East Texas Lumber Workers: An Economic and Social Picture, 1870-1950 9780292769632

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EAST TEXAS LUMBER WORKERS

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EAST TEXAS LUMBER WORKERS

,

An Economic and Social Picture 1870—1950

by RUTH A . ALLEN

AUSTIN UNIVERSITY

OF T E X A S

PRESS

Library of Congress Catalog Card N o . 59-10165 C o pyright © 19 6 1 b y the U n ive rs ity of Texas Press A ll Rights Reserved Manufactured in the United States of America by the Printing Division of the University of Texas

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

The author is indebted to the University of Texas for financial assistance which has enabled her to have time and aid for examining and selecting from the tremendous amounts of material contained in the records of the Gilmer Lumber Company in the archives of the University. William Wagoner, Lawrence Rog­ ers, and numerous other graduate students in economics have helped in finding and checking sources. The staff of the University of Texas Library have been most helpful in making materials available, es­ pecially the unpublished records of the United States Commission of Industrial Relations, known at the time as the Walsh Commission. Many thanks go to Bonnie Whittier, whose willingness to render aid and assistance was unfailing. R uth A . A llen

The University of Texas

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CONTENTS .

.

.

.

following p. 102

Acknowledgments .

.

.

.

V

Picture Section

1. Land of Deep Poverty

3

2.

Development of the Lumber Industry

19

3.

The Industry as an Employer .

35

4.

A Peculiar People .

5.

A Day’s Work, A Day’s Pay

6.

Wages— M inus..................................

7.

What the Dollar Would Buy

120

8.

A Judgment of Efficiency

133

9.

The Company Town

142

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.

. .

.

51 69 98

165

10.

Labor Unrest in the Pineries

11.

Decision for Future Generations

191

Bibliography......................................

201

Index

215

...............................................

vil

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TABLES 1. Income of Families in Thirty-two Selected Counties, 1950 .....................................................................................

10-11

2. Occupational Distribution of Employed Male Population over Fourteen Years of Age in Thirty-two Selected Coun­ ties, 1950 ...........................................................................

12-13

3. Distribution of Plants by Size, 1910

31

4. Distribution of Lumber Plants by Type of Ownership, 1 9 1 0 ...........................................................................

31

5. Distribution of Plants According to Number of Wageearners, 1 9 1 0 ..................................................................46 6. Illiteracy of Males of Voting Age by Percentage, in Se­ ............................................... lected Counties, 1900-20

67

7. Schooling of Males Twenty-five Years or above, in Se­ lected Counties, 1950 . . . . . . .

68

8. Males Unable to Work in Thirty-two Lumber-Producing Counties, 1950 ..................................................................

114

9. Average Quantity per Workingman’s Family of Certain Principal Items of Food Consumed in 1901, by Geograph­ ical Divisions .................................................................. 121 ix

10. Average Amount Spent per Workingman’s Family for the Principal Items of Food Consumed in 1901, by Geo­ graphical D iv isio n s .........................................................

122

11. Approximate Cost of a Year’s Food Supply for an Aver­ age Workingman’s Family, at Average Prices of Each Year, 1890-1912, by Geographical Divisions

125

12. Weighted Average Price for 1912 Compared with That of the Twenty-two Preceding Years . . . .

126

13. Consumption Patterns of Wage-earners, 1913

128

14. Prices (by Standard Units) in Selected Cities, 1913

129

15. Average Family Expenditures for Twenty-two Items of Food, 1 913-19..................................................................

131

16. Housing in Thirty-two Counties, 1950

.

.

17. Number of Homes in Thirty-two Counties by Year of C o n stru ctio n ..................................................................

ISO0-151

154

MAPS Map 1. Counties with Given Percentage of Individual and Family Units having Income less than $2,000, 1950

6

Map 2. Percentage of Gainfully Employed in Manufacturing, 1950 ............................................................................

7

EAST TEXAS LUMBER WORKERS

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C H A P T E R

ONE

A study of the Poverty of nations has even more urgency than a study of the Wealth of nations.— G erald M . M

e ie r

and R o b e r t

E.

B a l d w in

LAND OF DEEP POVERTY

s t a t e o f T e x a s in 1950 approximately one million people— more than one-tenth of its total population— lived in a region in which one family out of every two had incomes less than $2,000 a year. The Joint Committee of Congress which studied the Economic Report of the President in that year took note of the situ­ ation by spotting the area as one of “ deep poverty.” The Committee defined as “ low-income families” those living in cities whose yearly incomes were less than $2,000 and those living on farms with in­ comes less than $1,000. Falling in the group so defined were onefourth of the families of the nation. One region dominated by such families, the Committee found, was the northeastern section of Texas. At the same time it stated that the minimum budget necessary to maintain “ an adequate scale of living” was $3,000 for a family of four in New Orleans and $1,365 for an elderly couple in Houston.1

I

N th e

1 Joint Committee Print, Low-income Families and Economic Stability: Ma­ terials on the Problem of Low-income Families, 81st Cong., 1st Sess., 1949, pp. 2, 4, cited hereinafter as JCP, Low-income Families, 1949.

3

The reports of the United States Bureau of the Census list more reliably and more fully than any other source the broad outlines of national life. But the over-all picture that they represent is a com­ posite built from information regarding smaller units. The major component is, of course, the political state, but the political state is not necessarily— nor indeed even commonly— a closely-knit, homo­ geneous economic unit. Within a state there may exist stronglymarked regions where the inhabitants, because of available resources, carry on the same type of activity and receive most incomes, if not all, from the same source. Furthermore, the different types of eco­ nomic life, namely, the industrial, the nonindustrial, and the indus­ trializing, may exist at the same time not only within the nation but within a state, and the divergence there may be as great as that in the nation. The macrocosm by its nature submerges the microcosm, and although generalization takes place at the level of the macrocosmic, the knowledge and understanding basic to the making of policies and programs are rooted in the microcosmic. Characterizing regions by terms such as “ backward,” “ industrial,” or “ depressed” certainly sets the dominant note. But variant groups, wherever found, are sources of tension. To search them out, to examine the sources of the existing and potential results of their divergence, is part of a rational approach to securing the highest development of both the individual and the state. For the past half-century, the national pattern has been one of increasing total income, increasing per-capita incomes, and increas­ ing productivity, in short, a rising scale of living. The same pattern is true for the state of Texas; the picture is one of expansion, a boom economy. But, because chronic unemployment and low incomes, with their resulting scale of life, are symptoms of significant weakness in an otherwise prosperous and expanding nation, they have been, and are being, given increased attention. The present study concerns itself with a subdivision of Texas classi­ fied as one of the areas of deep poverty. While the region cannot be rigidly demarcated by survey lines, it can be satisfactorily delimited within statistical information published in reports of the decennial census for 1950. To anyone studying scales of living, figures relating 4

Land o f Deep Poverty to income are of paramount importance. But often the “ average” or “ median” size of incomes for the political state— the unit most often noted— reveals little and conceals much about the economic and so­ cial conditions of life within its boundaries. The most casual survey of the findings of census enumerators for Texas impresses the reader with the wide disparity of income between geographical divisions and economic groups within the state. A closer inspection reveals an area where incomes are far below the level of those in many other sections and below that of the state as a whole. As shown on Map 1, the area includes roughly 32 counties lying north of Houston and east of Dallas. The county is the unit of statistical description. Median yearly income of families and unrelated individuals in the 254 counties of the state was $2,273, ranging from $4,100 in Crane County to $810 in Zapata; 13 counties had median incomes between $3,500 and $4,000, and 3 had less than $1,000. A glance at the map shows that the 10 highest-income counties are in the western section of the state. Of the lowest-income counties, 2 are in the northeastern part and one in the southwestern. But the proportion of families and unrelated persons in each county who received less than $2,000 median income is a much more reveal­ ing figure in relation to the population and its scale of living. Counties in which 50 per cent or more of income-receiving units had less than $2,000 are markedly concentrated: 14 along the lower Rio Grande River and all the others in northeastern Texas. But there is a still more marked concentration. In the state, 45 per cent of incomes are below $2,000, but in 22 counties, 70 per cent of incomes are below that amount. Of these, 6 are near the Rio Grande border, 5 are in the center of the state, and 11 are in the northeastern area. For the well­ being of all the citizens of the state, the situation in the last-named region is of great significance, for there 200,000 persons live. In the same area 6 counties, with from 65 per cent to 70 per cent of incomes below $2,000, have a population of 133,000; 9 others, with from 60 per cent to 65 per cent below $2,000, have 176,000 people; and 10 counties, with from 50 per cent to 60 per cent with less than that amount, have a population of 360,000. The area is undoubtedly one of comparative poverty in relation to 4

2 0 % or more 1-M oore, 2-Hutchinson, 3-Tarrant, 4-M arion, 5-Sabine, 6-Newton, 7-Jasper, 8 -Tyler, 9-Polk, 10 -Trin ity, 11-S a n Jacinto, 12-Montgomery, 13-Harris, 1 4 Hardin, 15-Jefferson, 16-Orange, 17-B razoria, 18-Com al

15%— 20% 19-Grayson, 20-Palo Pinto, 21-Parker, 22-Dallas, 23-Morris, 24-Cass, 25-Harrison, 26-Cherokee, 27-Nacogdoches, 28-Liberty, 29-Galveston, 30-Calhoun

12%— 15% 31-G arza, 32-Hood, 33—Ellis , 34-Camp, 35-Upshur, 36-Smith, 37-Gregg, 38McLennan, 39-Shelby, 40-San Augustine, 41-W alker

6

LIM BER INDUSTRY AS LARGES? EMPLOYER ______ ;»i MANUFACTURING

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