Newspaper Page Text
Page 10
Flagpole Magazine
November 20; 1991
Ghost Fry by John Seawright
Rattling the chains:
The Knights of Labor in Athens, 1885
1884 wasn’t a great year for the working
people of Athens. The Princeton Factory
cotton mill on the river ]ust below town had
shut down, wages were dropping and the
city was taxing the poor on the total value of
their possessions while exempting the
stocks and securities of the rich. Working
class blacks and whites had begun to lose
their sentimental attachments to the old
political parties. The party of Jefferson,
Jackson and the Lost Cause had become
the party of Grover Cleveland and tight
money The party of Lincoln and freedom
was now the party of Rockefeller, monopoly
and corruption America's rich had put aside
the blue and the gray for silver ana gold and
America’s poor were getting wise to the
game Northeast Georgia’s laborers and
small farmers, black and white, had made
an uneasy alliance in 1878 and '80 to send
the charismatic young Emory Speer, son of
a UGA professor, to Congress as an inde
pendent Democrat. The ‘‘better class of
citizens’ kicked and screamed, but had
nothing to fear. “Our Emory’ made some
glorious speeches and did absolutely noth
ing to rock the boat. He was defeated in
1882 in an ugly racist campaign orches
trated by Larry Gantt’s Athens Banner, got
himself a nice federal judgeship and put the
toiling masses out of his mind.
Rather than wait around for another aris
tocratic champion to take up their cause,
the workers of Athens followed the example
of millions of their brothers and sisters across
the country and took matters into their own
hands under the banner of the Knights of
Labor.
The Knights of Labor were formed in
Philadelphia in 1869, an international labor
union open to all workers regardless of
race, sex or trade Their goals included an
eight hour working day, a graduated in
come tax. equal pay for equal work, aboli
tion of child and convict labor, public con
trol of railroad and telegraph systems and
workers’ ownership of the means of produc
tion. Their membership grew in the after-
math of the Great Strike of 1877 and ex
ploded in the mid 1880s as workers began
to defend themselves against a wave of pay
cuts and increasingly inhuman working
conditions.
The K of L organized their Athens lodge
on August 22, 1885. The organizer’s name
is unknown but was probably Dr. William G.
Lowry, a physician
who came here around
that time, moving into
the working class
neighborhood across
the river on Oconee
street and establishing
a large practice
among Athens’s'fac-
tory workers from his
office and drugstore
on Clayton street
where the Michael
Brothers building
(Park Plaza) now
stands.
The Athens Knights of Labor grew rap
idly and soon had their first martyr. John
Black, the superintendent of the "upper
factory’ of the Bloomfield Manufacturing
Co.(present-day Chicopee) was told by R.
L. Bloomfield that unless he quit the K of L
he would be out of work at the end of the
year. Black refused to knuckle under and
resigned, prompting a nationwide boycott
of Bloomfield's cloth by the K of L
In October the Knights endorsed Wil
liam L. Wood, a grocer, railroad bookkeeper
and former alderman for mayor. Athens's
businessmen huddled in City Hall and
emerged with a conservative “Citizens’
Ticket" headed by R K. Reaves, president
of Pioneer Paper Manufacturing Co.. Reaves
Warehouse Co., and part owner of the cot
ton mill at High Shoals The Citizens’ Ticket
included Professor H C White and Larry
Gantt, publisher of the Banner for aider-
men. Gantt kicked off the campaign with an
editorial entitled “Some Plain Words to Our
colored People" intended to remind black
voters — these were the days before the
secret ballot — that their employers would
certainly appreciate their support. In the
same issue Gantt raises the specter of
communism and reports gunpowder
sprinkled on the courthouse steps, specu
late that it was put there to intimidate a
black janitor loyal to
the Citizens’ Ticket.
That same week the
Banner sent a reporter
up to Jefferson to
check out reports of a
strike among the work
ers of Manassas B
McGmty. Athens’s
biggest building con
tractor and a former
alderman. The re
porter found eight
Athens black men
stranded twenty miles
from home They had
walked off their job because McGinty was
behind six weeks in their pay Back in
Athens McGinty explained that it some
times took a long time for him to pay his
hands who were working out of town and
those fellows were just a bunch of trouble
makers who only wanted to get back to
Athens and vote. McGinty concluded with a
blast against the Knights of Labor, that they
were out to get him even though he treated
his hands as if they were his own children.
The election was set for December 1
The Knights brought in a fiery speaker from
Atlanta named Woodward, a member of the
Typographers’ Union which was then strik
ing and boycotting the Constitution.
Woodward spoke every night for a week,
drawing big crowds and angering the "better
class.’ The night before the election the K of
L held a big rally and barbecue at a fertilizer
warehouse while the Citizens’ Ticket hosted
a similar affair at city hall.
The turnout was the biggest for any
Athens election up to that time. No exact
records remain, but an estimate of 1,100 to
1,300 voters is reasonably accurate. Wood,
the K of L candidate, lost by 122 votes, but
the Knights elected a Mr. McKinnon aider-
man from the worker’s East Athens first
ward.
Even/thing was quiet after the election
except for speculation that the city’s police
men would lose their jobs, only one of them
having voted the straight Citizens’ Ticket
The Banner gleefully announced the death
of the Knights of Labor and warned the
workers never to meddle in politics again
Then a committee of the Knights led by a
black schoolteacher announced that they
would bring federal charges against sev
eral prominent backers of the Citzens’ Ticket
for vote buying The Knights also announced
a boycott against the businesses of several
of their enemies. Then word came from
High Shoals that a large portion of Mayor-
elect Reaves’s factory had burned to the
ground Winter fires were as common in
those days as serious car wrecks today and
no suspicions seem to have been aroused
Then one week later the sawmill of the
paternal Manassas B McGinty went up in
smoke — the fault of a careless boiler hand
Again no charges were made openly, but
the Banner’s editorials took on an ominous
air: “Let the good people of Georgia be firm
and determined, attempt no violence, but
yield not an inch of ground.’
As 1885 ended the Athens Knights of
Labor continued to grow. They had dropped
the vote-buying case but were making plans
to publish their own newspaper and mount
further political and economic challenges
to the ruling class. Despite their nervous
glee at the Knights' unconvincing demise
the businessmen of Athens were worried,
and with good cause. 1886 was to be the
year of labor m Athens, in Georgia, and
throughout the whole United States.
Continued Next Week
Copyright 1991. Johr. Seawright
The Athens Knights of
Labor grew rapidly and
soon had their first
martyr.
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