The Bishop of Cottontown: A Story of the Southern Cotton Mills

by John Trotwood Moore

In the homes of the workers, too, he had baths placed, until it grew to be a saying of the good old man “that it was easier to take a bath in Cottontown than to take a drink.”

The main building was lofty between floor and ceiling, letting in all the light and air possible, and the floors were of hard-wood and clean. As the greatest curse of the cotton lint was dust, atomizers for spraying the air were invented by Captain Tom. These were attached to the machinery and could be turned off or on as the operators desired. It was most comfortable now to work in the mill, and tired and hot employees, instead of lounging through their noon, bathed in the cool spring water which came down from the mountain side and flowed into the baths, not only in the mill, but through every cottage owned by the mill. And as the bath is the greatest civilizer known to man, a marked difference was soon noticed in every inhabitant of Cottontown. They were cleanly, and cleanliness begets a long list of other virtues, beginning with cleaner and better clothes and ending with ambition and godliness.

But it was the old Bishop's policy for the wage-earners, which put the ambition there—a system never heard of before in the ranks of capital, and first tested and proved in his Model Cotton Mill.

“There are two things in the worl',” said the Bishop, “that is as plain as God could write them without tellin' it Himself from the clouds. The first is that the money of the worl' was intended for all the worl' that reaches out a hand an' works for it.

“The other is that every man who works is entitled to a home.

“It was never intended for one man, or one corporation or one trust or one king or one anything else, to own more than his share of the money of the worl', no matter how they get it. Every man who piles up mo' money than he needs—actually needs—in life, robs every other man or woman or child in the worl' that pinches and slaves and starves for it in vain. Every man who makes a big fortune leaves just that many wrecked homes in his path.”

In carrying out this idea the old bishop had the mill incorporated at one hundred thousand dollars, which included all his fortune, except enough to live on and educate his grandchildren; for he never changed his home, and the only luxury he indulged in was a stable for Ben Butler.

The stock was divided into shares of ten dollars each, which could be acquired only by those who worked in the mill, to be held only during life-time, and earned only in part payment for labor, given according to proficiency and work done, and credited on wages. In this way every employee of the mill became a stockholder—a partner in the mill, receiving dividends on his stock in addition to his regular wages, and every year he worked in the mill added both to his stock and dividends. At death it reverted again to The Model Cotton Mill Company, to be obtained again, in turn, by other mill workers coming on up the line. This made every mill worker a partner in the mill and spurred them on to do their best.

But the home idea of the bishop was the more original one, and a far greater boon to the people. Instead of paying rent to the mill for their homes, as they had before, every married mill worker was deeded a home in the beginning, a certain per cent of his wages being appropriated each month in part payment; in addition, ten per cent of the stock acquired, as above, by each individual home owner, went to the payment of the home, and the whole was so worked out and adjusted that by the time a faithful worker had arrived at middle age, the home, as paid for, was absolutely his and his children's, and when he arrived at old age the dividends of the stock acquired were sufficient to support him the balance of his life.

In this way the mill was virtually resolved into a corporation or community of interests, running perpetually for the maintenance and support of those who worked in it. The only property actually acquired by the individual was a home, his savings in wages, and the dividends on his stock acquired by long service and work.