The Montgomery Advertiser
- Armistice Asked to Allow Civilian Evacuation Move
- Orderly Market Plan for Cotton Generally Favored
- Launch Campaign for Shorter Week and Higher Wages
The Montgomery Advertiser of October 10, 1926 carried three front-page stories on China, Alabama farms and organized labor. An AP dispatch from Washington reported that Secretary Kellogg had told the American legation in Peking to propose an armistice so that civilians could leave besieged Wuchang, after graphic reports of suffering there, and that Consul-General Lockhart at Hankow would relay it. A local story said the Alabama Farm Bureau's plan to market cotton through the farmers' own organization was winning support and that the movement to hold cotton off the market was spreading, according to president Edward A. O'Neal. From Detroit, the American Federation of Labor voted unanimously for a national campaign to shorten working hours and days, restated its demand that wages rise with productivity, and outlined a drive to unionize the automobile industry.
Translation
ARMISTICE ASKED TO ALLOW CIVILIAN EVACUATION MOVE
half of Noncombatants in Besieged City GRAPHIC STORY OF DIRE SUFFERING PROMPTS [?] TION Lockhart Reports [?] nditions Greatly Exagger [?]; Confirms Death [?] mate WASHINGT [?] Oct. 9: - (AP) - Impell [?] [?] humane considerations, Secre [?] ary Kellogg directed the American Legation in Peking today to suggest an armistice to the warring Chinese factions so that non-combatants might evacuate the besieged city of Wuchang. The suggestion will be relayed by the legation to Consul-General Frank Lockhart, at Hankow, across the river from Wu Chang. The aid of foreign agencies will be extended to the city's residents. Graphic reports of extreme suffering among the civilian population in Wu Chang prompted the secretary's activities. A report from Lockhart, sent from Hankow on Thursday, [?]
ORDERLY MARKET PLAN FOR COTTON GENERALLY FAVORED
[?] [?] [?] GENERALLY FAVORED Proposal of Farm Bureau Meeting With Approval O'Neal Declares Following Assurance of Adequate Finances ORGANIZED SELF HELP ADVOCATED BY MOORE Commissioner Says Farmers Must Aid Selves Through Mass Effort The plan of the Alabama Farm Bureau for the orderly marketing of cotton through the farmers' own organization is meeting with favor and the holding movement appears to have gained ground, according to a statement Saturday from Edward A. O'Neal, president of the Alabama Farm Bureau Federation, and Allen Northington, manager of the cotton association of the bureau. [?]
LAUNCH CAMPAIGN FOR SHORTER WEEK AND HIGHER WAGES
AND HIGHER WAGES Federation of Labor Adopts Amendments to Constitution; Assessments Raised on Local Unions DETROIT, Oct. 9. - (AP) - Attacking with determination in an intensive three hour session, the American Federation of Labor cleared its convention docket today of three important questions of policy. It unanimously voted to launch a national campaign for the "progressive shortening of the hours of labor and the days per week," approved two additional amendments intended to augment the financial resources of the federation; and enunciated with renewed emphasis its policy seeking wage advances with ever increase in per capita production resultant of advances in the mechanical arts. After the session adjourned, James O'Connell, president of the metal trades department, outlined a tentative program suggested to the executive council for the conduct of the campaign to unionize the automobile industry. The organization drive was approved by the convention Thursday. A meeting of the principal craft
Context
Foreign navies on the Yangtze and the Wuchang armistice appeal
According to the AP report, Secretary Kellogg sent his armistice suggestion through the legation in Peking to Consul-General Frank Lockhart at Hankow, across the river from Wuchang, and promised the help of foreign agencies to the city's residents. That appeal came from powers that already kept armed forces on the river. Squadrons of foreign naval vessels were stationed along the Yangtze to protect their citizens doing business at the treaty ports; Britain ran its China Station and the United States Navy its Yangtze Patrol. The proposal printed here is humanitarian and diplomatic: it asks the fighting sides to let non-combatants out. The Kuomintang's Northern Expedition soon showed how fast that protective presence could turn into combat. In March 1927, when the National Revolutionary Army captured Nanjing, rioting and looting against foreigners followed, and foreign warships bombarded the city to defend foreign residents. The front page gives only Kellogg's request and the outline of Lockhart's report; it prints no answer from the warring factions.
Edward O'Neal and the Farm Bureau's cotton marketing
The paper quotes "Edward A. O'Neal, president of the Alabama Farm Bureau Federation." The Encyclopedia of Alabama identifies the bureau's president from 1923 as Edward O'Neal III, grandson of Governor Edward A. O'Neal, who became its second president that year. Selling cotton "through the farmers' own organization" fits how the bureau worked in its early years: it set up commodity co-ops, member-owned and cooperatively run, where farmers could market and sell their products. The cotton association managed by Allen Northington was the instrument for that plan, and the "holding movement" meant farmers keeping cotton off the market instead of selling it at once. The deck's mention of "assurance of adequate finances" shows the weak point of the scheme: holding depended on credit to carry farmers until they sold. O'Neal's career later moved the same problem to the national level. He became president of the American Farm Bureau Federation in 1931 and helped craft the Agricultural Adjustment Act, which paid farmers to plant fewer crops such as cotton to keep prices high, a federal answer to the price problem the 1926 holding plan tried to handle voluntarily.
Ford's five-day week, two weeks before the AFL vote
The AFL's unanimous vote for the "progressive shortening of the hours of labor and the days per week" came barely two weeks after the most visible employer in Detroit had acted on its own. On September 25, 1926, the Ford Motor Company instituted a five-day, 40-hour week for its factory employees. Henry Ford presented the change as good business, writing that it was "high time to rid ourselves of the notion that leisure for workmen is either lost time or a class privilege." The convention, meeting in Ford's home city, asked for the same direction across all industry, but by organized pressure rather than by an employer's choice. Its companion statement, that wages should rise with every increase in per-capita output from "advances in the mechanical arts," answers the industrialists' argument from the labor side: if machines let workers produce more in fewer hours, the federation wanted both the shorter week and a share of the gain in pay.
Craft unionism and the AFL's automobile drive
The article closes with James O'Connell of the metal trades department outlining a plan to unionize the automobile industry, approved by the convention and apparently to be carried out through a meeting of "the principal craft" unions. That structure was the drive's weakness. The AFL had traditionally organized skilled workers by specific trades, an approach known as craft unionism, while most automobile workers were not skilled; as of the early 1930s they were still largely not unionized. The change came only after the National Industrial Recovery Act of 1933, when the AFL began recruiting unskilled and semi-skilled workers. The United Auto Workers held its founding convention in Detroit on August 26, 1935, under an AFL charter, but it soon sided with the industrial unions and, after the AFL expelled them in 1938, joined the new Congress of Industrial Organizations. The 1926 plan therefore marks an early attempt by the craft-based federation to enter an industry that it did not succeed in organizing on its own terms.
Original
ARMISTICE ASKED TO ALLOW CIVILIAN EVACUATION MOVE
half of Noncombatants in Besieged City GRAPHIC STORY OF DIRE SUFFERING PROMPTS [?] TION Lockhart Reports [?] nditions Greatly Exagger [?]; Confirms Death [?] mate WASHINGT [?] Oct. 9: - (AP) - Impell [?] [?] humane considerations, Secre [?] ary Kellogg directed the American Legation in Peking today to suggest an armistice to the warring Chinese factions so that non-combatants might evacuate the besieged city of Wuchang. The suggestion will be relayed by the legation to Consul-General Frank Lockhart, at Hankow, across the river from Wu Chang. The aid of foreign agencies will be extended to the city's residents. Graphic reports of extreme suffering among the civilian population in Wu Chang prompted the secretary's activities. A report from Lockhart, sent from Hankow on Thursday, [?]
ORDERLY MARKET PLAN FOR COTTON GENERALLY FAVORED
[?] [?] [?] GENERALLY FAVORED Proposal of Farm Bureau Meeting With Approval O'Neal Declares Following Assurance of Adequate Finances ORGANIZED SELF HELP ADVOCATED BY MOORE Commissioner Says Farmers Must Aid Selves Through Mass Effort The plan of the Alabama Farm Bureau for the orderly marketing of cotton through the farmers ' own organization is meeting with favor and the holding movement appears to have gained ground, according to a statement Saturday from Edward A. O'Neal, president of the Alabama Farm. Bureau Federation, and Allen Northington, manager of the cotton association of the bureau. [?]
LAUNCH CAMPAIGN FOR SHORTER WEEK AND HIGHER WAGES
AND HIGHER WAGES Federation of Labor Adopts Amendments to Constitution; Assessments Raised on Local Unions DETROIT, Oct. 9. - (AP-Attacking with determination in an intensive three hour session, the American Federation of Labor cleared its convention docket today of three important questions of policy. It unanimously voted to launch a national campaign for the " progressive shortening of the hours of labor and the days per week, " approved two additional amendments intended to augment the financial resources of the federation; and enunciated with renewed emphasis its policy seeking wage advances with ever increase in per capita production resultant of advances in the mechanical arts. After the session adjourned, James O'Connell, president of the metal trades department, outlined a tentative program suggested to the executive council for the conduct of the campaign to unionize the automobile industry. The organization drive was approved by the convention Thursday. A meeting of the principal craft
Source: Holding institution