one mill village
during the last ten years to buy farms with their savings, but this
instance is rather unusual; comparatively few families return to the
land. Efforts have been made to develop a community spirit, and the
results are perceptible. Many mill villages are now really attractive.
Scores of mills have had their grounds laid out by a landscape
architect, and a mill covered with ivy and surrounded by well-kept lawns
and flower beds is no longer exceptional. In scores of mill communities
annual prizes are offered for the best vegetable garden, the most
attractive premises, and the best kept premises from a sanitary
standpoint.

The Southern operative is too close to the soil to be either socialistic
in his views or collectivistic in his attitude. The labor agitator has
found sterile soil for his propaganda. Yet signs of a dawning class
consciousness are appearing. As always, the first manifestation is
opposition to the dominant political party or faction. This has not yet,
however, been translated into any considerable number of Republican
votes, except in North Carolina. In the other States, the votes of the
factory operatives seem to be cast in something of a block, in the
primary elections. The demagogic Blease is said to have found much of
his support in South Carolina in the factory villages.

Employees in other industries show so much diversity that few general
statements can be made concerning them. The workers in the furniture
factories--who are chiefly men, as few women or children can be employed
in this industry--are few in number compared with the male employees in
the cotton mills and, except in the case of a few towns, can hardly be
discussed as a group at all. Both whites and negroes are employed, but
the white man is usually in the responsible post, though a few negroes
tend important machines. The general average of education and
intelligence among the whites is higher here than in the cotton mills,
and wages are likewise higher. Conditions in other establishments making
articles of wood are practically the same.

Lumber mills range from a small neighborhood sawmill with a handful of
employees to the great organizations which push railroads into the deep
woods and strip a mountain side or devastate the lowlands. Such
organizations require a great number of laborers, whom they usually feed
and to whom they issue from a "commissary" various necessary articles
which are charged against the men's