Trouble at Lowland

The red gumbo soil uttered ugly sucking sounds at the touch of a man's boot. Rain drizzled down over the foothills of the Smokies. The mood carried into a big tent in Morristown, Tenn. (pop. 13,000), where members of the C.I.O. Textile Workers Union, Local 1054, fidgeted.

The men's discontent worried husky Silas Switzer, who had come over from Virginia on orders of the International a year before. Already there had been violence--rock-throwing, punch-throwing, even gunfire and intervention by the National Guard--and now it felt as if more was in the air. "If you're thinking about violence," Si Switzer pleaded, "get down on your knees and talk to God about it--He'll give you an answer."

Young, Tall & Lean. The union men, most of them the young, tall, lean and laconic type which abounds in the east Tennessee hill country, didn't say much. They just piled into their cars and drove seven miles east to a valley called Lowland. They parked bumper-to-bumper close to a limp, dirty tent which was headquarters for the picket line. From there they could see the American Enka Corp.'s Lowland plant and almost hear the whir of machines turning out rayon yarn for automobile tires. For a while, at the end of March, Local 1054 had shut down the plant with its strike, but now the machines were humming at 50-75% of capacity. Enka, a Dutch-owned company, had withdrawn its original offer, called off its recognition of the union and resumed production. The A.F.L.'s United Textile Workers were trying to move in. The community and the police had turned against the C.I.O. union; so had just about every newspaper in Tennessee. Some of the strikers' neighbors, friends, and even close relatives, were working in the plant.

"Let's Have It Now." The strikers spread themselves along a sloping embankment, with revolvers, rifles and shotguns before them, and flung challenges at the plant 300 yards away. "Let the yellow scabs out!" "If we're gonna have war, let's have it now!" But the night shift stayed inside where it was safe. The skirmish line of strikers settled down to wait them out.

At 6:09 in the morning, 22-year-old William McGinnis came driving toward the plant in his 1937 Ford sedan; it was his first day of work as dishwasher in the plant cafeteria. With him was Victor McDaniel, a cafeteria counterman. When McGinnis reached the union's roadblocks, he swung off the road and skittered across a field of rye. Rifles and shotguns roared from the embankment. "The noise was awful," said McGinnis. "We heard the bullets hitting and then my neck went numb." There were 47 holes in the right side of the car. McDaniel, struck twice in the head and also in a thigh, arm and ankle, somehow stumbled 50 yards to the plant and fell unconscious. A striker's bullet tumbled McGinnis into the rye, but he climbed to his feet, emptied a .38 at the embankment, and staggered to safety with wounds in his skull and in his neck.

Cease Fire. The strikers fired sporadically at six more cars, wounded one more nonstriker, then stopped shooting. It was nearly two hours later before police came roaring over the hill.

Police scoured the countryside for strikers, ran them in & out of jail for questioning (and an occasional pummeling) faster than Sheriff Bob Medlin could count them. By week's end, 15 union members had been formally charged with crimes ranging from blocking highways to attempted murder, and the net was out for four union officers who had skipped town.

Back in town, Si Switzer--still black & blue from some therapy administered by National Guardsmen three weeks ago--paced the floor while his chubby wife fought back the tears. "I wish we were home," she moaned. "I don't like it here."

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