Codfisherman

Largest employer of labor in Gloucester. Mass, is Gorton-Pew Fisheries Co., Ltd. Its plants, stretching along Gloucester's busy waterfront, turn out such fishy products as ready-to-fry codfish cakes, ready-to-use codfish, clam chowder, haddock chowder, flaked fish, haddock fillet, cod liver oil, fish meal.

Like all food companies, Gorton-Pew faces lower selling prices. Tinker mackerel, haddock, cod and other piscine products sell at about half what they did two years ago. But like other food companies Gorton-Pew's faith is buttressed by the knowledge that people must eat. And in many a U. S. home the codfish ball is still a Friday night and Sunday morning institution. The better to send forth cod to hungry consumers, last week Gorton-Pew opened a new plant which can turn out 48,000 10-oz. cans of ready-to-fry codfish cakes a day. Machinery does everything from slicing the potatoes, boiling them with the fishflakes, to mixing them in batches (194 Ib. of potatoes to 97 Ib. of fish).

Gorton-Pew calls itself the world's largest fish producing organization although its assets of $2,090,000 are topped by the $6,154,000 assets of Atlantic Coast Fisheries Co. whose main plant is at Groton, Conn. Its Man at the Wheel (portrait of an elderly fisherman guiding a schooner through a heavy sea) is famed among trademarks. And its president is known to the industry as a good man to have at any wheel. He is Thomas James Carroll, 64, whose life has been close to that of Gloucester and its fishermen. His father, an Irish sea-captain, settled in Gloucester as a fisherman. His vessel was lost with all hands. When "Tom Carroll" was ii his brother's schooner also went down with all hands in a terrific storm off the Georges Banks that took 140 lives from the fleet.

After this second death, Mr. Carroll left grammar school and was paid 6-c- an hour for "picking codfish sounds." The sound is the fish's air bladder which, ripped from the backbone, dried and cured, makes isinglass. Later he went to work for Slade Gorton, a pop-eyed man as round as a hogshead who had been one of the founders of Slade Gorton & Co. in 1849. When he was 16 Tom Carroll was considered experienced enough to split fish. Then he became a skinner, ripping the parchment-like skin from dried fish. The skin is used largely for glue (in Gloucester is Le Page's odoriferous factory) and tearing it from the fish is a delicate job. At 22 Tom Carroll was made foreman of this department and, seven years later, a member of the firm. He distinguished himself by his handling of labor problems, especially in the general strike of 1902 (Gloucester's first) and the 1918 strike of the fishermen against their captains.

In 1920 came Gorton-Pew's roughest times. Foreign contracts were cancelled and fish dropped. The company reported a big loss and its bankers shoved out Gen eral Manager Carroll, replacing him with efficiency experts. With a sad expression on his face he hung around the piers, re fused to go with any other company. Soon Gloucester's fishermen were slapping their thighs and squirting tobacco juice with relish at the goings-on in Gorton-Pew. The efficiency experts drew up a schedule of arrivals and departures for the fleet, overlooking the matter of tides, fogs, running seas. They even set the number of fish each vessel should return with. In two years they lost $2,700,000 of the company's money and in 1923 the company was reorganized with Mr. Car roll back as general manager. Two years later he became president as well. The following year the company paid a $2 dividend. In 1927 the rate was upped to $3 and from 1929 to the present this amount has been paid plus $1 extra annually. Despite his prominence in Gloucester, Mr. Carroll lives in a modest cottage home in an unpretentious district. He was president of Gloucester National Bank, a hoary (136-yr.) institution which was pulled down last winter when Boston's Federal National Bank toppled. He is prominent in Catholic and Knights of Columbus affairs. But his chief interest is fish, the men and machines which process them, the men and vessels which bring them in. There is a Pew in the chairmanship of the company, a Gorton on the board, but Gorton-Pew's man at-the-wheel is its president and general manager.

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