14. The next census will undoubtedly give
some Southern States high rank, though the section as a whole is not yet
industrial. The manufacturing output is increasing with marvelous
rapidity, but it is increasing in other sections of the country as well.
Although the South was credited in 1914 with an increase of nearly 72
per cent in the value of its products during the decade, its proportion
of the total value of products in the United States as a whole increased
only from 12.8 per cent in 1904 to 13.1 per cent in 1914. The section is
still far from equaling or surpassing other sections except in the
manufacture of textiles.

CHAPTER VI

LABOR CONDITIONS

The laborer employed in the manufacturing enterprises of the South,
whether white or black, is native born and Southern born. Sporadic
efforts to import industrial workers from Europe have not been
successful and there has been no considerable influx of workers from
other sections of the Union. A few skilled workers have come, but the
rank and file in all the factories and shops were born in the State in
which they work or in a neighboring State. Speaking broadly, those
dealing with complicated machines are white, while those engaged in
simpler processes are white or black. We find, therefore, a
preponderance of whites in the textile industries and in the shops
producing articles from wood and iron, while the blacks are found in the
lumber industry, in the tobacco factories, in the mines, and at the
blast furnaces. There are some skilled workmen among the negroes,
especially in tobacco, but generally they furnish the unskilled labor.

The textile industry employs the greatest number of operatives, or at
least concentrates them more. From the farms or the mountain coves, or
only one generation removed from that environment, they have been drawn
to the mills by various motives. The South is still sparsely settled,
and the life of the tenant farmer or the small landowner and his family
is often lonely. Until recently, roads were almost universally bad,
especially in winter, and a visit to town or even to a neighbor was no
small undertaking. Attendance at the country church, which sometimes has
services only once a month, or a trip to the country store on Saturday
afternoon with an occasional visit to the county-seat furnish almost the
only opportunity for social intercourse. Work in a cotton mill promised
not merely fair wages but what was coveted even more--