'• ’ EDITION Wise ASSET! MILLS MONUMENT TO THE CANNON ENTERPRISE :::: _ : \ , J. F. Cannon Beloved By All For His Generous' Spirit. Os Thoughtfulness and Kindness Is One of Those Who Does Good by Stealth and the Ex tent of His Liberality Is Not Well , Known Here , ' / (By JAMES ORUIKSHANK) To record the life and work of J. F. Fan non is to summarize the progress of Concord nnd Cabarrus, so closely lias the growth of the city and county been identified with the Cannon family. To state definitely just what J. F. Cannon has done in a constructive, helpful way, is however, not so easy, because he is one of those men who do good by stealth. While a few of his benefactions are known, more because they could not be concealed than through any wish on his part to receive credit, the public spirit ed acts of Mr. Cannon are not so well known as they deserve to be. But ns it is impossible to keep a good man down, as the old saying has it, so it is impossi ble for any man to consistently support ' every movement for community progress, no matter how quietly he goes about it, without the‘people becoming aware more or less of what is going on. Thus in Concord, Cabarrus and Slauly, it is rec ognized that no man has given more lib erally of his substance and talents than J. F. Cannon, who has ever taken the lead in subscribing towards anything needing helft Behind the Fair. The Cabarrus County Fair Association is a striking example of \this, nnd owes its rapid and successful organization very largely to the liberality with which Mr. Cannon supported it. and to the in fluence he put behind the movement by giving his prestige and enthusiasm as’ liberally as'he subscribed his'money. , Mr. Cannon is one of those who be lieves in sharing his prosperity, and Is ' noted for his breadth of view ami liber ality. He believes implicitly that Ca-. imyrus and Stanly counties are among the most favored agricultural sections of the entire south, and capable of develop ment, which in time will place them in the first rank as producers of wealth from the lnnd. . While cotton has up until recently been a staple crop, the advance of the boll weevil has prompted Mr. Cannon to consider ways and means* of inducing the farmers to diversify their crops. Mr. Cannon believes thnt as a livestock coun try, Cabarrus and Sjtanly counties are excellently adapted for the raising of { livestock and their • by-products i|i the form of butter and milk. With the build ing of good roads in all directions throughout this territory, the marketing of milk has become a much simpler prob lem, in his opinion, than wag the tease some years ago. With the development of Charlotte, Concord and other import ant cities of the Piedmont section, the demand for livestock products his in creased, thus giving a steady market for a form of agricultural production, which is free from the risk attendant upon growing crops from weather conditions. In order to giv3 effect, to his conviction that the future prosperity of the farm ers of this section depend upon livestock, fruit and vegetable production rather than cotton and graiii. Mr. Caunon threw himself heart ami soul into the move ment to promote a worthwhile fair, at which the farmers could, through obser vation and comparison, be convinced of the possibilities for the successful diver sification of crops. * - A Friend in Need. Hi* interest in the county fair indi cates in a general way the'policy which I ,h«e made Mr. Cannon one of the most successful business men in the state. He recognizes that to make money one Ims to spend money, and the Wissassett Mills are a striking demonstration of the lengths to which he goes in carrying out this policy. There is not the vestige of a sign throughout the whole great prop erty of. neglect or decay. Ejery brick, every plank, and every piece of machin ery, has the appearance of being practi cally new, where as a matter of fact, mush of the machinery has been in con stant for many years. But today it is working at as nearly 100 per cent, ef ficiency as it is possible for human skilt' backed by abundant resources and the ambition to hive things just right, can accomplish. There ia no quibbling over expenses of upkeep at Wiscassett Mills. Everything lias to be in perfect condi tion amt everything is in perfect eondi tion, for Mr. Cannon does not believe in trying to swell profits at the expense of the condition of the plant ;r* In Albemarle Mr. Cannon is' nscognis -1 ed as showing tha same public spirit there as he does in Concord. An example is afforded in the new Presbyterian Church there, to which Mr. Cannon oflfa tributed $3,000. An equally kindly act which he could not conceal was perform ed recently when he was bavtng all the mill cottages repainted. A small frame ars.tsKisSii-ss sis ' struggle, and could not afford at the time to spend much fo,ney on paint, ' * Tv ' The Concord Daily Tribune t ■ * to work, and nlmost before the congre gntion Knew what| was on foot, the church presented a bright new spick and span, appearance. He also' furnished a complete outfit of equipment for the Jackson Training School boys, as anoth er practical form of his interest, in the welfare of the county's institutions. But these are only a few of many similar acts of tlioughtfufoess and kindness, the most of which are scarcely known even among his friends. Naturally he is a popular favorite with all his employes, most of whom he knows by their first names. Every year he gives a big picnic for pii employes, when watermelons and barbecue are enjoyed aud a day spent in frolic and athletics. He was one of the promoters the famous Wiscassett Band, which is a big feature of the so cial life of Albemarle and whose services ary in demand far and wide. His inter est in his employes is reflected in the high standard maintained in the mill village, whose houses, although vented at a nomi nal sum; compare favorably with the burfgalows and homes df any high class city residential district. Mr. Cannon's Career. • Mr. Cannon was thorn in Concord and educated at the grammar school and high school here before' going to the Virginia Military Institute. On leaving college he received his first mill experience in the Bala Mill, nffir Concord, a Annll mill, where he learned the textile busi ness from the ground up. becoming man ager. From that position he worked his way into the. Cannon organization in Concord and became secretary and treas urer of the Wiscnssett Mill, the enter prise which he was later destined to lead to 'Such great achievements. At that time the Wiscassett Mill had *IB,OOO spindles, compared with 1)4,000 today, and was quite a small enterprise by contrast with the present state of development. Today the products of the Wiscassett Mill are sold nil over the United States uud exerted t® Brazil and the Argen tine, being used, in the principal weaving mills of the United States for making lace, underwear, and other woven fab rics. ■ Some of \he l% .latest improvements at the Wiscassett Mills, are the superin tendent’s office, a handsome two-story brick building, with splendidly, equipped offices on the ground floor, laid out on the plan of a banking office, and with large store rooms upstairs. Adjoining the officeN is a new cotton storage ware -house costing $60,000. which has just been completed. It is five stories in height, and can hold 8,000 bales without piling. In addition ten miles of new concrete sidewalks are being built throughout the mill village. EXECUTIVEHEADS WITH WISCASSETT FOR MANY YEARS Mill Is Fortunate in Having Well Tried and Loyal > Leaders., Striking evidence of the contented lot of employes of the Wiscassett Mills is afforded in the fact thpt most of the ex ecutive heads have been associated with J. F. Cannon for many years. Thus W. A. Smith, assistant to Mr. Cannon, has been with the mill for twenty years. He was bom and brought np near Norwood. 1 and after completing his education enter-! ed (he mill as a shipping clerk and wock- 1 ed his way up through the organization l to be personal representative of the: vice president and general manager, Mr.' J. F. Cannon. Mr. Smith knows every man, woman and child in the village, and most of them by their first names. M. A. Boger, the secretary, has beeu with the organisation for 22 years. He was born and reared in Cabarrus coun ty, and after completing bis education taught school for six years. In 11)01 Ije went with the mill as a bookkeeper, and gradually worked-his way up to be sec. retnry of the company. , T. M. Denning, the general superin tendent. has been with the mill for 24 years,' joining the organization soon al ter it was formed. He has been a teg* tile mill worker all bis life. C. W. Gaddy, the superintendent and manager of the,hosiery department, has algo been with the Wiscassett Organiza tion for many yean*. The hosiery mill is a separate establishment, although un der and management > - THE CONCORD DAILf TRIBUNE—FAIR AND INDUSTRIAL EDITION MR. J. F. CANNON. • " —N. ISA hgm ■ Jk Vice President and General Ma uager of the Wiscassett Mills Wiscassett Mills Goes To Great Lengths To Provide Good Living Conditions Mill Village Homes 'of Models in Appearance, Architectural Design and Comfort.—Other Benefits of Vijlage Life. It is in its relations to the employes thnt the spirit which permeates the Wis cassett Mills’ policy is reflected at its best. A walk through the mill village is a liberal education in modern methods of creating happy industrial relations be tween employer and employes. That these relations are of the best is proved by the fact that the labor turnover in the mill is less than one per cent, a year, and that many employes have been with the mill since it wns first founded in 1868, and are today living in the same mill houses they occupied when they first allied themselves with this great link in the Cannon textile chain. With over 500 cottages, the manage ment of the mill village is a large work in itself. For example, painting of the cottages has just been completed. Three carloads of paint were required, and .a small army of workmen kept employed for many weeks. Comfortable, Attractive Homes. The cottages are well built, carefully designed to contrast with one another, With the result that there is as much in dividuality, and perhaps more, in the appearance of Wiscassett mill homes, as there is in the average good residential street -in any up-to-date city. An inspec tion was made by the writer of one of twenty new cottages just completed nnd not yet occupied. A wide front porch gave pleasant access to the front door, from which a wide spaejous hall stretch ed to the rear of the house. On the left of the front hall was a large dining j room with wainscoated and plastered i walls, electric light fixtures and a fire i place with an attractive oak mantel. [Across the hall was an equally pleasant ! living rtyim. At its rear a large I bedroom, plastered and well finished. Two other bedrooms, and an extremely large kitchen with shelved pantry and toilet adjioning, equipped with a Vogel frostproof water "system completed the • house. Throughout a good grade of rib pine flooring attested to the thoroughness with which the house was constructed. Storm sheathing between the walls, and double floors insure warmth and com-, fort. Twenty such homes have been built, und while they are all together not one looks alike, so well has the architect succeeded in giving each home its own in dividuality. The village surrounds the mill on three sides, and Is beautifully sit uated on high ground overlooking the mills. Fine shade trees and a back ground of forest give the appearance to the village of an attractive residential district, which precisely it is. These homes a relented to mill employes for the nominal charge of 25 cents a room per month. If built in the ordinary way, the home which the writer inspected a I would sell in the city for nbout .$5,000, | not including the lot, and would rent J from anywhere between $35 and $75 a l month,‘depending on the city and district J in which it was located. Much street grading is being done in the mill village at present, the city of Al bemarle undertaking the street work and the VViscassett Mills building the ce ment sidewalks at a cost of about $30,- 000. Nearly ten miles of sidewalks are being built, and a large part of the work has been completed. • Close Personal Interest. Illustrative of the personal interest which the management takes in the wel fare of the employes, is an extract from the Windermere Watchman, a magazine by and for the employes of the Knitting Department of the WSscassett Mills Company. C. W. Gaddy, /the superin tendent of the Hosiery Department, is the editor. In a recent edition he tvrote as follows: ' j ‘•That the last decade has seen an alarming development of a lack of re spect fpr law, order, and parental au thority on the part of the child, is a fact that cannot be truthfully denied. And parents and not the children are re sponsible for this condition. “A few years ago we wrote an editor ial calling attention to the fact of hav ing seen three boys, under 14 years, from the village, down the street, almost a mile away from home, after 10 o’clock at night, standing behind a billboard smoking cigarettes. We made it a point ♦o See each one of these boys’ fathers personally. And each one of them made it a point to point out to us that the other boy and his parents were respon sible for the way his own boy was db ing, and that his own/ boy was a good boy. Since that time we have helped to get those same boys out of jail and to keep them off the chain gang. Today, these boys, all under age, ure away from home on account of conditions and cir cumstances highly uncomplimentary to them. \ "Our -father was far from a perfect [man. We can recall many things he did that he should not have done. But 'the longer we live the more we realize that in one respect at least he was a great man. And that was iu the fact that he ruled his boys with an iron hand. Not a brute by any means, but his "noes” and “yeses” meant exactly wliat they- implied, and we were handled on a basis of our own conduct and not that of tlie other fellow.” Practigal Service. But the policy of the Wiscassett Mills towards its employees does dot stop with (pon tinned on page four) Name Means The Home of A Good Man, And This Is Reflected In Liberal Policy Os Management Important as" is Wiscassett Mills They Are But One Great Link in a Gigantic In dustrial Empire Founded by 'Late J. W. Cannon and Expanded by ' Descendants. (By JAMES CRUIKSHANK) Wiscassett, which in the Indian ver nacular means “the Home of a Good Man,’’ and in textile circles stands for the “mark of excellence,” is fittingly nam ed. Thousands who depend upon the Wiscassett Mills for their living, beat testimony to* the fact that the mill is lit erally the business home of a good man, who Iras passed away leaving behind a monument to bis industry and good man agement, nnd an industrial trust which his oldest son, J. J-\ Cannon, is devoting his life to extend. It was in 1898 that .1. W. Cannon es tablished the Wiscassett Mills, buying property which at that time was merely a swamp. What a contrast is seen to day when a magnificent sweep of semi fireproof brick and steel textile buildings, filled with millions of dollars worth of , the latest spinning machinery, greets the eye? While the late J. W. Cannon, i Os beloved memory, founded the mill, it j was left to his widow and his son, J. F, Cannon, to carry on the great work ‘which he began in Albemarle. Nothing is allowed to retard the development of the wonderful industrial property. Hard times make no difference in maintaining to the highest degree of perfection the plant, equipment, buildings nnd grounds | of Wiscassett. There is a,place for ev erything and everything in its place, at [ all times, so scrupulous is the care of the management in keeping Wiscassett up to the high standard of excellence, which is a cardinal principle of the pol icy of the mill. A Valuable Property. Mill oxvn’ers are reticent in regard to [ valuation of their property, but it is | not far short of the mark to say that [ tiie Wiscassett property could not be re placed today without superhuman effort I to such a tremendous extent has the, great mill has been developed by the j present active head, J. F. Cannon, the Facts About the Great Wiscassett Mills It is one of the important units in perhaps the greatest chain of mills in the South, comprising scores of mills in North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. The Wiscassett Mills comprise eight modern textile mills. Employes of the Wiscassett Mills number about 1,500. The Wiscassett Mills annually use 22,000 bales of cot ton. - With 94,000 producing spindles, the spinning mills have an annual production of about 8,500,000 pounds of yarn. There are six spinning mills and two hosiery mills in the Wiscassett grpup. The group has its own storage for 24,000 hales of cot ton without piling, sufficient for about a year’s operation. A large machine shop, enables the mill to do all its own repairs to plant. The Wiscassett Mills.group is one of the six largest in ‘producing spindles in the whole of the South, and there are only a few in the North which are regarded as larger. The mill owns its own fourteen-room school; largely supports a church; owns five hundred cottages of from three to ten rooms, with electric lights and water and sew erage ; is building concrete silewalks throughout the mill village at a cost of $30,000; maintains an open air gymnas ium for the use of the general public and mill employes. Mill property comprises about 600 acres, of which the mill buildings occupy about 15 acres alone. Free nursing service and free day nursery maintained by the mill. Labor turnover less than one per cknt. * vies president and general manager. Im portant as is the Wiscassett Mills, it is still but a link, although one of the most important links, in a family chain of textile mills, whose magnitude almost staggers the imagination. Like the Wis cassett Mills, the chain was first forged by the late .T. W. Cannon, whose genius like his memory, lives after him, reflected in the whirling machinery and the belch ing smokestacks of upwards of twenty great mills throughout North and South Carolina, Georgia and Alabama. Many thousands of employes today are working in these mills at Concord. China Grove. Salisbury, Mt. Pleasant, Kannapolis, Al bemarle, Eatouton, York, Siluria, Thom asville. Statesville, Rockwell and other textile centres. Literally millions of dol lars each year are required to buy the thousands of bales of cotton which are [ converted from the raw state into yarn, ■ fabrics and hosiery marketed throughout ! the world. Many more millions are spent ’ each year on wages, and still more on machinery, homes for employes, and in improving working conditions. To Concord and Cabarrus county be longs the honor of having the parent mill in a textile enterprise which lias spread throughout the South, and has I caused the name of Cannon to be known throughout the world, as a textile msin- I ufacturer. The Cannon Manufacturing plant ut Concord was the starting point in a march of progress of which no man can foretell the end, for while J. W. Cannon, who founded the present great empire, is dead, he left behind him sons, . and other near relatives and business [ associates who have beeu carrying on | from where lie left off. The Future. Who shall say that the end has been I reached ? The South has been termed [by economists as the last “great west,” I overlooked for years in the rush of immi- I gration lured to the plains, but now com * FAIR AND INDUSTRIAL > EDITION | ing into its own as the brightest jewel in the diadem of Nature. With great resources, plants equipped with most mod ern facilities; men trained from child hood in the management and intricate J details of textile the Cannon en , terprises today are but on the. eve of 1 growth and aecomplishment, which may j well make the achievements of the last. 25 years pale to insignificance. I In the Wiscassett Mill it is obvious there is no intention to rest upon the , traditions of the past. There is a vir ile organization looking forward, eon- I stantjy alert to adopt the latest inven tions in textile spinning, and to put to | productive practical uses, the researches of scientists. Mrs. .T. W. Cannon, widow of the founder, is the president, although she exercises the responsibilities of her office entirely through her oldest, son, ,T. F. Cannon, the vice president and gen eral manager. He is assisted, in the act ive management by W. A. Smith, his per sonal deputy at the mill office; by M. A. Boger, the secretary of the company; by ,T. M. Delining, the general superintend- I cut of the spinning mills nnd by C. W. . Gaddy, superintendent and manager of the hosiery mills, and in addition by some loyal 1500 employes whose long and happy association with the Cannon family Ims banded together an organi zation founded on faith, trust' and good will. A Gigantic Enterprise. ! A gigantic enterprise is revealed in a ! summary of the activities Os the Wiscas sett Mills. With 94.00 producing spin dies, it ranks as one of the six largest j spinning mills in the South, and is only ' I exceeded in production by a few of the i largest mills of the New England States, j Each year about 22,000 bales of cotton enter the Wiscassett in the raw stage, | and during th auto matically scatter a thin spray of water to maintoiu Ae humidity at just the right degree, while the temperature is care fully regulated by means ofthe most mod ern system of ventilation. Working con ditions might, well be described as ideal, the mill being brightly lighted on all sides with large windows. Banning wa ter and toilets on all Aprs, contribute to the comfort of the employe*. An exam ple of the extensive scale of operations is afforded in the fact that twenty color ed scrub women are employed the year round, constantly scrubbing the building, the floors of which are all hardwood, be -1 ing of maple.