By Norris Dearmon
For the Salisbury Post
From all the information I have read of J.W. Cannon and his sons, C.A. and M.L., the men were always very cooperative with others who were in the same business.
Some letters exchanged among Cannon Mills of Kannapolis, Pickett Cotton Mills of High Point and Steele’s Mills of Rockingham were given recently to the History Room at the Kannapolis library.
For example, letters from F.M. Pickett and his associates with the three Cannons show how the corporation progressed from 1913 through the 1920s.
Most of the correspondence was dated from 1917 to 1920.
Almost always, the letters began with a sentence such as “Yours of the 23rd instant duly received.” The “23rd” would be the day the letter was written and, of course, the greeting was quite different from our greetings today.
In one of the letters dated June 22, 1920, Pickett was in the process of expanding his mill and needed 500 bags of cement, which he was unable to purchase because of the war.
Pickett wanted to borrow or buy the cement from Cannon Mills, but M.L. Cannon replied he didn’t have any cement.
In another letter, Pickett inquired about cyclone fence and, in others, he compared prices of products.
After the war, there was a downturn in the economy and several letters dwelled on those tough times.
In the 1920s, both companies were having trouble with unions trying to organize their mills. Several letters spoke of Pickett Mills closing because of strikes and both companies’ troubles with unions.
The downturn in the economy remained a problem, so closing the mills did not hurt as much, since workers already were on short time, and the companies were having trouble with sales.
In a letter to Pickett dated June 17, 1920, J.W. Cannon wrote of a late cotton crop, the political situation of the day and a strike at the Cannon plants.
Two weeks earlier, the mills had gone out on strike. The union had promised workers food during the strike from what was called the Union Stores, located just west of Central Avenue beyond the mill property.
The store buildings are still standing today. The union failed, however, to keep its promise, packed up, took the money paid by employees and left town.
The employees then had to negotiate a return to work and for many years refused to allow the union any attempts to organize them again, no matter how hard the unions tried.
The reason for the strike is mentioned in a portion of this letter written by J.W. Cannon:
“All the mills at Concord, the Brown and Buffalo and Cabarrus at Kannapolis have gone back to work under the same conditions as when they went out. We were closed down two weeks. We now have a strike at the Kesler Manufacturing Co. in Salisbury (which has) been out now in the second week there. On the class of goods we make there, we have had no cancellations, but we have had requests to hold up shipments, so we are not feeling bad over the situation and will just let them rest awhile and not let them go back to work except under the conditions the same as when they went out. They are not asking for more wages, but the same old story, we discharged a man. With kind regards, I am, very truly yours, J.W. Cannon.”By fall of 1920, the economy had deteriorated much more and correspondence then turned to cutting wages, since sales had almost disappeared.
Pickett Cotton Mills cut wages first by up to 30 percent. Cannon Mills had a type of bonus based on full-time work, which was cut by 50 percent. Part-time was cut 40 percent.
It appears that a lot of mills shut down completely for extended lengths of time.
In 1934 the union tried again to organize all of the plants in the South, but in Kannapolis the employees were not interested, except for a very few, who kept quiet.
During that time, C.A. Cannon had the National Guard come to town to protect the employees. Some of the workers were given shotguns, and some of the foremen and superintendents were given picker stick clubs in case they were harassed when coming to work.
The picker stick clubs were furnished by their manufacturer. The mill took out a $250,000 insurance policy on those men and paid the premiums the rest of their lives. At their deaths, A.L. Brown personally delivered checks for $250,000 to the families, most of whom were surprised because they did not know about the insurance policies.
From 1953 on, many attempts to organize Cannon plants failed until 1999, when the union won.
Pillowtex had purchased Fieldcrest Cannon in 1997. In 2000, Pillowtex went into bankruptcy.
The company emerged from bankruptcy in 2002 after it had closed Plant No. 4 and cut debt. For many reasons, the plant still could not survive, and all plants were shut down in 2003.
But Don Hancock’s finding of the long-ago correspondence with the Cannon men (and other papers) adds another interesting saga not known before in the life of Cannon Mills. It, too, can now be added to the company’s history.