, deHoll, and McAr

thur to review the entire financial condition of the Bir

mingham school system and to suggest ways to economize.23

The Birmingham mill owner also initiated talks with

TCI to get land for a new school via a gift from that com

pany. He reported this in the March 1938 meeting, and said

20( . . .continued) tional amendment, or vote of the people, unlike raising property taxes. The School Board possessed no taxing au thority.

21 BBE minutes, 24 Jan. 1938. This occurred in a joint meeting with the PTA, and N. B. Hendrix, who repre sented the Birmingham Teachers Association as president.

22 BBE minutes, 11 Feb. 1938.

23 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 68

TCI management seemed receptive if the Board built a school

quickly.24

In September of 1938 the School Board and the Avon

dale Mills owner realized that low funding meant a short

ened school term. With some reluctance the Board approved

Comer's motion that the "Superintendent was authorized to

state that with the economies effected by the Board, the

present funds in sight would allow the operation of schools

for eight months."25 Due to other commitments and to ill

ness Comer missed all Board meetings from October 1938

through January 1939. He returned just in time to concur

with the rest of the Board to raise from six to seven the

age allowed for children to be admitted to first grade due

to even worse financial constraints.26 He also attended

the meeting that approved teacher salaries. No teacher

raises occurred due to the shortage of funds, and Comer

agreed with the rest of the Board to the yearly salary

schedule. White teachers earned $1,125 for teaching ele

mentary school and $1,250 for teaching high school, while

24 BBE minutes, 18 Mar. 1938. TCI later reneged.

25 BBE minutes, 2 Sept. 1938.

25 BBE minutes, 17 Feb. 1938.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 69

black teachers earned $600 for teaching elementary school

and $800 for teaching high school.27

The son of B. B. Comer helped draft the revised bud

get for the school system for the 1939-40 school year, and

seconded that budget in June of 1939. 28 Again, an eight

month term was necessary. He then suggested the creations

of the positions of first and second assistant superinten

dents. The Board approved those positions in August of

1939.29 The increase in the administration marked a de

parture for the school system, and a move to free the su

perintendent from so many day-to-day concerns.

Donald's participation for the rest of the calendar

year proved mainly routine. In March of 1940, however, the

City Commission reelected him to the School Board, this

time for a full five year term. He immediately received

more committee assignments. That month Erskine Ramsey

appointed him to a committee to study whether teachers at

the age of seventy should automatically be placed on part-

time. Ramsey also placed him on the committee to investi

gate the operation of the lunch room system. In the same

27 BBE minutes, 14 April 1939. Despite the efforts of Comer and the School Board, in June of 1939, Birmingham ranked 66th out of 69 cities in the money spent per pupil for cities of over 100,000. See the Comer papers, 129.

28 BBE minutes, 2 June 1939.

29 BBE minutes, 1 Aug. 1939.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 70

meeting Comer reviewed and presented the February vouchers

to the School Board.30

The next month saw the Alabama business Progressive

appointed to another committee, the federal aid committee.

This committee attempted to get federal aid for needed

repairs for schools. To that end, Comer "stated he would

personally take the matter up with the state representa

tives of the Federal Government."31

He also participated in a decision that affected

teachers both personally and professionally at that meet

ing. Comer and the rest of the teacher's committee recom

mended no change in the required shift to part-time when a

teacher reached the age of seventy.32

On 7 May 1940 the Birmingham School Board held elec

tions. Erskine Ramsey remained president and F.D. McArthur

remained vice-president.33 Later that month Comer re

viewed and presented the April vouchers to the School

30 BBE minutes, 29 Mar. 19 39. Comer served on the teacher committee with vice-president McArthur and Supt. Glenn, and on the lunch room committee with McArthur and Mrs. Dupuy. The latter member came on the School Board in 1938, when the City Commission elected her instead of Mrs. Bell to the Board.

31 BBE minutes, 19 Apr. 1940. The other members on that committee included McArthur, Glenn, and Business Man ager McKinley.

32 -n_Ibid. - ,

33 BBE minutes, 7 May 1940.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 71

Board.34 In June Comer supported and seconded a motion by

McArthur to authorize the School Board to borrow $125/000

for paying teacher's salaries.35

At the October 1940 meeting Comer reported that the

federal government awarded no money to repair schools. The

School Board was forced to erect a new roof at the Hemphill

School using monies from its budget.36 In December the

School Board announced that the school system would remain

open the entire 180 day term. This pleased Comer and the

other School Board members immensely.37

February of 1941 proved somewhat eventful. During

that month all the School Board members supported Superin

tendent Glenn's recommendations for appointment. At the

same meeting, the Alabama cotton mill executive explained

the new statewide salary schedules for teachers, as he was

a member of the State Board of Education. This explanation

led to Comer's appointment to a committee to study the

effect of the new salary schedule on Birmingham teachers

34 BBE, 22 May 1940.

35 BBE minutes, 26 June 1940. See also the BBE min utes of Aug. and Sept. 1940 for Comer's actions regarding the awarding of coal contracts and the presentation of vouchers.

36 BBE, 4 Oct. 1940. Comer also appeared at the 16 Oct. and 6 Dec. 1940 meetings, but missed the 1 Nov. 1940 meeting. Those meetings were basically routine.

37 BBE minutes, 20 Dec. 1940.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 72

and on the Birmingham School Board.38 One month later

that committee presented a draft contract for teachers that

was adopted by the School Board.39

The following month Erskine Ramsey resigned from the

BBE due to ill health. F. D. McArthur promptly succeeded

to the spot of president, and the other members of the

Board then elected Comer to be vice-president to finish out

the year. In May the Board elected McArthur and Comer to

the positions of president and vice-president, respective

ly, for the full year term.40 Comer promptly moved that

C. B. Glenn be reappointed superintendent at a salary of

$8,000. The motion carried. This constituted Comer's

first act as vice-president.41

He then moved to create a salvage committee to sell

unusable and irreparable school property. This motion

carried also. Comer next moved to rescind the $125,000

bond authorization approved earlier, as the State Board of

38 BBE minutes, 21 Feb. 1941. Supt. Glenn and VP Mc Arthur also went on to that committee.

39 BBE minutes, 21 Mar. 1941. At the same meeting Comer advised that the School Board not purchase a parcel of land in North Birmingham for a new school. The School Board accepted his advice.

40 BBE minutes, 18 Apr. and 2 May 1941. Also in April, the Birmingham City Commission reappointed McArthur to a full five year term on the Board of Education.

41 BBE minutes, 2 May 1941. Comer also got reappoint ed to the coal purchase committee.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 73

Education would reduce the amount of funds coming to Bir

mingham for schools if it was approved. Again, the motion

carried.42

Reflecting negotiation with the other parties in

volved, the Alabama cotton mill owner moved to accept land

offered by Stockham Pipe and Fittings (six lots), and Bir

mingham-Southern College (seven lots) as a spot for a new

school building. That motion carried. The School Board

and the National Youth Administration (NYA) cooperated in

building that school, with the School Board providing the

land and materials, and the NYA supplying labor and super

vision. Finally, at the June meeting, Comer moved to bor

row $65,000 to meet teacher salaries, and that motion car-

ried.• 43

The interests of the Alabama businessman also lay in

mill cities other than Birmingham. In 1929 he pledged to

insure that the Catherine Comer School in Eufaula be al

lowed to conduct a nine month session. The School board

could fund only a six month session, so Comer stepped in

and pledged to pay the salaries of the teachers for the

42 BBE minutes, 27 June 1941.

43 BBE minutes, 27 June 1941. Comer missed the 2 and 24 July and 22 Aug. 1941 meetings.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 74

rest of the session. He also supplemented the principal's

salary by $25 per month.44

In 1936 Donald and Hugh Comer furnished 55% of the

cost of building the B. B. Comer Memorial School in Alexan

der City, Alabama.45 Hugo Black, US Senator from Alabama,

spoke at the dedication of the school, demonstrating his

friendship with Donald Comer in particular.46

Nor did the Barbour County native limit support for

education to school buildings and teacher salaries. In

August of 1927, Marie B. Owen wrote to B. B. Comer. She

urged him to lobby for the construction of a Memorial Buil

ding to house the state archives. B. B. died soon thereaf

ter, but Donald answered the call in September. As he

wrote to Mrs. Owen, Comer called Governor Bibb Graves on

the telephone "immediately," but "the Governor was very

insistent that there was no money available."47

Creating a textile department in one of Alabama's

universities appealed to Comer greatly as well. In 1927

44 Comer to P. A. McDaniel, Supt. of Education, Eufau la, Ala., 14 Oct. 1929, and McDaniel to Comer, 23 and 30 Oct. 1929, all in the Comer papers, 50B.

45 Alabama Magazine, Vol. 1, Number 2, 12 July 1936, 16. The cost of the school was $141,985.

46 Ibid.

47 Owen to B. B. Comer, 5 Aug. 1927, and Donald Comer to Owen, 22 Sept. 1927. Owen thanked Comer on 23 Sept. 1927, and all of the letters are in the Comer papers, 35.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 75

and 1928 Comer worked with Alabama Power Company (APCO),

the Alabama Cotton Manufacturers Association (A1CMA), and

Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API) to create such a de

partment. In April of 1927 he wrote to Alabama Power to

request help in establishing a textile course at Auburn.48

R.A. Mitchell, a vice-president, replied, agreeing with

Comer that:

We should thoroughly prepare our young men for the work of manufacturing our cotton so that practically none should be shipped out of the State except in manufac tured form.49

These letters led to an intensive effort late in 1928

to begin a textile department at Auburn. Unfortunately

from Comer's point of view, this effort failed, despite the

intervention of Bradford Knapp, the president of API.

Knapp wanted a research-oriented program, but the financing

for such an undertaking proved impossible. 50

46 Comer to Alabama Power, 18 April 1927, Comer pa pers, 29.

49 Mitchell, Birmingham, Ala., to Comer, 20 Apr. 1927, Comer papers, 35.

50 See the correspondence between Comer, Knapp, and George H. Lanier, president of West Point Manufacturing Co. in Georgia, of 20, 22, 23, and 26 Oct., and 5 and 6 Nov. 1928. See also the letter of Scott Roberts to Knapp, 26 May 1928, where Roberts pledged the "earnest cooperation of the mills" for such a department. All of these are in the Comer papers, 41A, except for the last letter, which is in 42.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 76

Comer not only participated in education as a school

board member at the state and local level, he directly

participated in giving scholarships to individuals, and by

being a scholarship trustee. Not even counting his gifts

to deserving mill employees and paternalistic educational

practices, Comer gave money to educational charities and to

individuals for their education. He served as a trustee in

1923 for David Clark of the Southern Textile Bulletin, when

Clark began a fund to provide scholarships for deserving

textile workers.51

Besides acting as a trustee, Comer's institutional

gifts varied widely. The largest donations occurred in the

1920s, before the depression. He made sure that the $2000

pledged in the year 1928 by his father reached Alabama

College in Montevallo.52 He also gave $2,200 in 1928 to

Athens College. That money went to construct the Comer

Cottage.53 He sent money outside of the South. Comer

gave $100 to the Mooseheart School in Mooseheart, Illi-

51 David Clark to Comer, 6 Sept. 1923, and Comer to Clark, 10 Sept. 1923, both in the Comer papers, 11.

52 O. C. Carmichael, president, Alabama College, to Comer 10 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 37.

53 Mary H. McCoy, president, Athens College, to Comer, 17 Apr. 1928, and Comer to McCoy, 21 Apr. 1928, Comer pa pers, 4 IB.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 77

nois.54 Comer gave $10 to Birmingham University School

for a set of history books in 1927 .55 A year earlier he

gave $250 to API for a scholarship.56

As a Methodist layman, he gave to Methodist colleges

such as Emory in Atlanta, and Birmingham-Southern. In 1925

Comer "was glad to" send $50 to help a deserving student at

Emory.57 A few years later he sent $500 to Birmingham-

Southern.58

The Alabama textile manufacturer's gifts to individu

als getting a college education satisfied him most. The

Comers helped dozens of students go to college, and no

attempt will be made to even list those helped. Examples

suffice. In 1929 when Albert Britt ran out of money and

54 James J. Davis, Mooseheart School, to Comer, 8 Oct. 1928, Comer papers, 38C.

55 Comer to Birmingham University School, 9 Mar. 1927, Comer papers, 30.

56 Ellen Harris, Dean of Women, API, to Comer, 12 Apr. 1926, Comer papers, 25.

57 Bishop Warren A. Candler, Atlanta, Ga., to Comer, 25 Sept. 1926, and Comer to Candler, 29 Sept. 1926, Comer papers, 23.

58 Guy Snavely, president, Birmingham-Southern Col lege, to Comer, 9 Sept. 1930, Comer papers, 61B. For some of his other gifts to Birmingham-Southern, see Snavely to Comer, regarding a $180 gift, 5 Mar. 1934, Comer papers, 125; N.M. Yielding, Bursar, to Comer, regarding a $100 donation, 20 May 1938, Comer papers, 128; Yielding to Com er, regarding a $100 donation, 20 Jan. 1939, Comer papers, 129.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 78

hope to attend college, Comer wrote him that he had helped

many through school, and "if I can find one who is in ear

nest, I would like to have a part with him, if I am need

ed.59

The Alabama cotton manufacturer taught economy also.

Comer urged Herman J. Jones in 1929 to hold "amounts from

me down to a minimum."60 Comer did this as he loaned mon

ey to students to insure their seriousness. When the stu

dent got the degree, Comer often forgave the debt. The

students gratefully acknowledged Comer's gifts. As Leila

Rookh Hill put it, "you have made it possible these last

two years by your gracious kindness for me to gain that

which I so desired."51

This graciousness certainly extended to workers and

the children of workers at Avondale Mills. One example

embodies this. Elva Selby, a worker at the Pell City mill,

59 Comer to Albert Britt, Akron, Ohio, 2 Nov. 1929. Comer wrote this letter in reply to the letter from Britt to Comer, 7 Oct. 1929, in which Britt stated he left col lege due to financial considerations. See the Comer pa pers, 46, for this correspondence, and see also the 1930 correspondence between Comer and William Fidler, which is very similar, and occurred on 30 Jan., 3 and 10 Feb., and 18 Nov. 1930, in 125.

60 Comer to Herman J. Jones, Auburn, Ala., 24 July 1929, Comer papers, 50.

61 Hill, Birmingham, Ala., to Comer, 9 Aug. 1936, and Comer's reply, 22 Aug. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 79

wrote Comer to express her hope to attend college. Comer

replied in July of 1929 that:

where we find a young lady who is really ambitious and willing and anxious for a further education in order to make herself more valuable to society/ that we are more than anxious to do our part to help. 2

In August Comer told Selby to attend school and that

he would pay for it by a loan to Selby at no interest, and

that if she could not repay to due to ill health of other

legitimate reason, he would forgive the debt.63 Selby

gushed that "words cannot express how much you are doing

for me."64 She attended Wesleyan College, and wrote Comer

about every two weeks.65

Comer's interest lay not only in the public school

system of Birmingham and in higher education. He encour

aged another employee to continue with his correspondence

school classes. As the cotton mill executive put it, "a

Comer to Elva Selby, Pell City, Ala., 23 July 1929. This was a reply to the 14 July letter of Selby. The let ter from Selby to Comer is not in the Comer papers, but the Comer letter is in box 52A.

63 Comer to Selby, 10 Aug. 1929, Comer papers, 52A. Comer wrote this after Selby expressed doubts about her health in a letter to Comer of 8 Aug. 1929.

64 Selby to Comer, 12 Aug. 1929, Comer papers, 52A. She added "I will do my best to make the highest grades that can be made."

65 Comer to Selby, Wesleyan College, Central, S.C., 2 and 6 Sept. 1929, and periodically Comer sent her $10 or $20 for spending money. See, for example, Comer to Selby, 4 Nov. 1929. All letters are in the Comer papers, 52A

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 80

dead fish can float down stream, but it takes a live one to

swim up it."66

The textile manufacturer also wanted everyone to be

able to read and write. So he actively participated in the

campaign against illiteracy in Alabama. One way he partic

ipated was by offering literacy classes to the older em

ployees at Avondale Mills beginning in 1924. The Birming

ham school system offered these courses as part of a state

wide campaign, and Comer supplemented the pay of the teach-

When another state-wide campaigns opened in 1926 and

lasted until 1930, Comer actively supported it. That lat

ter campaign utilized the idea of the "Opportunity

School. "68

66 Comer to G. W. Smith, Avondale Mills, Birmingham Ala., 6 Nov. 1928, Comer papers 43.

67 Comer to C. B. Glenn, Birmingham, Ala., 28 Apr. and 14 June 1924, Comer papers, 11. See also Alabama. Dept, of Education. Adult Education Illiteracy Campaigns, 1914-1927 [state pub].

68 See ADAH. Alabama. Dept, of Education. Adult Educa tion Opportunity Schools, 1926-1930 [state pub]. This campaign reflected cooperative efforts in adult education between the Dept, of Education and federal agencies. The program, known as the Emergency Education Program, was created to employ needy teachers and to improve citizenship by providing educational opportunities for adults. See also the Avondale Sun, 8 Mar. 1930, for the arti cle "Avondale Communities Start Opportunity Schools."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 81

Funding for this program came from the state, the

Rosenwald fund, and local government. Alabama gave one-

half, the Rosenwald Fund gave one-fourth, and the local

school system gave one-fourth. White teachers received

$100 and black teachers received $65 for teaching each

course, which lasted 120 hours.69 Comer wrote to Iola

Roberts, principal of the Avondale Mill school in Pell

City, Alabama, to explain that it was "particularly impor

tant" that Alabama's illiteracy rate decrease before the

taking of the census.70 He added that it was difficult

"to get grown people to acknowledge that they are illiter

ate."71

He wanted to eliminate illiteracy in the cotton mills

of Alabama, especially in Avondale Mills. Comer therefore

appointed Iola Roberts in February of 1930 to operate the

schools in Avondale Mills to end illiteracy in those

69 Clutie Bloodworth, Director of Exceptional Educa tion, Ala. Dept, of Education, to Iola Roberts, Principal, Avondale Mills School, Pell City, Ala., 11 Feb. 1930, Comer papers, 6IB. In a form letter of 5 Mar. 1930, Bloodworth mentioned that the Dept, of Education provided the books, and that most people in a class of fifteen or so learned to read and write with about forty hours of instruction.

70 Ibid. .

71 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 82

mills.72 Clutie Bloodworth/ Director of the Alabama De

partment of Education Exceptional Education Division, wrote

to Comer to thank him:

The hearty cooperation you are exhibiting by establish ing schools for the adults in the mills will be felt throughout the state . . . when leaders in industry encourage men and women to go to school . . . they are putting new heart, new hope, and new ideas into their lives.

The Alabama businessman replied by saying that "we

feel like there is really quite an opportunity presenting

itself."74 To that end, he made sure that a statement of

Ray Luman Wilbur, the Secretary of the Interior, was pub

lished in the 22 February 1930, edition of the Avondale

Sun. In the statement Wilbur applauded the "intensive"

effort in Jefferson County to eradicate illiteracy, noting

that illiteracy caused poverty.75 By the end of February,

Esther Foster Yielding, Chairman of the Alabama Advisory

72 Clutie Bloodworth to Iola Roberts, 20 Feb. 1930, Comer papers, 6IB. The classes lasted about one month, with two or three evenings a week devoted to them. The texts used were the Country Life Reader and the Bible Story Reader. Avondale also supplemented what the BBE paid the teachers who came in to teach those classes. See Comer to Bloodworth, 7 Mar. 1930, Comer papers, 56.

73 Bloodworth to Comer, 20 Feb. 1930, Comer papers, 56.

74 Comer to Bloodworth, 24 Feb. 1930, Comer papers, 56 .

75 Avondale Sun, 22 Feb. 1930.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 83

Committee on Illiteracy wrote Comer to say she was "de

lighted to find there has been such a splendid re-

sponse.",,76

This opportunity extended to all cotton mills in

Comer's opinion. He strongly supported and helped to de

velop a plan put forward by the Alabama Cotton Manufactur

ers Association (AlCMA) to end illiteracy within the cotton

mills. He and Scott Roberts, president of AlCMA, worked to

make the literacy campaign "as appealing" as possible."77

Roberts thus sent a letter in March of 1930 to all the

cotton mills in Alabama explaining that funds were avail

able for employing teachers to increase literacy in their

mills.• i i 78

76 Fielding to Comer, 27 Feb. 1930. Comer continued to participate on this committee through 1931 at least, as he spoke on the work done in the mill districts at an Octo ber meeting of that year. Unfortunately, there his com ments seem to have not been recorded on paper. See Field ing to Comer, 6 Oct. 1931, both letters are in the Comer papers, 63.

77 Comer to Scott Roberts, Anniston, Ala., 27 Feb. and 1 Mar. 1930, in the Comer papers, boxes 61B and 56, respec tively.

7 8 Roberts to all cotton mills in Ala., 5 Mar. 1930, Comer papers, 56. The letter also mentioned that Donald Comer was on the Ala. Advisory Committee on Illiteracy, and that half the funds came from the state, one-fourth of the funds from the Rosenwald Fund, and one-fourth of the funds from local sources. Comer congratulated Roberts on 7 Mar. 1930 on the letter circulated to all cotton mills. For both letters, see the Comer papers, 6IB.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 84

Adults were not the only ones with educational diffi

culties in the cotton mills. One of the roots of the prob

lem of illiteracy lay in child labor. Child labor relates

both to education generally, and to literacy specifically.

Many children grew up illiterate because they worked in

stead of learning to read and write. Donald Comer found

himself changing his attitude about child labor.

In 1915 Alabama enacted a child labor law. That law

mainly affected cotton mills. With the Alabama Federation

of Labor and the Alabama Federation of Women's Clubs

strongly supporting a child labor act, and the Alabama

cotton manufacturers strongly opposing it, a compromise

occurred. The resulting act was weak. Children fourteen

years of age and older could work up to six days and sixty

hours per week. The reformers wanted a five day and forty-

eight hour limit. Child labor enforcement continued under

the state prison inspector, who employed deputy inspectors.

Elizabeth H. Davidson pointed out that the lack of school

attendance comprised the greatest defect in the 1915 bill,

though the lack of factory inspectors damaged enforcement

almost as much.79

79 Elizabeth H. Davidson, Child Labor Legislation in the Southern Textile States (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939), 230-235, and the excellent bibliography.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 85

In 1919 Lorraine B. Bush, then a representative of

the National Child Labor Committee (NCLC), and a deputy

factory.inspector, and Thomas M. Owen, then head of the

Alabama State Department of Archives and History (ADAH),

created a new child labor bill. 80 This act was drawn up

only after a survey of child labor in the state occurred,

funded by the McCormicks of Huntsville. Important aspects

of the act included the creation of a children's bureau

within state government, and limiting hours of employment

to forty-eight per week. A compulsory school attendance

law passed as well.81

The enactment of the 1919 law saw the average number

of wage earners under the age of sixteen in Alabama drop

from 18.7% in 1909 to 1.8% in 1919.82 None of the Comers

supported the 1919 act. Recognizing the futility of oppo-

sition, they did not come out against it either. 83

80 Ibid, 234-235. Interestingly, Mrs Bush was the widow of a factory inspector appointed by B. B. Comer when he was governor. It helped greatly that she was a native of Clarke County, Alabama, and so she could ignore any comments about northern interference. She later married Alf M. Tunstall, a powerful force in the Alabama legisla ture, and in 1931-1935, the Speaker of the House.

81 Ibid, 234-235.

82 Ibid, 273.

83 Ibid, 235.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 86

By 1924 the opinions of the Alabama textile manufac

turer changed to neutrality at least. At that time a move

ment to enact a national child labor amendment occurred.

As he wrote to Scott Roberts,

I prefer as an individual not to discuss the Child Labor amendment with Mrs. Tunstall. If the people the labor of whose children are involved in this Amendment are willing to agree to this Amendment, then so am I.84

In fact, Comer apparently accepted the idea of a

state child labor law. As he wrote to Virginia Handley,

the director of the Alabama Child Welfare Department, Avon

dale wanted to do the "utmost to make your administration

just as pleasant and as successful" as possible.85

While there is some doubt of the sincerity of his

support for regulating child labor, there can be no doubt

that Comer knew the law and pragmatically accepted that law

so as to forestall more radical change. Besides, those

laws that increased regulation tended to favor the larger

84 Comer to Scott Roberts, Anniston, Ala., 18 Oct. 1924, Comer papers, 14. See also L. Sevier, president, Associated Industries of Alabama, to Comer, 1 July 1924, and Comer's reply, 11 July 1924, Comer papers, 13, in which Comer stated that he did not oppose a constitutional amend ment to regulate child labor, even if Sevier did.

85 Comer to Handley, Montgomery, Ala., Comer papers, 11. Comer wrote in reply to the new state code regarding child labor, to be proclaimed by Governor Brandon about 1 Aug. 1924. Handley only recently succeeded Mrs. Tunstall as the new head of the Child Welfare Department, and he sent her a letter on 2 July 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 87

mills, such as Avondale, over the smaller fly-by-night

mills common in Alabama and the other southern states.

Regulation helped those larger, more established mills by

forcing all mills to provide a minimum level building and

safety standards, thus equalizing costs between the larger

and smaller mills. This meant that the economies of scale

tended to favor the larger, better managed, and more estab

lished mills.

This pragmatic acceptance continued throughout the

1920s, as evidenced by letters from Virginia Handley. She

complimented him by writing "there is never a violation in

the Comer mills," and that if all mills operated like Avon

dale, the child labor inspectors would have nothing to

do.86 To be considered a cooperative leader pleased the

Avondale owner. He reacted by sending $150 to Ms. Handley

to support the Child Welfare Department.87 Handley gushed

that "you can not know how genuinely we appreciate this

contribution."86

Comer staunchly defended the child labor inspections

against detractors in the cotton industry. He knew that

those inspectors helped Avondale by preventing other cotton

86 Handley to Comer, 22 Jan. 1926, Comer papers, 25, and Comer's reply of 28 Jan. 1926 is in the same place.

87 Comer to Handley, 5 Feb. 1926.

88 Handley to Comer, 8 Feb. 1926, Comer papers, 25.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 88

mills from employing large numbers of underage children at

cheaper wages. He also genuinely believed that children

deserved at least a chance at a minimal education. Be

sides, the inspections were hardly antagonistic, and pro

vided good public relations as long as cotton mills stayed

within the law.

The position of the Alabama cotton manufacturer can

most easily be seen in correspondence with Scott Roberts,

president of A1CMA, and with Mrs. A.M. Tunstall, acting

director, Alabama Child Welfare Department, in 1926. Rob

erts complained to Comer that stopping the inspections

would "save the State a lot of money" and that "these child

labor people . . . might admit the mills are capable of

observing the law without espionage." 69

Comer disagreed with Roberts. In 1927 he cheered the

appointment of Mrs. Tunstall to the position of director of

the Child Welfare Department. She previously was acting

director. As Comer put it, "the friends of Child Welfare

all over the State are delighted to know you . . . are

taking charge of this Department again." 90 Early the next

year Comer relayed his support in saying that "we want 1928

to be a perfect record in fact, because certainly our in-

89 Roberts, Anniston, Ala., to Comer, 25 Sept. 1926, Comer papers, 27.

90 Comer to Tunstall, 11 Jan. 1927, Comer papers, 36.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 89

tentions are that way."91 In 1929 he added that "if you

have any program looking toward improvement . . . you can

count on all the assistance within my power."92

The Alabama businessman demonstrated his confidence

in the friendliness of the Child Labor Department in the

1929 correspondence with Mr. Sevier, the president of the

Associated Industries of Alabama (AIA). Sevier wrote to

Comer to complain that labor "rejoiced" in the appointment

of the new Chief Child Labor Inspector, Miss Ruth Scan-

drett. Comer replied that "being a southerner as she is,

and reporting directly to Mrs. Tunstall, I feel we have

nothing to fear as to her cooperation with Union Labor."93

His opinion proved correct, as Scandrett wrote to the

superintendent of one of his mills in 1930 to "thank you

for your help and cooperation and to congratulate you on

the good condition of your mill." 94 Only two weeks earli

er the cotton mill executive wrote Mrs. Tunstall that her

91 Comer to Tunstall, 5 Jan. 1928, Comer papers, 43.

92 Comer to Tunstall, 30 Dec. 1929, Comer papers, 52B. See also Comer to Tunstall and Tunstall reply of 2 Jan. and 10 Jan. 1930, respectively in the Comer papers, 62.

93 Sevier, Birmingham, Ala., to Comer, 5 Dec. 1929, and the quote comes from an undated Comer reply. Both letters are in the Comer papers, 52A.

94 Scandrett, Montgomery, Ala., to Carl Mangum, Super intendent, Avondale Mills, Birmingham, Ala., 2 May 1930, Comer papers, 6IB.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 90

speech to the foremen of the Avondale Mills plant in Bir

mingham:

brought us to the full realization of the necessity of working with our hearts and souls toward the State program rather than accepting it more or less in a casual way.95

Comer was never casual about the integrity of Avon

dale Mills and its reputation as a law-abiding organiza

tion. When Malline Burns wrote a paper at Birmingham-Sout

hern for her sociology class in 1930. In that paper Burns

argued that at Avondale some girls worked before they

reached the age of fourteen. Comer disagreed. He wrote to

her and stated that Alabama law prohibited work before the

age of fourteen. He noted that one girl (Anna Durbin) was

seventeen or eighteen, not thirteen, as Burns suggested in

her paper, and requested that Burns verify this fact inde

pendently.96

Further, he noted that children between fourteen and

sixteen worked five hours and attended school three hours

every day at Avondale, and did not work eight hours per day

as Burns stated. Comer concluded graciously, if somewhat

self-servingly, by saying that he liked Burns concern for

95 Comer to Tunstall, 15 Apr. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

96 Comer to Burns, 13 Apr. 1930, Comer papers, 56.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 91

the welfare of the girls, and that those girls were "glad

to have you and appreciate your coming."97

The efforts of the Child Welfare Department (CWD) and

the Alabama cotton manufacturer continued. In the 1931

session of the Alabama Legislature, the CWD proposed legis

lation to strengthen the educational requirement for chil

dren and to provide certificates for out of school work, so

that children between the ages of 14 and 16 could work only

four hours per day. Representative Wallace introduced the

bill, which was defeated in subcommittee. 98 Eventually

the Child Labor Law was amended so that children under

fourteen were not allowed to work in the mills at all, and

those between fourteen and sixteen worked only after at-

taining a sixth grade certificate. 99

Of course no matter what laws were enacted, viola

tions existed. A textile worker at the W. B. Davis Hosiery

Mill recalled that as late as the 1930s when "the child

labor inspector would come, why the word was flashed and

97 Ibid.

98 Ruth Scandrett to Comer, 2 and 8 May 1931, and Com er reply, 11 May 1931, in the Comer papers, 65. Comer's letter of 29 Apr. 1931, containing suggestions for addi tions to regulation of hours, is not present.

99 Comer speech, "Child Labor in the South," Comer papers, 132. For more on the child labor statute, see the Acts of Alabama, 1931, #356, 412-414.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 92

they [the children] got in yarn boxes and hid until he

left."100

A little later in the year Comer spoke out on child

labor at the Institute of Public Affairs held at the Uni

versity of Virginia. He went at the request of Courtenay

Dinwiddie, the general secretary of the National Child

Labor Committee of New York. Dinwiddie invited Comer for

two reasons. First, Dinwiddie stated that "I have heard

much through Mrs. Tunstall and others of your fine and

progressive attitude on the subject of child labor."101

Second, Dinwiddie requested that Comer "describe the excel

lent results which have come from the sort of team work

that has existed between the manufacturers and Mrs. Tun-

stall's Department in Alabama." 102

On 8 July 1931 Comer addressed the Institute on the

subject of "Child Labor in the South." His speech touched

on several areas. He first emphasized the close coopera

tion between the cotton textile manufacturers and the Child

Welfare Department in Alabama. He particularly stressed a

meeting in Birmingham between Mrs. Tunstall and several

100 J. B. Green interviewed by Michael Brownfield, 6 Apr. 1977, at Fort Payne, Ala., in the oral histories at the Special Collections at Samford University.

101 Dinwiddie to Comer, 13 May 1931, Comer papers, 66.

102 Ibid.. ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 93

cotton mill owners. In that meeting Tunstall stressed that

the cotton mill owners must take responsibility for pre

venting abuses of the child labor law. Faulty record keep

ing by the foremen, which most often resulted in abuses,

was not to be tolerated.103

The Alabama Progressive also stressed that child

labor laws were enacted to guarantee the right of children

to an education, and to protect children from dangerous and

stressful work at too early an age. Communities needed to

protect their children, and think of the long term benefit,

not the short term gain. Comer happily reported several

"success" stories of children and families helped due to

the child labor statutes in Alabama and due to the quality

of child labor inspectors. He also reported with pleasure

that Mrs. Tunstall and those working in the Child Welfare

Department considered individual children as their constit-

uency.104

Most happily, the Alabama textile executive quoted in

his speech from the 1930 annual report of the Child Welfare

Department that praised the cooperation of the cotton mills

in enforcing the child labor statutes. He then pointed out

10 Comer speech, "Child Labor in the South," Comer papers, 132. The entire speech may also be found in The Avondale Sun, 18 July 1931.

1 0 4 Ibid. T U • J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 94

that Avondale Mills in Birmingham went beyond the statutory

requirement by having children work four and a half hours

and attend school three to four hours per day. He quoted

the paper that Malline Burns wrote regarding the extracur

ricular activities given children at Avondale, such as

basketball, cooking, band lessons, sewing lessons, and

others. Comer also gladly revealed that the mill school

operated by Avondale in Pell City graded the highest of any

school in St. Clair county. This occurred because Avondale

supplemented the salaries of the teachers, built the school

houses, and guaranteed a nine month term. The St. Clair

Board of Education paid the salaries of the teachers for

seven months.105

The Alabama native then turned his attention to ask

ing a few questions. In asking these question he consid

ered the causes of child welfare. He asked why children

worked when grown men and women remained idle? Why are the

wages of two working parents insufficient to feed, clothe,

and house a family? Comer answered that "we know that

there is a wrong social condition behind it all, and we

must not rest until it is determined and righted."106

1 0 5 Ibid. Tl_ ■ J

1 0 5 Ibid. Tl_ • J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 95

As a textile man he then attempted to shift the blame

away from the mill owner. Is it the case that mill owners

are above average in selfishness, or is it the case that

the "textile operator furnishes work to a boy or girl be

cause he has a job that a boy or girl can do, and because

there is a boy or girl who wishes and needs the job." 107

Comer wondered if vocational training, rather than simply

employment at so tender an age, would not be preferable.

That way the child could help the family budget, but get

launched on a career, not a dead-end job. Comer also fo

cused on the fact that child labor statutes ignored the

labor of the children of farmers. He closed his speech by

suggesting that some way needed to be found to educate

those farm children too.108

By 1934 Comer supported a national amendment to elim

inate child labor. As he wrote to H. C. Nixon, then at

Tulane University, "I cannot see the argument of those

people who are opposed to giving Congress the right to

handle this question in a National way." 109 As late as

1937 individuals solicited articles from him on the issue

1 ° 7 Ibid.t I • J

108 Ibid. . ,

109 Comer to Nixon, New Orleans, La., 19 May 1934, Com er papers, 126. Comer also mentioned that Dinwiddie of the NCLC used Comer's name "in the interest of the Child Labor amendment."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 96

of child labor. Anita Van de Voort, training consultant

for the Alabama Department of Public Welfare, requested an

article from Comer. She complimented him by saying that

"no other industrial leader in the South has given the

support you have given to this question."110

Another issue faced the nation and the South in the

1920s. Prohibition enjoyed wide-spread success as an idea

in the South in the early twentieth century. In the South,

as Dewey Grantham notes, prohibition combined several dif

ferent forces, including rural suspicion of city life,

evangelical puritanism, humanitarian concerns of social

justice reformers, purification of the political process,

social control of the workers and blacks, and most impor

tantly to Comer, the identification of liquor traffic with

corporate greed and special interest needs.111

II Van de Voort to Comer, 1 July 1937. Comer po litely refused the offer in a letter written 7 July 1937. This led Van de Voort on 12 July to request extracts from Comer's 1931 speech that appeared in the 16 July 1931 Southern Textile Bulletin. Comer agreed on 13 July "for you to use anything you can find that I have said." All are in the Comer papers, 128.

III Dewey W. Grantham, Southern Progressivism: The Rec onciliation of Progress and Tradition (Knoxville: The Uni versity of Tennessee Press, 1983), 160-162. Billington also notes the concurrence of southern Progressives and conservatives in supporting Prohibition in The Political South in the Twentieth Century (New York: Charles Scrib ner's Sons, 1975), 9. A brief discussion of Prohibition in the 1870s and 1880s may be found in C. Vann Woodward, Ori gins, 171-173.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 97

Comer favored prohibition, and missed no opportunity

to support prohibition in the Avondale Mills. All of these

efforts reflected prohibition as a type of Progressive

social control. In April of 1925 the Avondale Sun pub

lished a story on page one entitled "There Is Money in It."

The article justified keeping prohibition despite the fact

that people made money breaking the Volstead Act. 112 In

July that same newspaper argued that prohibition meant that

workers owned cars, savings increased, and production in

creased. The article also touched on the myth of prosperi

ty by arguing that under prohibition an increased number of

workers achieved the status of capitalists, who were "con

trolling the country."113

112 The Avondale Sun, 24 Apr. 1925.

113 The Avondale Sun, "Prohibition and Home Building," 10 July 1925. No evidence was presented to support the claim that working men increasingly became owning men due to Prohibition. See the Avondale Sun, at that time a week ly, in 1925 for numerous articles on Prohibition, such as 24 July, which contained an article entitled "Truth, Tem perance, Economics, and Morals," 28 Aug. which printed "American Presidents on Prohibition," 4 Sept. for "Prohibi tion Justified," 6 Nov. for "Bootlegging Abroad," 13 Nov. for "Americans a Non-Drinking Sober People," and 20 and 27 Nov. for a serial article entitled, "Slanderers of Prohibi tion Refuted." Additional articles were published through out the 1920s and early 1930s. See, for example, The Avondale Sun for 1928. Almost half of the issues from September through December contain an article supporting Prohibition. Most of these articles were lengthy, occupying at least one-eighth of the page or more.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 98

In August of 1925 Donald ordered 200 pamphlets from

the Manufacturers Record that supported prohibition.114

For his prohibition efforts, Gov. Brandon named Donald as a

delegate in 1925 to the Anti-Saloon league Convention in

Chicago at the request of J. Bibb Mills. Comer wanted to

attend this meeting of the most determined prohibitionists,

but could not. 115

Donald summed up the connection he saw between anti-

prohibition, labor, and corporations in a 1926 letter to

personal friend H. Dudley Warner of New York:

I think all of us will agree that selfish corporate interests linked with whiskey and then added to that Union Labor can come near controlling the political situation in any section. It is seldom though that you find these three interests linked together.11

Here Comer clearly delineates a Progressive aspect of

prohibition to control selfish corporate interests, who

wanted to gain money and power any way possible, no matter

what the social and economic cost to others. He also rhe

114 Comer to John Cody, Manufacturers Record, Balti more, Mary., 8 Aug. 1925, Comer papers, 19.

115 J. Bibb Mills, Supt., Anti-Saloon League (ASL) of Birmingham, to Comer, 16 Oct. 1925. Mills became superin tendent of the ASL in 1922, upon the retirement of Brooks Lawrence. Mills remained in that position until 1938, when the organization disbanded. See Sellers, The Prohibition Movement in Alabama, 1702-1943 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943), 193, for more on this.

116 Comer to Warner, New York, New York, 14 Jan. 1926, Comer papers, 28

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 99

torically links unions with those selfish corporate inter

ests who seek to drain both the "honest businessman" and

"honest worker" of his profits and wages, respectively, for

their own gain. Comer thus paints himself on the side of

"good," while painting both large corporations and union

labor as "evil."

By implication both large corporations and union

labor cared nothing about the worker. Comer clearly be

lieved that both only wanted the workers' money. Comer

also linked himself with the honest, sober, anti-union

worker in an "us" versus "them" attitude.

By 1928 the growth of organized crime and the rampant

disobedience of the prohibition law caused Comer to revise

his opinions somewhat. In September he wrote Scott Roberts

that the government ought not to "lend its approval to a

traffic which we all, I think, will admit is evil." 117

Comer suggested instead that "the best way to do would be

to let every fellow make his own liquor in his own home for

his own consumption, but let nobody traffic or trade in

it."118 Reality tempered idealism, and unlike some

prohibitionists, compromise seemed like a good idea to

117 Comer to Scott Roberts, 26 Sept. 1928, Comer pa pers, 42.

118 Ibid. See also Comer to Birmingham Post, 18 Apr. 1930, Comer papers, 55.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 100

Comer. As he put it in March of 1929, "although I am a

Methodist and a prohibitionist, I am not of the opinion

that our present method of dealing with the liquor problem

is the best and only way." 119

The Alabama cotton manufacturer continued, however,

by saying that officials must enforce prohibition.120 He

summarized his position clearly in writing to the Birming

ham Post in 1930:

I see no reason for any more effort in the enforcement of the Volstead Law than any other law .... I am not trying to be critical of the man who wants to drink wine, beer, orwhiskey . . . I am opposed . . . to a law which will legalize somebody to make it and sell it to him.121

The citizens of Alabama, however, voiced their dis

pleasure with prohibition from 1931 forward. In that year

the Legislature passed an act allowing circuit judges to

suspend the sentences of individuals convicted under the

prohibition laws, and place them under probation. In 1932

Alabama passed a law allowing the brewing of near beer.

Both of those laws were passed over the veto of Governor B.

119 Comer to B.U.L. Conner, of the Birmingham Post, 6 Mar. 1929, Comer papers, 46. In 1929 Comer gave $50 to the Anti-Saloon League of Alabama. See J. Bibb Mills to Comer, 13 Dec. 1928 and Comer reply, 2 Apr. 1929, Comer papers, 51.

120 Ibid. . ,

121 Comer to Post, 18 Apr. 1935, Comer papers, 55.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 101 122 M. Miller, who "regretted" their passage. In 1933 Ala

bama voters repealed the Eighteenth Amendment by a large

majority, despite Governor Miller's efforts. 123

In 1934, however, Alabama elected Bibb Graves as

Governor over two avowedly anti-prohibition candidates,

Frank M. Dixon of Birmingham, and Judge Leon C. McCord, the

head of the Safe and Sane League of Alabama.124 Graves

was elected on a local option platform, and he kept his

word., 125

While the wets wanted a law without a referendum, the

drys wanted no law and no referendum. The referendum oc

curred in 1935. The Alabama Temperance Alliance (ATA)

organized in December of 1934 to oppose repeal at Comer's

home church, First Methodist of Birmingham. Harry Denman,

122 Owen Dees, "A General Review of the Miller Adminis tration," (M.A. thesis, API, 1936), 92, 98, and 109-110. Dees also discusses how Miller ended the rule of the Ku Klux Klan in Alabama state government during his 1930 cam paign on 11-18.

123 Sellers, Prohibition Movement, 232; and Dees, "Mil ler Administration," 98-107.

124 Sellers, Prohibition Movement, 233.

125 The vote in the 1 May 1934 primary was: Dixon - 97,508, Graves - 132,462, and McCord - 75,208. The vote in the runoff was Dixon - 135,309, and Graves - 157,140, Ala bama Official and Statistical Register (Montgomery: ADAH, 1935), 574-575. Graves made the specific recommendation to the Legis lature in his first message to the legislature. See the House Journal, I (1935), 29-30.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 102

business manager of First Methodist, and long-time Comer

family friend, became the first president. The advocates

of repeal organized in January of 1935 under the name of

The League for Prohibition Repeal. J. Sanford Mullins of

Alexander City, a long-time opponent of prohibition, led

the fight for repeal.126

Comer attended temperance meetings, gave money to the

ATA, and allowed that organization to stay rent free in the

Comer Building initially and then at a greatly reduced

rate. 127 Because of those efforts, the ATA listed him as

a "cooperating force" on its stationery. 128

Friends complimented his approach in opposing the

ending of prohibition in Alabama in early 1935. Brame

Hood, president of the Security Mortgage & Bond Company of

Montgomery, wrote that "your position is so dignified and

129 is pitched on such a high level."

126 Sellers, Prohibition Movement, 234-235, and on 237 mentions that the organization later changed its name to the Alabama League for Prohibition Modification. See also Dees, "Miller Administration," 104-105.

127 See H. L. Anderton to Comer, 8 Jan. and 6 Mar. 1935, and W. Earl Hotalen, Executive Secretary, ATA, to Comer, 18 Jan. 1938, Comer papers, 125.

128 Harry Denman, president, Alabama Temperance Alli ance, to Comer, ? Mar. 1935, Comer papers, 125.

129 Hood to Comer, 13 Feb. 1935, Comer papers, 125. Hood wrote to compliment Comer's challenge to the whiskey makers and advertisers in a February 13 editorial in the Birmingham Aqe-Herald.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 103

His reply to Hood's letter contained the essence of

his prohibition approach. While the Birmingham resident

neither openly opposed or supported a person's right to

consume alcohol, he wanted all the profit motive removed

from making alcohol. He thus used capitalism in an attempt

to defeat the liquor makers. He wanted:

. . . no advertising of alcohol as a beverage permitted in any public newspaper, magazine or display board. I believe if this traffic could be absolutely separated from any profit in any way, advertising, making or distributing, that the enthusiasms and clamor would be very different., . j- r- . 130

In that same month, the Alabama textile man wrote

that he opposed the ending of prohibition in Alabama. He

requested time and money to fund the dry side. He noted

the short length of the campaign, urged no "personal ani

mosity and bitterness," and mentioned that friends differed

on this issue.131 Comer appealed to a sense of fairness,

and argued that money raised for education by the selling

of alcohol was "inconsistent." 132 Stirringly, Comer said:

I will always vote against legalizing for dollars, the making and selling of beverages that intoxicate and brutalize. I shall always vote against the state mak ing this traffic respectable by license, and I am per

130 Comer to Hood, 15 Feb. 1935, Comer papers, 125.

131 Comer to Malone, 5 Feb. 1935, Comer papers, 126.

132 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 104

fectly willing to bear my share of any additional taxes that may come because of this position.13

Nor did the son of B. B. Comer stop there. He wrote

former Governor B. M. Miller "to tell you how much I appre

ciate the fact that you are giving your time now on the

stump in the interest of the continuation of our dry

laws. "134

On February 26, the election occurred. The dry fac-

tion won, and 52 out of 67 counties voted dry. 135 Eventu

ally, due to extreme shortfalls in revenue for education

and public health, the voters of each county voted on al

lowing the sale of liquor in its borders through a state

store system beginning in 1937 .136 Twenty-four counties

repealed prohibition on 10 March 1937 .137

The Alabama businessman's efforts for prohibition

continued throughout the 1930s. He continued to support

1 3 3 Ibid. TV. ■ J

134 Comer to B. M. Miller, Camden Ala., 5 Feb. 1935, Comer papers, 126. Comer wrote in reply to 17 Jan. letter unfortunately not in the Comer papers. Sellers, Prohibi tion Movement, reveals on 235 and 241 that Miller also sent a message to the Legislature just before leaving office, in which he urged the retention of prohibition laws and then stumped the state opposing liquor sales.

135 Official and Statistical Register, 1935, 763-764

136 The legislative history of this bill is in Sellers, Prohibition Movement, 245-253, and the provisions of the bill are on 253-254.

137 Sellers, Prohibition Movement, 258.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 105

the Anti-Saloon League, the ATA, and the Alabama Women's

Christian Temperance Union (AWCTU). 138 In June of 1937

the ATA reorganized itself somewhat to function as a long

time force to promote temperance, rather than as an anti-

repeal group. At that time, and with Comer's support, W.

Earl Hotalen, evangelist of the North Alabama Conference of

the Methodist Church, became its director. 139

The Progressivism of the Alabama cotton manufacturer

is revealed strongly in the reform movements to fund educa

tion, to end child labor, and to keep prohibition. Comer's

flexibility and openness to new ideas and new methods be

comes apparent also. The next chapter discusses how

Comer's Progressivism and New South ideology affected his

views on the cotton industry in the 1920s, particularly in

the areas of growing and manufacturing cotton.

138 Consult J. Bibb Mills, supt., Anti-Saloon League, to Comer 14 Sept. 1936, where Mills described Comer as "the strongest influence for the dry side, next to Mrs. Graves." See also Ray Jewell, AWCTU, to Comer, 11 Sept. 1939, where Comer donated $15 ($5 in June, and $10 in Sept.), Comer papers, boxes 126 and 127 respectively.

139 Seller, 263; and see also Comer to D.A. Parker, Sylacauga, 8 Oct. 1937, where Comer repeated his anti-prof it argument regarding the inappropriateness of the state engaging in the liquor business; Comer to ATA, 23 Feb. 1939, where Comer sent $15; in the Comer papers, 129.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER THREE

COMER AND SOUTHERN COTTON, 1924-1932

Comer's hopes for a changed economy depended upon

changing southern dependence on row crop agriculture, par

ticularly cotton. The South was a rural region during the

1920s and 1930s, and the typical southerner farmed or lived

on a farm. This did not mean that the forces of moderniza

tion left the South alone. That region became increasingly

tied into the world economy, resulting in increased poverty

for southerners.1

The worst aspect was that the South was tied into the

cash nexus. The South sold cotton and other raw or semi

manufactured products at world prices depressed by overpro

duction, and bought manufactured goods in a protected envi

ronment .

Those losses were worsened by the agricultural de

pression that devastated the South from the end of World

War I to the beginning of World War II. Eventually the

1 Let me first note that this chapter does not discuss Comer's participation in or support of New Deal programs. That discussion occurs later. The focus of this chapter is on cotton, including the growing of cotton and the manufac turing of cotton. Jack Temple Kirby, Rural Worlds Lost; The American South, 1920-1960 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987), xiv.

106

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 107

nomic disaster. The Depression resulted in the election of

Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932. Federal

intervention into the economy quickly followed.

Mixed results among southern farmers occurred ini

tially. The percentage of sharecroppers continued to ac

celerate into the middle of the 1930s. By 1935 nearly half

of all white farmers and over two-thirds of all black farm

ers were tenants in the South.2

Donald Comer encouraged changes to help the depressed

agricultural sector of the South. During the 1920s and

1930s the cotton manufacturer consistently attacked the

South's dependency on cotton. As early as 1921 he exhorted

So many more years have you [farmers] found an oversup ply of cotton will not bring a price sufficient to pay for even the meagerest quantity of those other necessi ties which you neglected to grow that you might surfeit a world with cotton.

He also spoke out in 1930 in favor of national sup

port for cotton farmers. Comer indicated that the southern

cotton farmer sent his money to the North. In language

reminiscent of Henry W. Grady, he said, "His baby rattle,

2 Tindall, Emergence, 285-317, 409-414, and 650-686.

3 Comer, speech to the American Cotton Association, Birmingham, Ala., 1921, Comer papers, 61. Another strong statement on overdependency may be found in the letter of Comer to P. O. Davis, Alabama Polytechnic Institute (API), 13 July 1936, Comer papers, 126.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 108

his shroud . . . his hoe, mower, and harvester,"4 all come

from the North. In the same speech Comer urged paying

higher prices for American cotton, saying "the more dollars

for his [the farmer's] cotton, the better customer [he will

be] for you [northern industrialists]."5

To help southerners achieve that better price for

their cotton, the Avondale Mills owner urged cotton farmers

to use better cotton seed. As a cotton textile manufactur

er, Comer knew that longer staple, whiter, and silkier

cotton was easier to gin and wore longer than short staple

cotton. For the purpose of improving cotton seed, Comer

communicated with David R. Coker, one of the more renowned

producers of improved seed for cotton and other crops.

To publicize the presence of improved seed, in 1928

Comer visited Coker at Coker's Pedigreed Seed Company,

located in Hartsville, South Carolina. After that pilgrim

age Comer proclaimed Coker "the outstanding citizen of

South Carolina"6 because of his work improving cotton

seed. Both men believed that "plant breeding, if properly

4 Comer speech at the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers (NACM) annual meeting, Boston, Mass., 1 May 1930, Comer Papers, 126.

5 Ibid.

6 Comer to David R. Coker, Hartsville, S.C., 27 Aug. 1928, Comer papers, 38C. See also comer to John Pierson, Progressive Farmer, Birmingham, Ala., 3 Feb. 1926, Comer papers, 22.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 109

done, is one of the principal factors for agricultural

profits."7

The problem of poor cotton proved especially vexa

tious to the Alabama businessman. After all, if Alabama

farmers raised long staple cotton, both the farmers and the

cotton manufacturers of the state would prosper. Comer

made this point quite clear in a 1930 letter to John Snod

grass, president of the Snodgrass Cotton Company of Scotts-

boro, Alabama. In that letter he forcefully stated that

"something has got to be done to improve the staple of

Alabama cotton."8

The Alabama textile executive disliked buying cotton

from other states. The poor quality of Alabama cotton

meant that Avondale and other Alabama cotton mills had to

pay high freight charges. In fact, cotton grown in Arkan

sas, Texas, and Oklahoma was shipped to New England or

Europe as cheaply as to Alabama. This eliminated much of

7 David R. Coker to Comer, 29 Aug. 1928, Comer papers, 38C.

8 Comer to John Snodgrass, Scottsboro, Ala., 15 Mar. 1930, Comer papers, 61B. The letter was printed in a local Scottsboro newspaper, the Progressive Age, n.d., by Snod grass, who also worked very hard to improve the cotton staple. Snodgrass also was a cotton buyer and shipper.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 110

the competitive advantage Alabama cotton mills enjoyed of

being located amidst the cotton crop.9

Snodgrass congratulated Comer on supporting improved

cotton by having Avondale Mills buy cotton seed for farmers

in the Stevenson area. Those purchases allowed cotton to

be grown of at least 7/8" staple. Edward A. O'Neal, presi

dent of the American Farm Bureau Federation (AFBF), echoed

those congratulatory sentiments in October of 1930.10

That same month Comer wrote Alabama Governor-elect B.

M. Miller urging him to speak out in favor of farmers pur

chasing better cotton seed and growing longer staple cot

ton. Because the state's cotton was mainly shorter than

7/8" staple, "Alabama cotton has a black eye among all

cotton spinners all over the country."11 He continued

that cotton shorter than 7/8" sold for $5.00 to $10.00 less

9 Ibid, and see also the Avondale Sun, 11 Jan. 1930, in which J. Craig Smith stated that Avondale Mills spent over $10,000 in unnecessary shipping costs because the quality of cotton in Alabama and Georgia was so poor.

10 On the Stevenson project, see Snodgrass to Comer, 20 Mar. 1930, 61B. Snodgrass wrote a long letter that the Progressive Age published on 20 Mar. 1930, entitled "To the Farmers of Jackson County." In that letter Snodgrass de tailed the economic reasons for using better seed to grow longer staple cotton. O'Neal to Comer, 25 Oct. 1930, Comer papers, 61. In this case, Comer supported a program to improve cotton seed in Alabama so that 1" or longer staple cotton would be grown.

11 Comer to Miller, Camden, Ala., 15 Oct. 1930, Comer papers, 70.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. Ill

than cotton of 7/8" or greater per bale. This led him to

suggest that the state prison farms grow cotton using pedi

greed cotton seed selected by Auburn. Further, Comer urged

that the prison farms exchange new cotton seed to farmers

for their old seed on a pound for pound basis. Eventually

only new seed would remain, and the old seed could be

ground into cotton seed oil.12 Miller agreed and Comer

congratulated him.13

Improved seed promised to help in other areas as

well. As seen in a preceding chapter, the Alabama cotton

manufacturer believed industrialization in the South was an

economic necessity. He also realized that prosperity for

the nation and for the South could not last "that does not

have its beginning in agriculture."14 The Alabamian tied

these threads together in an article written in 1931 enti

tled "Improved Cotton Seed." In that article he noted that

the Department of Agriculture considered Alabama cotton the

lowest grade of cotton in the country. Improving cotton in

12 Ibid.

13 Comer to Miller, 20 Oct. 1930, Comer papers, 70. Unfortunately, though the prison farms used pedigreed seed most of the time, a comprehensive program such as Comer suggested never was launched.

14 Comer to Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agricul ture, Washington, D.C., 12 Oct. 1936, Comer papers, 126. Also consult Comer to Robert W. Philip, editor of Cotton, Atlanta, Ga., 23 June 1936, Comer papers, 126.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 112

Alabama would increase profits to farmers and would stem

any invasion of raw foreign cotton. Comer then went on to

say that the prosperity of Alabama cotton farmers depended

upon the growing of superior cotton in less quantity, and

the increased use of agricultural diversification and sci

entific farming methods. Farmers needed to use more fer

tilizer, develop mechanization, and increase crop rota-

tion., . 15

Also during that time the Alabama textile manufactur

er participated in the long staple cotton campaign spon

sored by Thad Holt of the Alabama Industrial Development

Board (AIDB). The idea was to encourage 1" or longer sta

ple cotton to be grown in Alabama. Dr. Bradford Knapp and

API cooperated in this activity as well.16

Diversification became the agricultural battle cry of

the Alabama businessman. Too much cotton meant that there

is "too little of something else."17 Comer particularly

wanted farmers to concentrate on self-sufficiency in food

production. More food production meant farmers needed less

ready cash, and minimized debt. He urged every farm family

to raise its own food, feed, and meat. If that happened,

15 Comer, "Improved Cotton Seed," publication not known, 1931, Comer papers, 132.

16 Thad Holt to Comer, 28 Apr. 1931, Comer papers, 63.

17 Comer, "Improved Cotton Seed."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 113

then improved cotton seed, reduced cotton acreage, and

increased diversification would mean economic independence

for many farmers. 18 As Comer put it, farmers "can live

without us, but we can not live without them."19 In a

speech to the AFBF in New Orleans in 1938, Comer suggested

that "for a hundred years the South has been pursuing a

farm policy that has left our land and our people the poor-

est in our country." 20 It behooved everyone to see that

farmers prospered.

The Barbour County native practiced what he preached.

He diversified the family farm near Hawkinsville, Barbour

County, Alabama. In the early 1920s he stocked the family

pond with perch twice. In the 1930s he planted at least

15,000 pine seedlings on his acreage. Throughout the 1920s

and 1930s he experimented with different crops. Besides

the pine seedlings, Comer grew corn, peas, potatoes, pea

nuts, velvet beans, and muscadines, and raised pigs, chick

18 Ibid. The problem of farmers not providing them selves enough food was very real, particularly among share croppers and tenants. See Gilbert Fite, Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980 (Lexington, Ky.: The University Press of Kentucky, 1984), 116-117.

19 Ibid. Tl- ■ J

20 Comer, speech to the American Farm Bureau Federa tion (AFBF), 12 Dec. 1938, as written in the Congressional Record, 76th Cong., 1st Sess., Appendix, 19 Jan. 1938, 244- 247.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 114

en, and cattle. Agricultural diversification proved useful

among the mill villages also.21

Comer also attempted to destroy some agricultural

myths through the Avondale Sun. In a 12 July 1930 article,

for example, the company paper reported that boll weevils

stay near cotton plants in the winter, not in the woods.

Burning the woods, therefore, does not harm the weevils,

but "does a great deal of mischief" to conservation of soil

and to the timber industry. He encouraged farmers to in

crease the growing of legumes and cover crops both winter

and summer, the raising of dairy and meat cattle, and

hogs.22 By 1939 he predicted to Birmingham Aqe-Herald

columnist John Temple Graves that southerners would be

"changing more and more into dairying and live stock farm

ing."23 The Alabama textile manufacturer again repeated

21 On the perch, see Comer to US Congressman George Huddleston, Washington, D.C., 15 Apr. 1924, Comer papers, 12. On the pine seedlings, see Comer to State Commission of Forestry, Livingston, Ala., 23 June 1937 and Feb. 1939, Comer papers, 128. The crops grown are discussed in Comer to Katie Dennard, housekeeper, Hawkinsville, Ala., 1 Sept. 1936, Comer papers, 125. there are several letters in this file. Also consult Comer to F. C. Clapp, County Agent, Cooperative Extension Service, Clayton, Ala., 18 Jan. 1939, Comer papers, 129.

22 Ibid.,

23 Comer to John Temple Graves, Birmingham, Ala., 8 Dec. 1939. Found in the Comer papers, 129.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 115

the need for southerners to grow more peanuts, hogs, pas

ture grasses, and pine trees instead of cotton.24

This change in focus away from cotton meant that the

South could resist being tied into the world economy at the

lower end. The southern concentration on cotton tied that

section's fortunes to the world price of cotton. The South

suffered because of a surfeit of cotton. The periodic

"cotton crises" illuminated the problem well. During those

times of turmoil, pleas were made to reduce cotton acreage.

Comer got involved in the 1930 effort himself. This was

one year before the devastating 1931 cotton crisis.25

During the cotton crisis of 1931, Comer urged reduc

tion strongly again. His brother, B. B. Comer, Jr., wrote

to Governor B. M. Miller that Donald:

feels that it is of the utmost importance that some concerted effort be made by all of the cotton states to fit cotton production to consumption. He had hoped that the Federal Government would interest itself in a plan that would look towards securing the cooperation not only from the South but also from Egyjot, India, China and other cotton growing countries.

24 Ibid.-r .

25 Gov. Bibb Graves to Comer, 27 Sept. 1930, Gov. Graves administrative files, cotton acreage control, ADAH. In that letter Graves asked Comer to take part in the ef fort to voluntarily reduce cotton acreage and stabilize the price of cotton.

25 B. B. Comer, Jr., to Governor B. M. Miller, Mont gomery, Ala., 6 Nov. 1931, in the Governor's administrative files, cotton acreage control file, 1931, ADAH.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 116

In addition, Donald spoke to the Birmingham Rotary

Club in early June of 1931 and wrote to the Birmingham Post

and the Birmingham News about the same time regarding Na

tional Cotton Week. This was an attempt to sell cotton by

the bale to help cotton farmers directly.27 The Alabama

textile executive thus foresaw not only the Agricultural

Administration Act (AAA), but went well beyond most New

Southerners in taking a multilateral approach, rather than

a purely missionary, expansionist approach to international

relations.

The Alabama businessman in 1936 stated to Paul H.

Appleby that growing cotton "had a blighting effect on the

South itself because the world price of cotton had meant

starvation wages." 28 The increased use of competitive fi

bers, such as jute, sisal, paper, and others were having

their effect as well.29

Comer foresaw more than the AAA. He also foresaw the

TVA when he advocated the development of Muscle Shoals by

27 Consult Hill Ferguson, who at that time was the vice-president of The Jemison Company in Birmingham Ala., to Comer, 27 May 1931, Comer papers, 67; and Comer to Bir mingham Post, 5 June 1931, and to the Birmingham News, 6 June 1931, Comer papers, 64.

28 Comer to Paul H. Appleby, Dept, of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 18 Aug. 1936, Comer papers, 126.

29 Comer to R. J. Cheatham, Dept, of Agriculture, Washington, D.C., 28 Aug. 1936, Comer papers, 126.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 117 the government after the end of World War I.30 His pro

gressive fear of monopoly, his concern for farmers, partic

ularly cotton farmers, and his desire to see the South

industrialized as quickly as possible combined to lead him

to call for action. Comer first advocated the acceptance

of Henry Ford's bid. In 1923 he wrote Lamar Jeffers, the

Anniston Representative to the Congress, that "the delay

and obstacles that are being used to prevent this property

going into the hands of Mr. Ford are so far as I can see

absolutely without excuse."31

He wanted nitrates in the hands of cotton farmers as

quickly as possible, and hoped for industrial development

in Alabama as well. In the same letter he objected to Ala

bama Power owning the property by saying "the difference it

would be to Alabama to turn this [hydroelectric] power [and

nitrate plant] over to a man like Mr. Ford as compared with

a company like the Alabama Power Company can hardly be

measured, in our opinion."32

30 Muscle Shoals is located in northwestern Alabama on the Tennessee river at the foot of a thirty-eight mile long series of rapids. The towns of Florence, Sheffield, and Tuscumbia are located there.

31 Comer to Jeffers, 17 Dec. 1923, Comer papers, 6.

32 Ibid, and also consult Comer to A. H. Ledyard, Prattville, Ala., 21 May 1923, Comer papers, 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 118

Donald changed his opinion more toward government

operation and away from development by what he considered

enlightened business only after his father died in August

of 1927. The Alabama textile executive nonetheless wanted

to be kept informed of opposing views. In January of 1925

he wrote Frederick I. Thompson/ a friend and business part

ner then serving on the U.S. Shipping Board. Comer re

quested a copy of the Congressional Record containing the

debate on Muscle Shoals conducted by Senators Heflin, Mc-

Kellar, and others, regarding the Underwood bill. He want

ed to read McKellar's argument in detail opposing the

Underwood bill, though Donald himself favored Heflin's pro-

Underwood stance. He needed a copy because the Birmingham

Age-Herald ran only Heflin's speech.33

Donald then read the speech delivered by Lister Hill

on 27 January 1925. Hill, like Comer, initially favored

the Ford offer.34 In the speech of 1925, however, Hill

advocated sending the Underwood bill favoring American

Cyanamid to a conference committee rather than to the Mili

tary Affairs Committee. Hill aimed for quick consideration

33 Comer to Thompson, 16 Jan. 1925, Comer papers, 21.

34 "Speech of Hon. Lister Hill, 27 Jan. 1925," (Wash ington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1925), in the Comer papers, 18.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 119

and quick approval to get cheap fertilizer to farmers.35

He specifically warned the Congress to "never permit the

great enterprise to be diverted from its original purposes

and converted into a power project."36

Comer agreed. He wrote Hill in March of 1925 and

said "I agree with you absolutely on the proposition of

fertilizer for peace times and powder for war."37 But the

Barbour County native wanted to know more about hydroelec

tric power also, and raised the possibility of using Mus

cles Shoals as a testing ground, as "the public does not

know what hydroelectric power costs, nor do they know what

power generated by coal costs." 38 He added that he wanted

the public to know "the real facts"39 of those costs.

The latter aim, to establish a benchmark for hydro

electric costs, raised Comer's opposition to Alabama Power

taking over Muscle Shoals. In 1927 he wrote Lister Hill

that despite his general aversion to government ownership,

"to prevent Muscle Shoals from going into the hands of the

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid. He also reminded the Congress that over $150,000,000 had been spent on Muscle Shoals for defense.

37Comer to Hill, Montgomery, Ala., 4 Mar. 1925, Comer papers, 18. The actual letter sent to Hill may be found in the Hill papers.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 120

Alabama Power Co. group, then I would be for Government

operation. "40

Hill agreed. "As between Government operation and

the power companies, I will take Government operation."41

He added, however, that he believed the Coolidge adminis

tration, if forced to operate Muscle Shoals, would deliber

ately fail, and guarantee that the power companies would

control it, and never operate the fertilizer plants.42

With only two strong bids for the property in 1927,

one from American Cyanamid, and the other from Alabama

Power, Comer and Hill supported American Cyanamid's offer

to produce fertilizer. Comer wrote Hill that reading the

testimony of Representative Madden, "convinced" Comer to

support the Cyanamid bid, and added, "I hope that in the

coming Congress that the Cyanamid or something else as good

40 Comer to Hill, Montgomery, Ala., 9 Apr. 1927, Comer papers, 33. Consult Preston J. Hubbard, Origins of the TVA: The Muscle Shoals Controversy, 1919-1932 (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1961), 178-202; and Joseph S. Ransmeier, The Tennessee Valley Authority: A Case Study in the Economics of Multiple Purpose Planning (Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942), 52.

41 Hill to Comer, 11 Apr. 1927, Comer papers, 33. This letter is also in the Hill papers.

42 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 121

or better will still be available and acceptable to Con

gress . "43

Donald wrote no more on Muscle Shoals in 1927, at

least in part due to the illness and death of his father.

In March of 1928, however, Comer again wrote to his Con

gressmen. He aimed primarily at Senator Hugo L. Black and

at Representative Lister Hill, though he often sent copies

to other Congressmen.

The new leader of Avondale Mills clearly wanted two

items from Muscle Shoals: nitrates for farmers and hydro

electric power to be used as a benchmark. Regarding ni

trates, Comer wrote Hugo Black that "I am absolutely con

vinced that fertilizer could be manufactured at a great

saving to the farmer."44

He told Lister Hill that B. B. Comer believed that

the government ought to run Muscle Shoals for farmers just

as "the Government runs the Post Office, the Panama Canal .

. ." 45 Donald then added that farmers needed nitrates, as

43 Comer to Hill, 9 April 1927, Comer papers, 33. This letter is also in the Hill papers.

44 Comer to Black, 7 and 8 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 38B, with the quote from the 8 Mar. letter.

45 Comer to Hill, Washington, D.C., 27 Mar. 1928, Com er papers, 40. Donald added that B. B. "always felt that the solution of Muscle Shoals lay in some kind of a plan in cooperation with Senator Norris."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 122

"that is the most concentrated fertilizer we have."46 He

added that the other ingredients, such as phosphorus and

kainit, were easily available already. The farmer benefit-

ted from mixing his own fertilizer, because the proportions

came out better, and the farmer avoided all of the fill-

er.47

Regarding the power issue, Comer told Hugo Black that

he feared Muscle Shoals could not "escape falling into the

hands of the Power Companies,"48 due to their "tremendous

and far reaching" 49 influence, and their ability "to make

black look white."50 The Alabama textile executive's fear

of Alabama Power came from past experience. As he told

Black, "I cannot ever forget the effort that the Alabama

Power Co. made in Alabama to control our Public Service

Commission, nor the method that they employed to accomplish

their ends."51

4 6 TU'JIbxd.

4 7 Ibid. TV. • J

48 Comer to Black, 10 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 38B.

49 Ibid.

50 Ibid.

51 Ibid. That same month the Norris proposal passed the Senate by a vote of 43 to 35. It only passed, however, after Senator Hugo L. Black (the replacement from Alabama for Underwood), and other southern senators, got it amended to guarantee greater protection on the sale of power from (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 123

A few days later Black wrote Comer to thank him for

the letter of March 10, and noted the Senate had passed the

Norris Resolution to produce both hydroelectric power and

nitrates. The bill also provided that preference for sur

plus power be given to states, counties, and municipalities

over private companies. Black stated that either there

would be government operation of Muscle Shoals or no opera

tion at all.52

In the March 27 letter to Lister Hill, Comer worried

that "the longer the settlement of this matter is de

layed,"53 the more likely that Muscle Shoals would be sold

to "one of the big power companies to simply be one more

unit in their great list of plants."54 For that reason

Comer "hated" the fact earlier in 1928 that Senator J.

Thomas Heflin voted against the Walsh resolution.55

51( . . .continued) Muscle Shoals, so that private power companies would not use it all.

52 Black to Comer, 15 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 38B. That bill, somewhat amended, passed the House and Senate, but Coolidge pocket vetoed it. See Hubbard, Origins of the TVA, 226-234; and Owen, 13.

53 Ibid.

54 ibid.....

55 Comer to Black, 6 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 38B. Black, of course, strongly supported the Walsh Resolution. Though that plan was defeated, Black backed a successful amendment to at least make the FTC investigation made pub- (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 124

Comer believed Alabama Power the most likely candi

date to get Muscles Shoals. If that happened, "we will

never know what power costs and what it can be sold for and

distributed for."56 The Alabamian then threw his support

behind Norris, saying "I believe that Senator Norris is

sincere in not turning this great property over to the

power companies," and thus amenable to supporting "any

reasonable plan."57 A few days earlier, Comer wrote Frank

Morgan, a member of the Alabama Public Service Commission

(PSC) to state that before the Norris bill got amended to

protect the citizenry, he opposed it. Comer saw the amend

ed Norris bill, however, as "the best we can get."58

On March 30 the Alabama textile man wrote Lister Hill

again to emphasize the goals of nitrate production, so

important to cotton farmers, and Muscle Shoals as a yard

stick for hydroelectric costs. He wrote that "I believe

55( . . .continued) lie. Consult Hubbard, Origins of the TVA, 219-221; and Hamilton, Hugo Black, 160.

56 Ibid, and see also Comer to Black, 6 and 7 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 38B.

57 Ibid, and see also Comer to Black, 10 and 15 Mar. 1928. In March, Norris testified before the House regarding his proposal to emphasize the benefits from experimental research regarding the production of fertilizer. See Hub bard, Origins of the TVA, 221-224.

58Comer to Morgan, 21 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 41B.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 125

that it is the fear of that very thing that has made the

Power Company so anxious to prevent a government opera-

ion."59 Comer sent copies of this letter to Alabama Con

gressmen Edward B. Almon, William B. Oliver, Lamar Jeffers,

and Henry B. Steagall. Most responded positively. Stea-

gall voiced his "full accord," but stated that the Cyanamid

offer "is a thing of the past."60

The cotton manufacturer then added a third goal, one

consistent with his New South philosophy - the industrial

development of the Tennessee Valley area. Comer first

scoffed at those who argued the government ought not to be

in business.

The Government is already in business. They built the Panama Canal for the commerce of the country, and are running it. They are operating a Merchant Marine and by vote of Congress have continued. They run a Post Office Department, the Army and the Navy. 1

Comer then argued that communities like Sheffield and

Florence ought to be able to build a transmission line to

Muscle Shoals and resell the electricity at a profit, but

at a price high enough to help the government retire the

59 Comer to Hill, 30 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 40. Power Company here means Alabama Power Company. Comer sent two more short letters to Hill, both on 4 Apr. 1928, to emphasize the nitrate and power themes. The 30 Mar. letter may also be found in the Hill papers.

60 Steagall to Comer, 2 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 43.

61 Ibid, and see also Comer to Black, 10 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 38B, for an earlier exposition of this idea.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 126

debt. Further, "it would be a calamity for all the power

there [at Muscle Shoals] to be put on transmission lines

and carried to distant points."62

Hill quickly wrote back to say that "ever since I

have been in Congress I have fought to the utmost of my

ability against the power companies' getting their hands on

Muscle Shoals."63 In fact, he argued that the towns in

the Muscle Shoals area ought to get their full share of any

surplus power generated there. Further, "every kilowatt of

power at Muscle Shoals that is necessary to make the fer

tilizer there should be used for that purpose."64

In a letter sent only four days later, Hill thanked

Comer for his interest, and told him that the argument for

manufacturing nitrate instead of a complete fertilizer that

Comer made in his letter of 4 April, "is a most thoughtful

one and is emphasized in a way that I have never seen it

emphasized before."65 Hill also promised to do "every

thing I can to keep Muscle Shoals for the farmers and for

62 Ibid, and see Comer to Black, 10 Mar. 1928. Comer sent a copy of the letter to Hill to Representative George Huddleston as well, on 3 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 40.

63 Hill to Comer, 2 April 1928, Hill papers. This letter is also in the Comer papers.

64 Ibid, and he urged Comer to continue to write.

65 Hill to Comer, 6 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 40.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 127

the people and to prevent it from . . . [being used for]

selfish exploitation."66

On April 3rd, Comer responded to a speech made by

Hugo Black entitled, "Farmers Need Cheap Fertilizer More

Than Power."67 In that speech, Black "pleaded" for a

long-term commitment from the government to provide cheap

fertilizer to farmers, and government operation of Muscle

Shoals if necessary. 68 Comer agreed with Black, and hoped

that "if it results in Muscle Shoals being saved for the

farmer, I will certainly always think that your effort was

largely responsible."69

By the end of March, 1928, almost everyone knew that

government operation was the only way for farmers to get

inexpensive nitrates and to prevent the power companies

from swallowing Muscles Shoals. By then, only the Alabama

Power Company bid from the private sector remained.

Comer knew this as well. He wrote Edward A. O'Neal,

the president of the AFBF, and flatly stated that no viable

private bid for fertilizer operation at Muscle Shoals ex

isted. He wanted O'Neal to support government operation.

66 Ibid.. ,

67 Delivered on 5 and 6 Mar. 1928, see Congressional Record, 70th Cong., 1st Sess., 4088, 4189-4190.

68 Ibid.-r, .

69 Comer to Black, 3 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 38B.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 128

Comer indicated that he saw two gains. The first gain was

fertilizer production, and the second was a yardstick to

know what it costs to generate hydroelectric power. He

repeated the argument of Senator Black that nitrates vital

to growing cotton and produced by the cyanamid process cost

less than nitrates purchased from Chile.70

To avoid selfish exploitation by Alabama Power, Comer

next turned his attention to members of the PSC. A contro

versy over states rights erupted over regulating power

produced at Muscle Shoals in 1928. The PSC believed it had

the right to regulate electricity produced, and the nation

al government ought to stay out of the matter.71 This led

Comer to write Hugh White of the PSC that "Muscle Shoals

should not go into the hands of the power group."72 The

Alabama textile industrialist argued that Government opera

tion provided a means of comparison to judge the actual

cost of generating and transmitting hydroelectric power.

Comer then pointed out that two groups wanted Muscle Shoals

- "one in the interest of the Power Companies and one in

70 Comer to O'Neal, 5 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 42. The letter also contained a copy of the 30 Mar. letter to Hill, and a restatement of most of the other arguments in that letter and the 4 Apr. letter to Hill.

71 See Hamilton, Hugo Black, 163.

72 Comer to White, president, PSC, Montgomery, Ala., 4 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 44.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 129

the interest of saving this development for the people."73

For the people to get the use of Muscle Shoals, the groups

representing them "have got to work with a spirit of con

ciliation all the time."74

White and Morgan both answered within a week, agree

ing with Comer that the power companies sought to divide

and conquer forces opposed to them. White further stated

that he believed the Walsh Resolution a good idea, and that

the cry of states rights need not have been raised, while

Morgan asserted that he favored the Norris bill, and op

posed the plans of Martin and Alabama Power.75

White wrote that "I am particularly glad to find that

the thoughts that had passed through my mind about this

proposal are confirmed by your judgment and experience."

Morgan added that "I do not think there is any fundamental

difference in your viewpoint and mine regarding the Muscle

Shoals situation."76

73 Ibid, and see also Comer to Black, 21 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 38B.

74 Ibid.

75 White to Comer, 10 and 12 Apr. 1928.

76 Morgan to Comer, 14 April 1928, Comer papers, 44 and 4IB respectively. Donald thanked them both for their replies on 17 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 44 and 41B, respec tively.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 130

Comer agreed with White in stating , "I think it was

[a] wonderful opportunity missed when the investigation was

taken from the hands of Senator Walsh and turned over to

the Federal Trade Commission (FTC)."77

The Alabama textile manufacturer wrote even more

directly to Frank Morgan of the PSC. Comer mentioned a

conversation the two had about the Norris bill, and the

objection Thomas W. Martin had to it. Comer quickly point

ed out that Martin, the president of Alabama Power, hardly

was without interest in the matter. Martin's real aim,

Comer stated, was to "defeat the Norris Bill as a whole by

dividing those of us who want to save Muscle Shoals for the

people as a whole."78

Morgan's reply, though courteous, placed him squarely

on the side of Alabama Power, as he insisted on supporting

states rights in opposing governmental operation at Muscle

Shoals.79 Comer frustratedly wrote F. I. Thompson that

77 Comer to White, 17 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 44.

78Comer to Morgan, 4 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 41B. Comer also included the letter he sent to White of the same date.

79 Morgan to Comer, 14 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 41B. That letter included the letter Morgan sent to the Alabama delegation of 20 Mar. 1928. He opposed the possible set ting of rates by the Federal Power Commission, and argued that the effect could be to raise rates by the "entering wedge of federal domination," thus abrogating the power of states "to regulate their own intrastate utility rates." No one believed that utility rates would be thus raised.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 131

"he is letting one disadvantage to the Bill blind him to

the great good that can be accomplished at Muscle

Shoals. "80

The next day, Comer wrote Henry Steagall that "if the

Government can operate anything in the world, it ought to

be a hydroelectric plant."81 He emphasized the same point

in a letter sent April 11 to Edward A. O'Neal. 82 In the

same letter, he emphasized compromise with George Norris.

In that way, Comer said, the most nitrates would be pro

duced for the least price to the largest number of people.

The Alabama businessman desired to see the Norris bill

enacted, as reflected in his 10 April letter to Hill: "I

hope with all my heart that you will be able to get the

Bill out and agreed on with the Senate and made into

law."83

On the first of May Comer wrote Senator Norris to

express his concern regarding the opposition of farm groups

80 Comer to Thompson, 23 June 1928, Comer papers, 38C. Comer went on to attack Alabama Power by saying that "power rates in Alabama are being made . . . on a basis with what they think it would cost their customers to produce their own power."

81 Comer to Steagall, 6 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 43.

82 Comer to O'Neal, 11 April 1928, Comer papers, 42. He wrote, "if the Government can run anything, it can run a river dam."

83 Comer to Hill, 10 Apr. 1928, Comer papers, 40.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 132

such as the AFBF to government operation. He then stressed

that the average farmer actually wanted "to turn Muscle

Shoals into nitrates in whatever manner proves to be the

best."84 Norris agreed with his assessment, saying the

"rank and file" disagreed with the leadership of Chester

Gray and the AFBF.85 He also expressed some doubt as to

passage of the law.

In fact, the law passed both the House and the Senate

by May 26. Comer promptly sent a telegram to President

Coolidge requesting that he sign the Norris bill. 86 He

even wrote Representative Almon to say "I do not see how

the President can fail to approve the present Bill."87

Instead, Coolidge used a pocket veto to kill it. 88 Comer

responded by saying that "when President Coolidge killed

the Muscle Shoals bill, he killed one of the best farm

relief measures." 89

84 Comer to Norris, 1 May 1928, Comer papers, 42. 65 Norris to Comer, 3 May 1928, Comer papers, 42.

86 Hill to Comer, 15 June 1928, Comer papers, 40. Unfortunately, the telegram itself seems to have disap peared. Hill added that "I am sure that your telegram challenged his thought."

87 Comer to Almon, 6 June 1928, Comer papers, 37. qo Hubbard, Origins of the TVA, 226-234.

89 Comer, John S. Cohen, Atlanta Journal, 18 June 1928, Comer papers, 38C.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 133

During the Summer of 1928, Congress was not in ses

sion. Important events occurred nonetheless. As Comer

noted, the FTC investigation:

brought to light all the effort the Power Company friends [the National Electrical Lighting Association - NELA] have been making in past years to write into our text books and into the thoughts of our teachers, rea sons opposed to Government operation, particularly as they apply to utilities.90

Comer believed that NELA propaganda caused the AFBF to take

the "unthinkable" position of opposing government operation

at Muscle Shoals to produce either fertilizer or electric

power.91

This led the Avondale Mills executive to attempt to

get a favorable plank in the platform on Muscle Shoals at

the Democratic National Convention in Houston. When Comer

determined that Walter F. George of Georgia strongly sup

ported Muscle Shoals, he wrote that the Comer faction (led

by Thompson) at the Convention would rally behind George's

nomination for the presidency by having the Alabama delega

tion yield to Georgia.92

90 Comer to F. I. Thompson, by then publisher of the Mobile Register, 16 June 1928, Comer papers, 43.

91 Comer to Thompson, 16 June 1928, Comer papers, 43.

92 Cohen to Comer, 15 June, and Comer to Cohen, 19 June 1928, Comer papers, 38C. Comer headed the Alabama delegation, though he did not attend toe Convention.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 134

Next, he wrote to F. I. Thompson, attending the Con

vention. Thompson published the Mobile Register, and he

was a strong supporter of Muscle Shoals. After all, though

Comer believed the Norris bill less than perfect, if enact

ed,

it offered an immediate avenue of escape from the power group and it offered an immediate opportunity for pro ducing 50,000 tons of high grade nitrogen for farmers at cost, saving many millions of dollars.93

Neither the Democratic Party through A1 Smith, nor

the Republican Party, through Herbert Hoover, strongly

supported government operation of Muscle Shoals or fertil-

izer production there beyond vague general statements. 94

Comer noted that neither Smith nor Hoover supported Muscle

Shoals adequately.95 When Congress reconvened in December

of 1928, not much happened regarding Muscle Shoals. Sena

tor McKellar introduced a bill authorizing the sale of

electricity to municipalities, but it went nowhere.96

Immediately upon his inauguration, Herbert Hoover

called a special session of Congress. The Norris measure

received scant attention during the session, but continuing

93 Comer to Thompson, 23 June 1928, Comer papers, 43.

94 Hubbard, Origins of the TVA, 236-237.

95 Comer to E. B. Stahlman, publisher, Nashville Ban ner, 12 Oct. 1928, Comer papers, 43.

96 Hubbard, Origins of the TVA, 242-243. Heflin re versed himself and supported McKellar's bill.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 135

revelations of unethical practices by utilities under the

FTC investigation prevented any hope of releasing Muscle

Shoals to private power groups either.97

The Avondale Mills owner noted those disclosures in

an October 1929 letter to Hugo Black, and particularly

noted that Chester Gray of the AFBF admitted that money

coming to the AFBF originated outside of the AFBF, presum-

ably from the utility industry. 98 About a year later, in

vestigations proved the money came from American Cyanamid

directly, but probably the NELA indirectly. Senator Black

became a prime inquisitor at those hearings, and Comer

wrote that:

I am with you from A to Z in the effort that you are making in Washington to let the people know the way certain confidences on the part of a great mass of farmers of the country have been betrayed by their so- called representatives.99

97 Hubbard, Origins of the TVA, 250-256; and Owen, 10- 12. Among the revelations were the fact that Electric Bond and Share owned or controlled over 150 other utility hold ing companies, that private utilities (particularly the Insull group) bought numerous newspapers, and that Alabama Power Company made the loans that allowed the Mobile Press to be established.

98 Comer to Black, 23 Oct. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

99 Comer to Black, 17 and 27 Mar. 1930, with the quote originating in the earlier letter. See also Comer to Black, 29 Mar. 1930, in which Edward A. O'Neal and the AFBF stand against government ownership are attacked. All in the Comer papers, 56.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 136

Comer also thanked Senator Caraway of Arkansas, who wanted

to "drive out the Washington Lobbyists, posing in the open

as serving one interest while in the secret pay of another

interest. "10°

Before the end of the special session, he wrote Hugo

Black that he wanted Muscle Shoals used as "originally

intended, and I cannot think of any opportunity . . . more

worthy of patriotic effort than saving Muscle Shoals for

the benefit of the average man."101 Black replied that he

desired "to prevent the waste of the Government money by

turning this project over to the private power companies

for exploitation.1,102

When the regular session of Congress convened in

December of 1929, President Hoover delivered his annual

address to Congress. He created a commission to secure a

Muscle Shoals lease, though that plan was doomed by the FTC

hearings on the utility and chemical industries. After the

Cyanamid offer was rejected again, Senator Black expressed

himself to Donald Comer. Black hopefully wrote that Hoover

"has deliberately left himself in a position to sign a

100 Comer to Caraway, 17 Mar. 1930, Comer papers, 56.

101 Comer to Black, 1 Nov. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

102 Black to Comer, 6 Nov. 1929, Comer papers, 46, and added that, "I appreciate your approval more than I can say."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 137

measure providing for government operation somewhat along

the line of the Norris bill."103

Comer remained unconvinced. Noting Hoover's vague

ness at a campaign speech in Tennessee in 1928, Comer re

plied that "it is not so much what he says, but what he

does not say that rather disturbs me."104 Comer earlier

wrote Black that he "was quite disturbed" that Secretary of

the Interior Wilbur opposed any government operation at

Muscle Shoals, and believed Wilbur represented the views of

Hoover.TT 105

In April of 1930 Comer renewed his efforts. Comer

wrote to Lister Hill "to ask your influence toward helping

to save this property for the people."106 Congress needs

to operate Muscle Shoals to defeat "the concealed lobby" of

the power companies, who even got American Cyanamid to work

with them.107 Comer's frustration erupted when he noted

that experts still testified while nitrate plants stood

idle for ten years, the water of the Tennessee River unused

to produce nitrates. Meanwhile, southern soil lacked ni

103 Black to Comer, 5 Dec. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

104 Comer to Black, 7 Dec. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

105 Comer to Black, 2 Dec. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

106 Comer to Hill, 14 Apr. 1930, Comer papers, 58

107 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 138

trogen the most. Comer added, "if we can operate the Pana

ma Canal for commerce, we can operate Muscle Shoals in

order to furnish the farmers a cheap plant food." 108

Hill replied that he agreed with Comer, particularly

after seeing the activities of the power companies. Unfor

tunately, he reported, the House and the Republican leader

ship would never agree to the Norris bill because they

hated the idea of government operation at Muscle

Shoals. 109 Comer encouraged Hill to keep fighting. "This

is a time when I feel like I would almost be willing to die

fighting for the right."110

Comer kept that attitude. A few months later he

wrote President Hoover to urge him to operate Muscle Shoals

"for all time in the interest of the farmers of the coun

try."111 Comer straightforwardly asserted that he voted

for Hoover at least in part because he believed Hoover's

108 Comer to Hill, 14 Apr. 1930, Comer papers, 58. Comer sent copies to Senator Black and to Representative Almon.

109 Hill to Comer, 22 Apr. 1930, Hill papers.

110 Comer to Hill, 24 Apr. 1930, Comer papers, 58.

111 Comer to Hoover, 24 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 56. He sent the letter to Hugo Black on 25 Nov., and to Lister Hill, on 4 Dec. as well. Later he asked Black to show the letter to Senator Norris, as "my father was quite an admir er of senator Norris. See Comer to Black, 4 Dec. 1930, Comer papers, 56.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 139

attitude toward Muscle Shoals was "fairer" than A1

Smith's. 112 Comer also repeated his attacks on the power

trust. Comer mentioned the propaganda originating from the

power group, even turning farm groups into opponents of

public power. Further, public utilities directly inter

fered in public elections, most recently in Colorado, and

over a long period of time, with public service commissions

all over the country. Comer invoked his father's name to

proclaim that "Muscle Shoals should not pass out of the

hands of the Government into the hands of a power monopo

ly."113 Instead, Muscle Shoals needs to be used as "a

measuring rod," to hold the power trust in check.114

He urged that nitrates be produced. Such production

harmed no industry, not even the present fertilizer busi

ness . Yet

This country is still spending millions of dollars yearly for Chile nitrates while water continues to flow idly over Wilson Dam, [and] with all the machinery [in place] for turning this power into plant food.115

112 Ibid, and Comer based his opinion on Hoover's speech in 1928 regarding Muscle Shoals that appeared in the Scripps-Howard newspapers. For Comer's position in the 1928 election, see Comer to F. M. Jackson, Ala. Democratic Executive Committee, 21 Oct. 1928, Comer papers, 41A.

113 Ibid. . ,

1 1 4 Ibid.TU. J

115 Ibid. TL •

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 140

Hoover never replied, but Hugo Black responded that

Muscle Shoals troubled the Republican Party. Unfortunate

ly, "I doubt if they are sufficiently troubled to agree to

a reasonable bill."116

Black proved prophetic. In March of 1931, Hoover

vetoed the "intrusive" Norris plan when it passed the Con-

gress. 117 In a further effort to divest the government of

Muscle Shoals, Hoover created another Muscle Shoals Commis

sion. This one contained three members, including Alabama

Governor B. M. Miller. Comer promptly wrote him and in-

eluded the letter he wrote earlier to President Hoover. 118

Miller's reply indicated little warmth for Comer's

views. 119 There the matter remained until the election of

Franklin D. Roosevelt to the presidency in 1932, when the

TVA was created.

Comer's dedication to developing Muscle Shoals for

the farmer and for industrializing the state combined the

Progressive idea of limiting monopoly with the New South

116 Black to Comer, 29 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 56.

117 For Hoover's veto message, see Congressional Digest 10 (April 1931), 121-122 and 126. A good analysis and summary may also be found in John Bauer, "Public Utili ties," National Municipal Review 20,4 (Apr. 1931): 231-234.

118 Comer to Miller, 1 July 1931, in the ADAH, Gov. Miller records, Muscle Shoals file.

119 Miller to Comer, 6 July 1931, Gov. Miller records, Muscle Shoals file.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 141

philosophy of economic diversification. Years later Comer

looked back and remarked that:

I count myself fortunate too, in having lived in this particular half century in which Alabama has made such great progress, changing from a one-crop cotton economy to diversification. I have watched with you our worn and denuded acres turned into pastures green in summer and winter for dairy and beef cattle. I have watched the reforestation program.120

By limiting monopoly and increasing economic diversi

fication in Alabama, and by pounding away at Muscle Shoals,

Comer maintained a keener interest on those issues than

most senators and representatives in the Congress repre

senting Alabama. This devotion cemented relationships with

Hugo Black and Lister Hill that paid dividends in the fu

ture for all parties. It is now time to examine Comer's

approach to reforming the cotton textile industry in the

1920s itself.

120 Comer, 30 Apr. 1952, in Voices of Alabama: James McDonald Comer (Birmingham: WAPI Radio Station, 1952), unpaginated.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER FOUR

DONALD COMER AND THE COTTON MANUFACTURING INDUSTRY,

1924-1932

Economic problems bedeviled the cotton textile indus

try during the 1920s and early 1930s. Overproduction, lack

of rationalization within the textile manufacturing indus

try, and a government reluctant to intervene in order to

stabilize the economy befuddled cotton manufacturers, just

as those same problems hurt cotton farmers.1 The cotton

textile industry grew rapidly in the South after the Civil

War, particularly in the production of coarse goods. As

occurred in every other geographical area undergoing indus

trialization, the cotton textile industry became the first

power-operated industry in the region.2 By the early

1 See Jack Blicksilver, Cotton Manufacturing in the Southeast: A Historical Analysis (Atlanta: Bureau of Busi ness and Economic Research, School of Business Administra tion, Georgia State College of Business Administration, Bulletin Number 5, 1959), 50-51 and 89-91, Mildred Gwin Andrews, The Men and the Mills: A History of the Southern Textile Industry (Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1987), 151-174; and Statistics on Cotton and Related Data, 1920-1956, Statistical Bulletin No. 99 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, Agricultural Marketing Service, 1957), 43-44.

2 Blicksilver, 1-2; Calvin B. Hoover and B.U. Ratch- ford, Economic Resources and Policies of the South (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951), 140-145; Woodward, (continued...)

142

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 143

1920s the South led the nation in spindles in place and

spindles active.3 The South remained the primary producer

of coarse cloth, while New England produced finer goods.

In the early 1920s, however, the South enjoyed marked gains

in producing finer goods.4

As discussed in an earlier chapter, the Alabama cot

ton manufacturer saw the cotton textile industry as a way

station toward prosperity for the South. This view became

even more important to Comer when the depression struck the

entire nation in 1929. As he told his close friend, H.

Dudley Warner of New York, in 1929, the cotton mill "is a

path from a very poor rural condition into something bet

ter. 1,5

He never ignored the lack of balance between supply

and demand. He wrote Mr. Parrish of the Birmingham Post

that "our trouble today is not the cost of our goods, but

the quantity, the over-supply."6 By 1930 the textile in-

dustry reeled from the effects of the depression. Comer 2(...continued) Origins, 131-135; and Broadus Mitchell, The Rise of the Cotton Mills in the South, (Gloucester, Mass.: P. Smith, 1966, originally published 1921), 59.

3 Blicksilver, 51.

4 Blicksilver, 57.

5 Comer to Warner, 12 Nov. 1929, Comer papers, 54.

6 Comer to Parrish, 2 Sept. 1930, Comer papers, 55.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 144

wrote The State of Columbia, S.C., that "the [cotton tex

tile] business is in a dangerous situation."7 He also

wrote his friend Cash M. Stanley of the Alabama Journal

that "they have bread lines in Columbus, Georgia, because

of the closing down of textile plants in that territory."8

Walker D. Hines, president of the Cotton Textile

Institute (CTI), echoed these sentiments in a letter to

Comer in 1929. Hines wrote that "there is a general con

viction that there is now a very serious overproduction of

cotton textiles," and asked Comer and other cotton manufac

turers to suspend operations for the week of July 4.9 The

Avondale Mills executive replied that the Pell City mills

of Avondale would close for the week, and the other mills

for half of the week.10

In fact, the issue of overproduction led Comer to

join the CTI in 1929. B. B. Comer refused to join that

organization, thinking it "sort of a scheme."11 As Donald

wrote to William D. Anderson a few months before B. B.'s

death, "my father and old Colonel Springs met together in

7 Comer to The State, 28 May 1930, Comer papers, 62,

8 Comer to Stanley, 24 Apr. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

9 Hines to Comer, 31 May 1929, Comer papers, 47.

10 Comer to Hines, 14 June 1929, Comer papers, 47.

11 Comer to Anderson, 13 May 1927, Comer papers, 29. Springs never joined.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 145

New York and talked over the Textile Institute and the two

of them together decided they would not join."12

The Alabama cotton manufacturer joined because he saw

the CTI developing a concrete plan to reduce overproduction

and to alleviate social hardship in the cotton textile

industry. A key feature of this economic rationalization

involved the elimination of night work.13 Comer's opposi

tion to night work dated from 1920. In that year he wrote

his father that "I want us to stop running at night just as

soon as we can."14 By 1926, Comer had converted Scott

Roberts, Alabama Cotton Manufacturers Association (AlaCMA)

president, to his views. Both supported a law to end night

work in Alabama.15 Comer emphasized that he was "ready to

see Alabama lead the way in passing a law prohibiting . . .

women from working at night."16

12 Ibid. Springs' self-description as a "Bastard, First Class" seems to be somewhat harsh, but he always reveled in competition, never in cooperation.

13 Louis Galambos, Competition & Cooperation: The Emergence of a National Trade Association (Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966), 117.

14 Comer to B. B. Comer, 5 May 1920, B. B. Comer pa pers, 83.

15 Roberts, Anniston, Ala., to Comer, 4 Aug. 1926, Comer papers, 22.

16 Comer to Roberts, Anniston, Ala., 3 Aug. 1926.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 146

Scott Roberts urged more caution than Comer. Roberts

believed in coordinating with Georgia and the Carolinas to

end night work. He knew that Alabama mill men refused to

accept any plan that might mean a loss in their competitive

advantage. Comer wanted Alabama to lead in the fight

against night work. He knew that one state needed to act

first. He argued that "I do not believe that it is morally

or economically right to run cotton mills with the labor of

young girls and women at night."17 He believed that if

Alabama acted, other states "would follow along in due

season."■ i 18

One reason Comer felt so strongly about legislation

in Alabama was the practice of northern mills emigrating

South and "running their Southern plant day and night."19

Comer added that mills needed to either all stop running at

17 Comer to Roberts, 8 Oct. 1926. See also Comer to Roberts, 20 Nov. 1926, both in the Comer papers, 27.

18 Ibid.

19 Comer to Roberts, 26 Nov. 1926, Comer papers, 27. In that letter Comer gave specific examples of the Utica Cotton Mill, the Merrimack Mills, the Indian Head Mills at Cordova, the Brighton Mills in Rome, Ga., and the Johnson & Johnson Mills in Gainesville, Ga. Comer also sent a copy of that letter to C.H. Clark, editor of the Textile World. Clark replied that "northern mills that have gone South are the worst exploiters of southern labor." See Clark to Comer, 23 Dec. 1927, Comer papers, 43. One result of that blatantly exploitive activity occurred in the 1930s. The Alabama mills named above all experienced significant trade union activity.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 147

night, or all keep running at night. The split needed to

end soon. He preferred daylight operations only. 20

Comer then made his economic argument. By operating

at night, mills absorbed more labor, thus raising the price

of labor, while overproducing cotton textiles. This tends

"to increase the price of labor and at the same time de

crease the price of the product."21 He was even more ex

plicit to his father. "The night running seems to be tre

mendous all over the South and seems to be able to extend

fast enough to keep the supply pressing and more than the

demand.1,22

He added that night operators exploited the fact that

many mills such as Avondale and Adelaide closed their doors

at night "as a matter not only of economics but of mor

als."23 In fact, early in 1927, Donald refused to join

the CTI because many of its members operated at night.24

20 Ibid, and Roberts agreed in his reply of 27 Nov. 1926, Comer papers, 27.

21 Comer to Roberts, 30 Nov. 1926, Comer papers, 27.

22 Comer to B. B. Comer, 14 Feb. 1927, Comer papers, 31, and Donald added that "we are losing lots of business."

23 Ibid, and see also Comer to Textile World, 12 Jan. 1926, Comer papers, 28.

24 Comer to Roberts, 16 May 1927, Comer papers, 35. Comer said, "I considered night running fundamentally wrong, and that as many of the main incorporators of the [Cotton Textile] Institute were in disagreement with me, I (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 148

He argued that statutes will result that "will go into

matters beyond night running."25

In that last sentence Comer revealed his desire to

keep the government out of more legislative control of the

cotton textile industry. In fact, one of the prime reasons

for Comer's desire to enact legislation prohibiting night

work was to avoid legislation enacting an eight hour day.

As Scott Roberts wrote to George H. Lanier, "Donald sug

gests that by way of forestalling an eight hour law for

women that we manufacturers propose a law abolishing all

night work for women and girls."26

That position of opposing an eight hour law was quite

natural for two reasons. Comer already had ceased the

operation of women and children at night in all of the

Avondale Mills, and he wanted his one shift to operate

about ten hours per day.27 He did not want to be penal

ized twice for adopting the reform of ceasing night opera-

24 ( .. .continued) did not see how I could become a member of the Institute." Comer here followed the lead of his father, who died in September of 1927. Only after his father's death did Donald join.

25 Ibid.

26 Roberts, Anniston, Ala., to Lanier, West Point, Ga, 15 Oct. 1926, Comer papers, 27.

27 The one mill that ran two shifts, Sycamore, was a carding mill that used only men at night. See Comer to George H. Lanier, 9 Mar. 1927, Comer papers, 27.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 149

tions--once for mills operating at night when he was not,

and again for limiting the one shift he operated to eight

hours instead of ten.

Comer kept this attitude. In fact, the Alabama cot

ton mills in 1927 voluntarily adopted the plan of not oper

ating above 55 hours per week, that is, ten hours per day

Monday through Friday, and five hours on Saturday. The

plan worked reasonably well. As Comer reported to George

Lanier and to Ben J. Vereen in December of 1927, Alabama

had few night operators or mills running longer than 55

hours per week. 28 Comer added that Avondale Mills had op

erated on the 55 hour schedule and had quit operating spin

dles at night "for many years."29

In 1927 Walker D. Hines, president of the CTI, urged

cotton mills to cease night operations, but felt that it

was too early to adopt that position as CTI policy.30

Comer, in fact, wrote to Hines that "one of the most vital

things today affecting the whole industry is the operation

28 Comer to George H. Lanier, West Point, Ga., 8 Dec. 1927, and Comer to Vereen, CTI Narrow Sheetings and Drills Committee Chairman, Moultrie, Ga., Comer papers, 34 and 37.

29 Ibid.

30 Walker D. Hines, in his annual report for 1927 as repeated in George A. Sloan, CTI secretary, New York, to Comer, 3 Nov. 1927, Comer papers, 31. Of course the CTI was forced to make a purely economic argument, as a trade association.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 150

of cotton mills at night."31 Sloan attempted to get Comer

to join the CTI by encouraging him to keep fighting against

night work, while accepting the fact that the hands of the

CTI were tied until a clear majority of its members urged

the ending of night work.32

This proposal is interesting because the CTI itself

did not adopt the 55 hour limit and the 55-50 plan until

1930, and then only after the terrible labor disputes of

1929 over the stretch out system.33 Cotton manufacturers

failed to adopt the plan until later. It took the onset of

the Great Depression to develop a consensus among the mill

men that operating at night was economically wrong. Even

then, many mill men refused to accept that night operation

was morally wrong, unlike Donald Comer and Scott Roberts.

Early in 1928 Comer explained his position to C.H.

Clark, editor of the Textile World, and agreed to partici

pate in a discussion regarding night work. Comer argued

31 Ibid. Unfortunately, the 1 Nov. 1927 letter from Comer to Hines is not in the Comer papers, but the quote appears in the 3 Nov. 1927 reply. Also, Scott Roberts wrote to Comer on 2 Nov. 1927 to remark on the letter. Roberts stated that the letter "is the most adroit and subtle statement of the highlights of this question that could be put down in black and white and I think it is unanswerable."

32 Ibid.

33 Galambos, Competition & Cooperation, 141-142, and Tindall, Emergence, 362.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 151

emphatically that "all of us connected with the Avondale

Mills have been opposed and are opposed to the night opera

tion of cotton mills and our position is well known."34

In his reply,- Clark wrote of his debt to Comer for taking

part in a discussion of night work, and that

we are endeavoring to point out the folly of uncon trolled night work from a dollars and cents standpoint . . . nothing about the humanitarian side.35

In March of 1928 the Narrow Sheetings and Drill group

(NSD) of ACMA began a program designed to end night work,

or at least slow that practice down. The effort failed,

though the Alabama textile manufacturer wrote strongly in

support. He wanted the southern textile industry to enjoy

healthy growth, but that "if this increase means [the]

exploitation [of] women and young people in night work,

[then I] think we can best afford to go slower."36

He also noted another current problem. Comer report

ed that Alabama Power Company recruited ten to fifteen

mills to move to Alabama, "and their whole prospectus deals

34 Comer to Clark, Boston, Mass., 11 Jan. 1928, Comer papers, 43.

35 Clark to Comer, 14 Jan. 1928, Comer papers, 43. Clark added that he believed the discussion would "greatly strengthen" the CTI and others who wish "to bring night operation under control."

36 Comer to Vereen, 12 Mar. 1928, Comer papers, 44.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 152

with the value of night operation.1,37 Given that prac

tice, the Alabama textile man argued that legislation only

would relieve this problem. Although Comer disliked legal

remedies, he supported such a remedy for ending night work.

No other remedy seemed to work. 38

The NSD efforts eventually bore fruit. In a June

1928 letter to Comer, Vereen reported that the ACMA Board

of Governors approved a resolution "that night employment

of women and minors should be stopped."39 The Alabamian

replied that "I am delighted that we are about to accom

plish a needed reform within our own industry."40

This statement proved premature. Though Donald Comer

and Scott Roberts got appointed to the ACMA Special Legis

lative Committee to draft a uniform law to prohibit night

work by women and children, the effort failed.41 Comer

felt that the tactics used by the irreconcilables were

wrong, and "I was greatly disappointed that this opposition

should have waited for so long for so positive an outspo

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Vereen to Comer, 25 June 1928 Comer papers, 44.

40 Comer to Vereen, 27 June 1928, Comer papers, 44.

41 Roberts to Comer, 12 Oct. 1928, Comer papers, 42.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 153

kenness."42 Fitzgerald remained more sanguine. He stated

difficulties to control the "night-running evil" required

time to solve, but reported growing sentiment to end night

work.43

In early May of 1929 Comer offered a new plan to

pressure the night operators. He suggested that a letter

be sent to every textile manufacturer, North and South. In

that letter, each mill owner would be asked to agree to

stop operating at night if 75% of the mills in his state

quit operating at night. Then each state would have an

organizer to recruit 75% participation. If the remainder

would not agree, then legislation could remedy the situa-

tion. 44 An interesting aspect of this plan is that it in

volved neither ACMA nor the CTI, both of whom Comer be

lieved were dragging their feet. Comer held out the hope

42 Ibid, and the opponents were James P. or Benjamin B. Gossett, the latter being the son, and both very promi nent textile men in South Carolina, owning a chain of mills, including the Pendleton Mills, the Riverside Mills, the Pelzer Mills, and others; the Cone family was a promi nent mill family of Baltimore that established mills first in North Carolina, then elsewhere. The opposition probably came primarily from Herman Cone.

43 Fitzgerald to Comer, 9 Apr. 1929, Comer papers, 48.

44 Comer to Victor Montgomery, president and treasurer of Pacolet Mills, Spartanburg, S.C., 7 and 15 May 1929, Comer papers, 51. Comer also sent him a copy of the letter he sent Fitzgerald in early April.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 154

that Fitzgerald might lead such a movement, but by then

another man would be president of ACMA.45

Nothing directly materialized from this plan, but

Comer remained undeterred. In 1930 he accelerated his

efforts. On January 2 he wrote Mrs. A.M. Tunstall, head of

the Child Welfare Department of Alabama (CWD), "to see

Alabama take the lead in a law prohibiting the employment

of women between certain hours at night."46 Although oth

er cotton manufacturers wanted to wait and act in concert

with other states, Comer believed one state needed to take

that first step. Mrs. Tunstall replied that "I think your

point of view is exactly right in every particular."47

Later that month CTI officers and fifteen cotton

manufacturers were invited to speak with President Herbert

Hoover and Secretary of Commerce Lamont to try to implement

a plan developed by Henry P. Kendall, a prominent investor

in the cotton textile industry from Boston. That plan

involved limiting the schedule of work to fifty hours per

week without cutting wages, and gradually eliminating night

45 Ibid.

46 Comer to Tunstall, 2 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

47 Tunstall to Comer, 10 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 155

work. Comer received an invitation to the 11 AM meeting,

and he went to Washington.48

Before actually meeting Hoover on January 16, George

Sloan (the new president of the CTI) attempted to get

agreement among the fifteen executives at an 8 AM breakfast

meeting. He failed. The meeting between Hoover and the

textile executives became perfunctory rather than substan

tive. Hoover then dropped the ideas of limiting cotton

textile production and ending night work. Six of the manu

facturers refused to let the issue disappear. They drafted

their own statement at a CTI sponsored luncheon meeting on

the afternoon of January 16. In it they declared that

hours ought to be shortened, that night work for women and

children ought to be eliminated, and that night work be

discouraged. Comer signed. 49

The frustration of the Avondale Mills leader appeared

the next day. He wrote Walker D. Hines that three courses

48 Comer to Harry L. Bailey, New York City, 6 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 56. The invitation was extended on 31 Dec. 1929, by Paul B. Halstead, Secretary of the CTI. See Halstead to Comer, 31 Dec. 1929 and 4 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

49 Ibid. The other signers included Robert Amory, C. A. Cannon, Malcolm G. Chace, B. B. Gossett, and H. P. Kend all. Those mill executives who refused to sign included Harry L. Bailey, S. Marshall Beattie, Morgan Butler, Julius W. Gene, John A. Law, and G. H. Milliken, as well as those who left early, including Charles Pinnell. See Hines to Comer, 25 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 156

were open to the textile mills given the repudiation on

January 16 of a voluntary plan to limit night work and

production. Mills could proceed as is, a conference could

be called between the governors and textile men to work out

a legislative remedy, or mills could go to three eight hour

shifts. He wanted to call a conference, but felt it wiser

to■ wait. . . 50

Comer chose the conference alternative in order to

force textile mill owners to realize that the cotton tex

tile industry was big enough "to have become front page

news now for quite a while."51 Too many textile owners

look on the textile industry "from the point of view of the

individual and . . . overlook public opinion."52

Progress remained slow. Comer stressed that tempo

rary correctives were doomed, and that "we have the oppor

tunity for group action today that we have not had before"

to permanently limit night work and long hours.53

50 Comer to Hines, 17 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid..

53 Ibid. Comer wanted quick acceptance of a daytime only work week of between 51 and 52 hours, and the slow elimination of night work so employees then working at night would not be left jobless, but could be placed else where in mill organizations. Comer also mentioned that one member of the CTI and ACMA threatened to quit all organizations unless something was done "at this time" to eliminate night work.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 157

Late in January C. A. Cannon wrote Comer to suggest a

proposal for an upcoming meeting of textile manufacturers.

The meeting, sponsored by the CTI, was called to adopt

reform measures. Cannon suggested a weekly day shift of

52.5 hours and a weekly night shift of 40 hours, with no

women and children working at night. Comer supported this

plan. It lost miserably. Instead, the makeshift and even

more conservative Beattie 55-50 plan was adopted.54 The

adoption of the 55-50 plan remained a small step forward.

The Avondale Mills executive disagreed with night

work, and argued that Beattie's 55-50 plan "starts out upon

the wrong foundation. . . [it] would simply leave us where

we are as regards night running and the question of employ

ment of women at night."55 As a compromise he suggested a

52.5-40 plan. It died for lack of a second.56 The 55-50

plan gained increasing acceptance. On February 6, 1930 the

NSD and the Print Cloth Group (PC) voted approval of that

54 Cannon to Comer, 29 Jan. 1930, and Comer reply 18 Mar. 1930, Comer papers, 56, as well as Comer to W. J. Vereen, 15 Feb. 1930, in which he named three of the six supporters besides himself--Mr. Anderson, B. B. Gossett, and George Harris, Comer papers, 62. 55-50 meant a 55 hour week on the day shift, and 50 hour night shift. Hardly inspiring.

55 Comer to Bailey, 31 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 55.

56 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 158

plan.57 S. M. Beattie, president of the Piedmont Manufac

turing Company, and originator of the 55-50 plan, was elec

ted chair of the NSD at the same time.58 Comer expressed

"disappointment" and argued that the program adopted "cer

tainly does not make the penalty against night running

sufficient to discourage it."59 Hines agreed with Comer,

saying "what had been done fell considerably short of what

needed to be done."60

Secretary of Commerce Lamont then surprised both

Hines and Comer by being pleased rather than disappointed

by the small amount of progress made.61 As Comer put it,

"It never occurred to me" that the government would not

encourage and sanction a program of lessening hours and

production.62 Comer seriously doubted any success without

such intervention.63

57 W. J. Vereen to Comer, 22 Feb. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

58 Ibid. . ,

59 Both quotes come from Comer to Hines, 6 Feb. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

60 Hines to Comer, Comer papers, 56B.

61 Ibid, and Comer to Hines, 13 Feb. 1930, Comer pa pers, 56B.

62 Ibid. ,, .

63 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 159

The CTI in February formally attempted to implement

the 55-50 plan, with the proviso that the plan became ef

fective only when eighty per cent of the capacity in the

subscriber's branch of the industry subscribed.64 The CTI

placed pressure upon the manufacturers to participate in a

cooperative reform effort for the first time.

In April of 1930 the Alabama cotton manufacturer

addressed the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers

(NACM) meeting in Boston and attempted to encourage reform

himself. He first noted that overproduction of both raw

and manufactured cotton plagued the cotton industry. Then

he brought up "the social, human side of our problems, and

it is from this point that I wish most to speak."65 Comer

argued against working children and women at night and said

that "I think the 55-50 hour schedule represents the most

forward step yet obtained by the textile group as a

whole."66 In that speech, Comer argued that limiting

hours of production helped the cotton textile industry both

socially and economically. He failed to see how textile

64 Galambos, Competition & Cooperation, 145-147.

65 Comer, "Problems Now Confronting the Cotton Textile Industry in the South," speech at Boston, Mass., 30 Apr. 1930, to the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers (NACM). Also see NACM Transactions, No. 128, (1930), 81- 82.

66 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 160

manufacturers hoped to make profits while continuing to

flood the market with goods made at night by women and

children.67

The Alabama businessman followed the speech by writ

ing CTI that Cowikee and Avondale mills had both put the

55-50 plan into effect. The real solution, he went on, was

to eliminate night work by women and children quickly. 68

As Comer put it, the 55-50 plan does not "prevent a contin-

ued trend towards night operation of mills." 69 He noted

that mills like Avondale relinquished one hour of produc

tion at noon time under the 55-50 plan, while night opera

tors kept their ten hour shifts, thereby profiting off of

Avondale's sacrifice. He noted that no one could expect

Avondale to keep sacrificing forever.70 In late May

the CTI elected Comer to its Board of Directors.71 At the

same time Charles Cannon came on to the CTI Board. These

actions clearly reflected the growing influence of the

reform wing led by men such as Cannon and Comer, and the

direction toward stronger reform measures by the CTI. This

67 Ibid, and Comer made essentially the same points in an address to ACMA at Richmond, Virginia, on 17 May 1928.

68 Comer to Sloan, 28 May 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

69 Ibid.

70 Ibid.

71 Sloan to Comer, 2 June 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 161

liberalized position by the CTI enabled Comer to push hard

for acceptance of the 55-50 plan in hopes that a more com

prehensive plan might follow.72

During the summer and early fall of 1930 Comer re

mained active. In July he wrote Harry Riemer, dry goods

editor of the Daily News Record, to oppose night work.

Comer said that "the social evils involved in the employ

ment of women and minors in night operations loom larger in

my mind as the days go by."73 He added that even if so

cial reasons moved no one, that economic reasons alone

ought to end night work. All the overproduction just con

sumed profits. Since divisions existed over night work,

however, "the only safe, sound, and sufficient solution of

this proposition lies in National legislation."74

After receiving a copy of the letter the Alabama

cotton manufacturer sent to Riemer, and referring the mat

ter to an attorney, C. A. Cannon replied that a national

law such as Comer wanted probably was unconstitutional.

Cannon added that "it seems a shame that national legisla

tion seems to be the only real cure for a condition that

72 Sloan to Comer, 4 June 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

73 Comer to Riemer, New York, 11 July 1930, Comer pa pers, 54. Comer also sent a copy of this letter to C. A. Cannon.

7i* Ibid.-rw ■ J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 162

common sense should control."75 Comer replied that the

attorney probably was correct, but hoped that such a law

might be enacted and never challenged. Even if the law was

overturned "it would certainly be to our credit to father

such an effort."75

In October of 1930 Donald's hopes came partially

true. The CTI adopted a plan very similar to the one Comer

proposed in 1929 to eliminate the working of children and

women at night.77 The resolution was approved unanimously

at that Board meeting, and approved at the annual meeting

of the CTI on 15 October 1930. 78 CTI members and non-mem

bers alike were invited to the CTI annual meeting to insure

Cannon to Comer, 17 July 1930, Comer papers, 56. In that letter he included a memo of the same date from his attorney, W.H. Beckerdite, citing case law to support his opinion that attempting to enact a national law "would be a waste of time.". The cases of most import, of course, were Hammer v. Dagenhart, 38 Supreme Court Reporter 529, also known as the child labor case; and Bailey v. Drexel Furni ture Co., 42 Supreme Court Reporter 449.

76 Comer to Cannon, Kannapolis, N.C., 25 July 1930, Comer papers, 56. Comer wrote essentially the same opinion to H.R. Fitzgerald of the Dan River Cotton Mills in Danville, Virginia, on 7 Aug. 1930, also in the Comer pa pers, 57.

77 CTI Board of Directors, Minutes, 24 Sept. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

78 Sloan to Cotton Mill Executives, 17 Oct. 1930, Com er papers, 56B.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 163

the greatest possible consensus.79 Again, 75% of the

mills needed to agree to dispense with night work before

the measure went into effect. 80

Comer's jubilation showed. He wrote J. E. Addicks of

the Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce (FDC) that the

CTI meant "to undertake in this country by voluntary agree

ment to put women and minors under eighteen out of our

mills between the hours of 7 P.M. and 6 A.M."81 His hope

for more reform also showed. He wrote Charles R. Towson

the same day to express that "something should be done to

shorten the day shift from fifty-five hours."82

By October 21, a large number of mills in Alabama had

subscribed to the night work proposal, including Avondale

79 CTI Board of Directors, Minutes, 24 Sept. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

80 Sloan to Cotton Mill Executives, 17 Oct. 1930, Com er papers, 56B. This meant that mills representing 23,700,000 spindles needed to sign the declaration of poli cy by 1 March 1930.

81 Comer to J. E. Addicks, Commerce Department, Bureau of Foreign and Domestic Commerce (FDC), Washington, D.C., 19 30 Oct. 18, Comer papers, 53.

82 Comer to Towson, Deering-Milliken Company of New York, 18 Oct. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 164

Mills.83 As of October 25, mills representing 22.25 mil

lion spindles agreed to the night work proposal.84

Unfortunately, many of those who agreed to the prin

ciples remained slow in actually sending in their signa

tures on the CTI's declaration of policy. To get those

mills to sign up George A. Sloan requested that Comer write

letters to numerous mills to encourage them to sign the

pledge. This occurred in both October and November of

1930. Comer complied readily, sending letters all over the

country, but concentrating primarily on Alabama.85

The CTI also made great efforts to recruit new sign

ers to the night work proposal. Once a mill agreed to the

proposal, the CTI then attempted to recruit the cotton

manufacturer into the CTI. Indicative of such efforts was

the letter written to prominent cotton manufacturer and

83 Paul B. Halstead, CTI Secretary, to Benjamin Rus sell, President of Russell Manufacturing Company, Alexander City, Ala., 21 Oct. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

84 Halstead to Comer, 25 Oct. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

85 Sloan to Comer, 29 Oct. and 11 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 56B. Comer himself did not send in his signed pledge until October 29, Halstead to Comer, 31 Oct. 1930, Comer papers, 56B. Sloan also sent Comer updates on the actual pledges signed in telegrams. See telegram, Sloan to Comer of 5 Nov. and 7 Nov. 1930, revealing that mills rep resenting 18.4 million spindles had signed the declaration of policy. Comer continued to send letters in December of 1930. A copy of a letter Comer sent to secure a signature from Francis Lynch, Saratoga Victory Mills, Albertville, Ala. on 15 Dec. 1930, is in the Comer papers, 56B.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 165

non-member of the CTI, Benjamin Russell. Paul Halstead,

Secretary of the CTI, wrote Russell, president of the Rus

sell Manufacturing Company of Alexander City, Alabama, and

attempted to recruit him.85

These intense efforts met with some success. By

November 15, and at least partially due to the influence of

Comer, the Cherry Cotton Mills of Florence, the Dale Cotton

Mills of Ozark, and the Talladega Cotton Mills of Talladega

all had sent in their signed declarations of policy agree

ing to eliminate night work. By late in November, the Cali

fornia Cotton Mills of Selma signed the statement as

well.87

On November 22 Scott Roberts and Donald Comer sent a

letter to the cotton mills of Alabama. That letter covered

a letter from Walker D. Hines. Both letters urged the 88 cessation of night work. In their cover letter, Comer

and Roberts bluntly asserted that "some measure of reform

is inevitable and we submit it is far safer to carry it out

86 Halstead to Russell, 21 Oct. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

87 Halstead to Comer, 15 Nov. 1930, and Halstead to Scott Roberts, 28 Nov. 1930, both in the Comer papers, 56B.

88 Comer and Roberts to the cotton mills of Alabama, 22 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 61B. The letter from Hines urged the end of night work for both humanitarian and eco nomic reasons. Hines asserted that night work demoralized the industry as a whole.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 166

ourselves than leave it to forces that might not be friend-

ly." 89 By early December Comer resorted to coercion. He

released a list of the Alabama textile mills to the Bir

mingham Post who refused to sign the voluntary agreement

eliminating night work. 90

In mid-December Sloan attempted to add more pressure.

He wrote Donald Comer that the Executive Committee of the

CTI needed to "translate their faith in this movement into

further helpful action."91 He wanted each Executive Com

mittee member to attempt to get signed endorsements from

mills representing 100,000 spindles by December 31. This

would guarantee approval of the night work proposal by

January 1, and provide "a splendid tonic" for the indus-

try.. 92

Comer complied eagerly. He wrote passionately, de

claring that the cotton industry was "fighting with its

back to the wall . . . and the elimination of women from

night work . . . will be the salvation of the industry."93

89 Ibid.J

90 Comer to Jim Mills, editor, Birmingham Post, 8 Dec. 19 30, Comer papers, 56.

91 Sloan to Comer [and all other members of the CTI Executive Committee], 12 Dec. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

92 Ibid.

93 Comer to Francis Lynch, Saratoga Victory Mills, 15 Dec. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 167

The Alabama Progressive also brought up the possibility

that if the cotton mills refused to agree to this proposal

that state legislatures might act to end night work, but do

so unequally. Comer then mentioned that if the reform did

not work, it could be dropped later, but added that "the

industry is going on the rocks if something is not done and

this [attempt to end night work] is the most logical, natu-

ral, humane and sensible reform that we know." 94

Fifty-three Alabama mills signed the declaration

between November 18 and December 17.95 By December 17 72%

of the mills nationally agreed to the night work propos

al.95 Unfortunately, the program met considerable resis

tance among at least seventeen cotton mills in Alabama who

refused to sign the declaration.97 In fact, one of the

mill owners expressed that he "is determined to continue

night work until he is stopped by law." 98 This led Comer

94 Ibid.

95 Halstead to Comer, 17 Dec. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

96 Halstead to Comer, 17 Dec. 1930, Comer papers, 56B.

97 Ibid. Appended to the letter is an annotated list of the seventeen mills and the reasons given for their not signing.

98 Scott Roberts to Comer, 6 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 6IB. The mill owner was Tyler of theAnniston Manufactur ing Company.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 168

to write Mrs. A.M. Tunstall, head of the Alabama Child

Welfare Department (CWD) in Montgomery, in mid-November.

He wrote Tunstall that he had "about reached the conclusion

that it is going to take a State law to deal with both the

hours for day time and the elimination of night work for

women." 99 Comer added that he hoped the Alabama legisla

ture enacted a law in January of 1931.100

The position of Comer and Tunstall received opposi

tion from the National Women's Party (NWP). In fact, on 25

October, Comer sent correspondence to Mrs. Tunstall between

himself and Jane Normal Smith of the NWP detailing their

disagreement.101 Smith wrote Comer that the NWP believed

that legislation that reduced hours for women, but not for

men, treated men and women differently, and therefore was

discriminatory.102

His reply to Smith revealed his very traditional view

on the roles of women and men. He noted that practically

speaking women were the mothers and generally were respon-

99 Comer to Tunstall, 17 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

100 . , Ibid.

101 Tunstall to Comer, 13 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 62. Unfortunately, the correspondence was not located. Appar ently Tunstall then sent the correspondence on to Emma O. Lundberg in Washington, D.C.

102 Tunstall to Comer, 13 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 169

sible for the children. This meant that the best way to

help those women and their children was to eliminate both

groups from working at night.103

The Alabama progressive then wrote to Tunstall that

he wanted legislation to end night work in the cotton

mills, and hoped that the NWP opposition could be over

come.104 By Christmas Comer wrote Scott Roberts that he

had gone on record with Mrs. Tunstall as actively support

ing a bill to eliminate night work in Alabama, and further,

that he wanted a law to limit the work week to 55 hours or

less, if approval seemed possible. 105

Comer's work and faith continued into 1931. Early in

January he wrote George A. Sloan that he believed the anti

night work movement would grow and benefit the entire in

dustry.106 On January 12, he, George Sloan, C. A. Cannon,

Tom Marchant, and W. E. Beattie visited cotton mills in

South Carolina who refused to sign the night work agree-

103 Emma 0. Lundberg, research secretary, White House Conference on Child Health and Protection, New York, N.Y., 17 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 62. I extracted Comer's thoughts from the synopsis provided by Lundberg of the correspondence.

104 Comer to Tunstall, 17 Nov. 1930, Comer papers, 62.

105 Comer to Roberts, 24 Dec. 1930, Comer papers, 6IB.

106 Comer to Sloan, 7 Jan. 1931, Comer papers, 65.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 170

ment.107 They wanted to get more mills to sign up, as 73%

of the cotton mills had agreed to end night work by that

time.. . 108

The Alabama cotton manufacturer believed that the

other two per cent would sign within the deadline. He then

pointed out that if the twenty-five per cent continued to

work women and children at night the effort would be for

naught. If that happened the states would enact legisla-

tion "to cure the whole situation." 109 In fact, Comer

welcomed such legislation. He wrote Walker D. Hines that

"the time has come when I am ready to see Alabama, if nec

essary, [be] the one and only state [to] put a law on her

statute books preventing the working of women at night

time. "110

The Alabama businessman also wrote more letters urg

ing cotton manufacturers to sign the agreement. A letter

to Cason J. Callaway was typical. In it, Comer stressed

both the economic and social aspects in saying that "most

of us [cotton manufacturers] are going into it [the night

107 Comer to Hines, 16 Jan. 1931, Comer papers, 65.

108 Ibid. . ,

109 Comer to Hines, 16 Jan. 1931, Comer papers, 65.

110 Ibid, and Comer simultaneously pointed out that earlier he opposed "what I thought was interfering legisla tion . "

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 171

work agreement] on a basis that [it] will be helpful to the

industry and helpful to the people who work in the

mills."111 Comer also mentioned the reversibility of the

program. If the proposal to end night work proved imprac-

tical, it could be dropped later. 112

A few days later Comer received a letter of support

from Lucy Randolph Mason. Mason first sympathetically

mentioned the problems within the cotton textile industry

in eliminating night work and limiting the hours of day

work for women and children. She then mentioned that Clark

Howell of the Atlanta Constitution and Mrs. Tunstall and

Ruth Scandrett of the CWD admired Comer, and that others

appreciated his attitude toward night work. Mason then

announced her intentions as an organizer for two months for

the Southern Council on Women and Children in Industry

(SCWCI). She emphasized that the SCWCI wanted to launch a

"south-wide movement to arouse the interest of women's

organizations, church groups and liberal men in all ranks

and professions in the subject of uniform laws shortening

111 Comer to Callaway, president, Callaway Mills, La- Grange, Ga., 17 Jan. 1931, Comer papers, 65.

112 Ibid, and see also Comer to Hines, 16 Jan. 1931, Comer papers, 65.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 172

hours of work, eliminating night work and protecting chil

dren. 1,113

Mason deftly worked to capitalize on the problem of

overproduction within the cotton textile industry to create

better working conditions for women and children.114 She

emphasized in her January 16 letter to Comer that "it was

time to stop heaping abuse upon textile manufacturers." 115

Instead, everyone needed "to recognize that the individual

mill men are caught in a vicious circle from which it is

almost impossible for any one to escape until there is a

basic change in the whole industry."116

Mason then solicited Comer's opinion, asking him if

he supported legislation to eliminate night work and to

reduce the hours of work during the day. 117 Unfortunate-

113 Mason to Comer, 23 Jan. 1931, Lucy Randolph Mason papers in the Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, 1, and designated the Mason pa pers hereafter. These papers formerly were Series V of the Operation Dixie papers, and are available on microfilm.

114 John A. Salmond, Miss Lucy of the CIO: The Life and Times of Lucy Randolph Mason, 1882-1959 (Athens, GA. : The University of Georgia Press, 1988), 45-46.

115 Mason to Comer, 16 Jan. 1931, Mason papers, 1.

H& Ibid.. .

H I Ibid.TW-J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 173

ly, Comer's reply was lost, but this started a long and

rewarding correspondence for both of them. 118

By February 19, Walker D. Hines, George A. Sloan, and

the rest of the CTI worried about attaining the 75% level

of agreement. On that date Hines and Sloan sent a joint

telegram to Comer and many other supporters of the night

work agreement urging greater effort. In the telegram they

revealed that 79% of the industry conformed to the agree

ment, but only 72% of those actively engaged in night work.

They added that it would be "demoralizing" to report a

negative result, and that "your personal action may have an

important influence on the result." 119

Success came by February 28. On that date Hines and

Sloan sent another telegram revealing that 83% of the in

dustry overall, and 79% of the night workers signed the CTI

agreement to stop working at night. 120 This occurred be

cause a group of mills around Gastonia, North Carolina,

signed at the last minute. 121

118 Comer wrote Mason at least through 1944. See Comer to Mason, 1944 June 2, Mason papers.

119 Hines and Sloan to Comer and other textile manufac turers, 19 Feb. 1931. See also CTI Executive Committee minutes, 17 Feb. 1931, both in the Comer papers, 66.

120 Hines and Sloan to Comer and the members of the Board of Directors, 28 Feb. 1931, Comer papers, 66.

121 Galambos, Competition & Cooperation, 154-155.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 174

This led to the March 2 announcement by George A.

Sloan that "the plan for [the elimination of night work for

women and minors] becomes effective." 122 That same day,

Comer wrote the Daily News Record regarding the night work

agreement. In that telegram Comer noted the leadership of

the CTI. He also was "encouraged by an enthusiastic and

deep interest on the part of the President and the Secre

tary of Commerce," that allowed the cotton textile industry

"to undertake its first broad effort for social and econom-

ic reform by voluntary agreement." 123 He knew the battle

had only begun, and noted that success "will continue in

doubt until that smaller percentage are won over to the

majority view."124

To keep the agreement, continue the momentum to re

form, and to preserve its fragile authority, the CTI soon

began to write letters of encouragement, send field agents

around the nation to police the night work agreement, and

122 Sloan, announcement of the CTI, 2 Mar. 1931, Comer papers, 66.

123 Comer to Daily News Record, New York, 2 Mar. 1931, telegram, Comer papers, 66.

124 Ibid, and Comer regretted that H. R. Fitzgerald did not live to see this success, "because all the influence of this great leader in our industry has been continually and persistently behind the success of the effort."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 175

to urge non-subscribers to join. 125 Comer himself noted

that if only twenty percent of the night runners continued,

the day runners would be "in an unhappy frame of mind."126

This, of course, secured only the first goal of 75%.

The CTI pledged to have 80% of the industry sign the night

work agreement by March of 1932. In both the case of main

taining gains won, and in the case of expanding those who

signed the nightwork agreement, the support of Donald Comer

proved crucial.

In early April of 1931 Comer turned his attention

more closely to enacting a law in Alabama to eliminate

night work, and to overcoming the opposition of the NWP as

well as night runners in Alabama. John West introduced the

bill, and it was referred to the Committee on Labor. 127

Comer noted that the Birmingham News "has taken no particu

lar interest" in the night work effort of the CTI, with the

125 George A. Sloan to Comer [and others], 7 and 12 Mar. 1931, Comer papers, 66. In that letter to all those who wrote the CTI to extend congratulations on the success in achieving the 75% goal, Sloan wrote that some may "be sorely tempted" to abandon the agreement. He then warned "that this would inevitably lead to a breakdown of the entire movement, a surrender of the gains already made, and a fatal blow for the future."

126 Comer to John Temple Graves, Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 3 Mar. 1931, Comer papers, 67.

127 Comer to William C. Taylor, Montgomery, Ala., chair of the Committee on Labor, 3 June 1931, Comer papers, 64.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 176

singular exception of John Temple Graves.128 He then not

ed the prominent attention the News gave to the claim of

the National Women's Party (NWP) that ceasing night work

resulted in the unemployment of women. Comer reacted some

what angrily, as he was unaware of any women in the Bir

mingham area losing their jobs because of the cessation of

night work.129

He then asked Sloan to prepare a letter explaining

the problems associated with night operations of cotton

mills, but address it in such a way as not to point a fin

ger at the News in particular. Comer then provided an

example to use. He wrote that Mrs. Tunstall insisted that

juvenile delinquency was highest among those groups where

mothers worked at night.130

Sloan promptly wrote to John Temple Graves and used

the Alabamians's example. The CTI chief also pointed out

that Avondale Mills fired no one. Sloan actually did not

name Avondale Mills, because Comer feared that others might

take such an announcement as self-aggrandizement. Sloan

then emphasized that ending night work did not reduce em

ployment, as no more than the demand would be produced in

128 Comer to Sloan, 2 Apr. 1931, Comer papers, 65.

129 Ibid. . ,

130 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 177

any event, and that could all be produced during the day.

To the contrary, a more stable work environment would be

created for men and women because work would be done over a

longer period if mills only operated during the day. This

would keep mills from working day and night for two or

three weeks, then shutting down for two or three weeks

altogether.131

That letter and the combined efforts of many others

such as Donald Comer, Scott Roberts and Mrs. Tunstall re

sulted in the Birmingham News and several other newspapers

strongly supporting the bill to eliminate night work in the

Alabama legislature. 132 Sloan appreciated those efforts

and wrote John Temple Graves II again to send him more

information to print in his column. Sloan added that he

was

anxious for this statement to receive particular atten tion in your state because of the magnificent efforts of Donald Comer and Scott Roberts over a period of years . . . They have done a Herculean job and they deserve better support on the gart of the cotton manu facturing industry in Alabama.

131 George A. Sloan, CTI, to John Temple Graves II, Birmingham News, Birmingham, Ala., 7 Apr. 1931, Comer pa pers, 65.

132 See, for example, Comer to Sloan, 11 Apr. and 11 June 1931, Comer papers, 65.

133 Sloan to Graves, 5 June 1931, Comer papers, 65.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 178

Despite their best efforts, and the efforts of Ala

bama newspapers, the Governor, the Birmingham Chamber of

Commerce and City Commission, the movement to enact a law

prohibiting night work for women and children failed in

1931. In fact, the bill never made it out of commit-

tee. 134 In June Comer laid the blame clearly on the Hunts

ville mills, specifically the Merrimack Mills and the Lin

coln Mills.135

The Alabama Progressive also wrote the Chairman of

the Committee on Labor, William C. Taylor, to protest. He

offered that "there must be a majority of your Committee

who would favor some sort of protective legislation.1,136

Comer then expressed disbelief that the Labor Committee

favored unlimited hours in the day or night for women, and

noted that only Alabama, Iowa, West Virginia, and Florida

totally failed to enact laws to protect women in indus-

try. 137 Comer hoped that the bill might be resurrected,

and offered to discuss the matter again with the Committee

"at any time." 138 All efforts proved futile, however.

134 Comer to William C. Taylor, 3 June 1931, Comer papers, 64.

135 Comer to Sloan, 11 June 1931, Comer papers, 65.

136 Comer to Taylor, 3 June 1931, Comer papers, 64.

137 Ibid.t i ■ j

1 3 8 TU’JIbid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 179

The following month George A. Sloan sent a letter

requesting that Comer again make an effort to recruit non-

conformers into signing the night work agreement. He also

included a list of the non-conforming mills. 139 Analyzing

those nineteen mills, twelve of them operated 16,000 spin

dles or less, four operated 32,000 spindles or less, and

three operated over 32,000 spindles. Two of those three

operated over 100,000 spindles.140 Those two mills, the

Lincoln and Merrimack, both of Huntsville, led the fight to

defeat the night work bill in Alabama earlier. This analy

sis partially confirms claims about non-conformers made by

Louis Galambos in his book Competition & Cooperation. As

Galambos noted, most of the non-conformers operated mills

that had less than 20,000 spindles.141 Of course most

mills operating had less than 20,000 spindles.

In the case of Alabama, this meant twelve of the

nineteen mills operated less than 20,000 spindles. This

analysis confirms superficially Galambos1 contention that

newer firms with newer management tended to be non-conform-

ers. 142 As noted earlier in the chapter, the political

139 Sloan to Comer, 22 Aug. 1931, Comer papers, 66.

1 4 0 Ibid. TU • J

141 Galambos, Competition & Cooperation, 157-158.

142 Galambos, Competition & Cooperation, 158-161.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 180

clout and leadership within Alabama to defeat the 1931 bill

prohibiting night work for women and children came from the

three largest non-conformers, the Dwight Mills, the Merri

mack Mills, and the Lincoln Mills. All three of these

mills were owned by northern interests who came to Alabama

specifically to exploit the labor force. 143

Sloan noted that many of the smaller as well as larg

er non-conforming mills were owned by individuals in New

York and Boston.144 This proves the fact that absentee

ownership was a key factor in conforming or not conforming

to the CTI night work proposal in Alabama, and probably

more important than mill size.145

Whatever the reason, getting to the goal of 80% ac

ceptance of abandoning night work proved difficult. The

problems of achiving compliance may be seen in the fact

143 Sloan to Comer, 22 Aug. 1931, Comer papers, 66.

144 Ibid, and these included the Dwight Manufacturing Co. which was owned by Minor Hooper and Company of New York City, and the Bemis Brothers Bag Company, owned by Mr. Bemis of Boston, Mass. See also Paul B. Halstead to Comer, 25 Sept. 1931, Comer papers, 65, in which he states that most non-conformers "are controlled outside of Alabama."

145 Galambos never discussed this because he never in tended his analysis to cover this factor. Also, my analy sis is only preliminary, and only covers Alabama.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 181

that in early January only 78.1% overall of the night clas

sification approved the proposal.146

These problems resulted in a January 25 meeting be

tween a number of cotton mill executives and Secretary of

Commerce Lamont and CTI President Sloan. Donald Comer

attended. He expressed strong opinions regarding the end

ing of night work in the morning meeting chaired by Secre

tary Lamont. In the afternoon Comer chaired the meeting

and the primary action was to appoint a committee to draw

up a resolution expressing the sentiment of the members

attending. That resolution promoted the 55/50 plan and the

ending of night work for women and minors completely.147

The CTI reached its goal in March of 1932 of over 80%

of the mills subscribing to its night work proposal. Sig

nificant pockets of resistance still fought the proposal.

About 131 firms refused to cooperate, while 275 firms

signed the pledge. This left the CTI and Donald Comer in a

somewhat uncomfortable position to promote other pro-

146 CTI Executive Committee minutes and Board of Direc tors minutes, 6 Jan. 1932, Comer papers, 77. Comer attend ed both meetings.

147 Special memorandum of Sloan, 26 Jan. 1932, Comer papers, 77. The memorandum lists the twenty-three cotton mill executives who attended and the three Department of Commerce officials present, and gives the entire text of the resolution approved.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 182

grams.148 By June of 1932, some more movement occurred.

At that time 87.4% of the total spindles and 83.4% of the

night operators observed the CTI night work proposal.

Interestingly, if not surprisingly, the major group within

the night classification with the lowest observance rate

was the print cloth group. They achieved an 80% acceptance

rate. All other groups achieved at least an 86% observance

rate.. 149

Further, the CTI Executive Committee resolved to

attempt by voluntary cooperation to end all night work by

women and children by October 15, 1932, and that program to

lasti . one year. 150

Both the CTI and the Alabama cotton manufacturer were

prepared for more government intervention to insure stabil

ity in the cotton textile industry as the Hoover adminis

tration ended. A clear example of this came in an undated

1932 letter from Comer to E. T. Pickard, head of the Bureau

of Foreign and Domestic Commerce. Comer noted that volun

tary efforts to control hours of employment had failed, and

that cotton mills had "tried desperately under our own

Memorandum to Cotton Mill executives from George A. Sloan, CTI, 1 Mar. 1932, Comer papers, 77.

149 CTI Executive Committee minutes, 16 June 1932, Com er papers, 77. Comer was present at this meeting, as he was at all of the others except where noted.

150 T-,Ibid. - ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 183

leadership to put women and minors out of our mills at

night." 151 Comer then suggested that "we are going to

have to have Federal control of hours of labor in our in-

dustry." 152 No successful action resulted.

151 Comer to Pickard, Washington, D.C., n.d., Comer papers, 77. Comer wrote a similar letter to the Lowe Manu facturing Co. of Huntsville, and probably to other mills, 8 Apr. 1932, Comer papers, 81.

152 Ibid, and in 1934 Comer agreed to serve on the Non- Partisan Committee for Ratification [of the Child Labor Amendment] at the request of C.C. Burlingham, Chairman of the NCLC. See Burlingham to Comer, 10 Dec. 1934, and Comer's reply of 21 Dec. 1934, both in the Comer papers, 98.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER FIVE

COMER AND PATERNALISM, 1924-1940

In this chapter paternalism is the chief topic. The

type and extent of the paternalistic methods and policies

used by Donald Comer in the 1920s and 1930s will be exam

ined.1 The focus is on the paternalism of the Comers and

the responses to that paternalism by individual workers,

other cotton mill owners, and those outside the mill envi

ronment. This chapter aims to describe the interaction

between Donald Comer and "his" workers.

The Comer family ran undeniably paternalistic mills.

Donald Comer's nickname, "The Boss," indicates just how

paternalistic the operation was.2 Even family members

treated him as the patriarch and called him "sir." As one

admirer put it,

Donald has succeeded to his father's position as head of the family and it is to him that all the Comers go and to him that they look for the counsel, advice and sympathetic understanding incumbent upon the family head.

1 This is not to slight the contributions of other Comer family members.

2 "My Brother Donald," Cotton 100 (May 1936): unpagi nated reprint in the Comer papers, 125.

3 Ibid.

184

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 185

It was that family feeling that the Comers attempted

to impart to all those who worked in the Avondale and Cowi-

kee Mills. The breadth of activities developed by the

Comers was quite immense. As a Methodist minister wrote in

1925,

In each of the communities of this progressive cotton mill company a widespread and comprehensive program of social service activities is carried on. A very large amount of money is expended each year in equipment, buildings, workers, etc. Extensive programs of social activities are carried on, such as day nurseries, splendid kindergartens, boys and girls clubs, cooking and sewing classes, athletics of various kinds, band organizations, etc.4

Aiding mill workers was not the only reason for pa

ternalism. As Robert Jemison wrote to B. B. Comer in 1925,

"in my opinion the best work of the Avondale Mills is the

dividend that you can declare in the way of better citizens

that you are producing among your employees."5 That quote

indicates the most important component of cotton mill pa

ternalism to the owner - the transformation of individual

4 J. Fred Sparks, Pastor, Sycamore Methodist Episcopal Church, South, to Birmingham News, 25 Feb. 1925, and print ed in the Feb. 28 edition.

5 Jemison to Comer, 11 May 1925, B. B. Comer papers, 226. Pathbreaking work on the welfare system employed by the Comers in the 1930s must be given to both Wayne Flynt in his several articles and books, and to Edward Akin in his manuscripts, "Avondale's Welfare Programs for Youth: The Programs and the People Who Made Them Work," given to the Organizations of American Historians, 11 Apr. 1980, and "'Mr. Donald's Help:' Donald Comer, Avondale's Operatives, and the United Textile Workers, 1933-34," copies in author's possession.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 186

istic farmers into a work force able to function in an

industrial environment. As pointed out in Like a Family,

however, "millhands proved less pliant than the cotton they

fashioned . . . 1,6 Of course some observers overstated

the ease of this change as well. Marjorie Potwin wrote

that the transformation occurred "with the speed of a dra

matic industrial romance."7

Romantic it was not. Paternalism as used here con

tains two elements. One part of paternalism means the

benefits that Avondale Mills gave to its employees such as

housing, education, recreation, health benefits, and oth

ers . Another aspect means the control exerted over employ

ees by the employer through the use of those benefits.8

The drudgery of mill work is well known - its noise,

repetition, and health hazards from cotton lint and heavy

machinery. Even the cotton received by rail "was graded

6 Jacquelyn Dowd Hall, et al, Like a Family; The Mak ing of a Southern Cotton Mill World (Chapel Hill: The Uni versity of North Carolina Press, 1987), 114.

7 Potwin, "Investigation Finds Southern Mill People 'Teeming With Potentialities'," Daily News Record, New York, 31 Oct. 1927. She wrote the article from Chattanoo ga, Tenn. Potwin changed her view dramatically after the 1929 textile strikes in Gastonia, N.C., and elsewhere.

8 This dichotomy is pointed out by too many individu als to list. Among other historians who have noted the generally positive attitude of the Comers to their employ ees is Debbie Pendleton in "New Deal Labor Policy and Ala bama Textile Unionism," (M.A. thesis: Auburn University, 1988), 70-71, 82, and 166.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 187

out in the yard by daylight . . . all of it was handled by

hand."9 This often led mill workers to move on from mill

to mill, or even to return to farming as a relief from the

monotony. The Comer mills were no exception. As Mrs. L.

A. House remembered, working in the Avondale Mills in

Mignon "was long hours . . . worked from 6 AM to 6 PM six

days a week."10

It thus behooved management to attempt to relieve the

worker of his or her boredom to some extent. No one under

stood this fact better than Donald Comer. As James Greer

wrote in 1934, "the Comer interests believe with all their

heart that happy, healthy, contented, well treated, and

well paid employees in their mills is the greatest asset in

their investment account."11

This judgment is buttressed by mill workers them

selves. The Comers never considered themselves too impor

tant to listen to the mill workers. Mrs. L. A. House re

marked that the Comers were "just as friendly as they could

9 S. L. Hardy interviewed by Doug Sawyer, 18 Nov. 19 74, at the Avondale Mills Central Plant in Sylacauga. This oral history is located in the Special Collections of Samford University.

10 Mrs. L. A. House interviewed by Wayne Flynt, 10 July 1974, at Sylacauga. This oral history is in the oral histories at the Special Collections of Samford University.

11 James A. Greer, who ran a small textile mill in South Carolina, "The Avondale Mills Annual Inspection of 19 34," draft copy in the Comer papers, 96.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 188

be."12 She then related a story to illustrate the point.

After using some old cotton that constantly broke, she

noticed that a man entered "dressed very ordinary . . . and

he says ’What's the matter with that yarn? I said it's just

rotten, only kind Comers'll buy.1 and . . . he went out

laughin'."13 When she found out that she told that to

Donald Comer she expected to be fired, but no such result

occurred. S. L. Hardy proudly remarked that Avondale, "I

would say [made] at least 75% of Sylacauga.1,14

One should not forget that cotton mills workers often

came to the mills to escape tenant farming as well. As one

former sharecropper said before the Depression of the

1930s, "Mebbe we ain't got much, but we sure has got

more."15 Another textile mill worker added that many

sharecroppers after 1919 "would give up farming and come

move to town . . . they made good money compared with the

farm. "16

12 House oral history.

13 Ibid.

14 Hardy oral history.

15 Potwin, "Investigation Finds."

16 J. B. Green interviewed by Michael Brownfield, 6 Apr. 1977, at Fort Payne, Ala. This oral history is locat ed in the Special Collections at Samford University. Green worked in the W. B. Davis Hosiery Mill at Fort Payne, Ala bama .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 189

The cotton workers were quite proud of their work.

Other residents of the town often did not share that point

of view. Mrs. House recalled that one time she went to see

a parade and some children called the children of cotton

mill workers "'cotton heads'. . . I says well if it wasn't

for the cotton heads you wouldn't have nothin' to eat in

Sylacauga."17 An employee of the Cowikee Mills in Eufaula

seconded that pride in her work. She reported that "my

work is such happiness."18 Donald Comer would have proud

ly seconded both of those statements. That cleavage be

tween "mill people" and "town people" made Comer's job

easier, as Wayne Flynt so correctly points out, by insulat

ing the mill workers.19

There also clearly was a cleavage between the mill

management and the ordinary workers. The cleavage was

strong enough to prompt Mrs. House to attend the Baptist

church rather than the Methodist church in Mignon. Despite

the fact that she was raised a Methodist, she felt more at

home with the Baptists because the management went to the

17 House oral history.

18 Mrs. Lee Snipes interviewed by Gertha Couric, Fed eral Writers Project in Alabama, as seen in "Three Workers of Cowikee Cotton Mill," in the Couch papers.

19 Flynt, Poor but Proud, 106-107.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 190

Methodist church and most of the laboring people went to

the Baptist church. 20

Of course Donald got some help in his approach from

the New South ideology that considered paternalism essen

tial to the creation of a successful capitalistic order in

the South. This belief in the "New Model Capitalist" is

nowhere better illustrated than in Donald's statement about

the founding of Avondale Mills.21 Donald recalled that

his father began the mill at the request of the Birmingham

Chamber of Commerce "to help give employment to those badly

in need of it."22

Donald set out to improve the life-style and happi

ness of the workers at Avondale Mills when he took over

day-to-day operations in 1907. He encouraged employees to

cultivate gardens or even small farms. To do a better job

of this he used Avondale Mills land as experiment farms.

Avondale purchased good breeds of cattle, hogs, and poul

20 House oral history.

21 The term of "New Model Capitalist" comes from Dan iel Joseph Singal, The War Within: From Victorian to Mod ernist Thought in the South, 1919-1945 (Chapel Hill: Uni versity of North Carolina Press, 1982), 22.

22 Comer, Braxton Bragg Comer, 16.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 191

try, and use modern farming methods to insure good pastur

age and chicken houses.23

Donald also promoted broader programs to help the

families of mill workers, but he realized the permanence of

the low economic position of many of them. This led him to

promote the ending of child labor and night work in Avon

dale mills, the extension of education, particularly to the

illiterate, the promotion of better public health among the

mills and mill villages, and proper physical education for

the youth in particular.

The Alabama textile executive attempted a broad range

of activities with qualified instructors to accomplish

those goals. In 1921, for example, the band director at

Mignon was described as "one of the best musical instruc

tors of (sic) the South."24 Avondale also put on elabo

rate stage productions. In 1924 the Avondale Welfare De

partment staged a play entitled "Mignon Review." Over six

hundred people attended the play, which was warmly re

23 C. J. Coley, "Anecdotes from the Lives of Prominent Alabamians I Have Known," Typed manuscript given at the annual meeting of the Alabama Historical Association in Selma, Alabama, 27 Apr. 1985. Copy in author's possession.

24 The band director was Professor Henley, and the article from which the description came was "Mignon Band Presents Watch to Prof. Henley," Sylacauqa Advance, 1, 11 May 1921.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 192

ceived.25 In the Spring of 1921 Bragg Comer entertained

the Avondale band, baseball and basketball teams, and pub

lic school teachers of Sylacauga with supper, a rendition

by the jazz band and vocalists.26 That same year the Avon

dale Mills band contracted with Radcliff's Chataqua system

for a production during the Summer. It also was a suc-

cess.27

But what was the source of Comer's paternalism? The

essential aspect for Donald Comer was his belief in Chris

tianity and the doctrine of social uplift. When Comer

became president of the Birmingham YMCA in 1928, he was

presented as one who "has been interested in character

building work, . . . and promotes welfare work among the

employees of this great industry in a very helpful and

stimulating way." 28 Comer himself demonstrated the social

gospel by saying to the noted Alabama editorialist, John

Temple Graves II, on January 1, 1930, that

25 "Play 'Mignon Review' A Great Success," Sylacauqa Advance, 1, 13 Aug. 1924.

25 "Mr and Mrs B. B. Comer Entertain," Sylacauqa Ad vance, 2 Mar. 1921, 1. B. B. Comer here means B. B. Comer, Jr., usually known as Bragg Comer.

27 "Mignon Gets on the Map," Sylacauqa Advance, 1, 26 Jan. 1921.

28 "Who's Who in the 'Y'," The Birmingham Red Triangle 1 (May 1928), 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 193

I am trying to be appreciative of the obligations and responsibilities that have come to me as the head of a textile interest in Alabama. My one prayer today is for sufficient wisdom to fairly measure up to those responsibilities.29

Comer's tendency toward the social gospel was nur

tured early in life. "As far back as I can remember Sunday

was a day set apart."30 He remembered the Biblical pas

sage where Joshua told the leaders of Israel that he and

his family would follow the ways of the Lord, and how his

father accepted that promise. Later, "I felt it was not

only my privilege but almost an obligation on my part to

carry out the contract my father must have made for me and

my family."31

He then cited his many involvements in the church,

including his efforts at teaching a Sunday School class,

serving on the Board of Stewards and Board of Trustees of

the First Methodist Church of Birmingham, and activities as

vice-president of the American Bible Society.32 In clos

ing, Comer expressed his philosophy of life. "Live and let

live is not enough - live and help live is what a Christian

29 Comer to John Temple Graves, 1 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 57.

30 Comer, "This I Believe," submitted to the Edward R. Murrow program ca. 1950, but not accepted.

31 Ibid.

32 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 194

America wants to do and what we are trying to do with the

help we are extending."33

Others described him as exemplifying the social gos

pel. French H. Craddock, Sr., remarked that:

he always has a hearty greeting for the man, woman, or child he meets, he is constantly seeking out the sick, the troubled, the unfortunate. His big heart is not shriveled or bound by race, creed, color or worldly goods. All are God's children to him.34

S. L. Hardy then noted the effort to spread the social

gospel among others. He noted that the Comers "always

encourage leaders down here to be community-minded, educa

tion-minded, church-minded.1,35

His correspondence with Aubrey Williams in 1934 re

flected Comer's interest in the social gospel. Williams,

at that time the acting administrator for FERA, wrote that

he used to go to Avondale on Sundays to teach Bible classes

for the mill children. Williams mentioned that "some of

their faces still linger vividly in my memory, and I have

often wondered what has become of them."36 He recommended

33 Ibid.

34 Remarks of French H. Craddock, Sr., on 30 Apr. 1952, in Voices of Alabama: James McDonald Comer (Birming ham: WAPI Radio Station, 1952), unpaginated.

35 Hardy oral history.

36 Williams to Comer, 12 July 1934, Comer papers, 106.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 195

that Comer be put on FDR's Advisory Board for Social Secu

rity.

Comer replied warmly, and mentioned that he too

taught Sunday School with Mrs. Comer for many years. He

then reported his activities for the New Deal such as work

ing on the Rural Rehabilitation program and with the NRA.

He closed by praising both Williams and Harry Hopkins, and

by telling Williams that it was "a pleasure and opportuni

ty" to communicate with him.37 Clearly Comer himself in

dicated that his Christian beliefs moved him to help those

less fortunate around him, and to respect all those who

worked with him.

One way he demonstrated that respect was to purchase

land on the coast of Florida which served as a vacation

retreat for the children of mill workers. He soon branched

out into broader areas. When he purchased the Eufaula

Cotton Mill in 1909, it only had only one outdoor toilet,

was polluted by tobacco spit on the floor, and had no run-

ning water. 38 Donald Comer directly remedied that situa

37 Comer to Williams, 21 July 1934, Comer papers, 106.

30 Nancy Nolan, interviewed by Gertha Couric in Eufau la, Barbour County, Ala., 20 Oct. 1938, from the Federal Writers Project files located at the Southern Historical Collection at Chapel Hill, N.C. These will be abbreviated to FWP interviews.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 196

tion. New machinery arrived quickly.39 Soon he installed

"a fountain of running ice water, marble toilets, marble

floor, [and] five commodes, all cleaned every day."40 In

addition, uniforms appeared, each department wearing a

different color.41 Further, and just as importantly, Mrs.

Lee Snipes remembered that before Donald Comer took over

the mill, "It used to be that we were just factory folks or

'lint heads'. Now we are 'Mill Operatives' and we hold our

heads high."42

In 1925 Mary Lanier came to Eufaula to "take charge

of the community work there."43 Donald Comer told her that

he wanted to keep the band and the kindergarten going, but

that she ought to feel free to add other activities.44

Lanier replied that she appreciated the trust the Comers

39 Tom Alsobrook, interviewed by Gertha Couric, 13 Oct. 1938, FWP interview.

40 Mrs. Lee Snipes, weaver, interviewed by Gertha Cou ric, FWP interviews.

41 Quote from the same interview. The colors used were blue, green, and white. From Mrs. Lee Snipes, weaver, interviewed by Gertha Couric, FWP interviews.

42 Ibid.

43 Comer to Mary Lanier, YMCA, Oil City, Penn., 17 Feb. 1925, Comer papers, 19.

« Ibid.T L • - 1

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 197

placed in her and looked forward to "the wonderful opportu

nities of such work."45

Lanier's arrival, however, signalled no lessening in

the Comer's control of the work or recreation environment

at Cowikee Mills. When she requested permission to hire

someone from Pennsylvania to work with her in the kinder

garten, Donald Comer specified that she hire someone only

after she arrived in Eufaula.46

Eufaula was not the only town affected. In February

of 1925 the pastor of the Methodist Episcopal Church in

Sycamore, J. Fred Sparks, wrote a letter to the editor of

the Birmingham News which appeared in the 28 February 1925

edition. In the letter he praised the Comers for taking

seventy five members of the combined Sycamore and Sylacauga

bands to hear John Philip Sousa and his band play at the

Birmingham City Auditorium. Not only did Avondale Mills

pay for the trip, but Donald Comer met the band members at

the train station and accompanied them to the "splendidly

equipped" recreation center at Avondale. There the band

members ate a "delicious" lunch, then boarded a special

street car to the auditorium. After the concert the band

members took a special train for the return trip home, and

45 Lanier to Comer, 24 Feb. 1925, Comer papers, 19.

46 Lanier to Comer, 24 Feb. 1925, and Comer to Lanier, 28 Feb. 1925, both in the Comer papers, 19.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 198

"there was nothing lacking to make the trip a pleasant

one."..47

The Comers believed in more than musical education.

This led to many of the mill towns having their own school

system and school buildings. Avondale built these struc

tures and paid taxes on the school buildings as they were

assessed with the other property of the company. Not every

mill or mill town had its own structure. For example,

Birmingham operated a school, but since most school chil

dren attended the public school system, no separate struc

ture was required.48

One other case proved most interesting. In 1928

Avondale built a $75,000 brick school house for the chil

dren of the mill workers in Sylacauga. One reason for

doing so was to get a tax break from Talladega County.

Instead, that county presented a $9,000 tax bill on the

school house. Comer initially offered to pay the tax "if

they would reappropriate it to our schools, but they de-

clined to do this." 49 When that occurrehe wrote Governor

47 Birmingham News, 28 Feb. 1925, and all the quotes come from the same article.

48 L. Sevier, president, AIA, Birmingham, Ala., to Charles H. Abbot, secretary, Avondale Mills, 7 Apr. 1926, Comer papers, 28. See also Comer to Board of Review, Blount County, Oneonta, Ala., 30 May 1930, Comer papers, 56.

49 Comer to Graves, 19 Aug. 1929, Comer papers, 48.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 199

Bibb Graves to intercede through the State Board of Compro

mise.50 Through the intercession a reduction was obtained

for that initial year.51

A 1926 survey by the Associated Industries of Alabama

(AIA), indicates the level of commitment by the company to

education. In that survey the expenses for education for

the 1923-4 and 1924-5 school years was examined. In the

1923-4 school years, a total of 1,550 students were en

rolled in the Avondale school system, 91 of which were

black, while in the 1924-5 school year those figures were

1,779 and 92, respectively.52

The direct operating costs of providing this educa

tion came to $31,028 in the 1923-4 school year, and $37,770

in the 1924-5 school year. Of that, $3,143 was spent on

black students in the 1923-4 school year, and $3,116 in the

1924-5 school year.53

In Birmingham the amount spent per capita on black

and white students was identical. In Bevelle, however, the

expenses and the school year for black students was only

50 Comer to Graves, 25 July 1929, Comer papers, 48.

51 Comer to Graves, 19 Aug. 1929, Comer papers, 48.

52 Avondale Mills answer to 1926 AIA educational ex penses survey.

53 Ibid. This does not count money invested in school buildings or equipment, both of which are cumulative, and could be amortized.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 200

about half of that per capita for white students.54 Em

ployees were never assessed for any of this expense.55

Another way the Comers attempted to educate their

workers was through industrial schooling. This instruction

went to both men and women. The curriculum differed sig

nificantly according to sex, however. The school for men

generally involved training for leadership positions such

as foremen, or occasionally included a more academic ele

ment to prepare the young men for textile engineering. The

curriculum for women tended to involve home and child-rear

ing skills.

One example of educating young women occurred in the

Summer of 1927. At that time two girls from the Avondale

Mills in Birmingham went to the Southern School for Indus

trial Workers offered through Athens College. The curricu

lum included letter writing, Bible study, dramatics, physi

cal education, interior decoration, diet, gardening, family

budget, and citizenship.56 That school lasted for the

Summer and in it the two mill girls attended class with

five tenant farmers' daughters and young college girls,

54 Ibid. .

55 Ibid.

56 Mrs. J.H. McCoy to Comer, 11 Jan. 1927, Comer pa pers, 34. See also "Avondale Mills to Be Represented at Athens College," Avondale Sun, 13 July 1928.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 201

about 100 all together. All the young ladies, including

college students, mill girls and tenant farmers' daughters,

shared recreational life and dining facilities together.

In writing about the two girls from Avondale Mills, Mary M.

(Mrs. J.H.) McCoy, the president of the college, remarked

that they "are devoted to their organization and thoroughly

loyal to the Mill [sic] owners."57

Another example of industrial education occurred

beginning in December of 1927. At that time, Ben E. Har

ris, Supervisor of Industrial Education for the University

of Alabama, wrote to Donald Comer regarding foremanship

classes. 58 Donald Comer replied that he appreciated the

help and requested that Harris write Mr. Rennie at Pell

City, Hugh Comer at Sycamore, and J. Fletcher Comer at

Alexander City regarding teaching those classes at those

mill sites.59

Heretofore the classes were taught at the University

of Alabama. Avondale Mills sent twelve men to the foreman

ship class there during the Summer of 1927, for example.60

57 Quote and content from Mrs. J.H. McCoy to Comer, 28 June 1927, Comer papers, 28.

58 Harris to Comer, 13 Dec. 1927, Comer papers, 33.

59 Comer to Harris, 20 Dec. 1927, Comer papers, 33.

60 Comer to John R. McClure, Director, Summer School, University of Alabama, 16 May 1927, Comer papers, 34.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 202

In both cases, V. P. McKinley taught those classes. Avon

dale Mills continued to send men to that program for years

thereafter.61 As Comer wrote to Ben H. Harris, vocational

education prepared workers for leadership roles over the

long run, and increased efficiency immediately.62

The Comers' efforts at granting scholarships is leg

endary. This process became much more formalized and even

more generous after World War II, but one or two examples

of this will help understand how this worked. For example,

Comer supported Miss Hill's scholarship at Birmingham-

Southern College during the 1930s.63 In another case,

Donald Comer not only paid Herman Jones' way completely

through Auburn, but attempted to get him a job with the

White Company of Atlanta, Georgia, in 1930. The fact that

Jones' father died in 1929 and was formerly superintendent

at Cowikee Mills in Eufaula made the story even more com

pelling.64

Of course Donald Comer was never averse to publiciz

ing his paternalistic efforts to make Avondale Mills a more

appreciated member of the community. In August of 1929,

61 Ibid.

62 Comer to Harris, 26 July 1929, Comer papers, 49.

63 Comer to Guy Snavely, President, Birmingham-South ern College, 22 Oct. 1935, Comer papers, 126.

64 Comer to Mr. Cowan, 27 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 63.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 203

for example, he wrote the Birmingham Industrial Board re

garding the employees of Avondale Mills and the manner in

which the employees were treated. Comer first noted that

many individuals who worked in cotton mills were physically

below par, or were people who "ought not to have to

work." 65 Nonetheless, he felt the employees of Avondale

"have responded to intelligent leadership."66 Any person

complaining of a lack of successful operation must say

"that the fault lies in the management."67 In its reply,

the Board noted that "there is such a large surplus of

woman labor in and around Birmingham that we should try to

bring industries here that will use them."68

By November of 1929 Comer got the Birmingham News to

publish a feature article on the Pell City mill by Mr.

Barnett, as well as to use photographs in its rotogravure

section.69 Comer wrote to thank the publisher, Victor

Hanson, as "any kindly reference to the textile industry is

65 Comer to Birmingham Industrial Board, 6 Aug. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

66 Ibid.

67 Ibid.

68 Birmingham Industrial Board to Comer, 7 Aug. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

69 Birmingham News, 10 Nov. 1929.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 204

doubly appreciated." 70 The Birmingham News ran a very

similar type of article coupled with photographs in the

gravure section in July of 1929 for the mill in Mignon.

Barnett wrote that article also. Comer thanked Hanson "for

the generous space you gave us . . . it was very nice of

you to include the Town (sic) of Mignon."71

Favorable articles on the Avondale Mills were not

limited to the Birmingham News. The Atlanta Constitution

ran an article in its Sunday paper on 8 December 1929.

That article appeared because Clark Howell edited the At

lanta Constitution, and was an in-law of Comer. The arti

cle, accompanied by numerous photographs in the gravure

section, appeared manifestly to fight "the vicious propa

ganda instituted against living conditions in Southern

mills."72 Even before the article appeared, Comer wrote

of his pleasure that the cotton textile industry in the

South would receive favorable publicity.73 He also com

70 Comer to Hanson, 13 Nov. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

71 Comer to Hanson, 8 Aug. 1929, Comer papers, 49; and Ewing Gallaway to Avondale Mills, 8 Nov. 1929, Comer pa pers, 48. The Mignon article appeared in the 14 July 1929 edition of the Birmingham News.

72 Howell to Comer, 16 Nov. 1929, Comer papers, 49. The Constitution ran a series of articles on southern cot ton mills that emphasized the paternalistic practices and concern for textile workers practiced by the mill owners.

73 Comer to Howell, 29 Nov. 1929, Comer papers, 49.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 205

mented favorably on the skill of the photographer and fea

ture writer Howell sent to do the story in ordering 1,000

copies of the edition in advance.74

When the article appeared, Comer thanked Howell for

his efforts for "helping put before the public the better

side of the picture."75 He also thanked the author of the

article, Carey Wilmer, saying that "we all think you have

done remarkably well with this story."76 Other people no

ticed that as well. W. L. Sturdevant, the editor of the

Birmingham Post wrote Comer that the "fine" article in the

Atlanta Constitution "... gave me an entirely different

slant on the cotton mill situation, and certainly impressed

me with your efforts on behalf of your employees."77

Much of the article, written by C. B. Wilmer, Jr.,

was excerpted into "Textile Mills and the L & N," in the L

& N Employees Magazine of February 1930. 78 Among the more

notable.items repeated in the magazine article was the

74 Ibid, Comer to J. T. Holloway, photographer, 5 Dec. 1929, and Howell to Comer, 9 Dec. 1929, both in the Comer papers, 49.

75 Comer to Howell, 14 Dec. 1929, Comer papers, 49.

76 Quote from Comer to Wilmer, 2 Dec. 1929. See also Comer to Wilmer of 29 Nov. 1929 and 16 Dec. 1930, all in the Comer papers, 53.

77 Sturdevant to Comer, 2 Jan. 1930, Comer papers, 55.

78 "Textile Mills and the L & N," L & N Employees' Magazine (February 1930), 14-19.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 206

quote that "Mr. Comer might well be pointed out as typify

ing in many ways the industrial leader who has the best

interests of his employees at heart at all times."79

An exceptional case of self-promotion combined with

good works presented itself to Comer in 1929. During that

year Avondale Mills participated in the Opportunity School

program to reduce illiteracy in Alabama. 80 Comer struck

on the idea that highlighting one person's success, A.R.

Dodd, in overcoming illiteracy would help others to partic

ipate in the literacy program. He hoped that story would

provide good publicity for Avondale Mills.

The idea worked extremely well. On the first page of

the 7 December 1929 edition of the Avondale Sun was printed

the story of the Dodd family. Donald Comer prominently

claimed the by-line. The four page story was liberally

sprinkled with photographs that demonstrated many of the

paternalistic practices of Avondale, such as the girls and

boys basketball teams, the nursery, the Methodist church,

and the graduating sixth grade class of twenty youngsters.

Of course the front page had a group picture of the Dodd

79 Ibid.

80 Comer's participation in this program and the fund ing, resources committed by various sources, and the limit ed success of the program overall is detailed earlier.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 207

family, their present very comfortable home, and their

former home, now very much dilapidated. 81

What made the story even more useful was that the

Dodd family originally worked as tenant farmers in Talla

dega County who came to work at the Sycamore plant that

Avondale ran. Comer quickly pointed out this fact to con

trast the nearly immediate improvement in the lot of the

Dodd family. Not only was more money available, all of the

three Dodd children received high school training courtesy

of Avondale. In fact, the eldest son, Melvin went on to

receive foreman training at the University of Alabama and

in 1929 occupied the position of assistant foreman in the

carding department at Sycamore. 82

What really made this story exceptional, however, was

that A.R. Dodd learned to read and write at the Opportunity

School at Sycamore. On the final page of the article was

printed the letter Dodd wrote to Donald Comer thanking him

81 Comer to Bibb Graves, 7 July 1930, filed in newspa per clippings, 1930, in the administrative files of Gover nor Bibb Graves, ADAH. The story was entitled "Once Upon a Time," and what is present in the file is actually a re print of the story with photographs and some 1930 letters added. Unfortunately, the Avondale Sun for the entire year of 1929 is unavailable either in hard copy or on micro fiche, so it is difficult to tell what originally was in cluded in the story and what was not. Luckily, Donald Comer sent this clipping to Gov. Graves, and even more fortuitously, Graves kept it.

82 Ibid.. ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 208

for sponsoring the Opportunity School, and a letter from

Governor Bibb Graves to A.R. Dodd congratulating him for

"your determination to improve your condition."83

The reaction was quick and positive. Richard H.

Edmonds, publisher of the Manufacturer's Record, wrote

Comer on the same day he received the Avondale Sun. Ed

monds stressed the usefulness of the article in overcoming

"the evil influences that have been at work for many years

to misrepresent the whole cotton industry of the South."84

Moreover, the Dodd family represented "thousands of other

families who have been lifted up in the same way by the

opportunities afforded by industrial employment."85 In

replying to Edmonds, Comer again stressed the paternal

programs in writing that "We have public health nurses, we

have nurseries and kindergartens and athletics of various

kinds under supervised direction."86

03 Ibid. The original letter was not located, but Graves originally wrote Dodd on 27 Mar. 1930. See also the Avondale Sun, 5 Apr. 1930; and Comer to Bibb Graves, 17 May 1930, Comer papers, 57. In the latter edition of the Sun was published the correspondence between Comer, Bibb Graves, and A.R. Dodd that was later added to the reprint edition.

84 Edmonds to Comer, 11 Dec. 1929, Comer papers, 47.

85 Ibid..

86 Comer to Edmonds, 23 Dec. 1929, Comer papers, 47.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 209

The Avondale Mills owner sent a copy of the Dodd

article he wrote to W.E. Henley, the president of the Bir

mingham Trust and Savings Bank. The article discussed "a

typical case of a family coming from the country to a cot

ton mill . . . the opportunities are there if the purpose

and the determination are there." 87

An added bonus for Comer came in February of 1930.

That month Dodd paid his poll tax and registered to vote.

Even though he had to pay twenty dollars worth of back poll

taxes, he was willing to pay for the privilege to vote.

Comer notified Esther Foster Yielding, the chairman of the

Alabama Advisory Committee on Illiteracy, of that "definite

result."88 Mrs. Yielding was "delighted."89

Avondale Mills soon followed up that success by ad

vertising among its employees. The company newspaper an

nounced that "Avondale Communities Start Opportunity

Schools." 90 Again, sex differentiation entered. In that

87 Comer to Henley, 17 Dec. 1929, Comer papers, 46.

88 Comer to Yielding, Comer papers, 63. Comer sent the same message to Governor Bibb Graves on 17 May 1930. See Comer papers, 57.

89 Yielding to Comer, 27 Feb. 1930, Comer papers, 63.

90 "Avondale Communities Start Opportunity Schools," Avondale Sun, 8 Mar. 1930. Also refer to "Opportunity School at Pell City Growing in Popularity," Avondale Sun, 22 Mar. 1930, and other articles in the 5 Apr. and 19 Apr. 1930 editions of the Avondale Sun.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 210

program men attended school on Monday, Wednesday, and Fri

day from 5:30 PM until 7:00 PM, while women were limited to

only Tuesday and Thursday from 6:00 PM to 7:00 PM. As the

State of Alabama created the guidelines, however, the fault

of giving the men more training rested more with the pro

gram than with the cotton mills. The Avondale Sun article

emphasized that illiteracy was "nothing to be ashamed of"

if the opportunity to learn was captured now.91 An arti

cle of particular interest appeared in the 19 April 1930

Avondale Sun. In it, Donald Comer praised the participants

of the Opportunity Schools for their determination to suc

ceed. 92

Throughout the rest of the year and the 1930s, Donald

Comer used the Dodd article to generate favorable feelings

toward Avondale Mills. Franklin W. Hobbs, the president of

the Arlington Mills in Boston, Massachusetts, wrote Comer

in June of 1930 to express that "it gave me a thrill to

read" the Dodd story.93 "What an inspiration one finds in

such an experience - which is only typical of thousands of

others and which shows what can be done by hard work and

91 Ibid.

92 "Donald Comer Commends Opportunity School Pupils and Thanks Them for Letters," Avondale Sun, 19 Apr. 1930, 1 .

93 Hobbs to Comer, 20 June 1930, Comer papers, 58.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 211

honest efforts." 94 In June of 1933 Senator Hugo L. Black

even sent a copy of the article to Secretary of Agriculture

Henry A. Wallace.95

Health and safety concerns also occupied the manage

ment of Avondale Mills. Comer wrote to his son, Donald

Comer, Jr., in February of 1930 that

. . . we try to make the mills as comfortable and plea sant for people to work [in] as we can . . . we have tried to eliminate the cotton particles . . . by suc tion . . . and we are trying to blow into the mill fresh air continually.96

In addition, every time the Department of Labor up

dated the textile safety code, it was published in the

Avondale Sun in full.97 A worker also remembered that

Avondale Mills had "always gone along with all kinds of

sanitation control you see. They come with the filter

plant before anybody told 'em."98

94 Ibid. . ,

95 Black to Wallace, 5 June 1933, Dept, of Agricul ture, General correspondence, 1906-1975, Publications (out side) .

96 Comer to Donald Comer, Jr., [nicknamed Robin] 10 Feb. 1930, Comer papers, 56. In fact, Comer had a doctor make X-rays made of people's lungs to determine if any harm was coming to them. He also sent a copy of the story on the Dodd family.

97 See, for example, the Avondale Sun of 21 June 1930, 1. The article in the Sun also stressed the need to en force the code strictly.

98 Hardy oral history.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 212

All of these efforts paid dividends, not just with

outsiders, but with the mill employees themselves. Tom A.

Coleman, who had worked in one of the Sylacauga plants for

four years wrote to Donald Comer on 31 March 1930 to com

ment on a planned reduction in salary across the board. In

that letter he had always "found them [Avondale Mills] to

be fair and square with their help .... I am glad to

take my part of the [wage] reduction." 99

Avondale and Cowikee had other methods of paternal

ism. One well-documented one was the Lone Oak Leghorn

Farm, a poultry farm operated by Cowikee Mills. The farm

raised chickens, turkeys, quail, and pigeons, and it spe

cialized in selling baby chicks, market eggs, squabs, and

poultry meat. In fact, almost every mill family raised

their own White Leghorn chickens, using the knowledge

gained by the farm to do so.100 The White Leghorn proved

to be a very reliable chicken, and in contests it produced

high egg production, meat, with low feed consumption.101

The Alabama textile executive wrote John Temple

Graves II in early February of 1932 to inform him of the

99 Tom A. Coleman to Comer, 31 Mar. 1931, Comer pa pers, 64.

100 WPA. Alabama Writers Project. Barbour County people and places, Project, #4454, located at the SHC, and named by Gertha Couric, "Mill Settlement," 4 pp.

Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 213

operations of that demonstration farm. 102 Graves then

wrote a column in the Birmingham Aqe-Herald of February 15.

Graves noted the multiple purposes of operating a chicken

farm at the Cowikee Mills. First, the farm provided fresh

eggs and chicks for the mill employees. Second, the chick

en farm promoted agricultural diversification in Alabama.

As Graves put it, "Enlightened mill owners like Mr. Comer

see no more benefit to themselves than to the farmers in

recurrent declines in cotton prices resulting from over-

production." 103 Thus paternalism to his workers and exam

ples of diversification to the farmers came together in one

project. Comer thanked Graves for "establishing some fa

vorable public opinion for the effort that 80% of the tex

tile industry of the country is making to improve its eco

nomic and social conditions."104

A similar project was operated in Sylacauga. W. S.

Hardy, a long-time Avondale employee, reported that Avon

dale Mills sectioned off land for people to plant vegeta

bles and allowed people to pasture cows, as well as to have

hogs and chickens. That way the employees could raise

their own food. Avondale even hired an experienced garden

102 Comer to Graves, 10 Feb. 1932, Comer papers, 78.

103 Graves, "This Morning," 1, Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 15 Feb. 1932.

104 Comer to Graves, 19 Feb. 1932, Comer papers, 78.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 214

er to instruct people on the best way to grow vegetables.

To show his commitment to the program, "Donald Comer, he'd

come around and visit now and then. Get somebody to ride

him around and look at spots."105

The primary consideration, however, was the welfare

of the employees. This is demonstrated in a 1932 report

detailing the paternalistic activities at the four plants

of Avondale Mills in Sylacauga. Remember that 1932 was one

of the worst years of the Depression. A list of those

activities in athletics alone included: for adults, four

basketball teams, a baseball team, a volley ball, and play

ground ball leagues that allowed 252 men and women to par

ticipate; in athletics for minors, various basketball,

baseball, and volleyball teams that had 335 teen age boys

and girls; in summer playgrounds both youth and adults

participated, with about 350 children, 140 minors, and

seventy-five children participating, with 1,100 children

taking part in the annual play-day program. In addition,

Avondale Mills built a gymnasium and held an annual basket

ball tournament in the Spring that had 24 teams composed of

235 players to participate.105 W. S. Hardy noted espe

105 Hardy oral history.

105 C. C. Dailey, Personnel Director, "[1932] Report of Social Service Activities for Avondale Mills, Sylacauga, Alabama," 3 pp., Comer papers, 77. There is a one page (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 215

cially the support of girls basketball and softball teams,

and summed up the athletic activities by saying that "the

company, well, they encouraged sports a lot." 107

Recreational activities began at the community house,

named Beverly Hall. It operated a library and reading

room, contained recreational games, and held social parties

and various types of programs, including suppers prepared

in its kitchen. About four hundred adults, 375 minors, and

two hundred children were served through the community

house. Moreover, the women of the village used the facili

ties there to fill over ten thousand cans of vegetables and

fruit during the year.108

In addition, the mills offered a lake and swimming

pool at the edge of the mill village. That area of the

lake was stocked with fish, and a life guard employed by

106( . . .continued) enumeration in condensed form of the paternal activities at Avondale Mills in Birmingham appended to that document. For a detailed analysis of the paternal programs at Avondale Mills in Birmingham, see the unpublished manu script of Edward Akin, "Avondale's Welfare Programs for Youth: The Programs and the People Who Made Them Work." For more on the activities at Cowikee Mills at Eufau- la, see WPA Project #4454, Gertha Couric, "Mill Settle ment," 4 pp; "Industry, Finance, Commerce, and Labor," 6 and 7 only; and "Description of Mill Settlement," 8 pp. The canning, commissary, health, and recreation activities are all documented there.

107 Hardy oral history.

108 Dailey, 1932 report.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 216

the company kept anyone from drowning. At least eight

hundred adults, three hundred minors, and four hundred

children used the lake and concrete swimming pool built at

the lake. Other activities included horseback riding and

landscape gardening with professional instruction. 109

About twenty miles from town Avondale Mills operated

Camp Brownie on the Coosa River. One large boat with a

capacity of thirty-five, and several motor boats and row

boats were provided by the company, and girls and boys

clubs were encouraged to use the facilities for camping and

hiking. At least one thousand employees and their families

used Camp Brownie during the year. Also heavily attended

was the gulf camp known as Camp Helen, located near Panama

City, Florida, that Donald Comer purchased that same year.

That property replaced the property purchased some fifteen

years earlier so that activities could be expanded. About

575 adults, 380 minors, and thirty-five children from Syla

cauga attended that camp.110 Two years later, in fact,

109 Ibid. T U • -J

110 Ibid, and see also a clipping from the Birmingham Aqe-Herald of 16 June 1934 that discusses the Summer camp in Panama City and other activities in the George S. Mitch ell papers, Manuscript Dept., William R. Perkins Library, Duke University. Two years later Avondale Mills purchased two buses to facilitate travel to Camp Helen in Panama City. See "Avon dale Mills Purchases Two Large Buses," Sylacauga Advance, 1, 17 May 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 217

Donald Comer wrote A.I duPont to request that the duPonts

sell one square mile of adjoining Florida land to Avondale

Mills. Comer requested that purchase so that dairy cows

and vegetables could be grown to feed the mill workers and

their families that stayed on the Gulf Coast during the

Summer.111

Educational opportunities were not neglected either.

About 1,125 students attended the day school. The night

schools taught courses in cotton manufacturing and mathe-

matics that about fifty adults attended. 112

In addition, the schools offered club programs for

children and adults. Approximately ninety-five boys, 155

girls, and forty adults participated in those clubs. An

additional eighty-four women enrolled in the sewing club.

Sixty-three boys and girls participated in the three educa

tional tours given through the mills. Two of those trips

went up the Atlantic Coast to Washington, D.C., while one

trip went to South Florida. Pre-schoolers were not ig

nored, either. Three kindergartens enrolled 175 children

throughout the year, and thirty five more children attended

a day nursery.113

111 Comer to duPont, Wilmington, Dela., 14 Feb. 1934, Comer papers, 99.

Dailey, 1932 Report.

113 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 218

Health care ranked high at Avondale. The medical

department, organized in 1914, operated a modern hospital

with a staff of doctors, dentists, and nurses handled 5,872

cases, 11,994 clinical treatments, and 4,425 home calls.

Medical exams were given to 1,076 school children, and 830

of those children received dental exams. Beyond that,

school and community nurses made 1,191 house calls and

handled thirty eight cases of sickness.114

Prevention played an important part in health care

also. The mill operated a dairy and poultry farm in order

to insure a plentiful supply of fresh milk. Milk and vege

tables are essential to avoid pellagra, and were provided

at cost to employees. The farm owned one hundred cows and

thirteen prize-winning White Leghorn hens, and was the

largest poultry operation east of the Rockies.115

114 Ibid, and in 1934 that hospital had an A rating from the American College of Surgeons according to Robert W. Philip, "On Inspection Tour with the Comers," Cotton (June 1935), 56. See also WPA. Federal Writers Project. Talladega County people and places. Project #unassigned. J. Craig Smith, "Avondale Mills," 6 pp.

115 Ibid, J. Craig Smith," Avondale Mills," and some items of note did not make the report because of their long standing. For example, in 1920 Avondale Mills built an ice plant in Sylacauga, and in 1921 in Mignon, so that fresh meat and ice could be sold to employees at cost. See "Avondale Mills Company Builds Ice Plant," Sylacauga Ad vance, 21 July 1920, 1; "Mignon Getting on the Map," Syla- cauqa Advance, 23 Mar. 1921, 3; and "Comer Explains Open ing," Sylacauga Advance, 30 Mar. 1921, 3.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 219

Musical activities included the mill band of fifty-

pieces and the school band of forty pieces, in which the

mill employed the band director. In addition, a community

chorus, music study clubs, and quartets enrolling sixty-

five people operated under the auspices of the company and

a volunteer director.116

In addition, Avondale Mills offered scrip, called

"goo-ga-loo" to its employees. 117 Though the workers were

paid in cash, some of the money could be redeemed at the

rate of eighty cents to one dollar's worth of "goo-ga-loo"

and used at the company store. This meant that the employ

ee got a twenty percent discount for goods at that store as

opposed to downtown stores because meat and other items

cost the same at the company store as they did at the down

town stores.118

Comer's concerns were not limited to even his own

employees. A 1932 incident demonstrates that his paternal

ism went beyond the mill village and into the towns in

which his mills operated. In September of 1932 P. A.

McDaniel, the superintendent of the Barbour County Board of

Education wrote to Comer desperately in need of funds to

116 Ibid, and J. Craig Smith, "Avondale Mills."

117 House oral history.

H 8 Ibid.TU•J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 220

cover four months of operation. McDaniel asked for a loan

to cover those expenses. 119 Comer quickly agreed and on

24 October 1932, agreed to lend $5,000 to Barbour County at

no interest. 120 That loan won Comer much good will at

very little risk or expense.

Nor were spiritual concerns ignored. Again, only one

example will be given. Fletcher Comer in 1933 followed in

his father's footsteps by constructing churches. Where B.

B. Comer built the churches in Old Spring Hill, Fletcher in

1933 constructed a new Methodist church and a new Baptist

church in Alexander City for the mill employees at a cost

of $25,000 each. 121 The Comers gave either $50 or $100 a

quarter to both the Methodist and Baptist churches in Syla-

cauga as well. 122

The most adroit use of publicity to generate good

will occurred, however, in the annual Spring inspection

tours given in April or May. These tours first originated

to give a peak of efficiency to each year. The management

of each mill, as well as the directors of the company vis

119 McDaniel to Comer, Clayton, Ala., 15 Sept. 1932, Comer papers, 81

120 Comer to McDaniel, 29 Sept. and 8 and 24 Oct. 1932, Comer papers, 81.

121 "Fletcher Comer Rites Are Held," Alabama Journal, 9 July 1935, 1 and 4.

122 House oral history.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 221

ited each and every mill to inspect its efficiency, clean

liness, welfare programs, and hospitality. Each year a

different area was emphasized, and the real reason for the

inspection soon became apparent. This allowed the owners

and management to praise the mill workers and their fami

lies unstintingly. If ever a problem was found, no mill

worker was blamed. The Comer family member in charge of

that mill took all of the blame. Soon, however, friends

and interested part it r; were invited to go along. As nega

tive comments about the cotton industry increased, the more

Donald Comer attempted to use the Spring inspection tours

to generate favorable publicity. 123

The 1928 inspection tour, for example, emphasized

cleanliness, "and at every plant visited the inspectors

were loud in their praise of cleanliness and neatness

found."124 The next year, the noted labor historian,

Frank T. De Vyver of the University of Virginia went on the

Spring inspection tour. He commented that "the work being

done down there is among the most interesting of any I have

For an example of how the local press covered those tours, see "Mignon Prepares for Annual Inspection," Sylacauga Advance, 20 Apr. 1933, 1; "Annual Inspection Held at Avondale Mills Here," Sylacauga Advance, 4 May 1933, 1; "Avondale Mills Annual [Inspection] Program Now in Prog ress," Sylacauga Advance, 24 May 1934, 1.

124 "Annual Inspection Ends at Birmingham Friday," Avondale Sun, 1928 June 22, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 222

seen." 125 In his reply Comer noted that "It was a plea

sure to have you, and we will always be glad to have you,

or anyone else seeking with an open mind." 126

The 1932 inspection tour proved to be one of the more

remarkable ones. Clarence Cason took part in that tour.

That is important because only after John Temple Graves II

discovered that he could not attend the inspection tour

that year was Cason invited. 127 Cason, a journalism pro

fessor at the University of Alabama, accepted the invita

tion on April 21, and went on the inspection tour during

its stops in Sylacauga, Pell City, Sycamore, and Birming-

ham. 126 After that tour, Cason wrote to J. Craig Smith

that it seems to me especially significant that the Comer mills are conducted in what may be characterized as the 'Southern' spirit, by which I mean to imply, among other distinctive things, conservative management and genuine interest in the mill people.129

Cason added that "I have not been able to find a

satisfactory explanation for popular prejudice against the

125 'De Vyver to Comer 12 June 1929, Comer papers, 53. He wrote many articles, but see "Paternalism - North and South," American Federationist 37 (Nov. 1930), 1353-1358. The article compares two cotton mills. One is located in Fall River, Mass., and the other in Greenville, S.C.

126 Comer to De Vyver, 19 June 1929, Comer papers, 53.

127 Comer to Cason, 20 Apr. 1932, Comer papers, 76.

128 Cason to Comer, 21 Apr. 1932, Comer papers, 76.

129 Cason to J. Craig Smith, 19 June 1932, Comer pa pers, 76.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 223

mills."130 No wonder that Donald wrote to John Temple

Graves II to congratulate him for "suggesting our inviting

Dr. Cason."131

That tour provided the impetus for Cason's later

article entitled "Cousin Charley's Mill." 132 The article

gave a composite sketch of B. B., Donald, Hugh, and Bragg

Comer, and in some ways resembled promotional literature

more than unbiased reporting. This is particularly true

where Cason describes the noise of the spindles as "the

whirring of multitudinous wings in unison."133 Credulity

is somewhat strained when Cason reports that "even the

comparatively low wages of the cotton mills have been like

manna from the skies to those habituated to the incomes of

tenant farmers. "134

130 Cason to Smith, 18 Sept. 1932, Comer papers, 76.

131 Comer to Graves, 30 May 1932, Comer papers, 78.

132 Clarence E. Cason, "Cousin Charley's Mill," South Atlantic Quarterly 33 (July 1934): 236-247. See also Chap ter 9, "They Are Not All Monsters," in 90 Degrees in the Shade (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1935), 150-170. For the impetus, see Cason to J. Craig Smith, 19 June 1932, Comer papers, 76, in which Cason discusses writing an article to fight negative attitudes regarding southern cotton mill owners.

133 Cason, "Cousin Charley's Mill," 240-241.

134 Ibid, 241.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 224

Without detailing every aspect, the key to the arti

cle lies in Cason's comment that "the economic motive was

distinctly secondary to other considerations." 135 Pater

nalism was the most important of those other consider

ations, including, as Cason points out, the ending of child

labor and night work for women and children in the mills.

The timing of the article proved most fortuitous to the

Comers as well, appearing immediately before the textile

strike of 1934.

The Comers were very pleased with this effort by

Cason. J. Craig Smith and Donald Comer quickly wrote let

ters "to thank you exceedingly for this story."136 They

soon ordered numerous copies to distribute to those.inter-

ested. 137 Unfortunately, Clarence Cason died the next

year. Donald wrote Frank P. Graham, the president of the

University of North Carolina in June of 1935, that he "was

tremendously shocked" to hear of Cason's death.138

1 m Cason, "Cousin Charley's Mill," 238. Part of the approving nature of the article came from the fact that Cason attended the University of Alabama with one of the Comer brothers.

136 Smith to Cason, 11 Sept., and Comer to Cason, 27 Oct. 19 34, with the quote coming from the latter letter. Both letters are in the Comer papers, 98.

137 Comer to Cason, 27 Oct., and Cason to Comer, 29 Oct. 1934, Comer papers, 98.

138 Comer to Graham, 3 June 1935, Graham papers, 1935, 19.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 225

Also of tremendous value was the late May 1934 visit

of Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins. She visited the

Sylacauga and Sycamore mills after delivering a commence

ment address at Montevallo. Her visit drew a very warm

welcome from the Comers and from the entire population.

Having missed the Spring inspection tour by only one week,

entertaining her proved to be quite easy. She even gave an

impromptu address to the graduating class at Mignon High

School.139

The Secretary of Labor proved most complimentary of

the Comers just a few months before the 1934 textile

strike. "She declared that the Mills at this place [Syla

cauga] are working according to the NRA program.1,140

After her visit Donald wrote Dr. J.R. Steelman, the presi

dent of Alabama College that Francis Perkins "is one of the

best influences and strongest influences in the Roosevelt

139 "Miss Francis Perkins Visits Sylacauga," 1, and "Play for Miss Perkins," Avondale Sun, 2 June 1934, 6. That article was undoubtedly written by Donald Comer, as a rough draft appears in the Comer papers, 98.

140 "Secretary of Labor Visits the Sylacauga Mills," Sylacauga Advance, 31 May 1934, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 226

administration.1,141 He also wrote Perkins directly to

thank her for coming.142

Just two years later, Avondale launched a major inno

vation. In 1936 Avondale initiated a bonus plan. $150,000

was divided among 5,400 hourly employees. In November of

1937, G.R. Swift of the Swift-Hunter Lumber Company in

Atmore, Alabama, wrote to indicate that "This is one of the

finest things . . . my heartiest congratulations to your

organization." 143 As an added benefit, in 1937 Avondale

began its own credit union.144 Among all the letters Com

er received, one of the most complimentary came from M. L.

Wilson, Undersecretary of Agriculture. Wilson stated that:

I feel that you have done an outstanding thing at your mills, and that if all industrialists were as fair and reasonable and as efficient as you are, we would not be struggling with a lot of problems that now seem to be upon us.

In all of these ways Comer delivered on his wish to

improve the lives of his employees, and also to improve the

141 Comer to Steelman, 4 June 1923, Comer papers, 126.

142 Comer to Perkins, 4 June 1934, Comer papers, 103. In the letter he included the front page of the Avondale Sun that reported on her visit.

143 Swift to Comer, 15 Nov. 1937, Comer papers, 128; and Lee, "South's Man of the Year," 5.

144 Comer to James Mills, Birmingham Post, 1 Feb. 1938, Comer papers, 128.

145 Wilson to Comer, 2 May 1939, RG 16. General correspondence, 1906-1975, Invitations, 1939.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 227

image of cotton mills in the eyes of the general public.

His participation in the larger world of social and politi

cal reform through the New Deal will be demonstrated in the

next chapter.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER SIX

COMER AND THE NEW DEAL, 1933-1940

The Depression of the 1930s left the world, the na

tion, the South, and the state of Alabama devastated.1 An

example demonstrates the depth of that depression. From

1930 to 1937 1,500,000 owners lost their farms due to fore

closures, forced sales, tax sales, or bankruptcy. Another

4,000,000 changed hands, many under duress.2

Another example illustrates that phenomenon. In

1920, Alabama cotton sold for 15.92 cents per pound. In

1923 Alabama cotton achieved the peak price year of the

decade of 29.57 cents per pound. From 1930-1932, Alabama

cotton sold for 9.06, 5.64, and 6.83 cents respectively.3

1 Consult George B. Tindall, The Emergence of the New South; 1913-1945 (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), especially Chapter 11.

2 Arthur P. Chew, "The City Man's Stake in the Land," in Farmers in a Changing World; The Yearbook of Agricul ture, 1940 76th Congress, 3rd Session, House Document 695 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, Government Printing Office, 1940), 373.

3 Statistics on Cotton and Related Data, 1920-1956 Statistical Bulletin 99 (Washington, D.C.: USDA Agricultur al Marketing Service, 1956), 46. Remember that Alabama cotton sold at about the same price as other southern states, but for less than Arizona and California cotton prices.

228

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 229

The 1929 depression overwhelmed Alabama. Tenancy and

poverty increased. Wayne Flynt points out that employment

slipped 5.6% for whites and 13.6% for blacks. Nonfarm

employment plummeted 15% between 1930 and 1940. 4.8% of

Alabama's population remained illiterate, and the in some

counties the illiteracy rate remained above 10%. Alabama

led the way in unemployment in the South, which led the

nation.4

Like the majority of other Americans, Comer believed

a change in parties and administrations would help. He

voted for Roosevelt in 1932. This change from Hoover to

Roosevelt was no sudden departure. In 1924 Comer favored

Roosevelt's nomination on the Democratic ticket after Oscar

W. Underwood, the Democratic Senator from Alabama, failed

to receive the nomination.5

The Alabama Progressive believed the depression re

quired governmental intervention to a degree heretofore

unseen. He most wanted help for southern farmers and to

industrialize the South.6 He lost patience with those who

4 Flynt, Poor but Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites (Tusca loosa: University of Alabama Press, 1989), 281-283.

5 Comer to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 30 Dec. 1924, Comer papers, 42. Comer added that he regretted deeply the feud between Smith and McAdoo, and believed that feud set the Democratic Party back.

6 See especially Comer to Clark Howell, 13 Feb. 1934, the Atlanta Constitution, Atlanta, Ga., Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 230

criticized spending to relieve starvation. This led Comer

to mention "that the basis of the so-called Coolidge pros

perity was the industrial activity that came largely be

cause of the spending in this country "during and after

World War I," and much of that rested on debt defaults by

foreign countries and debt forgiveness by the United

States, lax monetary restriction, and intense specula

tion.7 Thus the "present criticism from the industrial

north of the Democratic spending [applied often to rural

and southern areas] comes with poor grace."8

After Roosevelt's election, Comer proved to be a

vigorous supporter of New Deal programs. He and FDR shared

the belief that business ought to prove beneficial to the

nation as well as to the individual business man. As Comer

declared to the President, "tenant homes, most of them,

don't even have windows and most of them don't even have

kerosene lamps. Most of them are cold, they are all drea

ry."9

7 Comer to Milo Perkins, Asst to the Secretary of Ag riculture, 7 Sept. and 3 Oct. 1936, Comer papers, 127. The quote comes from the first letter.

8 Ibid.

9 Comer to Franklin D. Roosevelt, 12 Dec. 1935, RG 96, Farm Security Administration, Resettlement Division. Sug gested projects.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 231

The daughter of a tenant farmer echoed those senti

ments when interviewed. Lillie Mae Beason stated that the

day began at four, and "it's just a full day everyday."10

It was after World War I that her family had an outdoor

toilet. Previously they did without. As for money, "it

would just be months that you wouldn't - wouldn't see a

penny."_ ..11

For those and other reasons, he actively supported

the Agricultural Administration Act (AAA), the Tennessee

Valley Authority (TVA), the Rural Electrification Authority

(REA), the Farm Security Administration (FSA), the National

Recovery Administration (NRA), and the Federal Emergency

Relief Administration (FERA).

In the 1920s Comer called for the institution of many

of the above-named programs, though not always in what

became their New Deal guises. For years he clamored for

approaches embodied in the New Deal programs created to

help farmers. Some of the programs he supported included

the FSA in the so-called Second New Deal, and the rural

aspects of the Alabama Relief Administration, the Alabama

Rural Relief Corporation, and the Public Works Board of

10 Lillie Mae Beason interviewed by Wayne Flynt, on 3 Jan. 1976, at Steele, Ala. The tape and transcript are located in the oral histories in the Special Collections of Samford University.

11 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 232

Alabama. Originally the Public Works Board of Alabama and

the Alabama Relief Administration came under the jurisdic

tion of other agencies, primarily the PWA and FERA. Later

the FSA and WPA entered the scene.12

The Alabama textile man considered these programs as

one effort to help farmers and the rural South out of the

Depression. To Comer these programs represented different

pieces of a quilt. So these programs will be considered

together as one piece rather than treated as completely

separate entities. TVA will receive coverage first, then

the AAA program of seeking parity prices for cotton will be

discussed, followed by a discussion of all other programs.

Four goals motivated Comer to support government

operation of hydroelectric dams on the Tennessee River. He

wanted Muscle Shoals developed 1) in order to supply cheap

fertilizer to farmers, 2) to provide inexpensive hydroelec

tric power to the Tennessee Valley area in order to foster

industrial growth, 3) to check the growth of the "power

trust", particularly Alabama Power Company, and 4) to use

Wilson Dam as a yardstick to measure rates set by private

utilities through the use of public power.

12 These agencies will be discussed without going through an administrative history of every program in great detail. Consult the history of FERA and others.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 233

These same goals came to be embodied in the act that

created the TVA signed by President Franklin D. Roosevelt

on 18 May 1933.13 Comer enthusiastically supported the

TVA. As he wrote Henry Tichner of the Walton Cotton Mills

in Monroe, Georgia in 1935, "I have for many years been in

favor of the Tennessee River developments being under some

kind of Government supervision and not be allowed to become

one more unit in the hands of the power interests."14

The Alabama cotton manufacturer indicated the same

sentiments in a letter to J. Haden Alldredge of the TVA in

1936. Stating that he wanted the citizens of the Tennessee

Valley to benefit in every way possible, Comer mentioned

that he was "eternally interested in saving Muscle Shoals

power for the benefit of all the people."15

The Barbour County native's interest in helping farm

ers, particularly small farmers, sharecroppers, and ten

ants, logically meant that he wanted the AAA and its sub

sidiaries such as the Farm Security Administration (FSA)

and Alabama Relief Administration (ARA) to succeed as well.

In the Roosevelt administration Comer's support began with

the proposed farm relief bill that later became the AAA.

13 Tindall, Emergence, 447-450; and many others.

14 Comer to Tichner, 18 Nov. 1935, Comer papers, 131.

15 Comer to Alldredge, 19 Mar. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 234

In fact, he supported measures significantly stronger and

more sweeping than the AAA. He wanted measures that would

raise the price of cotton, and urged this to Secretary of

Agriculture Henry A. Wallace.16

The Alabama businessman reviewed efforts to raise the

price of cotton that had failed because production remained

uncontrolled. This very year, for example, "there is evi

dence all over the cotton belt of the increase in cotton

planting."17 He then stated that "our only salvation is

dependent, I think, upon some program for nationally con-

trolled production." 18

Comer then proposed a more encompassing bill than

became law. He suggested that "Senator Smith's plan of

controlled acreage would help, but is not sufficient."19

Instead, the government ought to license each farmer, "lim

iting him to his pro rata [share] of whatever the total

crop was to be." 20 He ended his letter by remarking that

16 Comer to Henry A. Wallace, Secretary of Agricul ture, 27 Mar. 1933, Black papers, 140. See also Brookings Institution, Farm Policies under the New Deal Public Af fairs Pamphlet #16 (New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1938), 7-15.

17 Comer to Wallace, 27 Mar. 1933, Black papers.

18 Ibid.

19 Ibid.

20 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 235

despite his misgivings regarding the bill and its effects

on cotton farmers and cotton manufacturers, "the present

Administration will find me doing my best to make it

work."21 He wrote Wallace again a few days later, in ear

ly April. He stated that under the proposed Farm Relief

Bill "power is going to be put in your hands" to limit

production equal to demand.22

The AAA became law on 12 May 1933. It used voluntary

acreage control to limit production of basic commodities,

including cotton. Farmers entered into contracts to reduce

their cotton acreage. The government then paid the farmers

for reducing their acreage. Under the plan, the price of

cotton would be raised to parity— the price paid for cotton

in a base period between August 1908 and July 1914. The

cotton part of that program was paid via a processing tax

levied on cotton manufacturers. An emergency plow-up fol

lowed, under the direction of Cully A. Cobb, the new chief

of the Cotton Production Control Section of the AAA. As

Comer predicted, more restriction on cotton production was

needed. Eventually relief for cotton farmers came from

guaranteed loans provided through the Commodity Credit

21 Ibid.

22 Comer to Wallace, 3 Apr. 1933, NARA, RG 16, General Correspondence, 1906-1975, Farm relief.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 236

Corporation (CCC) under the Reconstruction Finance Corpora

tion (RFC).23

By December of 1933 Senator John H. Bankhead (1872-

1946) of Alabama created a proposal creating compulsory

marketing quotas for cotton. That proposal placed a pro

hibitive fifty per cent tax on all cotton marketed above

the allotment quota. The President supported Bankhead's

proposal, and on 21 April 1934, he signed the Bankhead

Cotton Control Act. That act limited production to ten

million bales in 1934 and ten million, five hundred thou

sand bales in 19 3 5 . 24 Support poured in from such lead

ers as Edward A. O'Neal, president of the American Farm

Bureau Federation (AFBF) .25

Comer voiced his support while Congress considered

Bankhead's proposal. In early February of 1934 Comer wrote

Representative Marvin Jones of Texas, the Chairman of the

House Committee of Agriculture to argue that "it is abso

23 Tindall, Emergence, 392-396; Theodore Saloutas, "New Deal Agricultural Policy: An Evaluation,' Journal of American History 61 (Apr. 1974): 394-416; and Paul E. Mertz, New Deal Policy and Southern Rural Poverty (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978), 20-22.

24 Tindall, Emergence, 396, and see also the Congres sional Record, 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., 19 Mar. 1934, 4387, for the AAA vote in the House of Representatives.

25 Tindall, Emergence, 398.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 237

lutely necessary" to enact the Bankhead bill.26 A few

months later, in October, Comer expressed himself to Henry

Wallace. He said that "Alabama is tremendously behind you

in this program of building and boosting and maintaining on

a parity with the rest of this country - Farm Income.

Alabama farmers are suffering in this respect, out of all

proportion with farmers in the rest of the country."27

He then referred to the comparison made between farm

ers in Alabama and Iowa, noting that Iowa farmers fared

much better than their Alabama counterparts. 28 He closed

by requesting an autographed copy of Wallace's book, New

Frontiers, and photograph. Comer offered to pay for both

so as not to use any money out of the budget.29

In July of 1935 Comer agreed to attend a round table

discussion in Atlanta to be held in December. Wilson Gee

of the Institute for Research in the Social Sciences invit

ed Comer. The discussion would center on the subject of

"The Crop Control Policy with Special Reference to the

26 Comer to Jones, 13 Feb. 1934, Comer papers, 126.

27 Comer to Wallace, 12 Oct. 1935, in RG 16, Dept, of Agriculture general correspondence files, Speeches (cor) Nov.

28 Ibid.T1_. ,

29 Ibid, and Milo Perkins to Comer, 6 Nov. 1935, and Comer reply, 8 Nov. 1935, regarding Comer receiving the book and photograph. Both are in RG 16, General correspon dence .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 238

South." Unfortunately Comer later found it impossible to

attend. Scott Roberts agreed to go to the convention and

deliver Comer's speech.30

In that speech the Barbour County native stressed his

love for the Jeffersonian ideal of America resting on the

base of a yeoman farmer class. This led him to aver "my

belief that in America the first concern of us all, includ

ing the government, should be for a prosperous farm owning

farmer."31 He also noted that farmers liked the AAA pro

gram "where the government assumes to pay for the vacated

acreage and at the same time guarantees a fixed price on

the resulting crop."32

Comer noted some injustices in the acreage control

policy, however. The AAA indirectly penalized farmers who

earlier attempted to diversify. This occurred because the

percentage of reduction was based on the farmers previous

record. Those who diversified, therefore, had a smaller

30 Gee, Charlottesville, Va., to Comer, 5 July 1935, and Comer reply, 10 July 1935, as well as Gee to Comer, 3 Jan. 1936 regarding Roberts substitution. All are in the Comer papers, 125.

31 "Crop Control Policy in Relation to the South," speech delivered 27 Dec. 1935 at the American Political Science Association in Atlanta, Ga., and printed and dis tributed by ACMA. The speech is in the Hugo Black papers, 66. 32 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 239

base cotton crop.33 He also encouraged more attempts to

expand the export market for American cotton at non-parity/

and to more closely regulate the staple grown and seed used

by American cotton farmers to insure maximum use of the

cotton crop.34

Next, Comer emphasized that without a recovery in

farm income, no recovery could occur in the rest of the

American economy. He said that "I agree with General Wood

[of Sears, Roebuck & Company] that industrial wages and

payrolls are almost wholly dependent upon farm income."35

Comer stated that while the AAA remained imperfect, "it has

taught cooperation and some unity of effort to the great

mass of 6,000,000 individualistic farmers."36

The Barbour County native also blasted those who

retained wealth and fought against AAA. He disclosed that

some millionaires planned to plant potatoes to defeat con

trol of potato production. That plan was "in very bad

taste. If people who dig in the ground to grow potatoes

are striving and seeking for a way to lift their economic

condition just a little, there should be only comforting

33 Ibid.

34 Ibid.

35 Ibid.

36 Ibid. TU'J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 240

sympathy from the rich man's home."37 Then Comer proudly

announced that "I supported the plan of acreage reduction,

I SUPPORTED THE BANKHEAD BILL, because it definitely re

duced the number of bales for the total crop, which acreage

reductions alone would not do, and thereby insured the

result." 38 He went further. Comer agreed to abide by

"whatever decision is reached by the majority of far-

mers."i.39

Reaction from at least one friend came quickly. Guy

Snavely, president of Birmingham-Southern College, located

in Birmingham, Alabama, wrote Comer. Snavely expressed his

"genuine pleasure"40 at reading the speech in The Avondale

Sun.41 Snavely also said that "your cooperative spirit

toward the government in the solution of this tremendous

problem bespeaks industrial statesmanship."42

37 Ibid.

38 Ibid.

39 Ibid.

40 Snavely to Comer, 20 Jan. 1936, Comer papers, 126.

41 The "Crop Control" speech of 27 Dec. 1935 was re printed in its entirety in the Avondale Sun of 11 Jan. 1936 .

42 Ibid, and Comer's reply of thanks was sent 4 Feb. 1936. Comer added that there "is no necessity at present for hastily constructed legislation." Comer papers, 126.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 241

That industrial leadership was sorely needed. In

January of 1936 the Supreme Court declared the AAA uncon

stitutional. In the Hoosac Mills case the Supreme Court

held that AAA vested the power to control and regulate

agricultural policy in the national government. That power

constitutionally ought to reside in the states ruled the

Court.43 Another decision, rendered in United States v.

Butler, 297 U.S. 1 (1936), declared that the processing tax

"served the unconstitutional purpose of regulating agricul

tural production . . . "44

The Alabama textile manufacturer expressed his hope

to Robert Goode, the Alabama Commissioner of Agriculture,

that another program could replace it. In his letter,

Comer asserted that most citizens wanted to help the gov

ernment "to lift the economic condition of southern farmers

up nearer to the level of other groups in this country."45

The next month he wrote his sister, Sallie (Mrs. F.H.)

43 Chester C. Davis, "The Development of Agricultural Policy Since the End of the World War," in Farmers in a Changing World: The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1940, 76th Congress, 3rd Session, House Document 695 (Washington, D.C.: USDA, US Government Printing Office, 1940), 316-317.

44 Tindall, Emergence, 403.

45 Comer to Goode, Montgomery, Ala., 10 Jan. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 242

Lathrop, that "our troubles are multiplying very fast as a

result of the AAA being declared unconstitutional."46

In fact the Congress acted quickly to replace AAA,

using the Soil Conservation and Domestic Allocation Act as

the vehicle. Henceforth soil conservation, not processing

taxes and acreage quotas, allowed crop limitation. The

program proved to be an unqualified success in promoting

soil conservation, but a total failure in limiting crop

production. By 1937 the demand for compulsory reduction

proved overwhelming, and the second AAA became law on Feb

ruary 16, 1938. Senator John H. Bankhead (1872-1946) of

Alabama proved to be its chief supporter.47

Comer eagerly supported any program that appeared to

implement the original goals of AAA. Even though he con

sidered the 1936 soil conservation act insufficient, Comer

attempted to help promote its goals. In April of 1936

Comer wrote P. 0. Davis of API. In the letter he requested

that farmers be required to plant more corn to receive

subsidy payments, and that they also be required to plan

peas and velvet beans between the corn rows at the same

time. Both those practices promoted greater yields of

46 Comer to Sallie B. Lathrop, Pensacola, Fla., 10 Feb. 1936, Comer papers, 126.

47 Tindall, Emergence, 403-407.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 243

corn, peas, and beans, and improved soil conservation while

reducing the cotton crop.48

In 1937, as president of the American Cotton Manufac

turers Association (ACMA), he encouraged John Bankhead to

continue fighting, as "you are working on the right plan

[to limit cotton production]." 49 After a meeting with

Senator Bankhead on September 1, 1937, Comer then asked for

a copy of the latest draft of the bill so he could continue

to lobby for its passage. 50

One week later, on September 7, the Avondale Mills

owner fought for a more liberal AAA policy toward both

small and large farmers. As he wrote John H. Bankhead,

I do not think Oscar Johnston is from the proper envi ronment for directing the American Cotton policy. As the manager of an English owned cotton plantation he wants to grow and deliver to the owners of this land cotton as cheap as possible.51

He continued to urge the acceptance of a cotton control and

soil conservation plan wrapped in one package, and he

48 Comer, Sylacauga, to Davis, Auburn, 8 Apr. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

49 Comer to Bankhead, 30 June 1937, Comer papers, 127.

50 Comer to Bankhead, 2 and 6 Sept. 1937, Comer pa pers, 127.

51 Comer to Bankhead, 7 Sept. 1937, Comer papers, 127.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 244

fought to improve the lot of farmers in ways other than the

passage of the AAA plan.52

One way the Barbour County native fought to improve

the lot of farmers was to support plans to end tenancy.

One of his fondest desires was to see the end of that prac

tice. His work with the FERA, RA, FSA and other programs

bears this out. The AAA helped many farmers. Unfortunate

ly, the AAA often provided no relief to tenant or share

cropper families.53 AAA operated as commodity-price agen

cy, which led to "gross unfairness" in monetary distribu

tion under crop control guidelines. This occurred partial

ly because the landlords received the checks, not the ten

ants and sharecroppers.54 As the authors of The Collapse

of Cotton Tenancy put it, "the government under the AAA has

assumed many of the risks of the landowners, and thrown

52 See, for example, Comer to Garner H. Tullis, New Orleans, La., 2 Feb. 1939, in which he urged the raising of crops other than cotton to help farmers achieve a better life and preserve the land. See also such letters as Comer to Pete Jarman, U.S. Representative from Alabama, 6 Jan. 1939, urging the continuation of the cotton support pro gram. Comer sent copies of this letter to other Alabama representatives such as Henry Stegall and Sam Hobbs.

53 The AAA's problems in administering funds to ten ants and sharecroppers have been well documented. For example, see Tindall, Emergence, 410-413; and Pete Daniel, "The New Deal, Southern Agriculture, and Economic Change," in James C. Cobb and Michael V. Namorato, eds., The New Deal and the South (Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Mississippi, 1984), 41-44 and 50-52.

54 Mertz, New Deal Policy and Southern Poverty, 21-23.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 245

them on the tenant."55 All of those developments prompt

ed Donald Comer to participate in organizations such as the

Alabama Relief Administration (ARA), the Alabama Rural

Relief Corporation (ARRC), and the Public Works Board of

Alabama (PWBA). Comer also vigorously supported the Farm

Security Administration (FSA).

Algernon Blair, a Montgomery real estate developer,

chaired the ARA. Other members included Donald Comer,

vice-chairman, of Birmingham, John H. Peach, of Sheffield,

the secretary, Grover C. Hall, publisher of the Montgomery

Advertiser, and Gessner T. McCorvey of Mobile. Thad Holt

quickly got the nod as director.56

By March of 1933 the ARA had 48 counties in opera

tion.57 Considering that the ARA was not created until 30

December 1932, and its first organization meeting was not

held until 9 January 1933, this represented a real accom

55 W. W. Alexander, et al, The Collapse of Cotton Ten ancy: Summary of Field Studies & Statistical Surveys, 1933- 35 (Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1935), 50.

56 Thad Holt, Director, ARA, Montgomery, Ala., to Com er, New York, New York, 2 Mar. 1933, Comer papers, 85; and Flynt, Poor but Proud, 283. See also [ARA], Alabama Relief Administration (1934?), unpaginated. In that state publi cation is the proclamation of Gov. B. M. Miller creating the ARA on 30 Dec. 1932 and naming Donald Comer as vice- chairman. Holt at the time was director of the AIDB, and of course continued in that position.

57 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 246

plishment.58 By the time the ARA really began to operate,

however, the RFC was reborn under Roosevelt, and the ARA

distributed funds from the Federal Emergency Relief Admin

istration (FERA) and other agencies.59

One attempt of note occurred in 1932 under the aus

pices of the RFC in Alabama. In February of 1932 the Ala

bama Industrial Development Board (AIDB) promoted a program

of agricultural diversification backed by limited funds

from the RFC. Donald Comer, Thad Holt, Thomas W. Martin,

H.C. Ryding, Tom Bowron, and Ab Aldridge participated in

creating this program.60 If nothing else, this attempt

proved the eagerness of Alabamians to take part in relief

efforts offered by the national government.

In the early months, Donald Comer resided primarily

in New York due to the Hunter Manufacturing and Commission

Company debacle. In fact, much of the period of 1933

58 "A Proclamation by the Governor," 30 Dec. 19 32, in Alabama Relief Administration; and ARA, Two Years of Feder al Relief in Alabama (Montgomery: ARA, 1935), 1.

59 Ibid, and the Civil Works Administration (CWA), the Dept, of Agriculture, including the Extension Service, and Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC) were among the agencies who made the largest financial contributions to the ARA. See also Maxwell I. Stewart, The Question of Relief Public Affairs Pamphlet #8 (New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1936), 8-11 for more on the beginning of the FERA, PWA, and the WPA.

60 John Temple Graves II, "This Morning," 1, Birming ham Aqe-Herald, 15 Feb. 1932.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 247

through March of 1936 was split between New York and Bir

mingham. This caused Comer to miss the ARA meetings of

February 7 and 3 June 1933.61 Comer did meet with Holt on

4 January 1934. Details of the meeting are sketchy but

Comer remarked that he "was delighted, Thad, at my visit

with you yesterday. I think we had a good meeting."62

In March of 1934 Comer expressed his excitement to

Mrs Andrew J. Darby of Florence, Alabama. Comer first

noted that he meant to meet with Thad Holt and Miss Loula

Dunn about the end of March to see "just how I can be of

service in the [Rural] Rehabilitation program that Mr.

Harry Hopkins is planning."63 Comer then enthusiastically

wrote that "if this program is what it appears to be, I

think it is going to be the greatest opportunity that has

come to the South from the Federal Government since the

Civil War."64 He expressed much the same sentiment to H.

51 Algernon Blair to Comer, 7 Feb. and 3 June 1933, Comer papers, 87.

52 Comer to Thad Holt, 4 Jan. 1934, Comer papers, 125.

63 Comer to Darby, 27 Mar. 1934, Comer papers, 125.

64 Ibid. Comer carefully mentioned that all personnel matters would be left up to Thad Holt and his assistants so as not to be barraged with applications, and so as not to interfere in the day to day operations of the Alabama Re lief Administration.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 248

C. Nixon in wishing him and Louisiana "good luck" with

their rural rehabilitation program.65

Comer's interest in helping poor farmers may be seen

very clearly in June of 1934. At that time a severe

drought was killing cattle in the northwest. FERA planned

to ship some cattle east. When Comer heard of this he

immediately wrote Bob Greene, the director of the Rural

Rehabilitation program of the ARA. Comer suggested that

the ARA lease some Black Belt plantations to accept as many

cattle as possible, and then distribute those cattle over a

period of months.66

Greene replied the next day, after calling J. D. Pope

of FERA, and talking with Dr. Duncan of API and Thad Holt.

Pope mentioned that up to 75,000 cattle could be shipped.

Duncan wanted to accept about 7,000 to 8,000, fearing pro

test from the beef and dairy interests, and Greene agreed

with him. Holt wanted to accept as many cattle as possi

ble, as did Comer. Eventually, a compromise occurred and

49,043 cattle were shipped into Alabama. These cattle were

not distributed among farmers, but slaughtered and turned

65 Comer to H. C. Nixon, Tulane University, New Or leans, La., 19 May 1934, Comer papers, 126.

66 Comer to Green, 4 June 1934, Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 249

into canned beef. Only 2,225 cattle were reserved for the

rural rehabilitation program itself.67

Soon, however, such informal methods proved cumber

some. To aid in stabilizing financial matters, the ARRC

was formally organized and chartered on October 1, 1934.

The ARRC existed as the financial arm of the Rural Rehabil

itation Program in Alabama. It came into existence in

reality by August. 68 The ARRC held its first meetings in

August and October of 1934.59

M. J. Miller, an FERA field representative, attended

the October 12 ARRC organizational meeting. Miller report

ed to Aubrey Williams, the Assistant Director of the FERA,

that the ARRC organization "was satisfactorily perfec-

ted." 70 Williams also reported that the ARA operated "a

67 Greene to Comer, 5 June 1934, Comer papers, 125; and Two Years of Federal Relief in Alabama, 6. Greene called J. D. Pope because he formerly worked at API in Auburn. These cattle became 2,496,074 cans of beef.

68 Robert K. Greene, to John Peach, the legal advisor to Governor B. M. Miller, 7 Aug. 1934, in the gubernatorial records of Gov. Miller, ARA file, and ARA, Two Years of Relief, 78.

69 Ibid and Thad Holt to Comer, 4 Oct. 1934, Miller's ARA file.

70 M. J. Miller to Williams, 15 Oct. 1934, FERA, State files-Ala.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 250

number of excellent projects."71 He also told Williams

"it is apparent that Alabama has an excellent organization

that is functioning adequately and efficiently."72 Just

as importantly, Miller mentioned that Governor-elect Bibb

Graves "is in sympathy with the Alabama program."73

A primary reason the Alabama Rural Rehabilitation

Program (ARRP) came into existence was the demise of the

CWA. Accordingly, the ARA created the Rural Rehabilitation

Advisory Committee (RRAC) to provide relief to farm fami

lies in March of 19 3 3 . 74 The members of the RRAC were

Donald Comer, president of Avondale Mills, chairman; Robert

K. Greene, farmer and director of the Rural Rehabilitation

Program (ARRP), Greensboro, vice-chairman; H.C. Ryding,

former president of TCI, Birmingham, [and Donald Comer's

brother-in-law], Dr. L.N. Duncan, Director of the Extension

1 Ibid. Miller mentioned the furniture factory at Montgomery, a brick plant and saw mill in Dale County, another saw mill in Barbour County, a garage used for re conditioning trucks in Birmingham, and a brick plant in Blount County.

72 Ibid.t u - j

73 Ibid. Graves was "cordial and friendly" toward Miller, and Thad Holt expected the state appropriation for relief under Graves leadership in Alabama to reach at least $3 million. See also Loula Dunn to Aubrey Williams, 16 Oct. 1934, FERA, STATE files-Ala.

74 ARA, Two Years of Relief, 78. With the demise of the CWA the Rural Rehabilitation Program (ARRP), and its director, Robert Greene, reported to the Works Division of the ARA.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 251

Service, API, Auburn; Dr. R.R. Moton, president of Tuskegee

Normal and Industrial Institute, Tuskegee; and Albert Behl,

farmer, Florence.75

The ARRP began in March of 19 3 3 . 76 The director of

the ARA, Thad Holt, was its president by virtue of his

office. . Donald Comer headed the Executive Committee as

chairman. On October 1 all relief for farm families under

the ARA was eliminated and transferred to the Rural Reha

bilitation Program. This resulted in 23,346 families re

ceiving relief from the ARRP.77 By 1935 funds totalling

$2,274,903.70 were available to the ARRC.78

The ARRP divided those 23,346 families into three

groups, and devised a plan to deal with each group. Group

One consisted of those farmer families that could become

self-sustaining. That group will be discussed in more

detail. Group Two consisted of farm laborers who could

75 Two years of Relief, 78. Note that this committee differed slightly in composition from its financial arm, the ARRC.

76 ARA, Two Years of Relief, 78.

77 ARRP was chosen as the abbreviation as Alabama is assumed in the title of the program. Occasionally, Alabama is explicitly stated in the title, but usually not. On page 78 of Two Years of Relief, both titles are used. For confirmation of the date, see M.J. Miller to Aubrey Wil liams, 15 Oct. 1934, FERA State Files-Ala.

78 Two Years of Relief, 4 and 7.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 252

work on a subsistence basis. Group Three consisted of

unemployables who would be removed from the relief rolls

and turned over to local authorities.79

The ARRP provided the family with "the bare necessi-

ties to produce and preserved food and feed crops." 80 The

average farm consisted of fifteen to twenty acres, and the

average investment per family was $94.11. This money was

not given to the family, but was loaned. Surplus produce

or work relief could substitute for cash repayment, howev

er. Farm foremen closely supervised the planting and rais

ing of crops to insure that the families raised enough food

to support themselves, and avoided planting too much cotton

or other cash crops.81 The loans were successfully repaid

at a rate of 91.83%.82

At the end of 1935 Comer wrote a passionate letter to

Franklin D. Roosevelt to defend the ending of tenant 'arm

ing and to alleviate the suffering of tenants, and sent a

copy of the letter to Thad Holt and to Aubrey Williams. He

wrote the President that:

M.J. Miller to Aubrey Williams, 15 Oct. 1934, FERA, State files-Ala.

80 . . Ibid.

81 Ibid.t u •

82 ARA, Two Years of Relief, 3-4, almost entirely through surplus crops or relief work.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 253

. . . we both know pretty well about the homes and environment of the average negro (sic) tenant farmer. Your Resettlement Administration under Mr. Tugwell proposes to help this situation. . . . but these [pro grams] at best will be drawn out and cover a long time and can only affect a small per cent of the people every year. In the meantime, can't something be done that will help this whole thing a little bit right now?83

What Comer wanted immediately was for the federal

government to finance a program to "erect simple school

houses in the Black Belt."84 Those schools also could act

as recreation centers where people could gather, "and have

a warm place, decently lighted and with a radio."85 Comer

felt sure that communities would furnish the radios and

some other equipment through community spirit, if the buil

dings were erected, and would give the most enjoyment with

the least expense.86

Comer actively participated in the ARA besides the

Rural Rehabilitation Program in Alabama. At its first

meeting on 1 March 1935, Comer became president of the

Alabama Public Works Board (PWBA). That agency approved,

validated, and audited the particular Alabama projects

83 Comer to Roosevelt, 12 Dec. 1935, RG 96, Farm Secu rity Administration. Resettlement Administration. Suggested projects.

8 4 Ibid. TU ‘ J

Ibid.

8 6 Ibid. T W -J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 254

funded by the Public Works Administration (PWA). Project

applications came from local governments, not from private

sources. Other members of the PWBA included R. H. Walker,

vice-president; G. R. Swift, and Frederick I. Thompson of

Mobile. Robert Harris was the secretary. The PWBA acted

closely upon the recommendations of H. S. Geismer, the

state director of the Public Works Board of Alabama. 87

After the first meeting, Comer remarked to Robert

Harris that "we are going to find Mr. [Thad] Holt willing

to help us in any way he can."88 Working as chairman of

both the ARRP and PWBA allowed Comer to participate in two

of the projects which helped rebuild the infrastructure of

Alabama the most.

The PWBA met the next week, on a Wednesday, then

moved to monthly meetings. Eventually the PWBA met once

every two or three months. Comer missed the next meeting,

held 6 March 1935, as did the vice-president, R. H. Walker,

so Frederick I. Thompson acted as temporary presiding offi

cer. At that meeting T. S. Lawson became legal counsel,

and Ray Crow became chief engineer. As in all the follow

87 ADAH, Public Works Board of Alabama, minutes, 1 Mar. 1935. A draft of a portion of the minutes of this meeting only are also in the Comer papers, 125. Unless otherwise noted, PWBA minutes mentioned in this paper are the ones in the bound volume at the ADAH.

88 Comer to Harris, 5 Mar. 1935, Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 255

ing meetings, various projects were discussed. The PWBA

also approved a resolution to help communities previously

turned down for projects to reapply. This allowed the PWBA

to help communities obtain the loan and/or grant which they

previously sought. It took until August of 1935 before

major actions regarding applications occurred, as legal and

financial questions dominated earlier meetings. 69

Comer attended about forty percent of the PWBA meet

ings during the time he was president. His presidency

lasted from March of 1935 to May of 1938. He then departed

from the PWBA. Because most important decision were made

only when he was present at meetings, however, his influ

ence was much greater than his sporadic attendance might

suggest. He directed his efforts primarily toward support

ing REA projects and the founding of electrical coopera-

tives to limit the influence of Alabama Power Company. 90

Many other projects were approved also, but these

were not controversial. Applications approved included a

89 PWBA minutes, 6 Mar. 1935. The Dauphin Island pro ject received the most attention.

90 This is obvious even in meetings where Comer was absent, such as the 13 Mar. 1935 meeting. See also the 10 Apr. 19 35 minutes that he attended, in which Comer led a discussion of the PWBA regarding rural electrification with legal counsel from Washington, D.C. The same type of dis cussion occurred in the 1 May 1935 meeting between the PWBA and Gordon Persons, at that time head of the REA of Ala bama. All of these references come from the PWBA minutes at the ADAH.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 256

sewerage project in Jacksonville, a water supply project in

Tuskegee, a cold storage plant in Mobile, and many

others.91 In fact, the other types of projects proved to

be problematical due to lack of funds and lack of vision on

the part of the applicants. In January of 1936, Robert

Harris, the secretary of the PWBA wrote Comer that "the

PWBA has been a disappointment to us all."92

As a pass-through agency, the PWBA did not have the

resources to build many of the projects needed. In fact,

some discussion ensued to end the PWBA as early as 1936,

but the fact that ongoing money came to municipalities

through the PWBA prevented the demise of that agency.

Comer's efforts impressed Harris enough that he wrote "to

assure you of my appreciation of your good judgment, clear

thinking, and hope you will always consider me as your

admirer."93 About one month later Comer wrote Irwin H.

Ellis of Union Springs to summarize the duties of the PWBA.

As Comer put it, the PWBA "will pass [judgment] upon pro

jects for public works which may be submitted from counties

and cities in the state." 94

91 All of these are in the PWBA minutes of 18 Sept. 1936, 6 Jan. and 26 Jan. 1937.

92 Harris to Comer, 25 Jan. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

93 Ibid.

94 Comer to Ellis, 5 March 1936, Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 257

The Avondale Mills president wanted the projects

approved by the PWBA to be worthwhile.95 Its later ef

forts at promoting REA projects helped to further justify

its existence.96 A number of examples will suffice to

prove Comer's interest despite Alabama Power Company oppo

sition. In early requests, Alabama Power made no objec

tions, even though no applications were approved without

public hearings. The application made by the Clarke-Wash-

ington Membership Corporation, an electrical cooperative in

South Alabama, was approved without opposition in the 1

June 1936 PWBA meeting. All of the PWBA voted for this

application and all that followed. The same was true when

the town of Muscle Shoals applied for money to connect with

TVA in the 16 Sept. 1936 and 6 Jan. 1937 meetings. Alabama

Power raised no objections to the applications of the Cull

man County Electric membership Corporation on 18 Mar. 1937,

or the Baldwin County Electric Membership Corporation or

Cherokee County Electric Membership Corporation on 18 May

1937.97

This does not mean that Alabama Power took no action.

While these projects were being approved, Alabama Power

95 Ibid.

96 Harris to Comer, 25 Jan. 1936.

97 PWBA minutes of all of the dates cited in the text.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 258

strung electrical wire in direct competition with those

cooperatives and thus both REA and TVA. The administrator

of the REA, John Carmody, through Gordon Persons, then

stated that "Alabama Power Company's apparent tactics will

be to offer every obstacle and competition possible." 98

Persons then went on to say that Alabama Power "constructed

such lines in direct opposition to the wishes of more than

one thousand people living along the lines of the Cherokee

County Electric Membership Corporation's proposed

lines." 99 This meant Alabama Power preferred to fight the

battle between public power and private power in the field

rather than in the hearing room for cooperatives in north

ern Alabama. Alabama Power was thereby forced to ignore

applications from southern Alabama, both in the field and

in the hearing room.

In July of 1937, however, all of this changed. Thom

as W. Martin, president of Alabama Power sent a telegram to

Bibb Graves, and W. M. Stanley, vice-president, sent a

letter to Donald Comer.100 Both opposed the action of the

PWBA granting the application of the Cherokee County Mem-

qo PWBA minutes, 18 May 1937.

99 Ibid.

100 PWBA minutes, 15 July 1937.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 259

bership Corporation as "ruthless."101 Both missives re

quested a rescinding of the application of the Cherokee

County Membership Corporation.

At the 15 July 1937 meeting of the PWBA, General R.

E. Steiner represented Alabama Power. He quickly disavowed

any mention of the word ruthless toward the PWBA itself.

Then Hobart A. McWhorter, an attorney for Alabama Power

quickly rose to apologize and to explain that the letter

and telegram were aimed at stating that duplication of

Alabama Power Company lines was ruthless competition. 102

After other matters were discussed, all parties

agreed that a court reporter would record the proceedings.

Mr. McWhorter then offered a petition for a rehearing of

the Cherokee Cooperative application. Hugh Reed, attorney

for the Cherokee Cooperative promptly objected, stating

that Alabama Power wished to gain by delay what it could

not gain in the field, a huge competitive advantage. The

PWBA received the petition as an application for a rehear-

101 TV-Ibid. ' J

102 Ibid. In the same meeting the PWBA approved the application of the South Alabama Electric Membership Corpo ration that covered Pike, Coffee, Covington, Crenshaw, and Barbour Counties. Alabama Power offered no objections.

Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 260

At this point Donald Comer entered the meeting and

took up his position as chairman of the PWBA. It was then

pointed out by Frederick I. Thompson that the PWBA realized

in the previous meeting that Alabama Power only intended to

erect 85 miles of line, while the Cherokee Cooperative

intended to erect 235 miles of line. Alabama Power, there

fore, meant only to erect lines covering the most closely

packed population, and to leave all of the most rural cus

tomers without electricity.104

R. E. Steiner then mentioned that he believed that

Thompson's statement was incorrect and meant to prove so if

the rehearing was granted. 105 Comer then proposed an exec

utive session of the PWBA for a few minutes.105

Upon their return, the PWBA offered to hear any evi

dence that Alabama Power wished to present regarding a

rehearing. General Steiner then offered no other facts

than were in the petition. The petition essentially argued

that if the PWBA realized the duplication of facilities it

would not have granted the application of the Cherokee

104 Ibid.Tl~ • J

105 Steiner later represented that Alabama Power in tended to build ninety miles of line. This hardly moved the PWBA to tears.

106 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 261

County Cooperative.107 Mr. Reed objected again. After

some questioning of Mr. McWhorter by the PWBA of actual

construction Alabama Power had done by Comer and others,

the PWBA recessed into Executive session for several min

utes . Upon the return of the PWBA the motion to rehear the

Cherokee County Cooperative was denied unanimously. 108

At the December 1937 PWBA meeting, the Cherokee Coun

ty Cooperative was awarded an additional $188,000 for con-

struction of transmission and distribution lines. 109 Ala

bama Power sued REA over the Cherokee County Cooperative

matter, and got the REA to not duplicate electric lines in

Calhoun, DeKalb, or Etowah Counties.110

This decision set off a construction war, as the REA

and Alabama Power raced to construct lines first in those

counties. Next, the TVA and Alabama Power fought over

TVA's attempts to buy Alabama Power properties in northern

Alabama. Meanwhile, the PWBA granted an increasing number

107 Ibid. The entire petition is in the minutes.

108 Ibid. . ,

109 PWBA minutes, 8 Dec. 1937.

HO Ibid. TU • J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 262

of applications for electric cooperatives to be started or

dramatically enlarged in Alabama.111

Rural electrification remained a vital element in the

picture of rural rehabilitation to Comer at this time and

in the future. As a result of Comer's work in the PWBA,

Harry T. Hartwell of Mobile wrote Comer in November of 1935

to thank him for attempting to improve rural electrifica

tion, "which has been badly neglected, [as] only four per

cent of the electricity in Alabama goes to the rural sec

tions. " 112

After the close of his service in the PWBA, Comer

wrote Lister Hill that

I am tremendously interested in rural electrification and while I was on the Alabama Public Works Board [PWBA] I did all I could to favor the extension of Alabama REA under Gordon Persons.113

This concern for REA occurred because the Alabama

cotton manufacturer wished to see the rural people of Ala

bama get a chance at a better life. To Comer this meant in

March of 1935 more than just supplying tenant farmers with

111 See the PWBA minutes for 1936-1938 for details. There are many secondary sources regarding the fight be tween Alabama Power and TVA and REA.

112 Hartwell to Comer, 22 Nov. 1935, Comer papers, 125. Comer's reply is not present in the Comer papers. Under lining by Hartwell in his letter.

113 Comer to Hill, 22 Nov. 1939, Comer papers, 130.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 263

"forty acres and a mule."114 Comer wanted supervision and

guidance for those individuals as well. When the individu

al demonstrated a certain amount of independence, then the

government ought to supply land and tools at low interest

to insure a greater rate of success.115

Comer's interest in rural rehabilitation and tenant

farmers did not stop there. In September of 1935 he wrote

Brooks Hays of the Southern Policy Committee in Fairfax,

Virginia. In that letter Comer reported that "I have taken

up with Senator Bankhead and asked him how I can best help

on the farm tenant bill during the next Congress."116

That same month Comer wrote Thad Holt a very friendly let

ter and invited him to visit the plantation in Barbour

114 Comer to Chauncey Sparks, Eufaula, Ala., 26 Mar. 1935, Comer papers, 126. Interestingly, Comer's views closely paralleled those of W. L. Blackstone of the South ern Tenant Farmers Union as written in the President's Special Committee on Farm Tenancy, Farm Tenancy, 10-27. See also Tindall, Emergence, 424.

115 Ibid, and Comer certainly supported John H. Bank head's 1935 proposal to create a one billion dollar federal corporation for tenant purchase loans. Unfortunately, I found no direct evidence of this. See Tindall, Emergence, 424.

116 Comer to Hays, 9 Sept. 1935, Comer papers, 125. The bill was informally titled as the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Bill.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 264

County. One of the subjects Comer wanted to discuss was a

way to alleviate tenant farming. 117

In early January of 1936 Comer again wrote Brooks

Hays regarding the Bankhead-Jones Farm Bill. Comer noted

that Bankhead believed every Alabama Congressman supported

that bill, but believed George Huddleston was wavering.

Comer wrote Huddleston promptly to request his support. 118

The next month Thad Holt received a promotion to the

position of assistant administrator for the WPA in Washing

ton, D.C. Comer knew this was a blow for the ARA, but

wrote that "I think that is a well deserved promotion for

you." 119 Comer also proudly noted that Holt as an Alabama

man was going to assist Harry Hopkins. What really pleased

Comer, however, was that Holt had prepared Ray Crow very

well for the job, and that "reflects tremendous credit on

you and on your executive ability[,] and I congratulate you

with all my heart."120

In March of 1936 the Alabama cotton manufacturing

executive sought to strengthen his contacts with the liber

117 Comer to Holt, 30 Sept. 1935, Comer papers, 125. In fact, Comer wanted to invite Bob Greene, head of the ARRP to come also, but wrote that "our house won't hold all of us at one time."

118 Comer to Hays. 21 Jan. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

119 Comer to Holt, 4 Feb. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

120 . , Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 265

al element of the WPA by inviting Aubrey Williams to visit

him. 121 He also vouched for the Rural Rehabilitation Pro

gram on several occasions with Harry Hopkins and Marvin

McIntyre. Comer told George L. Davis that "I have never

missed a chance to tell these friends that I thought the

rehabilitation program of the Administration (sic) in our

rural sections was the best effort of all those efforts . .

. to help this country out of the depression." 122

He then praised the men behind the program in Ala

bama, including Thad Holt, Ray Crow, Bob Greene, and the

farm foremen, as "the finest contribution to the public

good by citizens that I have ever had a chance to ob-

serve." 123 Comer's only regret by March of 1936 was that

the rural rehabilitation program "got switched around and

became less local."124 He felt that if the program had

remained local in Alabama then rural relief probably would

have been unnecessary within a couple of years. Nonethe

less, Comer wrote that "I was delighted that I was permit

121 Comer to Williams, WPA Regional Office, New Or leans, LA., 19 Mar. 1936, Comer papers, 126.

122 Comer, Sylacauga, to George L. Davis, Director, Public Rehabilitation of the WPA, Montgomery, Ala., 27 Mar. 1936, Comer papers, 125. McIntyre was one of Roosevelt's closest assistants.

1 2 3 Ibid. T l _ • -1

124 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 266

ted to have just a little bit of a part in this Alabama

program.",,125

By July of 1936 the ARRC was absorbed into the Reset

tlement Authority (RA). This allowed more centralized

control. To maintain continuity, however, all the former

ARRC directors, including Comer, were requested to be RA

directors also.126 The ARRC maintained the same name.127

Comer continued to keep close relationships with the

leaders of Alabama New Deal agencies. One example of this

occurred in February of 1936. At that time Bob Greene

decided to move back to Alabama from the regional office of

the Resettlement Authority in Atlanta. A primary reason

for this return to Greensboro was that "I have missed so

much my association with you and Thad and I hope that I

will have the opportunity of talking with you sometime

soon.",,128

Greene seconded Comer's thoughts on centralizing

control. To Greene, the leaders in Atlanta, and even more

125 Ibid. Tl_ • J

126 Ray Crow, ARRC, to Comer, 9 July 1936, Comer pa pers, 125. The RA itself was created in May, 1935, by passage of the Emergency Relief Appropriation Act. This created the WPA as well. In four years almost 800,000 families received rehabilitation aid from it.

127 ARRC to Comer, 6 Aug. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

128 Greene, Montgomery, Ala., to Comer, 27 February 1936, Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 267

so the leadership in Washington, D.C., "are living in a

world of theory and do not know the realities with which

they are dealing." 129 Centralized leadership meant wasted

money and "prescriptions are written in Washington for

patients whom the Doctors have never seen." 130 Thus

Green's desire to move back to Alabama, and his desire to

work on a tangible project led him "to again place my feet

on terra firma and from that base try to work out a program

which is practical." 131 This prospect "delighted" Comer,

who reiterated his position that "if Alabama's problems

could have been left directly in the hands of you, Thad

Holt and Ray Crow, we could have worked out something that

not only would have been fine, but would have established a

record. "132

This closeness is also reflected in his September

1936 letter to Ray Crow. In that letter Comer wrote that

he wanted to be able spend more time with Crow, "but I am

for you all the time."133 A similar correspondence with

Thad Holt ensued in April of 1937. Holt wrote Comer hoping

129 T1_Ibid. . ,

130 Ibid. . ,

131 Ibid. . ,

132 Comer to Greene, 20 mar. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

133 Comer to Crow, by then director of the WPA of Ala bama, 23 Sept. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 268

that "you still consider me one of 'The Clan'."134 Comer

replied that if "I am to be a member [of the clan], then

you must be a member too."135

The Alabama businessman's interest in the farm tenant

problem continued also. He wrote Charles B. Crow, the

administrative assistant to Senator John H. Bankhead, re

garding the Bankhead-Jones Act. Comer offered his support

and penned that Bankhead "wisely" wanted to expand help to

tenant farmers, and that Comer was "willing to continue

helping in this matter."136

As part of that help, Comer requested certain data

from Secretary of Agriculture Henry A. Wallace in July of

1936 regarding the percentage of farms that are tenant,

farm ownership, farm mortgages, and other factors. 137

Milo Perkins, an Assistant to the Secretary of Agriculture,

replied on 4 August 1936, with information current to 1

June 1935. In that letter he detailed that in the United

States as a whole, about 57% of farms were owned, while in

134 Holt to Comer, 13 Apr. 1937, Comer papers, 127.

135 Comer to Holt, 16 Apr. 1937, Comer papers, 127.

136 Both quotes are from Comer to Crow, 29 May 1936, Comer papers, 125.

137 Comer to Wallace, 24 July 1936, NARA, RG 16, Dept, of Agriculture, General Correspondence, 1906-1975, Farms, 1936. In the files there is only a memo that the letter was received. The letter itself was not located.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 269

Alabama only 35% were owned, and in New England, over 90%

of farms were owned. 138 This enabled Comer to assert that

most of the help to farmers ought to go to the South.

Comer made exactly that point to John H. Bankhead

when they spoke in Washington in the Summer of 1937.139

Of course Comer preached to the converted in this case.

Comer also supported Bankhead's Senate measure over the

House measure. The Senate bill proposed a purchase and

resale procedure for home and farm ownership by tenants,

while the House proposed a credit mortgage procedure. The

House measure developed by Marvin Jones of Texas placed

more responsibility and more debt on the individual tenant

in his attempt to purchase a farm, and relieved the govern

ment from any supervisory role.140

Bankhead wrote Comer to express his confidence that

all such matters would quickly be resolved.141 The com

promise occurred in the Bankhead-Jones Farm Tenant Act of

July 1937. That act created forty year loans at three

percent interest for tenant farmers. Unfortunately the act

138 Perkins to Comer, 4 Aug. 1936, RG 16, Farms, 1936.

139 Comer to Francis P. Miller, National Policy Commit tee, Washington, D.C., 8 July 1937, Comer papers, 127.

140 Ibid, and Miller to Comer, telegram, 7 July 1937, Comer papers, 127, as well as Tindall, Emergence, 424-425.

141 Bankhead to Comer, 28 June 1937, Comer papers, 127.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 270

only authorized $10,000/000 the first year, $25,000,000 the

second year, and $50,000,000 thereafter. 142

His strong support was rewarded. On 11 November

1937, Aubrey Williams spoke at Carbon Hill, Alabama. The

Avondale Mills band led a parade that morning, and Donald

Comer introduced Aubrey Williams to the crowd on the state

wide radio network.143 In fact, Comer picked up Williams

and drove him to Carbon Hill on the morning of the elev

enth. Comer invited Williams and his wife to have dinner

with him on the evening of the eleventh, and the offer

apparently was accepted. 144

Simultaneously, in November of 1937 Secretary of

Agriculture Wallace invited Comer to be one of nine citi

zens of Alabama to serve on the State Farm Security Adviso

ry Committee. The main purpose of the committee was to

select counties under which the FSA would extend loans to

tenant farmers, as well as to any suggestions regarding

rural rehabilitation.145 Comer accepted appointment, as

142 Tindall, Emergence, 424-426.

143 A. P. Morgan, Jr., administrator, WPA, Montgomery, Ala., 5 Nov. 1937, to Williams, RG 69, WPA, General corre spondence, State files - Alabama, 1936-1940.

144 Comer to Williams, 10 Oct. and 3 Nov. 1937, and Williams reply, 6 Nov. 1937, both in the Comer papers, 128.

145 Wallace to Comer, 6 Nov. 1937, Comer papers, 128.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 271

"I don't know of anything that I think more worth while

(sic)." 146 R.W. Hudgens thanked him for accepting the po-

sition.. . . 147

One of Comer's more substantive contributions to this

program occurred in May of 1938. Julian Brown, the direc

tor of the FSA program in Alabama, wrote Comer to describe

the hardship of getting black families on the tenant pur

chase program. Several obstacles faced the FSA. Absentee

landlords constituted a major problem, as did the fact that

many plantation owners disliked the idea of breaking up

their plantations into small plots. These two problems led

to overvaluation of land, and thus the impossibility of

granting loans to black tenants in Black Belt counties.

Some of this money ended up going to black and white ten

ants in northern Alabama, where such problems were far

less.148 Comer had no objections to this but pointedly

mentioned that the FSA needed to "find out just what slowed

us down on this question of finding available negro ten-

146 Comer to Wallace, 9 Nov. 1937, Comer papers, 128. The other members of the advisory committee are listed in the letter.

147 Hudgens to Comer, 10 Nov. 1937, Comer papers, 127.

148 Brown to Comer, 12 may 1938, Comer papers, 128.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 272

ants." 149 He wanted blacks to receive their fair share of

the money in the future.

A few days later Comer wrote Brown to suggest that

every bank in the state could help at least one tenant

farmer per year to become a farm owner. This ought to help

the community, Comer asserted, by "changing a tenant farmer

into a home owning, farm owning citizen. This is a tremen-

dously desirable result." 150

Such sentiments prompted Will Alexander to write

Comer that he hoped "to come to Alabama and spend some time

with you." 151 Nor was Comer slow to praise the effort of

others. Writing in the New York Times of 18 October 19 39,

Comer called Senator John H. Bankhead "the inaugurator and

supporter of the most progressive farm legislation [the

Bankhead-Jones Act]." 152 He later wrote to Bankhead that

you gave "unselfish and untiring service in the interest of

rural people."153

149 Comer to Brown, 18 May 1938, Comer papers, 128.

150 Comer to Brown, 6 June 1938, Comer papers, 128.

151 Alexander to Comer, 15 Feb. 1939, Comer papers, 129.

15 ? New York Times, 18 Oct. 1939.

153 Comer to Bankhead, 8 Oct. 1941, John H. Bankhead papers, Senatorial subject files, Bankhead banquet.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 273

In 1942 John H. Bankhead summed up his attitude to

ward the Avondale Mills owner by praising him and others

"for their fair and liberal attitude toward the farmers.

Donald has been a great help in all of my efforts and it

gives me pleasure to work with him."154

Comer participated in many programs that directly

helped farmers in Alabama and throughout the nation. His

most direct and deeply felt participation occurred in those

programs that relieved the burden from farmers who owned or

sharecropped for a living. Comer hoped for a better econo

my for the nation and for farmers nationally, and he at

tempted to get more economic development for the South

through relieving the area of tenant farmers by liberal

methods. To Comer the development of TVA and REA to pro

vide electricity to rural area was just as important as

attracting industry to cities or paying parity prices for

cotton. For if the rural South never developed and at

tracted industry, then the South itself was doomed to pov

erty forever.

154 Bankhead to J. Craig Smith, 9 Nov. 1942, John H. Bankhead papers, Senatorial correspondence and letters, general, 1942.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CHAPTER SEVEN

COMER, THE NRA, AND TRADE UNIONS, 1924-1940

Donald Comer wanted good relations with labor. He

also wanted to promote both stability and growth within the

cotton textile industry. When he fought against child

labor and against the working of children and women at

night, those two goals coincided. During the New Deal, the

goals of economic growth and increased profits clashed with

the idea of trade union representation, particularly with

the advent of Section 7(a) of the National Industrial Re

covery Act (NIRA) and later the Wagner Bill. His major

goal was to reconcile labor relations with economic growth

and stability.1

As Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins pointed out,

Comer "had a humane if not a trade union conception of the

rights of their workers and of the employers' duty in rela

tion to them."2 She wrote to Comer in April of 1934

that:

1 On the Cotton Textile Code and the NRA, see Tindall, Emergence, 435-436; and Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, the entire book, but especially Chapter Four.

2 Frances Perkins, The Roosevelt I Knew (New York: The Viking Press, 1946), 329.

274

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 275

It is a great comfort to me to know that there is an employer in this country like yourself who is conscious of his social obligation to his workers as well as the economic one. I have on a previous occasion indicated to the President my knowledge of your interest in your workers, and shall take the first occasion to refresh his memory concerning your social-mindedness.

This view is buttressed by a letter the Alabama cot

ton manufacturer wrote to Franklin D. Roosevelt in February

of 1933. He expressed the belief that "the lack of uniform

and shorter hours in industry throughout the Nation is one

of the greatest unsolved problems before industry today . .

. eight hours [per day] as a maximum would not be wrong."4

Solving that problem required a national effort he suggest

ed. In addition, Comer expressed the hope of creating a

decent minimum wage, though he realized the added difficul

ty of fixing such a wage.5

Another letter written to Senator Hugo L. Black in

late April of 1933 confirms his position on wages and

hours. At this point George Sloan, the president of the

Cotton Textile Institute (CTI) was still attempting to get

3 Perkins to Comer, 5 Apr. 1934, Comer papers, 103. That quote comprises almost the entire content of the let ter, and answered a 6 Apr. 1934 letter from Comer regarding the Wagner bill. He also mentioned that he attempted to visit Perkins while he was in Washington, D.C., but that she was on a trip.

4 Comer to Roosevelt, New York, 25 Feb. 1933, RG 9. NRA. Cotton Textile National Industrial Relations Board (CTNIRB), Employee complaints.

5 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 276

President Roosevelt to openly and publicly agree to indus

trial self-regulation through the trade associations under

government leadership. Comer wrote the letter as a reply

to Black's Thirty Hour Bill, and they shared some corre

spondence on the issue.6

Moreover, Comer made a concerted effort to keep his

managers informed of the progress of the Thirty Hour Bill.

On April 6, for example, Comer sent a memorandum to all

mills. In that memo he discussed the changes needed if the

Thirty Hour Bill passed. First he noted that another shift

would be added to maintain production. Second, a raise in

the hourly rate for workers would be required or starvation

would result. Finally, Comer summed up the two purposes of

the Thirty Hour Bill as increasing the number of workers

and increasing the purchasing power of the nation as a

whole.7

That memo was included in a letter the Alabama tex

tile manufacturer sent to Black. In that letter he repeat

ed comments written in the press and attributed to Black

that were very critical of alleged intimidation by southern

mill owners of their employees. Comer then firmly stated

6 See Comer to Black, 15 Apr. 1933, and Black reply, 21 Apr. 1933, both in the Black papers, 160.

7 Comer to Our Mills, 6 Apr. 1933, Black papers, Sena torial files, labor legislation, thirty hour week, Ala., 1933, 160.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 277

that Avondale never intimidated its workers regarding the

bill. As Comer put it, "any plan . . . that promises to

put to work six million unemployed people is entitled to

careful consideration."8

The Avondale Mills patriarch denied the efficacy of

Black's plan, however. First, he noted that double shifts

in small town cotton mills in the South would be harder to

create. Second, he noted that the loss of export markets

and the increase in imported goods. Third, he noted the

increased cost of labor. Thus the increased buying power

of Americans would likely go to purchase goods made in

foreign countries due to their lower price. Moreover,

profits by United States companies would decrease because

of a loss of foreign markets for the same reason. Comer

nonetheless stated he did not want Black to "feel that I an

not sympathetic with the effort from any intelligent source

to accomplish what we all would like to see accom

plished. "9

Black replied most positively, stating that he knew

that Avondale Mills would not intimidate employees. Black

mentioned that other employers all over the country had

coerced their employees to write letters opposing the Thir

8 Comer to Black, 15 Apr. 1933, Black papers.

9 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 278

ty Hour Bill. He then asked Comer how he felt about limit

ing industrial production as proposed by Secretary of Labor

Perkins.10

In his letter of April 25, Comer hedged a bit on the

plan by Perkins, although he supported any plan to "permit

the several industries of our country to agree on a few

fundamental rules of operation."11 He also backed a plan

whereby the national government would act as an "umpire" to

settle labor disputes, and even to initiate rules of con

duct and operation. Comer believed that all of industry

ought to go to a 48 hour week and adopt a minimum wage

immediately as well. He believed this would lead to quick

acceptance of the forty hour week and an even higher mini

mum wage within months.12

This did not mean that Comer avoided involvement in

ways to get people employed. In August of 1933 Comer at

tended a meeting of the Federal Advisory Council (FAC), of

which he was a member.13 The FAC operated under the aus

pices of the United States Employment Service (USES), which

10 Black to Comer, 21 Apr. 1933, Black papers.

11 Comer to Black, 25 Apr. 1933, Comer papers, 87.

12 Ibid.

13 Minutes, Federal Advisory Council, 14 Aug, 1933, 10:30 A.M., in NARA, RG 183, United States Employment Ser vice (USES) records, Federal Advisory Council (FAC) minutes and letters, 1153.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 279

itself was organized under the Department of Labor. USES

existed to match employees and employers and to organize

the work force to reduce unemployment.14

The FAC thus tried to create long term policies to

foster greater employment, to develop a system to mobilize

labor, and to assure "impartiality, neutrality, and freedom

from political influence in the administration of the Unit

ed States Employment Service."15 Comer was present at the

initial meeting of the FAC, and acted to see that its goals

were met.16 More importantly to Comer, perhaps, is that

he got to know Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins on a more

personal basis through the FAC.17

By May of 1933 Roosevelt acted to create an agency to

promote industrial recovery by raising the relative pur

chasing power of a greater number of citizens. That agency

became the National Recovery Administration (NRA). Comer

reacted to the labor sections within the proposed NRA in

his 27 May 1933 letter to T.M. Marchant, the president of

ACMA. He wrote the letter as a written response to Roose

14 Ibid, and Dr. Robert M. Hutchins chaired the Coun cil .

15 Ibid.

16 Ibid.

17 Comer to Bruere, 25 June 1934, RG 9. CTNIRB. Com plaints, AR-AV, 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 280

velt's "Fireside Chat" of 7 May 1933. He also responded to

input of the committee led by Senator Robert Wagner of New

York to protect the rights of workers.18

Comer mentioned that in his fireside chat Roosevelt

implied a needed partnership between government and indus

try through the acceptance of the NRA. In the inclusion of

section 7(a), Wagner implied the same partnership between

government and labor. In his letter to Black, Comer argued

that Section 7(a) "has no place in this bill."19

The Barbour County native wanted both shorter hours

and more pay for workers, but believed that "employee-em-

ployer relations shall remain in status quo during this

emergency legislation." 20 In effect, he saw the need for

government and industry to combine, but not for government

and labor to unite. To Comer the government could not

serve two masters, both industry and labor, and his doubts

about the NRA began to grow from that point forward.

By the middle of May the CTI expected the NRA to

become law. It therefore began drafting a code of behavior

for the cotton textile industry under the NRA. That action

18 Comer to Marchant, 27 May 1933, Comer papers, con tained in a letter to Senator Black of the same date, and located in the Black papers, 68.

Ibid.

20 -p,Ibid. . .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 281

proved prophetic, as the first One Hundred Days of the

Roosevelt Administration closed with the passage of the

National Industrial Recovery Act (NIRA) on 16 June 1933.21

Comer himself became involved in the creation of the

NRA Code for Textiles from the beginning. He worked on the

Cotton Textile Industry Committee (CTIC).22 That commit

tee contained representation from the Cotton Textile Insti

tute (CTI), the American Cotton Manufacturers Association

(ACMA), the National Association of Cotton Manufacturers

(NACM), and from the marketing side.23

The CTIC was recognized later as the Cotton Textile

Code Authority. The term Code Authority only came into

general usage after the passage of the Cotton Textile Code

on 8 July 1933, though its official name never changed.24

In fact, as historians have pointed out, the CTI in fact

21 Tindall, Emergence, 433-434; Hall, Like a Family, 289-290; and Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 43-46.

22 Cotton Textile Industry Committee (CTIC) minutes, 1 Aug., 13 Sept. and 17 Oct. 1933, Comer papers, 98; and RG 9, NRA, Approved code histories, 72-73. For a list of the members of the CTIC, see Paul B. Halstead to Comer, 7 May 1934, Comer papers, 103.

23 Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 49; and John Earl Allen, "The Governor and the Strike: Eugene Talmadge and the General Textile Strike, 1934." (M.A. thesis, Georgia State University, 1977, 59-64.

24 George H. Dickson, History of the Code of Fair Com petition for the Cotton Textile Industry: Code No. 1 (Wash ington, D.C.: GPO, 1936), 51, 55-56.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 282

drew up the Cotton Textile Code for the benefit of the

cotton manufacturing industry as a whole.25 In addition,

General Hugh S. Johnson, Dr. Leo Wolman, and H. Nelson

Slater of the NRA served on the committee without voting

power.26 Comer served on the Working Conditions Commit

tee, the Committee on Mill Villages, and other commit-

tees.. 27

The Avondale Mills executive played an important role

on the CTIC. Hearings were held in late June of 1933 in

which representatives of labor and industry testified. 28

Lucy Randolph Mason, for example, testified against the

wage differential and for higher wages all around.29 Her

testimony helped lead to a raise in the overall wages to

25 Tindall, Emergence, 435; and Hall, Like a Family, 289-291.

26 Cotton Textile Industry Committee minutes, 1 Aug. 1933, Comer papers, 98; and RG 9, NRA, Approved code histo ries, 72-73., and generally Wolman attended as the NRA representative.

27 Ibid, and see also "Donald Comer Member of Commit tee to Study Home Ownership Plan," Sylacauqa Advance, 14 Sept. 1933, 1.

28 Galambos, Competition & Cooperation, 215-224.

29 Lucy Randolph Mason, To Win These Rights: A Person al Story of the CIO in the South (Westport, Conn." Green wood Press, 1952), 14-15.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 283

$12 for the South and $13 for the North.30 By that time

the cotton manufacturers were ready to swallow section

7(a). Comer released a statement as a member of the Tex

tile Committee to the press on 30 June 1933 when the hear

ings concluded. In it, he mentioned that after the "sin

cere" testimony of many witnesses, the Textile Code Author

ity decided to raise wages while keeping the forty hour

week.31 By the end of June Comer's doubts about the ulti

mate result of the NRA had multiplied. He agreed that FDR

told the truth when the President called the NRA "the most

revolutionary and far reaching legislation put on our

books. "32

The Avondale executive also participated in putting

the Cotton Textile Code into place through ACMA. He at

tended a meeting of the Southern Industry Committee of ACMA

on 12 July 1933. This meeting was called by T. M. Mar-

chant, the president of ACMA, to help southern cotton manu

30 Philip Taft, Organizing Dixie; Alabama Workers in the Industrial Era, edited by Gary M. Fink (Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981), 76-77.

31 Comer to Harry Riemer of the Daily News Record, and to the Journal of Commerce, both of which were located in New York City, 30 June 1933, Comer papers, 98.

32 Comer to Senator Hugo L. Black, 25 June 1933, Comer papers, 87. Edward Akin makes exactly the same point in his unpublished manuscript, "Mr. Donald's Help," 5.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 284

facturers adjust to the new Code. The Cotton Textile Code

went into effect on 17 July 1933.33

Avondale Mills itself had little or no trouble ad

justing to the new Cotton Textile Code. In its first week,

the management and foremen at all the mills studied the

Code "thoroughly", so as to live up to its provisions prop-

erly.i 34

This was not true everywhere. 0. F. Woolf, secretary

of the United Textile Workers (UTW) in Alabama, wrote Don

ald Comer regarding one miscreant on 24 August 1933. Woolf

accused the Standard-Coosa-Thatcher Mill of reducing their

work force by forty, increasing the stretch out, working

some people without paying them, and cutting the wages of

skilled workers to fund the increase in the minimum

wage.35 He also wrote disgustedly that the NRA ignored

the workers' complaints, particularly the Department of

Labor investigator, Charles L. Richardson. Woolf did not

directly ask for help from Comer, but wrote to inform him

of developments.36 Woolf implicitly stated that Avondale

33 Marchant to Comer, 5 and 6 July 1933, Comer papers, 85.

34 Sylacauqa Advance, "Mills Complete Week New Indus trial Code," 27 July 1933, 1.

35 Woolf to Comer, 24 Aug. 1933, Comer papers, 96.

36 Ibid, and Comer never replied to the letter.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 285

did not engage in the stretch out. Otherwise, why would

Woolf write Comer to attempt to get another mill to stop

that practice?

By the end of July Comer pronounced himself both

pleased and fearful regarding the NRA and government inter

vention. Both the positive and negative aspects are re

flected in a letter to David R. Coker, the noted expert in

cotton seed and agricultural diversification. On the posi

tive side he stressed that President Roosevelt insisted

that government and industry formed a partnership through

the Cotton Textile Code. With that, "our Industries Com

mittee went at this matter gladly and submitted our Code in

good faith and were delighted at the opportunity."37 The

promulgation of the Code produced "wonderful results," such

as the ending of child labor, the reduction of hours to

forty per week, and the increasing of wages. 38

On the negative side, the Alabama cotton manufacturer

mentioned that union labor organizers were "claiming credit

for every improvement that we have mentioned.1,39 He be

lieved this to be far from the truth, though he emphasized

that "I would not take away, even if I could, any credit

37 Comer to Coker, Hartsville, S.C., 31 July 1933, Comer papers, 132.

38 Ibid.. ,

39 Ibid.• -j

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 286

that is due Union labor for their services to the man who

works."40 Instead, Comer insisted that neither union lea

ders or industrial leaders ought to claim credit. Rather,

it has been the power of Government that has brought this wonderful change. . .1 want our employees to feel that it is their Government that has been strong enough to accomplish this beginning of a new era for them and that it will be that same Government who will protect , , 41 c them.

The Alabamian went on to say that "this is not a time

to teach that the employer and the employee are natural

enemies."42 He repeated this sentiment many times. It

became his method for maintaining industrial peace, and

clearly indicated that labor unions were of sufficient

strength and activity in Alabama to worry him.43

This was the message he delivered to Avondale Mills

employees during the Summer of 1933, including a July 10

oration to the workers in Birmingham. At each mill he or

another family member discussed with the workers their

rights under NRA. The Comers also stressed that "we have

40 Ibid.

41 Ibid.

42 Ibid.

43 For more information on Alabama unions in the 1930s, see Pendleton, "Alabama Textile Unionism," v.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 287

asked them not to be in a hurry to follow strange leaders

who were coming in with promises of wonderful things."44

Donald Comer himself had talked the Pell City workers

into dropping their union organization. Other Comers got

union organizations dropped at Sylacauga and Sycamore.45

In fact, those speeches were so effective that the Comers

had to intervene to keep the workers at Sycamore from run

ning the local labor organizer out of town on a rail.46

It also led to several union members being fired in Bir

mingham.47 By the end of the summer only one mill in the

Avondale group was organized, the Birmingham plant.48

The work of Ike Robinton made that organization pos

sible. On 15 July 1933, at 7:00 PM, he spoke at Avondale

Park. He discussed the labor practices of the Comers,

beginning with B. B. Comer's efforts in 1908 to destroy the

mine union, and repeatedly called Donald "just a chip off

44 Donald Comer, Minutes of Stockholders meeting, Avondale Mills, 19 Oct. 1933, 12.

45 Ibid, 15.

46 Ibid, 15.

47 Edward Akin details the investigation led by the Department of Labor in "Mr. Donald's Help," 5-9. Avondale was upheld at every turn by Charles L. Richardson, the investigator. The originals are in the Comer papers, 93, and include correspondence between Richardson and Donald and Bragg Comer.

48 Ibid. rv. ■ j

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 288

the old block."49 He then proceeded to say that "Mr. Com

er has run his mill, paid you starvation wages and most of

you have been borned (sic) and raised here and think he is

a God. . . I know he has stretched you all out, cut your

wages, then tell (sic) you he was not making anything."50

He accused Comer of using paternalism "so the children

would think he was a God and he could raise them up and

work them to death before they were grown."51 Further, if

Donald Comer was so fair, "why has he had some of his help

fired by the little straw boss?"52

Robinton then attempted to get the workers to join

the UTW by promising to have any or all of the Comers put

in jail if Avondale refused to negotiate with the UTW and

interfered in unionization efforts. He also promised that

when the union came to Avondale and established a closed

shop, those "who don't join [now] will have to get out."53

He urged the workers to join the UTW, saying that no one

would hurt them, and that the rule of the Comers would soon

49 Ike Robinton speech on 15 July 1933 as reported by Albert Driggers and Clyde Winfrey. They notarized the speech on July 31.

5 0 Ibid.TU'J

51 Ibid.

52 Ibid.

53 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 289

end. Though Robinton exaggerated some charges against the

Comers, he knew that workers would only join the UTW by him

standing up to Donald Comer. Certainly Robinton's charge

that the Comers continuously pled poverty was true.

Speeches by Comer were not the only method for insur

ing that cotton textile owners maintained control over

their employees. By the end of October 1933 Comer stated

bluntly to other stockholders that if unionization came to

Avondale, "I am ready to liquidate."54 He then noted that

he was having to sell goods months ahead, and hoped he

could deliver them. He noted that inventories were up to

200,000 pounds of cotton at Lafayette, and that Avondale

had 30,000 bales of cotton on hand. The Avondale Mills

president then mentioned that he wanted to start a profit

sharing program, but had to wait to see if unionization

came before he could do so. Of course Comer only wanted to

give the workers a part of the profits above $600,000.55

The leader of Avondale Mills then stressed to the

other stockholders that he was not against unions in gener

al. He praised the railroad union and stated that he be

lieved unions in companies with a lot of absentee owners

had done some good. He still could not believe there was a

54 Avondale Mills stockholders meeting minutes, 19 Oct. 1933, rough draft, Comer papers, 97, 14.

55 Ibid, 16.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 290

simultaneous need for unions and a code in any industry,

however.56

In other words Comer could not abide the thought of

labor unions gaining some say in working conditions, hours

and wages in a cotton mill. This belief Comer kept. As he

told Senator Black in 1937, only the prevention of "fla

grant exploitation" by employers and industry ought to be

the goal of federal intervention in labor or any other kind

of legislation.57

Nonetheless, the problems that caused the most fric

tion from within and without the cotton industry regarding

the Cotton Textile code by the fall of 1933 remained those

regarding labor. Those problems included the demand for

trade union representation, the wage differential, and

recalcitrant cotton mills that refused to comply with the

Cotton Textile Code, particularly the wage and hour provi

sions of that code.58

56 Ibid, 14-16; and the directors elected that year were Donald Comer, chairman, B. B. Comer, Jr., J. Fletcher Comer, Hugh M. Comer, Frank H. Lathrop, Eugene Anderson, Thomas Bowron, Otto Marx, and Mrs. Eva Comer Ryding.

57 Comer to Black, 7 Aug. 1937, Black papers, 80.

58 There are many sources on these issues. Only two will be mentioned here. Consult Tindall, Emergence, 437 and 443-446; and Galambos, Competition & Cooperation, 230- 244 .

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 291

During the rest of 1933 Comer promoted the Cotton

Textile Code as fair and liberal to all who would listen.

The NRA acted as a way to control production and to force

mill owners to live up to some social and economic respon

sibility as part of an industry and as part of a community

to the Alabama manufacturer. It also acted as a means to

destroy trade unions. As Comer put it, "to save my life I

cannot see the need of both the Code and the Union."59

Instead of unions fighting bosses, Comer proposed

that the New Deal "be the beginning of the end of the old

order of things."60 Instead of confrontation, Comer hoped

that the NRA would provide a method of settling disputes

peacefully through arbitration.61 Of course Comer ignored

the fact that the Cotton Textile Code was drawn up by the

cotton manufacturers with little voice by trade unions or

workers of any kind. The simple fact is that the Cotton

Textile Code reflected the wishes of the cotton manufactur

ers to adopt production control, and only to a very limited

extent the wishes of the cotton mill workers for collective

bargaining, higher wages, and increased job security.62

59 Ibid.

60 Comer to Anderson, 11 Oct. 1933, Comer papers, 132.

61 Ibid.

62 Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 45-46.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 292

Only in the NIRA itself did the workers have any

voice, and that was through the enactment of Section

7(a).63 Comer made his feelings plain toward that segment

of the NIRA in another letter to William D. Anderson on 16

October 1933 by saying "I still continue to be one of those

who feel that paragraph 7 A of the N.I.R.A. had no place

there; that the effort towards recovery in partnership with

Government should have agreed upon minimum wages and maxi

mum hours as a beginning, with subsequent amendments added

as needs for them arose."64

On October 18 Comer corresponded with Dr. Frank P.

Graham, the president of the University of North Carolina,

and a member of the NRA Consumers Advisory Board. Comer

first mentioned that he and Graham met at the hearing on

the Cotton Textile Code in Washington, D.C. Then Comer

wrote of his concern for "right relations in industry

through code procedure," and the problem of trade

unions.65 To express his concern even more clearly, Comer

included the letters he wrote to William D. Anderson and

George Sloan earlier in the month that so clearly delineat

63 See Schlesinger, The Coming of the New Deal, 96; and Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 46.

64 Comer to Anderson, 16 Oct. 1933, Comer papers, 132.

65 Comer to Graham, 18 Oct. 1933, SHC, Graham papers, NRA Consumers Advisory Board, Aug.-Oct. 1933.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 293

ed his opposition to trade unionism and to Section 7(a) of

the Cotton Textile Code.66

Graham diplomatically disagreed with the Alabama

cotton manufacturer. In his October 25 reply, Graham

thanked Comer for his letter and inclusions, and added that

they might disagree on some aspects, but "in spirit we are

working for the building up our section and our country,

and the welfare of all those whether as investors or labor

ers [who] are doing the work of the world."67

Comer retreated not at all. He suggested to Graham

that "I doubt very seriously whether we disagree on any of

the fundamentals." 66 Moreover, "my only concern as an ex

ecutive in industry is to bring about the most good for the

most people."69 He continued that while union labor may

be fine in theory it worked badly as a practical matter

because "any program that builds up around the idea that

one group is all selfish and another group all unselfish is

wrong."„70

66 . , Ibid.

67 Graham to Comer, 25 Oct. 1933, Graham papers, NRA Consumers Advisory Board, Aug.-Oct. 1933.

68 Comer to Graham, 30 Oct. 1933, Graham papers, NRA Consumers Advisory Board, Aug.-Oct. 1933.

Ibid.

7 0 Ibid. T U ’J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 294

Meanwhile within the cotton manufacturing community

three problems began to take precedence in late 1933. One

was attempting to solve the problem of the stretch out from

within the industry and before the trade unions used it to

get members. The second was the problem of wage differen

tials that reflected the sectional division between the

North and the South. The third was the problem of attempt

ing to investigate cotton mills that violated the Cotton

Textile Code, particularly section 7(a), and how that led

to strikes and disruptions of various types. The last

problem, though very much interrelated, will be discussed

after the other two. Trade unions overshadowed all of

those problems.

The problem of the stretch out was never satisfacto

rily resolved. Comer was present at the CTIC meeting

where the stretch out was declared illegal. George Sloan

presided as chairman. The report created by the CTNIRB was

the first item on the agenda at that meeting and was ac

cepted "unanimously . . . for adoption as part of the Cot

ton Textile Code."71

71 Minutes, CTIC, 1 Aug. 1933, Comer papers, 98. That committee is often known as the Cotton Textile Code Author ity. Hodges refers to the committee as the Code Authority, for example. Proving a stretch out existed was the prob lem.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 295

In late December of 1933 George Sloan called a meet

ing of the Code Authority to discuss the stretch out prob

lem.72 Though tensions increased between labor and man

agement on that problem/ the issue remained unresolved in

any form until well into 1934/ despite widespread reports

of abuses by many mills.73

Comer expressed the problem in August of 1934. He

wrote George Sloan that:

there are some things that to my mind are going to have to depend upon local conditions . . . to undertake a study of the task load in twelve hundred cotton mills with the working conditions in every one different because of one reason or another makes an impossible job, I think . . . we would just be chasing the end of the rainbow."74

Trying to standardize cotton mill tasks would be like stan

dardizing farming tasks. How can one decree how many acres

a farmer should plow? "How impossible it would be because

some ground is stumpy and some is not, and some is stiff

and some is loamy."75

72 Sloan to Comer, 27 Dec. 1933, Comer papers, 98.

73 Taft, Organizing Dixie, 77-79; W. J. Cash, The Mind of the South (New York: Vintage Books, 1960), pp. 352-353.

74 Comer to Sloan, 29 Aug. 1934, Comer papers, 98. Comer continued by saying that "In cotton mills we have every kind of operation; no two cotton mills have the same kind of preparation; we deal in different kinds of cotton; we blend and mix cotton in different ways."

75 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 296

Though the stretch out proved intractable, another

problem proved equally insoluble. Early in 1934 the prob

lem of sectionalism again arose. This was reflected in two

elements. One occurred because many southerners thought

northerners and easterners got too large of a voice. Don

ald Comer certainly felt that way. In January of 1934 he

wrote to Lister Hill and sent a summation of its contents

to C. M. Stanley of the Alabama Journal. Within the letter

Comer emphasized "the tendency of NRA to use Northern and

Eastern deputies and advisors in handling this industrial

program."76 He hastily added, however, that he fully

supported the goals of the NRA to get the economy going

again.77 Comer certainly was not the only one who felt

this way. In October of 1934 David R. Coker wrote Comer

that "I am getting very discouraged about the possibility

of making the labor and relief departments understand our

southern situation.1,78

The other element that drove sectionalism was that

the wage differential in the South once again came to the

76 Comer to Stanley, 7 Jan. 1934. The original letter to Hill was not found. Comer sent a copy of the same let ter to John Temple Graves of the Birmingham Aqe-Herald on the following day. Both are in the Comer papers, 125. This is essentially the same argument Comer made to Hugo Black in a letter sent 17 Aug. 1933, Comer papers, 87.

77 Ibid.

78 Coker to Comer, 19 Oct. 1934, Comer papers, 98.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 297

forefront. Southern cotton manufacturers wished to keep

the differential in order to insure a competitive advantage

with their northern counterparts, and to offset the problem

of freight-rate discrimination discussed earlier. In fact,

in the initial hearings on the Cotton Textile Code in June

of 1933, William D. Anderson attacked the wage differential

as too small. He, of course, operated Bibb Manufacturing

Company in Georgia, and represented the southern cotton

textile owners.79

Donald Comer wrote to George Sloan in early 1934

regarding that problem. He mentioned that the matter soon

would come up again, and he wanted to make a few statements

before tempers flared. He then said that when the Cotton

Textile Code went into effect that southern and northern

mill owners unanimously agreed to the wage provisions,

including the wage differential. Comer then added that

southern mills tended to operate mill villages at a loss,

while northern mills tended not to operate such villages.

The operation of mill villages alone, argued Comer, justi

fied a wage differential. Further, the cost of living in

the South remained well below the cost of living in the

North. Moreover, the agricultural South needed some advan-

79 Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 50-51.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 298

tages over the North in order to diversify agriculturally

and to industrialize and urbanize. 80

These arguments reflect the ones Comer made in August

of 1933.to Senator Hugo Black. The bottom line of all of

these arguments to Comer was that "if we [the South] are to

make any headway in our industrial development over the

older established industrial sections of the North and

East, our section will have to offer some advantages."81

This argument reflects the classic New South strategy of

offering cheap labor to offset perceived discrimination in

education, trade barriers, freight rates, and historical

development of industry and commerce in the North.

At the same time, Donald tried not to let himself get

bogged down too much with those problems. He saw the NRA

as the best chance for economic recovery, and felt that

industries who had not finished codes missed a wonderful

opportunity by not concentrating on basics and adding fine

points later. As he wrote to Hugh, at that time in New

York, "I am tremendously appreciative of all the benefits

that have come under NRA and I am in thorough sympathy with

it . . . in our industry we have increased the number of

80 Comer to Sloan, 22 Jan. 1934, Comer papers, 98.

81 Comer to Black, 17 Aug. 1933, Comer papers, 87.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 299

employees from 325,000 in March [1933] to over 460,000 in

October [1933] and we doubled the textile payroll."82

On 6 March 1934, the Alabama textile executive testi

fied before Congress regarding wage differentials. Essen

tially he reiterated the arguments given in his letter to

George Sloan and his brother Hugh in January of 1934, but

with a few more examples. Thus he stressed the lower cost

of living in the South, the mill villages operated in the

South, and the need for the South to industrialize. He

also attempted to generalize somewhat beyond the textile

industry.83

To Comer the issue of increased southern industrial

ization remained the most important. As he put it, "it is

not just a question of whether the industrial wage shall be

more or less in certain sections, it's a question of wheth

er some farm boys and girls will ever have the opportunity

[to work in an industry and receive an industrial wage

without moving to the North.]"84 After all, he argued,

the balance of trade against the southern section remained

82 Comer to Hugh Comer, 25 Jan. 1934, Comer papers, 132.

83 Donald Comer, "A Discussion on Wages and Wage Dif ferentials Before One of the Groups of Code Authorities Meeting in Washington, D.C., on 6 March 1934," Comer pa pers, 132.

84 Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 300

at over one billion dollars a year. While Comer agreed

with labor leaders that wages ought to be "as high as the

traffic will bear," getting industrial development within

the agricultural South remained paramount.85

Comer then noted the high rate of illiteracy in Ala

bama and other southern states. Increased industrializa

tion would create increased income, even in unskilled jobs.

Increased industrialization thus would lead to more money

for education and increased chances for creating industries

that require more skilled jobs and paid higher salaries.

This, Comer argued, was the way to increase salaries in the

South. A higher paid southern work force would then become

a better marketplace for northern goods as well as southern

goods. At that point every person and every section bene-

fitted. At some point, he felt, the wage differential

could and ought to be eliminated, but not now.86

Southern response occurred quickly and positively.

Jenn W. Coltrane wrote two days after extracts of Comer's

speech appeared in the Charlotte Observer. She wrote as

the vice-president for women within the Southeastern Coun

cil located in Concord, N.C. Coltrane congratulated him on

8 5 -ri_Ibid. •

8 8 Ibid. TU‘ J

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 301

his "splendid" defense of southern industries.07 Even

Secretary of Labor Frances Perkins responded that she was

glad Comer got the opportunity to testify. 88 On the sev

enteenth of March the Nashville Banner agreed with Comer in

an editorial entitled "Comer's Plea for the South" that

occupied over half of one column. 89

Because of his spirited and diplomatic defense of the

NRA and its rulings, Hugh Johnson requested that Donald

become a member of the NRA State Advisory Board. This

occurred in February of 1934. That Board replaced the NRA

Recovery Board. The State Advisory Board operated under

the auspices of the National Emergency Council (NEC) for

Alabama, and Judge John D. Petree chaired it as the state

director of the NEC.90 Comer accepted with alacrity.91

87 Ms. Jenn W. Coltrane to Comer, 8 Mar. 1934, Comer papers, 132.

88 Perkins to Comer, 16 Mar. 1934, Comer papers, 103.

89 George H. Armistead, "Comer's Plea for the South," Nashville Banner, 17 Mar. 1934, 4.

90 Johnson to Comer, 12 Feb. 1934, Comer papers, 126. Do not confuse this committee with the Alabama Cotton Tex tile Industrial Relations Board (ACTIRB) headed by P. O. Davis.

91 Comer to Johnson, 17 Feb. 1934, Comer papers, 126.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 302

Petree then expressed his appreciation to Donald, who re-

plied "you can count on me." 92

Maintaining those contacts with the Department of

Labor and acceding to even more involvement in the NRA

proved very helpful to Comer when the next major storm

arose - the Wagner Act. The fight over the Wagner Act

proved to be one of the most active in the history of Con-

gress.93

The Alabama manufacturer participated with many oth

ers in the fight. He expressed concern in a confidential

letter to Senator Hugo L. Black on 22 March 1934 that the

administration encouraged the workers to agree with the AF

of L that employer and employee are enemies. Comer be

lieved that the government itself, not trade unions ought

to arbitrate between employees and employers. That way,

both sides could feel secure, and the larger group of em-

ployees would not feel exploited by their employers.94

In answering the Avondale executive, Senator Black

attempted to strike a cautious note. He wrote that

92 Petree to Comer, 28 Feb., and Comer reply, 2 Mar. 1934, both in the Comer papers, 103.

93 For a history of the bill, see National Labor Rela tions Board, Legislative History of the National Labor Relations Act, 2 vols. (Washington, D.C., GPO, 1949).

94 Comer, New York, to Black, 22 Mar. 1934, RG 9. NRA. CTNIRB. Employee Complaints, 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 303

I full appreciate the delicate situation which exists in the country today with reference to labor and capi tal. It is one which is far from being solved, and I am giving the entire subject my careful thought and study.95

What Comer argued was that control ought not to be

wrested from employers. Employees ought to accept what

they were given, with one very important exception. Comer

still believed that the national government needed to act

as an umpire.

This becomes even more apparent in his actual testi

mony regarding the Wagner Bill in 1934. Comer appeared

before the Committee on Education and Labor of the U.S.

Senate on 3 April 1934. He decried the notion that owners

and workers had to fight each other. Instead, a way must

be found "to bring all parties to the job in friendly, not

hostile attitudes."96 He also objected to the speedy na

ture of the proposed legislation and remarked that the

establishment of the Wagner bill would destroy the partner

ship between government, business, and labor created by the

enactment of the NIRA. The Alabamian then stressed NIRA

95 Black to Comer, 26 Mar. 1934, Comer papers, 132.

96 U.S. Congress, Senate, Hearings Before the Commit tee on Education and Labor, To Create a National Labor Board. 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Part 2, 26 Mar. to 3 Apr. 1934, 624.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 304

benefits such as the ending of child labor, the setting of

minimum wages and maximum hour provisions, and so forth.97

Comer's objections actually revolved around the loss

of control over the workers by owners. As he put it, "one

of the objections of this bill lies in the fact that in

many cases the authority of the present management will be

disturbed or destroyed." 98 Another aspect that bothered

Comer was that the cost of producing cotton textiles had

risen by over 100% since the NRA went into effect. 99

With the advent of the NRA and AAA, therefore, Comer

saw no need to expand the rights of labor. Comer pleaded

that "the NIRA not be hurried or crowded."100 What the

cotton textile industry needed, said Comer, was more time

to implement legislation already in place, and to build on

the partnership between government, industry, and labor.

The next day Comer sent his testimony to Frances Perkins.

He carefully mentioned, however, that he sent it in a spir

it of helpfulness. He hoped that "there might be a part or

two" of some interest to her.101

97 Ibid.

98 Ibid.

99 Ibid, 625. Part of that increase came from pro cessing taxes and the loss of the export business.

100 Ibid. . ,

101 Comer to Perkins, 6 Apr. 1934, Comer papers, 103.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 305

The hollowness of the NIRA was illustrated in Avon

dale itself. That month a Birmingham employee of Avondale

Mills filed a complaint with the CTNIRB. Annie Martin

remarked that she was fired for joining a labor union, that

Avondale engaged in the stretch out "by putting an extra

frame on each spinner and saying I could not run the

job." 102 She never received any relief or satisfaction,

nor is there any evidence to indicate that her complaint

was ever seriously investigated.

The NRA "investigated" the case by having L. R. Gil

bert send a letter to Avondale Mills in Birmingham on 5 May

1934. Under case number 0-319-F, Avondale was accused of

firing Ms. Martin for being a union member. Craig Smith

replied. Noting that Ms. Martin worked until 25 July 1933,

Smith called Martin an unsatisfactory employee and one who

refused to work under the supervision of the spinning room

overseer. He flatly denied discriminating against Martin

due to her union activities. The investigation stopped

there.103

With all of the contention between labor and manage

ment, trouble in the textile industry loomed on the hori

102 Martin to CTNIRB, 24 Apr. 1934, CTNIRB, Employee complaints, AR-AV.

103 Gilbert to Avondale Mills, 5 May 1934, and Smith to Gilbert, 10 May 1934, Comer papers, 103.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 306

zon. Between the rising expectation of textile workers,

low success in unionization, poor leadership from union

organizers, wholesale disregard for section 7(a) by cotton

mill owners, and failed attempts by workers to get any

relief via the CTNIRB or through labor legislation to re

solve disputes regarding unfair labor practices, a danger

ous combination of desperation and hopefulness was created.

Most importantly, perhaps, was the obvious, though hard to

define, stretch out that wore workers down. The fact that

no collective bargaining occurred under the CTNIRB proved

harmful.104

The business recession that occurred at the end of

1933 hurt also. That recession led to reduced hours of

operation for cotton textile plants from forty hours per

week to thirty hours per week by the early Summer of

1934 . 105 Avondale Mill worker S. L. Hardy recalled those

times well. "We operated as low as two, three days a

week."106 Unlike some cotton mills, however, Avondale

never completely shut down.107

104 Ibid, and Pendleton, "Alabama Textile Unionism," 1- 2, 20, 22-26, and 114-116 on the strike situation general ly, and 18-20 on the stretch-out.

105 Ibid, 86-87.

106 Hardy interview.

107 Ibid. T U ■

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 307

Due to that reduction a national strike almost oc

curred in June of 1934. The UTW demanded that cotton mill

owners pay the same wages for the thirty hour week as had

earlier been paid for a forty hour week in response to the

curtailment plan announced on May 8. 108 By May 28 Francis

Gorman threatened a general strike. This led to an odd

meeting in Washington, D.C., on June 1. UTW representa

tives stayed in one room and George Sloan in another. Hugh

Johnson mediated between them and hammered out an agree

ment. The agreement called for far less than the UTW want

ed, but avoided a strike the UTW really did not want any-

way. 109

The Comers printed the entire agreement in the Avon

dale Sun. There are two important parts. The first re

scinded the strike order. The second is fascinating in its

contradictory nature. The agreement mentioned that labor

representatives had a "right to represent members of their

union in collective bargaining."110 Two paragraphs later

108 Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 86 and 91. See also Ronald Mendel, "The Southern Tenant Farmers Union and the United Textile Workers: Two Studies of the Southern Labor Movement in the 1930's," (Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1973), 103-106 for this incident, and 55-130 for a commentary on the 1934 strike and other matters from a UTW perspective.

109 Ibid. , 87-89.

110 "Text of Johnson Statement of Textile Labor Settle ment," Avondale Sun, 16 June 1934, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 308

the agreement stated that the CTNIRB "has functioned excep

tionally well."111

In effect, the agreement gave lip service to labor

unions, but promised no relief whatsoever to the central

problem of collective bargaining. This led directly to the

strike of 1934. The explosion occurred in July of 1934 in

Alabama and spread nationwide. Union members individually

and the UTW as a whole finally lost all patience with the

Cotton Textile Code Authority and the NRA. This process

accelerated when the aggressive Thomas Gorman replaced the

aging Thomas McMahon in the UTW leadership role, and when

George Sloan of the CTI remained adamant in refusing to

recognize the UTW, much less negotiate with them. 112

On July 10 the Alabama Cotton Manufacturers Associa

tion (AlCMA) met to discuss the Cotton Textile Code. Iron

ically, this was the same day the strike began. Donald

Comer discussed details of that Code, while C. E. Jones

discussed the problem of freight rate discrimination.

Labor matters received no attention at all. 113

in Ibid. ,

112 Galambos, Competition & Cooperation, 257; and Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 90-93.

113"Textile Industry Code Discussed," Birmingham News, 10 July 1934, 2

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 309

Another event occurred on July 10. A textile worker

at Avondale Mills in Sylacauga filed a complaint with the

CTNIRB. Charles Reid cried out that:

We have no labor union and if anyone speaks about the way we are forced to work he is laid off . . . and told he is not giving satisfaction . . . Machinery is (sic) speeded up before we went on 8 hours . . . I don't like strikes . . . Our only hope is Government protec tion. 114

How ironic that he placed his hope in the same place as

Donald Comer - the federal government.

Avondale Mills attempted to keep their workers under

control during the strike. The July 14 edition of the

Avondale Sun contained an article entitled "N. R. A. Re

ports Textile Wages High as Traffic Will Bear at This

Time."115 In that article a report by the Division of Re

search and Planning of the NRA was cited to demonstrate

that wages ought not to be raised.116 The Sun also pub

lished the entire text of a speech given by Franklin D.

Roosevelt in late June. That speech concentrated on the

114 Reid to CTNIRB, 10 July 1934, CTNIRB, Employee com plaints, AR-AV.

115 "N. R. A. Reports Textile Wages High as Traffic Will Bear at This Time," Avondale Sun, 14 July 1934, 3.

116 Ibid. The report, issued on June 29, is reprinted accurately by the Avondale Sun. V.S. Von Szeliski, "What Wage Rise if Any Is Possible in the Cotton Textile Indus try, Preliminary Report" 29 June 1934, officially approved 4 Sept. 1934, CTNIRB, Division of Research and Planning, Special Reports & Planning, 22 pp.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 310

positive accomplishments of the New Deal and called on the

"doubting Thomases" to get in line. To the readers of the

Sun there had to be little question that if the NRA was

correct about the wage rates, then the trade unions must be

one of those "doubting Thomases" that ought to straighten

up. 117

On Monday, July 16, employees at mills in Birmingham,

Gadsden, Huntsville, and other Alabama towns and cities

walked off of their jobs. Avondale Mills employees in

Birmingham, though not elsewhere, joined the effort. 118

Robert Bruere of the CTNIRB reacted cautiously to the

Alabama strike, saying that the Alabama Cotton Textile

Industrial Relations Board (ACTIRB) would handle the situa-

tion for the time being. 119 In fact ACTIRB was strongly

pro-management and acted not at all. The UTW reacted with

117 "Text of Roosevelt Address," Avondale Sun, 14 July 1934, 2 and 11.

118 "6,550 Workers Already Out," Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 17 July 1934, 1 and 3; and "Textile Strikers Pull Off Riot at Huntsville Mill," Birmingham News 17 July 1934, 1 and 2. See also Billy Hall Wyche, "Southern Attitudes Toward In dustrial Unions," (Ph.D. diss: University of Georgia, 1969, 7.

119 "Textile Board Head Watching Situation," Birmingham News, 17 July 1934, 3.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 311

equal caution, only promising "its cooperation and assis

tance if the strike took place."120

At Avondale Mills the workers left their positions in

an orderly fashion, and as one of the dailies put it, "qui-

et reigned." 121 Though motorists noted the darkened mill

and lack of activity, the normal routine of living went

forward, and representatives of the workers "insisted that

there would be no disorders." 122 On the same day the Bir

mingham Aqe-Herald quickly came out in favor of the own-

By the next day, July 18, the strikers at Avondale

began peacefully picketing, and the number of strikers

state-wide rose to 12,600, far from the 28,000 the union

estimated earlier.124 Birmingham city officials "offered

120 Ibid, and ACTIRB consisted of George H. Lanier, the chairman of West Point Pepperell and the employers repre sentative; P. 0. Davis, chairman, and long-time head of the Cooperative Extension Service at Alabama Polytechnic Insti tute, consumer representative; and B. V. Finch, labor rep resentative. Davis was definitely pro-business and hated labor unions. See P. 0. Davis to L. R. Gilbert, Sec., CTNIRB, 11 Nov. 1933, RG 9, NRA, State Boards - Alabama.

121 "Strikers Are Orderly in Walkout at Avondale," Bir mingham Aqe-Herald, 17 July 1934, 1.

122 . , Ibid.

123 "Professionals," Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 17 July 1934, 6.

124 "Picketing at Avondale," Birmingham News, 18 july 1934, 1; and "Textile Walkout in State's Mills Up Against (continued...)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 312

to arrest the pickets and haul them to jail and we request-

ed them not to do it." 125 On the same morning, John Tem

ple Graves II wrote that Comer was "neither a paternalist

nor a profiteer," and that

we have so abiding a faith in the conscience, good sense and humanitarianism of Donald Comer that we are eager to know his opinion and to observe his course [regarding the textile strike.] We know that he is zealously certain that differences between employers and employees are not natural and can be settled, and that the government is an admirable mediator. 126

At the Avondale and Cowikee mill plants work contin

ued, except in Birmingham. The Birmingham Aqe-Herald re

ported that in Sylacauga "mill employees here and at Syca-

more apparently are opposed to union organization."127

The only good news for the strikers came from Thad Holt.

124( .. .continued) Snag," Birmingham News, 1 and 3. The textile strike certainly was not helped by the San Francisco strike. There city services and food deliv eries were interrupted to such an extent that Hugh Johnson called the strike "Civil War." See "Strike Called 'Civil War' by NRA Chieftain," and ""No Beer, No Milk, No Ice Cream: Strike Victim Drinks Water," both in the Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 18 July 1934.

125 Comer to B.M. Squires, Textile Relations Labor Board (TLRB), TLRB records relating to labor disturbances in the cotton industry, 1934, Avondale Mills file. That letter may also be found in Comer papers, 104.

126 Graves, "This Morning," Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 18 July 1934, 1.

1 ? 7 "Strike Closes 20 of 115 Mills," Birmingham Aqe- Herald, 18 July 1934, 3. Of course there is no way the reporter could have known of the CTNIRB complaint filed by Charles Reid as reported earlier.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 313

He announced on July 18 that striking textile workers could

get on the relief rolls just like everyone else and "be put

to work just as fast as possible." 128 Comer quickly con

curred. Taking the high road in negotiating, he said

we agree with Mr. Holt that hungry people wherever they may be shall be entitled to relief. As a matter of fact, so far as I am concerned, personally, I would not want to attempt to compel an agreement because a man was hungry. It would have no value nor standing.

Even that seemed very liberal when compared to the views of

Eugene Talmadge, who opposed all forms of government assis-

tance., 130

On 19 July Hugh Comer reported that the textile

strike was unnecessary. He asserted that Avondale Mill

workers only needed to come to him with any grievance for a

sympathetic hearing.131 Hugh boldly stated that the union

only caused trouble and helped no one. This is in the same

mill that a textile worker reported to the CTNIRB that the

128 "Strikers to Get Relief If Needed," Birmingham Aqe- Herald, 18 July 1934, 3.

129 Comer to Scott Roberts, Anniston, Ala., 19 July 1934, Comer papers, 104. Comer eventually published the letter in the Avondale Sun on 8 Sept. 1934, 1, so that all employees might know what he did. This contrasts sharply with the methods used by another paternalist, Charles F. DeBardeleben, who loaned three machine guns to a local textile mill during the 1934 strike according to Wyche, "Southern Attitudes," 44-45.

130 Allen, The Governor and the Strike," 78.

131 "Textile Strike Over State on Deadlock," Sylacauqa Advance, 19 July 1934, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 314

stretch out was so bad "I carry a lunch to the mill with me

. . . and I don't have time to eat it." 132 A few days

later, on July 24, workers at eight of the nine Avondale

mills pledged their loyalty and expressed their apprecia

tion to the Comers. Though the petitions were "voluntari

ly" circulated among the 5,500 employees, every worker knew

the absence of a signature was bound to be noticed.133

Each worker knew, as Charles Reid did, that any person

involved in union activities would be dismissed.134

The letter from the workers at the Cowikee Mills at

Eufaula was typical. Every family signed a letter stating

that they wanted "to take this means of expressing our 100

per cent confidence in your leadership and our appreciation

for the many kindnesses shown us . . . and that you were

always doing the best you could for us."135 All of these

letters were so similar that one person must have drawn

132 Johnny Cruise, Sylacauga, to CTNIRB, 6 Sept. 1934, CTNIRB employee complaints, AR-AV.

133 "Federation Stand Opposing Textile Strike Stressed," Birmingham News, 25 July 1934, 1 and 3; "Workers in Eight Avondale Mills Pledge Loyalty," Birmingham Aqe- Herald, 25 July 1934, 1; and "Avondale Mills Employees Express Their Loyalty," Birmingham News editorial, 26 July 1934, 6.

134 Reid to CTNIRB, 10 July 1934, CTNIRB, Employee com plaints, AR-AV.

135 "Breach Widens Between Labor, Strike Leaders," Bir mingham Aqe-Herald, 26 July 1934, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 315

them up. These were certainly not representative of an

extemporaneous outpouring of love and affection, but a

carefully orchestrated campaign by the Comers to discredit

the UTW. It worked.

The Birmingham News, for example, on July 26 ex

pressed great faith in the management of Avondale Mills and

treated the strike at the plant in Birmingham as an aberra

tion created by "outside agitators."136 The News viewed

the loyalty oath taken by the remaining Avondale workers

"as welcome evidence that the fine spirit of the Avondale

Mills organization is weathering the present disturbances

in the Alabama textile industry." 137

On July 28 Donald Comer himself commented on the

strike at the Avondale Mills plant at Birmingham. He ex

pressed surprise that the Birmingham workers went on strike

on July 16. He also stated that "we are making a fair

statement when we say there are many unwilling participants

in this strike action." 138 He averred that the management

135 "Avondale Mills Employees Express Their Loyalty," Birmingham News, 26 July 1934, 6. Of course, many believed that the CIO was a center of Communism later. See Robin Davis Gibran Kelley, "Hammer n'Hoe: Black Radicalism and the Communist Party in Alabama, 1929-1941," (Ph.D. diss.: UCLA, 1987), 342-343, and 471.

137 Ibid.. ,

138 Comer, untitled article, double spaced, occupying all of page 1, Avondale Sun, 28 July 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 316

wanted to avoid strife, and noted that many friends of long

standing stood on both sides of the picket line. 139 He

then mentioned that "many thousands of people who work for

[Avondale and Cowikee] . . . took this particular time to

send us individually and collectively their written assur

ance of continued confidence."140

By the beginning of August Comer had lost all faith

in the NRA. He told the prominent cotton manufacturer

Charles Cannon that "whatever rights southern industry is

going to get and maintain is going to come as a result of

political force and power rather than through the NRA."141

He wanted ACMA to launch a publicity campaign so that

southern industry could be protected. Comer added that

"the thing resolves itself into a question not of what a

particular wage shall be in a certain section."142 In

stead, Comer feared the loss of the industry present in the

South.

139 Ibid. . ,

Ibid.

141 Comer to Cannon, Kannapolis, N.C., 2 and 10 Aug. 1934, Comer papers, 98. Comer sent copies of the 2 Aug. letter to David R. Coker, P. O. Davis, Thad Holt, W. D. An derson, John Temple Graves, Judge Fiedelson, Professor Steelman, Professor Bethourst, Clarence Cason, and Lee Bidgood.

142 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 317

In fact, at the one Avondale mill closed due to the

strike no incidents erupted. As the Birmingham News noted

in its August 4 edition, "there have been no disorders

whatsoever."143 The paper also noted that the Avondale

mill workers had made no formal demands.

On August 6 Donald wrote Bragg in Atlantic City to

update him on the strike situation. First, Comer reported

on the disturbance at Fayette. He gladly told of the ef

forts of the merchants to repel the outside strikers. Next

he mentioned that at the trade union meetings the leaders

attempted to maintain control by appealing to "ignorance,

passion, and prejudice."144 He also reported that Ike

Robinton attempted to hold the workers to the strike by

lying about the success level the UTW was having at orga

nizing Avondale workers at Pell City and Sylacauga. Comer

expected Robinton's failure to produce results in either of

those towns to lead to failure in Birmingham. On the na

tional level Donald relayed the information that leaders in

Washington wanted Dr. Bruere to come to Alabama to attempt

143 "For a Speedy Settlement of the Avondale Walkout," Birmingham News, 4 Aug. 1934, 4. As Edward Akin notes, however, the News missed the point somewhat. The manage ment of Avondale Mills had also missed important demograph ic changes. See his unpublished manuscripts for more on this.

144 Comer to Bragg Comer, 6 Aug. 1934, Comer papers, 98.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 318

to resolve the textile strike, but that Bruere was resist-

ing.. _ 145

On August 8 newspapers reported that Robert Bruere

met with Benjamin Geer in South Carolina regarding the

strike situation in Alabama. This left only the labor

representative of the CTNIRB not present. Besides Geer and

Bruere, Scott Roberts, P. 0. Davis, and George Googe also

attended the meeting representing the manufacturers, the

ACTIRB, and the workers, respectively.146

Not reported was the August 8 meeting between Donald

Comer, Scott Roberts, and George Googe. Comer initiated

the meeting "as a matter of courtesy" to Googe.147 The

three men met for about six hours beginning at three in the

afternoon. The discussion was quite amicable and all as

sured Robert Bruere that they had established "friendly

relations."148 Googe wanted the UTW to take his advice at

their upcoming convention on August 13 to end the textile

strike by allowing the CTNIRB to intervene directly. This

Ibid.

146 "Bruere Talks Over Strike in Alabama," Birmingham News, 8 Aug. 1934, 2; and "Textile Industrial Board in Con ference," Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 9 Aug. 1934, 2.

147 Memo, Robert Bruere to Robert Houston, 11 Aug. 1934, CTNIRB records, Employee complaints, AR-AV.

148 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 319

would allow the CTNIRB to establish headquarters in Alabama

149 by August 19. That effort failed.

All of the strike action adversely affected Comer.

His disgust with the strike and with trade unions appeared

very obviously in an August 16 letter to W. D. Anderson.

He first noted the "outrageous" attack by a national union

on one state and expressed the belief that the governors

and congressmen of the South ought to have openly opposed

that action. He then openly stated that "our New England

friends are in partnership with Union Labor leaders in this

program" to destroy the textile industry in the South.150

Publicly the Avondale Mills leader took a low pro

file. On August 27, however, John Temple Graves II gave

Comer and the cotton manufacturers of the South a publicity

boost in his column "This Morning." Graves praised Donald

Comer for thinking of the welfare of his employees and for

the welfare of the public in general. Ironically, Graves

praised him for defending the wage differential. Graves

agreed with Comer that "southern labor must be given the

very highest wage possible without robbing capital of a

reasonable profit and management of an adequate incen

149 Ibid. . ,

150 Both quotes are from Comer to Anderson, 16 Aug. 19 34, Comer papers, 104.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 320

tive.1,151 This meant that textile, coal, and other work

ers were supposed to help their families as best they could

on ten or eleven dollars a week.

Meanwhile, all of the Comer mills except the Birming-

ham and Stevenson plant operated at full capacity. 152 In

fact, Hugh Comer reported that the mills in Sylacauga and

Sycamore were "running full time" and a newspaper stated

that "all of his employees are loyal and not in favor of a

strike." 153 The Stevenson plant closed on August 30 as a

result of a visit from a "flying squadron" 154 from Hunts

ville. The mill reopened on September 5 with the help of a

volunteer group of citizens. 155 As a response to the

threat of flying squadrons thirty citizens formed an armed

Ibid.

152 "State Mills Run," Birmingham News, 3 Sept. 1934, 1.

153 "Quiet Prevails Throughout State in Textile Strike," Sylacauga Advance, 6 Sept. 1934, 1.

154 For more on the flying squadron, see Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 105-108.

155 Resume on the Mary Ann mill at Stevenson, Ala., 24 Jan. 1935, NRA. Textile Labor Relations Board (TLRB), re cords related to labor disturbance in the textile industry, Avondale, 1935. These will be called TLRB records in the future. The small mill operated about 125 workers on two shifts. See also "Alabama Textile Workers Urged to Sheath Weapons," Birmingham News, 5 Sept. 1934, 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 321

guard at the Stevenson plant to insure that the 125 mill

employees could go back to work.156

Apparently the flying squadron took one last try at

Stevenson on September 6 and failed, but managed to hospi-

talize one worker. 157 The next day Comer wrote to J. A.

Miller of the Exposition Cotton Mills in Atlanta to express

his hope that the closing and reopening of the mill at

Stevenson gave no heart to the flying squadrons over the

state.158

At Alexander City armed guards on the roads and in

the town appeared to protect the cotton mills. They had

more volunteers than could be used. The Aqe-Herald report

ed that "practically the entire community at Sylacauga, Bon

Air, and Sycamore have armed and are guarding all roads,

scrutinizing all visiting automobiles." 159 Those actions

all over the state resulted in the UTW requesting that

everyone disarm. Ike Robinton, a UTW organizer, noted that

156 "Alabama Strike," Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 7 Sept. 1934, 1.

157 Scott Roberts to George A. Sloan, 7 Sept. 1934, Comer papers, 104.

158 Comer to J. A. Miller, Exposition Cotton Mills, At lanta, Ga., 7 Sept. 1934, Comer papers, 103.

159 Quote from "Alabama Strike," Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 7 Sept. 1934, 3. See also "Alabama Textile Workers Urged to Sheath Weapons," Birmingham News, 5 Sept. 1934, 10.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 322

he wanted a peaceful time, and that no flying squadrons had

acted in Alabama yet.160

Others jumped to defend the Avondale Mills in Syla

cauga. They opposed actions by flying squadrons. Promi

nent citizens of Sylacauga wrote to Governor Miller to

"disapprove [of] the conduct of textile strikers in visit

ing communities in great bodies for the purpose of intimi

dating the employees of cotton mills and forcing these

mills to close down."161 They added that protection now

surpassed "death and ruin on our streets."162 of course

most of the people in the flying squadrons in Alabama were

native Alabamians. Agnew and Comer hoped, however, that if

those squadrons looked like an invading force that the

Governor would act quickly to defeat them.

Avondale Mills management attempted to convince Avon

dale workers that trade unions meant them no good. In the

September 8 edition of the Avondale Sun Comer reprinted the

remarks of George Berry, the labor representative on the

CTNIRB. Those remarks came from a discussion at a Blue

160 "Alabama Textile Workers Urged to Sheath Weapons," Birmingham News, 5 Sept. 1934, 10.

161 S. B. Chalmers, commander of American Legion Post #45, Thomas Hogan, Pres, of the Sylacauga Merchants Associ ation, and E. L. Widemire, Pres, of the Sylacauga Exchange Club to Miller, 15 Sept. 1934, Gov. Miller records, strike situation.

162 . , Ibid.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 323

Ridge retreat. In them Berry repudiated the UTW and upheld

the right of the CTNIRB to conduct any negotiations. Berry

found the textile strike as unpatriotic and the work of

"labor agitators."163 Nor was there any effort to hide

the effectiveness of the textile strike. In that same

edition the Avondale Sun accurately reported the number of

workers on strike on a state by state basis for the na-

tion., . 164

The propaganda effort continued. In that same edi

tion of the Avondale Sun Comer included his letter to ex-

Governor of North Carolina 0. Max Gardner regarding wages

and the processing tax. Comer argued that "if Mr. Roose

velt could take 1 cent per pound off the processing tax,

that we would be glad to take this thirty million dollars

and put it into the pay envelopes of mill employees."165

He made sure a copy of that paper got sent to Frances Per

kins . He wanted her to know that he supported the workers

163 "Avondale Employees Who Were at Blue Ridge This Summer Will Remember Following Quotations from Major Ber ry's Speech," Avondale Sun, 8 Sept. 1934, 1 and 2.

164 "Number of Men on Strike Over Nation Is Shown," Avondale Sun, 8 Sept. 1934, 2.

165 "Donald Comer Writes About Textile Wages," Avondale Sun, 8 Sept. 1934, 1-2, with the quote on 2.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 324

getting emergency unemployment benefits, and he wanted her

to see his pay offer made to Gardner.165

Avondale Mills even got the press to print its propa

ganda. The September 9 Birmingham News ran a feature arti

cle on the strike. Robert Kincey wrote that "the strike is

on in Alabama and labor stands today as a house divided

against itself."167 The article contained several photo

graphs of mill towns, most of them Avondale Mill plants.

Kincey concentrated on the Avondale Mill plants at Syla

cauga, where "approximately 3,000 men and women who have

announced their determination to work, and who have armed

themselves in support of that determination." 166

One employee, W. S. Jones, noted that Avondale Mills

had practiced collective bargaining for years and that

"there is no stretch out here, and . . . never has a deaf

166 Comer to Perkins, 15 Aug. 1934, Comer papers, 103. He also included remarks by Judge John D. Petree, the head of the Alabama NEC. In a newspaper clipping of a speech given on Aug. 14, Petree remarked that giving emergency relief to strikers was wrong, and that an arbitration board ought to be appointed to settle the strike quickly under the Textile Code.

167 Robert Kincey, "Textile Workers Backing Emplo- ye[r]s," Birmingham News - Aqe-Herald, 9 Sept. 1934, 14. The headline that went over the entire page was "25,000 Men and Women Going About Daily Duties Armed to the Teeth."

168 Ibid, and Kincey added more purple prose. He also wrote in that article that "most of the company employees were ready to defend with their life blood what they con sidered a God-given right."

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 325

ear been turned to a legitimate complaint."169 Of course

no one mentioned that the Comers decided what a legitimate

complain was. Hugh Comer added that if the workers decided

to strike the guns would immediately come down as "I will

not be drawn into open warfare with the people I have come

to love and respect."170

These efforts proved only a part of the campaign to

win the public relations war in Alabama. Donald Comer

largely wrote the advertisements in the campaign. On Sep

tember 13 Comer suggested that Scott Roberts entitle the

ads "The Truth About the Textile Strike."171 In that pub

licity campaign they used the public statement issued by

the Cotton Textile Code Authority on September 12 as

well. 172 In them Comer attacked the UTW for putting up to

450,000 more people on relief when so many already relied

on government help to eat. The strike also adversely af

fected the ability of farmers to earn a parity income.

169 Ibid. TU • J

170 Ibid. T U • J

171 Comer to Roberts, 13 Sept. 1934, Comer papers, 98. Roberts told George A. Sloan that Comer wrote most of the AlaCMA material for the advertisements in a letter of 14 Sept. 1934, Comer papers, 104. Roberts also reported the mills still operating in Alabama in that letter.

172 A copy of that statement may be found in a letter from W. M. McLaurine, ACMA, to Southern Textile Manufactur ers of 13 Sept. 1934, Comer papers, 96.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 326

Moreover, the strike was unjustly called because cotton

manufacturers abided by the rules of the Cotton Textile

Code that were established in open hearings with labor

representation.173

These pronouncements proved useful given that these

judgments were delivered the day after Hugh Johnson roundly

attacked the UTW.174 The Comers used the remarks by John

son within their own mills to full advantage. In the Avon

dale Sun of September 22 Johnson's full speech was reprint

ed. This helped because Johnson made statements such as

"the cotton textile industry is the very last place in this

country where a strike should be ordered." 175

The next day W. D. Anderson agreed with Donald Co

mer's proposal to attempt to insure southern control of the

Winant Board. Donald wanted to assure that the South got

proportional representation on an boards or committees.

Since the South operated two thirds of the active spindles

in the country and spun eighty percent of the cotton con

sumed, the South ought to receive between two thirds and

eighty percent of the appointments, he argued. George

Sloan quickly brought this fact to the attention of the

173 Comer to Roberts, 13 Sept. 1934.

174 Hodges, New Deal Labor Policy, 114.

175 "General Johnson on the Textile Strike," Avondale Sun, 22 Sept. 1934, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 327

President, and Donald just as quickly contacted the Alabama

Congres smen.176

Quickly the Avondale Mills president moved. He of

fered a formal statement regarding the strike on the morn

ing of September 22. The statement reflected his gladness

at the ending of the strike, but he kept the upper hand by

not immediately going back to two full shifts at the one

striking mill at Birmingham. Instead, he went to two half

shifts. He also stated that he expected to speak with each

and every person reinstated. Comer promised not to dis

criminate against union members unless that person "made an

illegal, overt attack upon the person of any member of the

management." 177 This was put in the statement as J. T.

Tucker refused to allow two foremen into the Birmingham

plant on September 21. Tucker was arrested for assault and

170 battery. Picketing at the mill continued when Ike Robin

ton assured the chief of police that the strikers would

176 Anderson to Comer, 22 Sept. 1934, telegram; and Comer to Anderson, 3 Oct. 1934, both in the Comer papers, 96.

177 "Comer Outlines Plan to Resume," Birmingham News, 22 Sept. 1934, 1. This also may be found in TLRB, records relating to labor disturbances in the textile industry, Avondale Mills.

178 "Arrest Is Made in Strike Here," Birmingham Aqe- Herald, 22 Sept. 1934, 1.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 328

remain peaceful. 179 At least partially in retaliation for

that incident the Birmingham plant remained closed until

September 27.180

Due to the smashing of the UTW locals and to the

disastrous ending of the strike, unionization efforts were

set back for years in the cotton textile industry. 181

This may be seen easily at Avondale, particularly in the

southern half of Alabama. A textile worker who began work

ing at one of the Sylacauga plants of Avondale Mills during

the late 1930s commented on trade union activity. He said

"I have known a few who tried to stimulate interest of the

people to get into unions, but within the group in here we

haven't had anybody start nuthin'."182

One ought not to ignore the continued fight to union

ize textile mills in Alabama, however, particularly from

Birmingham northward. All was not failure. As Eula McGill

put it, the strikers in Alabama "felt that they had done

something that they'd never been able to do before."183

179 ...Ibid. . ,

180 "State Textile," Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 25 Sept. 1934, 7.

181 Ibid, 117-118.

182 Hardy oral history.

183 Eula McGill quoted in Debbie Pendleton, "Alabama Textile Unionism," 35, and Mendel, "United Textile Work- continued. . .)

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 329

On September 27 Donald wrote to Hugh. He told Hugh

to telegram him that the Birmingham plant was to start up

that day and that everyone who struck was rehired "except

for the one man who was awaiting trial on the charge of

assaulting one of the foremen."184 Donald must have want

ed to show the telegram around to people in Washington, as

he was to meet with Harry Hopkins on the next day.185

The 1934 strike directly impacted the relationship of

Donald Comer and the Avondale Mills employees in Birming

ham. The following year the headquarters for Avondale

Mills moved out of Birmingham to Sylacauga. This move was

foreshadowed by an October 3 letter Donald wrote to the

Mayor of Sylacauga. In it Donald praised the citizens and

officials of Sylacauga for their helpfulness during the

"threatened invasion.1,186 While other areas received in

creased paternalistic benefits, Birmingham did not. After

183( . . .continued) ers," 127-130. See also Wyche, "Southern Attitudes," 28- 29.

104 Comer to Hugh Comer, 27 Sept. 1934, Comer papers, 98.

185 Ibid. . ,

186 Comer to Mayor Sylacauga, 3 Oct. 1934, Comer pa pers, 102. Comer did not know the mayor's name, and did not consider it important enough to discover before mailing the letter. Everyone knew who really ran the town - Avon dale Mills. That letter was sent to the mayors of all the Avondale Mill towns except for Birmingham.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 330

World War II Avondale sold its village housing to the em-

ployees.187

Comer also wrote to P. O. Davis in early October of

1934 to lament the fall of the CTNIRB. Comer wrote that "I

think the crime of the day was the slaughter of this Board

at the demand of Mr. Gorman."188 He also wrote Dr. Bruere

to criticize the administration for "the treatment of our

industry and your Board while under the most outrageous

attack by Mr. Gorman and Mr. McMahon." 189 About two weeks

later Comer added a personal attack on labor leaders. He

accused "these professional labor agitators" of selfishness

and greed, and "they are not the least interested in any

of the things they claim to be." 190

He also made positive suggestions. Comer wrote Harry

Hopkins that he would willingly allow employee representa-

tives to meet with the Avondale Board of Directors.191

Comer also sent a copy of that letter to W.W. Ball, the

editor of the News and Courier of Charleston, S.C. Ball

187 Akin, "Mr. Donald's Help," 18-19.

188 Comer to Davis, 3 Oct. 1934, Comer papers, 99.

189 Comer to Bruere, 3 Oct. 1934, Comer papers, 105.

190 Comer to Davis, 18 Oct. 1934, Comer papers, 99.

191 Comer to Hopkins, ca. 8 Oct. 1934. The reference drawn here is indirect and drawn from the letter of W. W. Ball to Comer, 11 Oct. 1934, W. W. Ball papers, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 331

replied that such a proposal "calls the bluff of agita-

tors." 192 Ball also agreed that basing the minimum wage

upon a thirty hour week was wrong, and the shortening of

the week to forty hours was good because it gave the mill

operatives time for self-development.193

The next major labor issues to dominate Comer's at

tention was the National Labor Relations Act, or Wagner

bill. Comer again tried to defeat this legislation. He

testified before Congress on this issue. Like most south

ern cotton manufacturers he desired to keep the wage dif

ferential between South and North, and wanted to keep con

trol over his employees. He was more easily heard, howev

er, because Avondale Mills attempted to keep scrupulously

within the law, and because he had led the fight for reform

from within the cotton textile industry for years.

As in his previous testimony in 1934, the Avondale

Mills executive stated that he was "not here to oppose the

purposes of the Wagner bill." 194 He wanted delay, how

ever. His testimony here resembled strongly the testimony

he gave in 1934. He praised the achievements under the

192 Ibid. . ,

Ibid.-r, • ,

194 Congress, Senate, Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor, National Labor Relations Board, 74th Cong., 1st Sess., Part 2, 2 April 1935, 680.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 332

NRA, such as salary increases, the end of child labor, and

other benefits. He noted the loss of overseas markets due

to higher prices for American made cotton as well as the

fact that about ten percent of gross business was paid in

processing taxes. 195 He also noted that he Avondale Mills

had two million pounds of manufactured cotton goods in its

warehouses in July of 1933, but in March of 1935 had over

twelve million pounds of surplus in its warehouses.196

Comer then stated that at the beginning of the New

Deal "I desperately wanted shorter hours and higher wag-

es." 197 Whereupon Senator Wagner remarked that "if all

employers were like you this legislation would not be here

at all." 198 Senator Black then added that "you were a

pioneer . . . as to getting a regulation of hours and bet-

ter pay." 199 Comer then pressed the point that "we should

give our industry a chance to become adjusted to these

gains . . . that our present duty is to consolidate and

make permanent the advance already achieved before under-

195 Ibid, 686.

196 Ibid, 693

197 tIbid. u ' j

198 Ibid.

199 Ibid, 694.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 333

taking another experiment by statute."200 He concluded by

stating that the time would come when Wagner's bill would

be useful and probably necessary, but that time was not

now. 201

His effort on that bill proved ineffectual, though

other southerners praised him for his stand. 202 Then in

January of 1936 a major battle erupted over passage of the

National Textile Act, or Ellenbogen bill. That bill was

introduced by Representative Henry Ellenbogen of Pennsylva-

nia on 21 August 1935. 203 Thomas McMahon of the UTW at-

tempted to get Governor Bibb Graves to endorse it. 204 Due

to the Supreme Court declaration in May of 1935 that the

NIRA was unconstitutional, McMahon charged that "mills are

going off code standards." 205 He thus wanted those mini-

200 Ibid, 695-696.

201 Ibid, 696.

202 See, for example, Ashton B. Collins, Associated In dustries of Alabama, Birmingham, Ala., to Comer, 3 May 1935; and Scott Roberts to W. M. McLaurine, 7 Aug. 1935, both in the Comer papers, 106.

203 Henry Ellenbogen, "Save the Textile Industry and the Textile Worker," as part of a letter from Thomas F. McMahon to Gov. Bibb Graves, 15 Jan. 1936, Gov. Bibb Graves administrative files, cotton, misc. file.

204 Ibid. . ,

205 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 334

mums restored, and pointed out the efficacy of "levelling

out competition on . . . labor costs."206

Donald Comer attempted to get Governor Graves to

repudiate the National Textile Act. He wanted Graves to

testify against the act, because he knew Graves was invited

to testify regarding the act. 207 Comer stated that act's

purpose was "to regiment the same wages and working condi-

tions in the textile industry all over the country." 208

He also inferred that the New England manufacturers sup

ported the bill to regain their competitive advantage over

southern cotton mills. To Comer this meant that the North

wanted to keep the South as an undeveloped agricultural

region. He pleaded that Alabama ought to have "something

of the same chance for development that the old industrial

sections had."209

Comer's antipathy toward the Ellenbogen bill did not

prevent him from keeping good relations with AF of L leader

George Googe. He wrote to Googe in April of 1936 to invite

him to visit he next time Googe was in Birmingham, and

206 Ibid. . .

207 Graves was supported strongly for election as gov ernor in 19 34, and supported the creation of the pro-union Department of Labor when he was elected Governor.

208 Comer to Graves, 17 Jan. 1936, Gov. Graves adminis trative files, cotton, misc. file.

209 Ibid.. ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 335

"Mrs. Comer told me . . . when you come again to bring Mrs.

Googe with you." 210 Nor did this prevent Comer from prai

sing FDR. He wrote John Edgerton of the Southern States

Industrial Council that Roosevelt had his vote in the up

coming presidential election. Though Comer disapproved of

the President's close relation with John L. Lewis, he "ap

proved the administration's efforts to improve the purchas-

ing power of the farmer." 211 Comer expected "hits, runs, 212 and errors," just like any baseball game. Also, it was

poor taste for those who prospered under Coolidge's spend

ing and credits to foreign countries to criticize spending

for Americans. Finally, though Comer disliked all the

governmental spending, he noted that "my mill is running

full time today because of this particular spending."213

Eventually all of those attempts at labor regulation

led to the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938. That act

created a five member Board to act as a regulatory agency,

replacing the clumsy code-making procedure of the NRA. The

bill also eliminated the thirty hour week provision.214

210 Comer to Googe, Atlanta, Ga., 15 Apr. 1936, Comer papers, 125.

211 Comer to Edgerton, 26 Aug. 1936, Comer papers, 126.

212 Ibid. . ,

2 1 3 Ibid. t l • j

214 Hamilton, Hugo Black, 264-265.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 336

True to form. Comer opposed the Fair Labor Standards

Act. He believed it anything but fair. He argued to Con

gressman Luther Patrick that the same ones who created the

unfair freight rate structure wanted to create an unfair

labor structure. The bill drawn up "will favor industry

where it already is and will serve to choke and retard

industry's development in our territory." 215 In the same

letter the Barbour County native noted with pleasure that

Governor Graves had a sound philosophy on the matter.

On the same date Comer wrote Governor Graves in a

very uncompromising tone. Comer warned against accepting

"a national textile law . . . written by W. M. Connery from

Massachusetts and Mr. Ellenbogen from Pennsylvania and

these men would write another Force Bill for the South.

They come from the same states as Lodge and Thad

Stevens."215 He then accused New England of attempting to

"write a textile law that will dry us up." 217

Early in May of 1937 he wrote Kent Keller to outline

his opposition. There Comer mentioned that the passage of

215 Comer to Patrick, 30 Apr. 1937, Gov. Graves admin istrative files, Cotton, misc. file. Of course Comer was not alone in that regard. George E. Roberts wrote to George Fort Milton to make essentially the same argument. See Roberts to Milton, 27 Aug. 1937, Milton papers, 81.

216 Comer to Gov. Bibb Graves, Administrative files, cotton, 1936 file.

217 Ibid. . ,

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 337

the Fair Labor Standards Act would hurt the textile indus

try, and put the cost of cotton goods out of parity. Comer

nonetheless refused to testify against the Fair Labor Stan

dards Act initially. He feared that continued opposition

to raises in wages and shortening of hours by him would

"cause the beginning of a growing mistrust" between him and

the workers of Avondale Mills. 218

He ultimately testified. On 8 June 1937 Comer ap

peared before the Senate Committee on Education and La-

or. 219 He again stressed the benefits of NRA, the fact

that the Wagner act had already been passed, the need to

not hike costs too high for farmers, specifically to equal

ize income for farmers and industrial workers, the need to

industrialize the South, and the need to remove tariff,

freight rate, and other barriers, that prevented the South

from industrializing like the North. 220 Comer and Repre

sentative Robert Ramspeck of Georgia also expressed concern

that raising wages too quickly would tend to drive farmers

off of the land to migrate to cities where wages were much

218 Comer to Kent E. Keller, 24 May 1937, Black papers, 159.

219 Congress, Joint Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor, Senate, and Committee on Labor, House, Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937, 75th Cong., 1st Sess., Part 2, 7 June 1937, 434.

220 Ibid, 435-437, and 441-444.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 338

higher unless something was done to help those farmers

raise their income. 221

To make sure the committee members knew he wanted

only to make the South equal to the North, not superior, he

noted that his wife was from Pennsylvania, that his daugh

ters attended Massachusetts colleges, that he borrowed

money from New York and Massachusetts banks, and that his

machinery was made in the North as well. 222

He also stressed the need for progress to continue in

the textile industry as it had under the NRA, and that

whatever Congress enacted, "I will do my best to make it

work." 223 Comer then argued that the number of maximum

hours and the amount of the minimum wage ought to be fixed

in the bill, and not left to a commission to decide.224

Senator Claude Pepper and the Avondale Mills patri

arch then agreed that to pay the identical wage to a worker

in Lowell, Massachusetts, and Birmingham, Alabama, the

freight rates between the two sections ought to be equal-

ized and the tariff rates equalized. 225 Comer closed by

221 Ibid, 446-448, and see also Comer to Hugo Black, 9 and 12 July and 9 Aug. 1937, Black papers, 159.

222 Ibid, 440.

223 Ibid.

224 Ibid, 445-446.

225 Ibid, 448-451.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 339

begging for a tariff on manufactured cotton from Japan and

raw and manufactured jute so that "we could have a much

bigger cotton business in this country and our cotton mills

would be busy."225

Commenting on Comer's testimony, Hugo Black praised

the statements "which showed that you did not wish to con

tinue in the South practices that were injurious to the

workers." 227 A few days later Black added that he was

grateful Comer was unlike most of the lumber industry of

the South, largely northern owned, who were "slave driv-

ers." 228 In fact, Black wanted to have Comer appointed to

the five member Fair Labor Standards board, but Black's

appointment to the Supreme Court prevented that. 229

The passage of the Fair Labor Standards Act in 1938

passage clearly demarked the time that Comer went from

being a liberal proponent of reform in wages and hours to a

moderate campaigner who favored a position of holding the

line on change. His testimony on the Fair Labor Standards

Act nonetheless demonstrated his concern to industrialize

225 Ibid, 454.

227 Black to Comer, 12 July 1937, Black papers, 159.

228 Black to Comer, 22 July 1937, Black papers, 159.

229 Comer to John D. McNeel, Birmingham, 28 Sept. 1937, Comer papers, 127. Black told Comer about the appointment on the telephone on August 9 according to that letter.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 340

and to improve the South. He pragmatically accepted the

increasing role of government in regulating not only hours

and wages, but all elements of economic life in the United

States. That acceptance alone kept Comer among the ranks

of the moderates.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. CONCLUSION

Unlike the early twentieth century, New South leaders

of the 1320s and 1930s were forced to accept the fact that

a new day of rampant economic success had not dawned in the

South. The cotton South, in fact, felt the first effects

of the worldwide depression that began in the 1920s and

affected the entire nation in the 1930s.

Donald Comer reacted to those changes as best he

knew, and as both a southerner and an American. He advo

cated ameliorative change from within the system, but never

radical change. Stability and long-term growth for his

mills, for the South, and for the rest of the nation were

his goals.

With those goals, Progressive reform played a large

role in his life. He supported education, prohibition, and

economic progress that included most of the programs of the

New Deal. His limited acceptance of racial and labor re

form proved him a typically conservative southerner on

those issues, yet particularly in the area of labor rela

tions, the Alabamian proved something of an innovator.

Like earlier generations of New South advocates, how

ever, Comer also contended, or at least accepted, that

341

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 342

socially acceptable economic growth and prosperity could

occur while racial discrimination existed and while vested

interests ruled the southern and American economy.1 Like

Walter Hines Page and others, the Alabama textile magnate

desired to see the South restored to full reconciliation,

participation, and benefits in national life.2 Also like

Page, Comer took a somewhat critical look at the New South

ideology of unlimited and unquestioned industrial growth.

The Barbour County native abhorred not only exploita

tion of workers, but opposed environmental harm to the

South in the name of economic growth. He advocated not

only industrialization, but improvements and governmental

attention to agricultural life. This preoccupation went

much further than mere diversified farming. His plans

included the achievement of better fertilizers, the exten

sion of electricity to remote farming communities, the

ending of tenant farming and the building of industry in

1 Tennant McWilliams, Hannis Taylor: The New Southern er as an American (University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1978), 86-88; Dewey W. Grantham, Jr., Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South (Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967), 26-29; Woodward, Origins, 144-148 and 369-372; and Cobb, Industrialization and Southern Soci ety, 1-3.

2 Cooper, John Milton, Jr., Walter Hines Page: The Southerner as American, 1855-1918 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977), xvi.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 343

farming communities of the South through diversification of

industry from the North and East.3

One way of putting Donald Comer in context is to com

pare him with Lister Hill. Like Hill, Comer was a man who

saw himself as public servant. Unlike Hill, the Avondale

Mills patriarch also operated a large business for profit.

One aspect of striking similarity between the two men

was their lifestyle. To both men their personal reputation

stood above all else. They both preached of the virtues of

hard work and clean living and attempted to live that way.

Both also believed very strongly in compromise to win a

partial victory, rather than taking an irreconcilable stand

that might result in total defeat.

Like Lister Hill, even when Comer promoted reforms

to help blacks, he place those reforms within a larger con

text, such as ending tenant farming. In that way, the

social norm of racism would not be directly attacked, but

the idea of separate-but-equal would have some real bene

fits for blacks. Both men worked hard to support such

programs as TVA, for government assistance to rural areas

for electricity, telephones, and to end tenant farming.

3 Cooper, Walter Hines Page, xx.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 344

Both advocated better schools, libraries, and hospitals

everywhere, but particularly in rural areas.4

The Barbour County native was noticeably silent on

the promotion of voting rights and other aspects of equal

ity for blacks during the 1920s and 1930s. Like most

wealthy southerners he opposed lynchings and promoted pro

grams to help tenant farmers, a disproportionate amount of

whom were black. In no case did Comer advocate the promo

tion of blacks out of their "place" in southern society.

That location was at the social and economic bottom.

Nor was he a liberal in the arena of labor legisla

tion by the end of the New Deal. Among textile manufactur

ers in the 1920s Donald proved himself a leading proponent

of remedial labor legislation to end night work for women

and children, to end child labor, and to stabilize hours,

wages, and working conditions for all employees over all.

He based those reforms on both economic arguments to pro

mote stability and thus profits within the cotton mar.jfac-

turing industry, and to promote healthier and better lives

for the employees of cotton manufacturing establishments.

He also proved himself somewhat innovative in fight

ing unions by providing real benefits for his workers, such

as profit-sharing. Let it not be forgotten that the Comer

4 Virginia Van Der Veer Hamilton, Lister Hill: States man from the South (Chapel Hill: University of North Caro lina Press, 1987), 292-293.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 345

family built hospitals, schools, libraries, and promoted

better public health and better recreation than the society

around them did. And this was not only true in the cotton

mill towns they owned, but in the surrounding areas and

even statewide.

The Alabama textile executive also promoted the de

velopment of NRA and most of the labor legislation connect

ed with the NRA, at least until the NRA appeared to support

labor unions. This was not untypical of many southern

businessmen. His commitment to join the experiment known

as the New Deal, and the way in which he was sought out by

leaders in government and in industry to participate was

unusual, not only for southerners, but for northerners as

well.

Because of his participation the limits to his liber

alism in the area of labor legislation are quite easily

seen. In the arena of labor legislation he drew the line

with the advent of section 7(a) of NRA, and consistently

opposed any legislation that would interfere with the con

trol that textile manufacturers held over employees. This

included not only the Black-Connery bill, but all others.

He provided many benefits beyond what other paternalists

gave, but he wanted to remain in control of his workforce.

Yet like Lister Hill, Donald Comer more often than

not sought to expand the help offered to those less fortu

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 346

nate, and to raise up those who depended on cotton mills

for employment. This occurred despite limiting factors

from within his class, such as racism and a belief in lais

sez-faire economics. Comer truly wanted the South to have

the same chance for success as those raised in the North.

He also wanted both northerners and southerners to share in

increasing success economically, socially, and morally.

He pointed out that economic development ought not to

come to the South or North by exploiting labor or the envi

ronment. He constantly aided individuals, and occasionally

larger groups with their problems. He pragmatically set

out to solve problems, and worked very hard to see that a

satisfactory solution was reached. He often worked very

hard for programs with which he did not completely agree.

Yet it was own style and folksiness which most people re

membered about Donald Comer.

To those who met him, he "literally emanates goodwill

and friendliness."5 During the early years of Avondale,

B. B. Comer "built up the mills, but it was Donald who kept

in touch with the people and their problems."6 In short,

Donald never forgot the people with whom he worked in both

Avondale and Cowikee Mills.

5 "Avondale Mills," Trends 5 (Oct. 1949), 8.

5 "The Comers and Their Cotton Mills, Fortune (Jan. 1952), 215.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. When he died tributes were given for his community

service, his innovations in labor relations, and for his

success in guiding Avondale Mills through the depression o 7 the 1930s and forward. The program on which Donald Comer

prided himself, however, was his "partnership with people.

For it was people with whom Comer concerned himself most,

not profits. He knew that if he managed people properly,

and cared about them, the profits naturally had to follow.

7 See, for example, "Donald Comer, 86, Textile Man, Dies," New York Times. 2 June 1963, 2; and "Textile Execu tive and Humanitarian Donald Comer Dies," Birmingham News. 1 June 1963, 1-2.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. BIBLIOGRAPHY

ARCHIVAL MATERIALS

Alabama Department of Archives and History, Montgomery, Alabama. Adjutant General. Administrative Files, 1913. Alabama Industrial Development Board. Administrative Files. Federal Writers Project. Alabama. County histories, 1938-1939. Life histories, 1938-1939. John H. Bankhead (1872-1946) Papers. William B. Bankhead Papers. Braxton Bragg Comer Papers. Donald (James McDonald) Comer Papers. Charles B. Crow Papers. Russell M. Cunningham Papers. Frank M. Dixon Papers. Governor. (Alabama: 1923-1927). William W. Brandon. Administrative Files. Governor (Alabama: 1939-1943). Frank M. Dixon. Administrative Files. Governor (Alabama: 1927-1931 and 1935-1939). Bibb Graves. Administrative Files. Governor (Alabama: 1919-1923). Thomas E. Kilby. Administrative Files. Governor. (Alabama: 1931-1935). Benjamin M. Miller. Administrative Files. Lister Hill Papers. Pamphlet Collection. Public Information Subject Files. County Clipping Files. Public Works Board of Alabama. Minutes, 1935-1938. Secretary of State. Corporation records. Surname files. Oscar W. Underwood Papers.

Alabama Department of Education, Montgomery, Alabama. Alabama State Board of Education. Minutes, 1935- 1949.

348

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 349

Alabama Power Company Archives, Birmingham, Alabama. "Report on the Muscle Shoals Project." 6 December 1913.

Auburn University Archives, Auburn, Alabama. Oral History Waldon Hagler by Karl Hagler, Ariton, Alabama, 22 Feb. 1986.

Birmingham Public Library Archives, Birmingham, Alabama. Avondale Mills. Presidential files, 1924-1941. commonly known as the Donald Comer Papers. Birmingham Board of Education. Minutes, 1937-1945. Hill Ferguson Papers. John Temple Graves II Papers.

Library of Congress Manuscripts Division, Washington, D.C. Hugo L. Black Papers. Josephus Daniels Papers. Hugh G. Grant Papers. William G. McAdoo Papers. George Fort Milton Papers.

Manuscript Department, William R. Perkins Library, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina. Josiah W. Bailey Papers. William W. Ball Papers. Nathaniel B. Dial Papers. Lucy Randolph Mason Papers. George S. Mitchell Papers. Green W. Penn Papers.

National Archives and Records Administration, Washington, D.C. RG 9. National Recovery Administration. Cotton Textile National Industrial Relations Board (CTNIRB), 1933-1934. RG 9. National Recovery Administration. CTNIRB. State Boards - Alabama RG 9. National Recovery Administration. Select List of Documents. RG 16. Department of Agriculture. General Correspondence Files, 1906-1975. RG 69. Federal Emergency Relief Administration. RG 69. Works Progress Administration. RG 96. Farm Security Administration. RG 96. Farm Security Administration. Resettlement Division.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 350

RG 145. Department of Agriculture. Records of the Agricultural Stabilization and Conservation Service. RG 183. United States Employment Service. Federal Advisory Council.

National Archives and Records Administration/ Atlanta, Georgia. RG 142. Tennessee Valley Authority. Office of the General Manager. General Manager's Files, 1933-1957. RG 142. Tennessee Valley Authority. Records of A.E. Morgan, H.A. Morgan, and Harry A. Curtis.

Southern Historical Collection, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. B.B. Comer Papers. W.T Couch. FWP Papers. Alabama life histories. All by Gertha Couric in Eufaula, Alabama. "Three Workers of Cowikee Cotton Mill." - [Mrs. Lee Snipes, B.T. Clements, and Mrs. Champion]. "The Hughes Family." "Mill Workers." - [Mrs. Nancy Nolen] "Fifty-Two Years in the Cotton Mill." - [Tom Alsobrook] Keener C . Frazer Papers. Frank P. Graham Papers. Edgar Gardner Murphy Papers.

Special Collections. Samford University, Homewood, Alabama. Oral History Collection. Lillie Mae Beason by Wayne Flynt, Steele, Alabama, 3 Jan. 1976. J.B. Green by Michael Brownfield, Fort Payne, Alabama, 6 Apr. 1977. Mrs. L.A. House by Wayne Flynt, Sylacauga, Alabama, 10 July 1974. S.L. Hardy by Doug Sawyer, Fort Payne, Alabama, 18 Nov. 1974.

Special Collections. William Stanley Hoole Library. University of Alabama, Tuscaloosa, Alabama. Lister Hill Papers.

University of North Carolina Archives, Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Southern Council on International Relations Papers.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 351

INTERVIEWS Interview with Mrs. Virginia Durr, Montgomery, Ala., 10 Jan. 1989.

Interview with Ms. Anita Hagan, Montgomery, Ala., 10 Jan. 1989.

MANUSCRIPTS

Akin, Edward N. "Avondale's Welfare Programs for Youth: the Programs and the People Who Made Them Work." Copy in author's possession.

______. "'Mr. Donald's Help': The Birmingham Village of Avondale Mills During the Great Depression," April 1978. Copy in author's possession.

Coley, C. J. "Anecdotes From the Lives of Prominent Alabamians I Have Known." April 1985. Copy in author's possession.

Holt, Thad. "Establishment of Unemployment Relief Agencies in the Hoover-Roosevelt Era." Typed ms. in Thad Holt Papers, ADAH.

Milton, George Fort. "The Historical Background of the Tennessee Power Company." typed ms. in George Fort Milton Papers, Library of Congress.

______. "The Historical Background of the TVA Fight." typed ms. in the George Fort Milton Papers, Li brary of Congress.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS, ALABAMA

Alabama Official and Statistical Registers, 1907, 1911, 1915, 1919, 1923, 1927, 1931, 1935, 1939. Mont gomery: Brown Printing Company, 1907, 1911, 1915, 1919, 1923, 1927, 1931, 1935, 1939.

Alabama Farm Tenancy Committee. Farm Tenancy in Alabama: A Report Submitted to Hon. Chauncey Sparks, Governor of Alabama. Wetumpka, Ala.: Wetumpka Printing Co. 1944.

Alabama Relief Administration. Two Years of Federal Relief in Alabama. Wetumpka, Ala. Wetumpka Printing Co., 1935.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 352

Alabama Relief Administration, n.p., n.p., 1933.

Alabama Relief Administration, Rural Rehabilitation Program for 1934. n.p., n.p., 1934.

Alabama State Department of Education. Adult Education Opportunity Schools. n.p., n.p., 1930.

Alabama State Department of Education, Educational Directory. 1935-6, 1936-7, 1937-8, 1938-9, 1939-40, 1940-1, 1941-2, 1942-3, 1943-4, 1944-5, 1945-6, 1946- 7, 1946-7, 1947-8, 1948-9, 1949-50, and 1950-1. Mont gomery, Brown Printing Co., 1935, 1936, 1937, 1938, 1939, 1940, 1941, 1942, 1943, 1944, 1945, 1946, 1947, 1948, 1949, and 1950.

Alabama. House of Representatives. House Journals, 1924- 1940.

Alabama. Legislature. Acts of Alabama, 1924-1940.

GOVERNMENT DOCUMENTS, U.S.

National Emergency Council. Report on Economic Conditions of the South. Washington, GPO, 1938.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor. To Create a National Labor Board. 73rd Cong., 2nd Sess., Part 2, 26 Mar. to 3 Apr. 1934.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor. National Labor Relations Board. 74th Cong., 1st Sess., Part 3, 21 Mar. to 2 Apr. 1935.

U.S. Congress. Joint Hearings Before the Committee on Education and Labor, Senate, and Committee on Labor. House, Fair Labor Standards Act of 1937. 75th Cong., 1st Sess, Part 2, 7 to 15 June 1937.

U.S. Congress. Senate. Hearings Before a Subcommittee of the Committee on Interstate Commerce. Freight Rate Discriminations. 76th Cong., 1st Sess., 27 February to 8 March 1939.

Von Szeliski, V. S. Labor Productivity and Stretch-Out. NRA: GPO, September 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 353

USDA. Statistics on Cotton and Related Data, 1920-1956. Statistical Bulletin No. 99. Washington, D.C.: USDA, Agricultural Marketing Service, 1957.

NEWSPAPERS

Alabama Journal, 1934-1939 and 1958.

Atlanta Constitution, 1929-1930.

Avondale Sun, 1924-1940.

Birmingham Aqe-Herald, 1905-1914, 1933-1937.

Birmingham Ledger, 1905-1914, 1924-1937.

Birmingham News, 1905-1914, 1924-1940.

Daily News Record, (New York) 1927-1936.

Eufaula Tribune, 1934, 1946.

Journal of Commerce, 28 May 1935.

Mobile Herald, 1906.

Montgomery Advertiser, 1905, 1934-1939, 1948-1958.

Nashville Banner, 1934.

New York Times, 1934 July-September, 1936.

Sylacauga Advance, 1920-1936.

DISSERTATIONS

Harris, David A. "Racists and Reformers: A Study of Progressivism in Alabama, 1896-1911." Ph.D. diss., University of North Carolina, 1967.

Hodges, James A. "The New Deal Labor Policy and the Southern Cotton Textile Industry, 1933-1941." Ph.D. diss., Vanderbilt University, 1963.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 354

Kelley, Robin Davis Gibran. "Hammer n'Hoe: Black Radicalism and the Communist Party in Alabama, 1929-1941." Ph.D. diss.: UCLA, 1987

LaMonte, Edward Shannon. "Politics and Welfare in Birmingham, Alabama: 1900-1975." Ph.D. diss., University of Chicago, 1976.

Mendel, Ronald. "The Southern Tenant Farmers Union and the United Textile Workers: Two Studies of the Southern Labor Movement in the 1930s." Ph.D. diss, University of North Carolina, 1973.

Miller, Randall M. "The Cotton Mill Movement in Antebellum Alabama." PhD. diss., Ohio State University, 1971.

Mitchell, Martha Carolyn. "Birmingham: Biography of a City of the New South." Ph.D. diss, University of Chicago, 1946.

Perry, Robert Eugene. "Middle-Class Townsmen and Nor thern Capital: The Rise of the Alabama Cotton Textile Industry, 1865-1900." Ph.D. diss.: Vanderbilt University, 1986.

Wyche, Billy Hall. "Southern Attitudes Toward Industrial Unions, 1933-1941." Ph.D. diss: University of Georgia, 1969.

THESES

Allen, John Earl. "The Governor and the Strike: Eugene Talmadge and the General Textile Strike, 1934." M.A. thesis, Georgia State University, 1977.

Bevis, John David. "Frank M. Dixon: Alabama's Reform Governor." M.A. thesis, Samford University, 1968.

Clay, Howard Burton, "Daniel Augustus Tompkins: An American Bourbon." M.A. thesis, 1950.

Datnow, Claire-Louise. "The Sloss Company: Symbol of the New South." M.A. thesis, University of Alabama at Birmingham, 1987.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 355

Dees, Owen. "A General Review of the Miller Adminis tration, 1931-1935." M.S. thesis, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 1936.

Going, Allen J. "The Governorship of B.B. Comer." M.A. thesis, University of Alabama, 1940.

Lipscomb, Susan Dowdell. "The History of the Prohibition Movement in the State of Alabama." M.A. thesis, Alabama Polytechnic Institute, 1931.

Owens, Harry Philpot. "A History of Eufaula, Alabama, 1832-1882." M.A. thesis, Auburn University, 1963.

Pendleton, Debbie. "New Deal Labor Policy and Alabama Textile Unionism." M.A. thesis: Auburn University, 1988.

BOOKS

Alexander, W. W., Charles S. Johnson, and Edwin R. Embree. The Collapse of Cotton Tenancy: Summary of Field Studies & Statistical Surveys, 1933-35. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1935.

Andrews, Mildred Gwin. The Men And The Mills: A History of the Southern Textile Industry. Macon, Ga.: Mercer University Press, 1987.

Bailey, Hugh C. Edgar Gardner Murphy: Gentle Progressive. Coral Gables, Fla.: University of Miami Press, 1968.

Berney, Saffold. Hand-Book of Alabama. Birmingham: Roberts & Son, 1892.

Billings, Dwight B., Jr. Planters and the Making of a "New South." Class, Politics, and Development in North Carolina, 1865-1900. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

Billington, Monroe. The Political South in the Twentieth Century. New York: Charles Scribner's Sons, 1975.

Biographical Directory of the American Congress, 1774- 1971. Washington: GPO, 1971.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 356

Black, Merle, and John Shelton Reed. Perspectives on the American South: An Annual Review of Society, Politics and Culture. Volume 2. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1984.

Birmingham City Directories. 1898-1910.

Blicksilver, Jack. Cotton Manufacturing in the Southeast: A Historical Analysis. Atlanta: Bureau of Business and Economic Research, School of Business Administration, Georgia State College of Business Administration, Bulletin Number 5, 1959.

Boles, John B., and Evelyn Thomas Nolen. Interpreting Southern History: Historiographical Essays in Honor of Sanford W. Higginbotham. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.

Brookings Institution, Farm Policies Under the New Deal. Public Affairs Pamphlet #16. New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1938.

Brown, James Seay, Jr. Up Before Daylight: Life Histories from the Alabama Writers' Project, 1938-1939. University: University of Alabama Press, 1982.

Carter, Dan T. When the War Was Over: The Failure of Self-Reconstruction in the South, 1865-1867. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1985.

Cash, Wilbur J. The Mind of the South. New York: Vintage Books, 1960.

Cason, Clarence E. 90 Degrees in the Shade. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1935.

Chandler, Alfred D. Strategy and Structure: Chapters in the History of Industrial Enterprise. Cambridge, Mass.: M.I.T. Press, 1962.

______. The Visible Hand: The Managerial Revolution in America. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press, 1977.

Chesnutt, Samuel Lee. The Rural South: Background, Problems, Outlook. Montgomery, Alabama: Dixie Book Company, Inc., 1939.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 357

Chew, Arthur P. "The City Man's Stake in the Land," in Farmers in a Changing World; The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1940. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1940.

Clark, John B. Populism in Alabama. Auburn: Auburn Printing Company, 1927.

Clark, Thomas D. Three Paths to the Modern South: Education, Agriculture, and Conservation. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1965.

Clayton, Bruce, and John A. Salmond. The South Is An other Land: Essays on the Twentieth-Century South. Westport: Greenwood Press, 1987.

Clopper, Edward N., ed., Child Welfare in Alabama: An Inguiry by the National Child Labor Committee Under the Auspices and with the Cooperation of the University of Alabama. New York: National Child Labor Committee, 1918.

Cobb, James C. Industrialization and Southern Society, 1877-1984. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984.

Cobb, James C., and Michael Namorato, eds., The New Deal and the South. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984.

Cobb, James C., and Charles S. Wilson, eds. Perspectives on the American South: An Annual Review of Society, Politics and Culture. Volume 4. New York: Gordon and Breach Science Publishers, 1987.

Comer, Donald. Braxton Bragg Comer (1848-1927): An Alabamian Who's Avondale Mills Opened New Paths for Southern Progress. Birmingham, Birmingham Publishing Company, 1947.

Conkin, Paul K. The New Deal. 2nd Edition. Arlington Heights, 111.: Harlan Davidson, Inc., 1975.

Cooper, John Milton, Jr. Walter Hines Page: The Southerner as American, 1855-1918. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1977.

Couch, W.T., ed. Culture in the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1935.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 358

Daniel, Pete. "The New Deal, Southern Agriculture, and Economic Change," in James C. Cobb and Michael V. Namorato, eds., The New Deal and the South. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 1984.

Davidson, Donald. The Tennessee, Vol. II: The River, Civil War to TVA. New York: Rinehart and Company, Inc., 1948.

Davidson, Elizabeth H. Child Labor Legislation in the Southern Textile States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1939.

Davis, Chester C. "The Development of Agricultural Policy Since the End of the World War," in Farmers in a Changing World: The Yearbook of Agriculture, 1940. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1940.

Degler, Carl N. The Other South: Southern Dissenters in the Nineteenth Century. New York: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1974.

Dickson, George H. History of the Code of Fair Competition for the Cotton Textile Industry: Code No. 1. Washington, D.C.: GPO, 1936.

Dunn, Robert W., and Jack Hardy. Labor and Textiles: A Study of Cotton and Wool Manufacturing. New York: International Publishers, 1931.

Dunne, William F. Gastonia: Citadel of the Class Struggle in the New South. New York: National Textile Workers Union, 1929.

Fite, Gilbert C. Cotton Fields No More: Southern Agriculture, 1865-1980. Lexington: University Press of Kentucky, 1984.

Fleming, Walter L. Civil War and Reconstruction in Alabama. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1949 reprint.

Flynt, J. Wayne. Dixie's Forgotten People: The South's Poor Whites. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.

______. Poor But Proud: Alabama's Poor Whites. Tuscaloosa: The University of Alabama Press, 1989.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 359

Foster, Gaines M. Ghosts of the Confederacy: Defeat, the Lost Cause, and the Emergence of the New South, 1865 to 1913. New York: Oxford University Press, 1987.

Fraser, Walter L., Jr., R. Frank Saunders, Jr., and Jon L. Wakelyn, eds. The Web of Southern Social Relations: Women, Family and Education. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1985.

Galambos, Louis. Competition & Cooperation: The Emergence of a National Trade Association. Baltimore: The Johns Hopkins University Press, 1966.

Galambos, Louis, and Joseph Pratt. The Rise of the Corporate Commonwealth: U.S. Business and Public Policy in the Twentieth Century. (New York: Basic Books, Inc., Publishers, 1988.

Galbraith, John Kenneth. The Great Crash, 1929. New York: Avon Books, 1980.

Galenson, Alice. The Migration of the Cotton Textile Industry from New England to the South, 1880-1930.

Galloway, George B., Industrial Planning Under Codes. New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1935.

Gaston, Paul M. The New South Creed: A Study in Southern Mythmaking. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1970.

Gates, Grace Hooten. The Model City of the New South: Anniston, Alabama, 1872-1900. Huntsville, Ala.: The Strode Publishers, Inc.: 1978.

Genovese, Eugene D. The World the Slaveholders Made: Two Essays in Interpretation. New York: Vintage Books, 1971.

Gilman, Glenn. Human Relations in the Industrial Southeast. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1960.

Glymph, Thavolia, and John J. Kushma, eds. Essays on the Postbellum Southern Economy. College Station: Texas A & M University Press for the University of Texas at Arlington, 1985.

Going, Allen J. Bourbon Democracy in Alabama, 1874-1890. University: University of Alabama Press, 1951.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 360

Grantham, Dewey W., Jr. Hoke Smith and the Politics of the New South. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967.

______. Southern Proqressivism: The Reconciliation of Progress and Tradition. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1983.

______. "The Twentieth-Century South," in Arthur S. Link and Rembert W. Patrick, ed. Writing Southern History: Essays in Honor of Fletcher M. Green. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967.

Hackney, Sheldon. Populism to Progressivism in Alabama. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969.

Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, James Leloudis, Robert Korstad, Mary Murphy, Lu Ann Jones, and Christopher B. Daly, Like A Family: The Making of a Southern Cotton Mill World. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987.

Hames, Carl M. Hill Ferguson: His Life and Works. University: University of Alabama Press, 1981.

Hamilton, Virginia. Hugo Black: The Alabama Years. University: University of Alabama Press, 1972.

______. Lister Hill: Statesman from the South. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1987.

Hargrove, Erwin C., and Paul K. Conkin, eds., TVA: Fifty Years of Grass-Roots Bureaucracy. Chicago: University of Illinois Press, 1984.

Harris, Carl V. Political Power in Birmingham, 1871- 1921. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1977.

Herring, Harriet L. Welfare Work in Mill Villages. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1929.

Hodges, James A. New Deal Labor Policy and the Southern Cotton Textile Industry, 1933-1941. Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1986.

Hoover, Calvin B., and B.U. Ratchford, Economic Resources and Policies of the South. New York: The Macmillan Company, 1951.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 361

Hubbard, Preston J. Origins of the TVA: The Muscle Shoals Controversy, 1919-1932. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1961.

Hutman, Francis B. Historical Register and Dictionary of the United States Army, 1798-1903. Volume I. Wash ington, D.C.: Government Printing Office, 1903.

Johnston, Evans C. Oscar W. Underwood: A Political Biography. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1980.

Key, V. 0. Southern Politics in State and Nation. New York: Random House, 1949.

Kirby, Jack Temple. Rural Worlds Lost: The American South, 1920-1960. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1987.

Kousser, J. Morgan. The Shaping of Southern Politics: Suf frage Restriction and the Establishment of the One- Party South, 1880-1910. New Haven: Yale University Press, 1974.

Lathrop, Sallie B. Comer. My Mother. Birmingham, Ala.: Birmingham Printing Company, 1941.

______. The Comer Family Goes to Town. Birmingham, Ala.: Birmingham Publishing Company, 1942.

______. The Comer Family Grows Up . Birmingham, Ala.: Birmingham Publishing Company, 1945.

Lichtman, Allan J. Prejudice and the Old Politics: The Presidential Election of 1928. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina Press, 1979.

Lyon, Leverett S., Paul T. Homan, et al. The National Recovery Administration: An Analysis and Appraisal. Washington, D.C.: The Brookings Institution, 1935.

McCraw, Thomas K. TVA and the Power Fight, 1933-1939. Philadelphia: J.P. Lippincott, 1971.

McElvaine, Robert S., ed. Down and Out in the Great Depression: Letters from the Forgotten Man. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 362

McLaurine, Melton Alonzo, Paternalism and Protest: Southern Cotton Mill Workers and Organized Labor, 1875-1905. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Publishing Company, 1971.

McWilliams, Tennant S. Hannis Taylor: The New Southerner as American. University, Ala.: University of Alabama Press, 1978.

______. The New South Faces the World: Foreign Affairs and the Southern Sense of Self, 1877-1950. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1988.

Mandle, Jay R. The Roots of Black Poverty: The Southern Plantation Economy and the Civil War. Durham: Duke University Press, 1977.

Marshall, F. Ray. Labor in the South. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1967.

Mason, Lucy Randolph. To Win These Rights: A Personal Story of the CIO in the South. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1952.

Mertz, Paul E. New Deal Policy and Southern Rural Poverty. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.

Mims, Edwin. The Advancing South. Garden City: Doubleday, Page, and Company, 1926.

Mitchell, Broadus. Depression Decade: From New Era Through New Deal, 1929-1941 Chicago: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964.

______. The Rise of the Cotton Mills in the South. Gloucester, Mass.: Peter Smith, 1966 reprint.

Mitchell, Broadus and George Sinclair Mitchell. The Industrial Revolution in the South. New York: AMS Press, 1969.

Mitchell, Cathy L. Mill Family: The Labor System in the Southern Cotton Textile Industry, 1880-1915. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Moore, Albert Burton. History of Alabama. University, Ala.: University Supply Store, 1934.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 363

Moore, Winfred B., Jr., Joseph F. Tripp, and Lyon G. Tyler, Jr., Developing Dixie: Modernization in a Traditional Society Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1988.

Murchison, Claudius T. King Cotton Is Sick. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1930.

National Labor Relations Board. Legislative History of the National Labor Relations Act. 2 volumes. Washington, D.C., GPO, 1949.

Newby, Idus A. The South: A History. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1978.

Noblin, Stuart. Leonidas Lafayette Polk. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1949.

Oates, Mary J. The Role of the Cotton Textile Industry in the Economic Development of the American Southeast, 1900-1940. New York: Arno Press, 1975.

O'Brien, Michael. The Idea of the American South, 1920- 1941. Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1979 .

Odum, Howard W. Southern Regions of the United States. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1936.

Olson, John S. Herbert Hoover and the Reconstruction Finance Corporation. Ames: University of Iowa Press, 1977.

______. Saving Capitalism: The Reconstruction Finance Corporation and the New Deal, 1933-1940. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1988.

Owen, Thomas M. Dictionary of Alabama Biography. Volumes I- IV. Spartanburg, S.C.: The Reprint Company, Publishers, 1978.

Palmer, Bruce. "Man Over Money:" The Southern Populist Critigue of American Capitalism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1980.

Perkins, Frances. The Roosevelt I Knew. New York: Viking Press, 1946.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 364

Potter, David M. People of Plenty: Economic Abundance and the American Character. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 1954.

Potwin, Marjorie A. Cotton Mill People in the Piedmont: A Study in Social Change. New York: Columbia Uni versity Press, 1927.

Ransmeier, Joseph S. The Tennessee Valley Authority: A Case Study in the Economics of Multiple Purpose Planning. Nashville: Vanderbilt University Press, 1942.

Rogers, William Warren. The One-Gallused Rebellion: Agra rianism in Alabama, 1865-1896. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970.

Rosen, Elliott W. Hoover, Roosevelt, and the Brains Trust. New York: Columbia University Press, 1977.

Rhyne, Jennings L. Some Southern Cotton Mill Workers and Their Villages. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1930.

Saloutas, Theodore. Farmer Movements in the South, 1865- 1933. Berkeley, 1960.

Salmond, John A. Miss Lucy of the CIO: The Life and Times of Lucy Randolph Mason, 1882-1959. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1988.

______. "Miss Lucy of the CIO: A Southern Life." in Bruce Clayton and John A. Salmond, eds., The South Is Another Land: Essays on the Twentieth-Century South. New York: Greenwood Press, 1987.

______. A Southern Rebel: The Life and Times of Aubrey Willis Williams, 1890-1965. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1983.

Sellers, James Benson. The Prohibition Movement in Alabama, 1702-1943. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1943.

Shannon, David A. Between the Wars, 1919-1941. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1965.

Shore, Laurence. Southern Capitalists: The Ideological Leadership of an Elite, 1832-1885. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1986.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 365

Simkins, Francis B. Pitchfork Ben Tillman. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1944.

Simpson, George Lee, Jr. The Cokers of South Carolina: A Social Biography of a Family. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1956.

Singal, Daniel Joseph. The War Within: From Victorian to Modernist thought in the South, 1917-1945. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1982.

Smith, Robert S. Mill on the Dan: A History of Dan River Mills, 1882-1950. Durham: Duke University Press, 1960.

Stewart, John C. The Governors of Alabama. Gretna, La.: Pelican Publishing Company, 1975.

Stewart, Maxwell I. The Question of Public Relief. Public Affairs Pamphlet #18. New York: Public Affairs Committee, 1936.

Taft, Phillip. Organizing Dixie: Alabama Workers in the Industrial Era. Edited by Gary M. Fink. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981.

Thomason, Michael U.V. A New Day Coming: Alabama Since 1930. Troy: Troy State University Press, 1978.

Thompson, Holland. The New South. New Haven: Yale Uni versity Press, 1919.

Thompson, Mattie Thomas. History of Barbour County, Alabama. Eufaula, Ala.: n.p., 1939.

Tindall, George B. The Emergence of the New South, 1913- 1945. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1967.

Voices of Alabama: Address of James McDonald Comer. Birmingham, Ala.: WAPI Radio Station, 1952.

Vance, Rupert B. Human Factors in Cotton Culture. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1930.

Walker, Ann Kendrick. Braxton Bragg Comer: His Family Tree from Virginia's Colonial Days. Richmond: The Dietz Press, Incorporated, 1947.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 366

Weibe, Robert. Businessmen and Reform. Chicago: Quad rangle Paperbacks, 1962.

______. The Search for Order, 1877-1920. New York: Hill and Wang, 1967.

Weiner, Jonathon. Social Origins of the New South: Alabama, 1860-1885. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1978.

Williams, Carolyn White. History of Jones County, Georgia: For One Hundred Years, Specifically 1807-1907. Macon, Ga.: J.W. Burke Company, 1957.

Wilhelm, Dwight M. History of the Cotton Textile In dustry of Alabama, 1809-1950. n.p., Alabama Textile Manufacturing Association, 1950.

Wilson, Charles Reagan. Baptized in Blood: The Religion of the Lost Cause, 1865-1920. Athens: University of Georgia Press, 1980.

Woodward, C. Vann. The Burden of Southern History, rev. ed. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1970.

______. Origins of the New South, 1877-1913. Baton Rouge: Louisiana State University Press, 1951.

______. Reunion and Reaction: The Compromise of 1877 and the End of Reconstruction. Boston: Little Brown and Company, Publishers, 1966.

______. Tom Watson: Agrarian Rebel. New York: Macmillan Company, 1938.

Wright, Gavin. Old South, New South: Revolutions in the Southern Economy Since the Civil War. New York: Basic Books, 1988.

Young, Marjorie W. ed. Textile Leaders of the South. Columbia, S.C.: R.L. Bryan Company, 1963.

PUBLISHED ARTICLES

Alston, Lee J. "Farm Foreclosures in the United States During the Interwar Period." Journal of Economic History 43 (Dec. 1983): 885-903.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 367

Auerbach, Jerold S. "New Deal, Old Deal, or Raw Deal: Some Thoughts on New Left Historiography." Journal of Southern History 35 (Feb. 1969): 18-30.

______"Southern Tenant Farmers: Sociologist Critics of the New Deal." Labor History 7 (Winter 1966): 4-18.

"Avondale Mills." Trends 5 (October 1949), 8-9.

Barton, Frank L. "Recent Developments Concerning the South's Freight-Rate Structure." Southern Economic Journal 6 (April 1940): 461-478.

Bauer, John. "Public Utilities." National Municipal Review 20 (Apr. 1931): 231-234.

Bellush, Jewel. "Old and New Left Reappraisals of the New Deal and Roosevelt's Presidency." Presidential Studies Quarterly 9 (Summer 1979): 243-266.

Benedict, Michael Les. "Southern Democrats in the Crisis of 1876-1877: A Reconsideration of Reunion and Reaction." Journal of Southern History 46 (Nov. 1980): 489-524.

Biles, Roger. "The Urban South in the Great Depression." Journal of Southern History 56 (February 1990): 71- 100.

Braeman, John. "The New Deal and the Broker State:' A Review of the Recent Scholarly Literature." Business History Review 46 (Winter 1972): 409-429.

Brown, E. Francis. "The Tennessee Valley Idea." Current History 40 (July 1934): 410-417.

Cason, Clarence E. "Cousin Charley's Mill." South Atlantic Quarterly 33 (July 1934): 236-247.

Collins, A.H. "Higher Learning." Quarterly Bulletin of the fAlabama) College 33 (October 1940): 31-40.

Comer, Donald. "Governor Comer, His Life and Work." Quarterly Bulletin of the (Alabama) College 33 (October 1940): 8-19.

______• "Freight Differentials Hinder Nation's Develop ment." Manufacturer's Record 108 (March 1939), 26.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 368

"The Comers and Their Cotton Mills." Fortune 45 (Jan. 1952), 141-144, 215-216, 220, 222, and 225.

Daniel, Adrian J. "J. W. Worthington: Promoter of Muscle Shoals Power." Alabama Review 12 (July 1959): 196-208.

______. "The Origin of Muscle Shoals Power, 1896-1906." Alabama Review 15 (October 1962): 251-258.

Daniel, Pete. "The Transformation of the Rural South 1930 to the Present," Agricultural History 55 (July 1981): 231-248.

De Vyver, Frank Traver. "The Present Status of Labor Unions in.the South." Southern Economic Journal 5 (April 1939): 485-494.

"Dr. Henry W. Battle Writes of the Comers, the DeWitts, and the Codys of 'Eufaula Days'," Alabama Baptist, 26 Oct. 1933, 1.

DuBoff Richard B., and Edward S. Herman. "Alfred Chandler's New Business History: A Review." Politics & Society 10 (1980): 87-110.

Editors. "Gastonia, 1929: Strike at the Loray Mills." Southern Exposure 1 (Jan. 1974): 186-203.

Evans, Mercer G. "Southern Wage Differentials Under the NRA." Southern Economic Journal 1 (October 1933): 3- 13.

Goff, John H. "The Interterritorial Freight-Rate Problem and the South." Southern Economic Journal 6 (April 1940): 449-460

Flint, Sam Hall. "The Great Freight Rate Fight." Atlanta Historical Journal 28, 2 (1984): 5-22.

Flynt, J. Wayne. "Spindle, Mine, and Mule: The Poor White Experience in Post-Civil War Alabama." Alabama Review 34 (October 1981): 243-286.

Frey, Fred C., and T. Lynn Smith. "The Influence of the AAA Cotton Program Upon the Tenant, Cropper, and Laborer." Rural Sociology 1 (October 1936): 483-505.

Fuller, Justin. "Alabama Business Leaders, 1865-1900." Alabama Review 16 (January 1963): 63-75.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 369

______. "Henry F. DeBardeleben, Industrialist of the New South." Alabama Review 39 (January 1986): 3-18.

"The Gastonia Strikers Case." Harvard Law Review (May 1931): 1118-1124.

Going, Allen J. "Alabama Bourbonism and Populism Re visited." Alabama Review 36 (April 1983): 83-128

______."The Establishment of the Alabama Railroad Commission." Journal of Southern History 12 (August 1946): 366-385.

______. "The Reverend Edgar Gardner Murphy: His Ideas and Influence." Historical Magazine of the Protestant Episcopal Church 25 (December 1956): 391-402.

Grafton, Carl. "Community Power Methodology and Alabama Politics." Alabama Historical Quarterly 38 (Winter 1976): 271-290.

Hall, Jacquelyn Dowd, Robert Korstad, and James Leloudis. "Cotton Mill People: Work, Community, and Protest in the Textile South, 1880-1940." American Historical Review 91 (April 1986): 245-287.

______, "Disorderly Women: Gender and Labor Militancy in the Appalachian South," Journal of American History 73 (September 1986): 354-382.

Harris, Carl V. "Annexation Struggles and Political Power in Birmingham, Alabama, 1890-1910." Alabama Review 27 (July 1974): 163-184.

______. "Reforms in Government Control of Negroes in Birmingham, Alabama, 1890-1920." Journal of Southern History (November 1972): 567-600.

______. "Stability and Change in Discrimination Against Black Public Schools: Birmingham, Alabama, 1871-1931." Journal of Southern History 51 (August 1985): 375-416.

Heath, Milton S. "The Rate Structure." Law and Contemporary Problems 14 (Summer 1947): 405-415.

Hill, Lister. "Our Human Welfare Program." Quarterly Bulletin of the fAlabama) College 33 (October 1940): 46-53.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 370

Hon, Ralph C. "The Memphis Power and Light Deal." Southeastern Economic Journal 6 (Jan. 1940): 344-375.

Ingalls, Robert P. "Antiradical Violence in Birmingham During the 1930s." Journal of Southern History 47 (November 1981): 521-529.

Irby, William G. "The Avondale Mills of Alabama and Georgia." Textile History Review (October 1962): 197- 203.

Kendrick, Alexander. "Alabama Goes on Strike." The Nation. 139 (29 August 1934), 233-234.

Kirkendall, Richard S. "The New Deal as Watershed: The Recent Literature." Journal of American History 54 (March 1968): 839-852.

Lee, Hubert F. "South's Man of the Year." Dixie Business 19 (Winter 1947-8), 5-6 and 15-18.

Levine, Daniel. "Edgar Gardner Murphy: Conservative Reformer." Alabama Review 15 (April 1962): 100-116.

Link, Arthur S. "Whatever Happened to the Progressive Movement in the 1920s?" American Historical Review 44 (July 1959): 833-851.

Martin, Charles H. "Southern Labor Relations in Transition: Gadsden, Alabama, 1930-1943." Journal of Southern History 47 (November 1981): 545-568.

Milton, George Fort. "The South Fights the Unions." New Republic 10 July 1929, 202-203.

Mitchell, Broadus."Taking a Stand in Dixie." Commonweal 5 June 1929, 127-129.

______. "Why Cheap Labor Down South?" Virginia Quar terly Review. 5 (October 1929): 481-491.

Mitchell, George S. "Organization of Labor in the South." Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 153 (Jan. 1931): 182-187.

Musoke, Moses S. "Mechanizing Cotton Production in the American South: The Tractor, 1915-1960." Explora tions in Economic History 18 (1981): 347-375.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 371

National Cyclopaedia of American Biography. 1969 Vol 51. s.v. "James McDonald Comer."

Nelson, Lawrence J. "Memorializing the Lost Cause in Florence, Alabama, 1866-1903." Alabama Review 41 (July 1988): 179-192.

Parker, William N. "The South in the National Economy, 1855-1970." Southern Economic Journal 46 (April 1980): 1019-1048.

Philip, Robert W. "On Inspection Tour with the Comers." Cotton (June 1935), 56.

"The Plant That Runs on Happiness." Look 2 August 1949, 26- 31.

Poe, Clarence. "Exploding Agricultural Myths: Comparing Farm Prosperity South and West." South Atlantic Quarterly 33 (April 1934): 113-127.

Potter, David M. "The Historical Development of Eastern- Southern Freight Rate Relationships." Law and Contemporary Problems 14 (Summer 1947): 416-448.

Potwin, Marjorie. "Investigation Finds Southern Mill People 'Teeming With Potentialities'." Daily News Record 31 October 1927, 1.

Reid, Robert. "Changing Interpretations of the Reconstruction Era in Alabama History." Alabama Review 27 (October 1974): 263-281.

Rodabaugh, Karl. "Agrarian Ideology and the Farmers' Revolt in Alabama." Alabama Review 36 (July 1983): 195-239.

Rogers, Daniel T. "In Search of Progressivism." Reviews in American History 10 (December 1982): 113-132.

Russell, William H. "Alexander K. McClure, Promoter of the New South." Alabama Review 12 (April 1959): 95-104.

Saloutas, Theodore E. "The Alabama Farm Bureau Federa tion: Early Beginnings." Alabama Review 16 (July 1960): 185-198.

______. "New Deal Agricultural Policy: An Evaluation." Journal of American History 61 (April 1974): 394-416.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 372

Stark, Louis. "The Meaning of the Textile Strike." New Republic 8 (May 1929), 323-325.

Straw, Richard A. "The Collapse of Biracial Unionism: The Alabama Coal Strike of 1908." Alabama Historical Quarterly 38 (Summer 1975): 92-114.

Tannenbaum, Frank J. "The South Buries its Anglo-Sax ons." Century Illustrated Monthly Magazine 106 (June 1923), 205-215.

Tindall, George B. "Business Progressivism: Southern Politics in the Twenties." South Atlantic Quarterly 62 (Winter 1963) : 92-106.

Tower, J. Allen. "Cotton Change in Alabama, 1879-1946." Economic Geography 26 (January 1950): 6-28.

"Textile Mills and the L & N." L & N Employees' Magazine 25 (February 1930), 14-18.

Vance, Rupert B. "Braxton Bragg Comer: Alabama's Most Audacious." Southwest Review 19 (April 1934): 245-264.

Weiner, Jonathon M. "Planter-Merchant Conflict in Recon struction Alabama." Past and Present 48 (April 1975), 73-94.

White, Eugene Nelson. "A Reinterpretation of the Banking Crisis of 1930." Journal of Economic History 44 (March 1984) : 119-138.

"Who's Who in the 'Y'." The Birmingham Red Triangle. 1 (January 1928), 1.

Wiggins, Sarah W. "Ostracism of White Republicans in Alabama During Reconstruction." Alabama Review 27 (January 1974): 52-64.

Wright, Gavin. "The Strange Career of the New Southern Economic History." Reviews in American History 10 (December 1982): 164-180.

Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission.