February 19, 2020 • 57 mins
On the eastern edge of Atlanta, the wealthy but aging owner of an enormous cotton mill passes the torch to his son. However, trouble is brewing as workers become increasingly irate over brutal working conditions and the slum-like state of the mill village. Meanwhile, a world-famous private eye arrives in Atlanta and makes a stunning accusation in the Leo Frank case.
Months covered in this episode: 37-41 (of 56)
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Months covered in this episode: 37-41 (of 56)
The Catlick digital scrapbook is NOW LIVE with vintage photos, maps, bonus episodes & more. To subscribe, just go to http://catlick.com, and click on VAULT.
* Browse t-shirts, stickers, & prints at http://catlick.com *
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Catolic fans, Welcome to episode eighteen. I'm super glad you're here. Our
Catolic Lie finale is coming soon.Don't forget it's March the fourteenth. The
event is already sixty three percent soldout, so be sure to get your
tickets to both the live finale andour Catolic Walking tours at catlic dot com.
(00:22):
Also, I'm going to reveal ourfirst special guest joining us at the
finale. Just stick around to theend of this episode to hear who it
is. All right, that's it. Enjoy Episode eighteen. This episode references
historical moments that are violent and attimes sexual. Listener discretion is advised.
(00:58):
On the morning of August first,nineteen eighty four, sixteen year old David
Samples slides into a phone booth atthe corner of Boulevard and Memorial Drive.
Memorial Drive is a busy road thatmarks the southern boundary of Atlanta's Cabbage Town
neighborhood. This early in the morning, the streets of Atlanta are still dark
(01:19):
and mostly empty. It's August inthe South, so it's also hot and
humid even at four am. Davidpulls a quarter out of his pocket.
He has to make an important phonecall. He's crying. That phone booth
(01:47):
at Boulevard and Memorial is, ofcourse no longer there. I walk or
drive by this intersection almost every day. It's just a couple of blocks south
of my place in Cabbage Town.By nineteen eighty four, Cabbagetown had fallen
into near anarchy. The cotton millthat had anchored the neighborhood's economy for a
century had closed back in the seventies. For the white working class people of
(02:09):
Cabbage Town, the shuttering of themill was an economic catastrophe. These generations
of Cabbagetown families had worked at thatmill, and when it closed, many
of the residents, already dirt floorpoor, had few other options. Mass
unemployment led to mass poverty, andthe poverty swept in like a plague.
(02:31):
The data show that around this time, Cabbage Town's annual income by household was
about seven thousand bucks. As apoint of comparison, that was about half
of what other households around Atlanta broughtin each year. The crime statistics were
also pretty shocking by Atlanta standards.Cabbage Town is a tiny neighborhood with a
(02:53):
really small geographic footprint, only sixteenhundred people lived there. In the nineteen
eighties, the neighborhood's crime rate wasa staggering one point seven crimes for every
ten residents. At the time,that was twice the average for the rest
of Atlanta. I suppose lots ofpeople would assume nineteen eighties Atlanta crime would
(03:15):
be mostly the work of black gangs, but the reality is one of the
most lawless neighborhoods in Atlanta back thenwas purely white. The unique thing about
Cabbagetown's crime epidemic of the nineteen eightieswas that it was driven mostly by children.
Back then, local reporters would journeyinto the neighborhood and write detailed stories
(03:38):
on Cabbage Town, often likening itto the Lord of the Flies, with
barefoot gangs of four foot tall,pudgy faced renegades wreaking havoc in the streets.
One of those reporters was the brilliantjournalist Susan Faludi, who at the
time worked for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I'm drawing heavily here from an article
(03:59):
she wrote in nineteen eighty four titledChildren of Crisis, with lots of adults
unemployed, sick, addicted, orincarcerated. The kids of Cabbage Town took
over the streets. The stories fromback then are pretty bad. One kid,
fed up with his mom's drunk livinboyfriend, smashed his head with a
brick. Another fifteen year old reportedseeing one of his friends beat his own
(04:23):
mother with a belt up reverse spankingif you will. Street fights with guns
and knives were common. In nineteenseventy eight, the Atlanta Swat Team swarmed
into Cabbage Town after reports of adouble fisting seventeen year old walking down Burian
Avenue with a rifle in one handand a shotgun in the other. One
resident said he looked like wyat herb. Substance abuse was rampant as well.
(04:48):
One kid reported that he'd been drinkingbeer with his dad since quote I was
a baby and none. Surprisingly,lots of kids were hooked on drugs.
Model airplane glue was the neighborhood nectar. It was inexpensive, easy to get,
and huffing it gave a quick high. Tragically, There was also widespread
(05:11):
child prostitution, which surprisingly attracted moreboys than girls. Men slowly cruising through
Cabbagetown looking for sex with kids hadbeen a thing for as long as anyone
could remember. An older lady namedLewis wrote a letter to the editor of
the Constitution back in the eighties.She remembered seeing men cruising the neighborhood for
(05:31):
sex when she was a Cabbagetown kidway back in the nineteen thirties and forties.
Predators are always drawn to pockets ofdowntrodden people, and for as long
as anyone could remember, Cabbagetown hadbeen veried downtrodden. In the eighties,
most of the boys drawn into prostitutionjust did it for the money, a
quick buck for kids with a fewother options. They'd also travel beyond the
(05:56):
borders of Cabbagetown to meet men towell known cruising hot spots like Grant Park
or over in Midtown off Crescent Street. Police back then called these kids hustlers,
and it was well known that theyoungest ones always came from Cabbage Town.
Boys as young as eight were oftenseen getting into the cars of older
men. David Samples our crying sixteenyear old kid in the phone booth at
(06:26):
four am. He was one ofthose hustlers. By the time he was
sixteen, David had been meeting menfor years. He learned the lucrative ritual
from his older brothers, Mike andRonnie. However, by now both Mike
and Ronnie were serving time in jail. Mike, the middle brother, was
incarcerated on charges of kidnapping. Inher article, Susan Faludi tells a really
(06:50):
disturbing story. When Mike was akid, Ronnie taught him how to torture
a chicken by holding a flame toits beak. Of the three boys,
Ronnie was the roughest. In nineteeneighty one, Ronnie was sentenced to life
in prison for murder. As thestory goes, he'd been picked up by
(07:11):
a lawyer in Atlanta one night.For whatever reason, Ronnie decided to rob
the guy instead, so he beathim unconscious and kept beating him. When
Ronnie realized the guy was dead,he threw his body into a pond in
South Atlanta. For his effort,he got eleven bucks from the guy's wallet.
So by the time David Samples steppedinto that phone booth in August of
(07:33):
nineteen eighty four, his mother,Barbara Jackson, had endured more heartbreak than
any person should have to bear withtwo sons already behind bars for serious offenses.
Sixteen year old David was her lasthope that one of her kids might
get out of cabbage Town and makesomething of himself. On this particular night,
(08:03):
Barbara Jackson has jolted out of asound sleep. She sends his trouble
no good phone calls are made atfour am. It's David, her sixteen
year old son. She can tellhe's sobbing. In an interview, Barbara
later recounted the conversation, Mama,I just called to say I love you.
(08:26):
David's voice is a bit slurred.David. Are you messed up on
any drugs? She asks, No, Mama, I'm just drinking some beer
and hanging out. She doesn't knowit, but he's lying. He continues,
Mama, I want to get lockedup so I can be with Ronnie.
(08:50):
Barbara leaps out of bed and franticallybegins getting dressed. She tells him
to hang on and that she's onher way. Dave. It hangs up
the phone as David sets down thereceiver. Atlanta Police officer John Oglesby is
(09:11):
driving by that very same phone booth. Someone had called in to report that
a young white man was walking downMemorial Drive shouting obcinities. Oglesby had been
dispatched to investigate, according to theofficer. As he approached the phone booth,
he observed a person inside, movingand motioning erratically. He rolls down
his window to check on him.He's promptly greeted by a flurry of curses.
(09:37):
David Samples is not here for afriendly chat. Oglesby parks his car
in a nearby lot, opens thedoor, and gets out. David stumbles
out of the phone booth, andas he does, he struggles to take
off his shirt. He's now walkingtowards Officer Oglesby, shirtless and shouting curses
(09:58):
and nonsense. David pauses. Helooks down and sees a bottle on the
sidewalk. He bends over to pickit up and launches it in the direction
of the officer. The boy keepsadvancing, the situation escalating with each step.
David Samples made several bad decisions thatnight, but his next one would
(10:18):
be the costliest. As the barechested sixteen year old staggers towards Officer Oglesby,
he reaches behind his back. Ogleby'straining had conditioned him for moments just
like this, his hand goes tohis holster. When David Sample's hand reappears
from behind his back, he's clutchinga pocket knife. He begins opening it,
(10:43):
but before he can, Officer JohnOglesby draws his weapon and fires five
rounds rip through David's thin frame.He falls to the pavement streams of red.
David Samples takes his last breath.Moments later, Barbara Jackson tops a
(11:07):
hill on Memorial Drive, and asshe does, she sees the blue and
red flashes of police lights. Bynow her instincts about her boys are rarely
wrong. She knows David, heryoungest son, is dead. The David
(11:35):
Sample's death made the local news.There was a major outcry amongst the Cabbage
Town locals accusations of police brutality.Local law enforcement released statements saying that John
Oglesby responded appropriately. An officer beingadvanced upon by an armed combatant has the
right to use lethal force. Theysaid the officer would later be officially exonerated
(11:58):
of any wrongdoing. In her writing, journalist Susan Faludi said that Cabbage Town
was under a dark cloud of quotepervasive fatalism. Fatalism defined as the belief
that all events are predetermined and thereforeinevitable. Predetermined events inevitable events. How
(12:26):
does a tiny neighborhood in the heartof a prosperous city fall into such despair
that the people just give up,resigning themselves to utter hopelessness. How do
children in an American city become gluesniffing, gun wielding child prostitutes? And
how does a mother lose three sonsviciously devoured by a single neighborhood. Well,
(12:54):
it certainly doesn't happen overnight, OhNo. Pervasive fatalism creeps like a
mold. It slithers like a snakeacross the decades and under the floorboards,
suffocating light and laying new eggs inthe dark. When people disdain people,
(13:15):
evil begets evil, greed begets greed, hate begets hate, and if no
one steps in the darkness hatches anewwith each generation. You're listening to episode
eighteen of Catlic Trouble in the CottonEmpire Welcome Back. It's January of nineteen
(14:20):
fourteen, Month thirty seven of ourstory. Leo Frank is imprisoned at the
Fulton Tower as his legal team continuesthe appeals process. Meanwhile, our focus
has shifted a mile or so eastof downtown Atlanta to an area we call
cabbage Town. Now, for thesake of historical accuracy, I must acknowledge
(14:43):
here that Cabbagetown wasn't always called Cabbagetown. It didn't pick up that name until
about the nineteen forties. There aretwo competing stories for where the name came
from. The first is that onetime a truck full of cabbages overturned in
the neighborhood. The locals flooded thestreets, gathered them up, and retreated
back to their homes before being caught. The second, which is the story
(15:07):
that I sort of prefer, isthat the people of Cabbagetown were so poor
most of them could only afford cabbagefor dinner, and so when other Atlantins
would pass by at dusk, theirnoses would be greeted by the unmistakable pungent
odor of cabbage boiling in all thehomes. Before it was called Cabbagetown,
most people around the city referred toit as factory Town or just the mill
(15:30):
village. But for the sake ofsimplicity, I'll just be calling at Cabbagetown.
In the last episode, I introducedyou to Jacob Elsis, an orphaned
Jewish immigrant who moved to Atlanta afterthe Civil War with the goal of starting
a business. Based on what weknow about him, Jacob Elsis was a
brilliant entrepreneur. He started multiple businesseswith various partners in the eighteen seventies,
(15:54):
and by eighteen eighty one he'd raisedenough money from investors to buy some land
east of downtown, the area wenow call Cabbage Town. In eighteen eighty
one, the first bricks were laidfor the Fulton Cotton Spinning Company. The
main product of this new cotton millwould be fabric bags. Before the widespread
(16:14):
use of plastic and cardboard boxes,most things were stored, carried, or
shipped in large cotton bags. Elsi'sspotted a gap in the market and knew
the demand was there. Atlanta coulduse a bag manufacturer of its own.
Despite the opportunity, Elsis had onemajor hurdle to overcome labor In a pre
(16:38):
robotics world, Staffing these giant factorieswas a pain in the ass. Hundreds
and hundreds of bodies were needed tooperate the mill and avoid interruptions in production.
Other manufacturing facilities around Atlanta had beencrippled by labor shortages in the late
eighteen hundreds, so Jacob Elsis hatcheda plan. He'd syndrome recruiters far north,
(17:00):
beyond forsythe County into the Misty Mountainsof North Georgia. The Southern Appalachian
Mountain Range loosely begins in North Georgiaand then stretches up the eastern coast of
the US all the way to Maine. The Mills recruiters landed in what's called
the Piedmont region of the Appalachians.This is a rugged, densely forested area
(17:22):
today, so you can imagine whatit was like in the late eighteen hundreds.
The Piedmont was an economically depressed area, so when recruiters from Fulton Bag
showed up promising steady jobs in thebig city, people listened. Of course,
this wasn't an isolated thing. Thiswas happening all over as the industrial
revolutions swept across America, people uprootingtheir lives on rural farmsteads and relocating to
(17:48):
cities and urban factories. Well,the recruitment plan was successful and entire families
began migrating to Atlanta to begin theirnew lives. Elsis arranged for simple wood
framed houses to be built on theland around the factory. Back then,
it was fairly common for large industrialoperations to provide on site housing for their
(18:11):
workers, and when you drive throughCabbage Town today, you'll see some of
these same shotgun style houses that werebuilt more than a hundred years ago.
By eighteen eighty one, the factorywas fully staffed and open for business,
and within several years it was booming. By the eighteen nineties, Elsis was
(18:33):
adding more buildings to expand his productioncapacity. Around this time, they also
renamed the facility. It was nowthe Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill. With
the proven process and place, FultonBag began expanding to other cities, opening
up more mills in New Orleans,Saint Louis, and beyond. All of
this growth in the eighteen nineties andinto the nineteen hundreds began to make Jacob
(18:57):
Elsis one of the wealthiest men inall of Atlanta, and he often used
that wealth for good. He dispatchedhis wealth to make Atlanta better, making
sizable donations to help establish the GrandOpera House, the Hebrew Orphans Home,
as well as Grady Hospital in theGeorgia Institute of Technology to landmark Atlanta institutions
(19:21):
that are still around today. Bynineteen ten, the Fulton Bag and Cotton
Mill in Atlanta was a massive operation. By revenue, it had become one
of the top five hundred corporations inall of America. Around twelve hundred people
packed into the mill each day,moving, cutting, spinning, sewing,
and processing cotton into bags and avariety of other products. By nineteen thirteen,
(19:47):
Jacob Elsis had been at the helmof the mill for more than thirty
years, and he was planning hisretirement. By then, he'd already decided
on his successor, his son,Oscar. The oldest of eight children,
the son of a millionaire, OscarElsis attended some of the finest schools in
Europe. His dad was helping startGeorgia Tech, so he came back to
(20:11):
Atlanta to finish university as part ofTech's first graduating class in eighteen ninety one.
After finishing school, he worked forhis dad at the Fulton Bag in
Cotton Mill. By the time ofhis father's retirement, Oscar was a vice
president and the seasoned executive in thetextile industry, so by nineteen fourteen,
he was the natural choice as Jacob'ssuccessor and heir to his cotton empire.
(20:37):
Oscar officially took over as president inJanuary of that year. Now Oscar lived
a grand life, rolling into theoffice every day in a shiny black automobile
driven by a personal chauffeur. Aroundthe time of his transition, he moved
(20:57):
his family into a penthouse that thenewly opened Ponts Delion Apartments. The Ponts
Apartments were unlike any other residences inthe city, Rising twelve stories over Atlanta's
posh thoroughfare Peachtree Street. They includedall the latest amenities elevators, heating,
(21:18):
maid service, mechanical refrigeration, sleepingporches, and even a European style cafe
on the first floor. By nineteenfourteen, the building's tenant list read like
a who's who of Atlanta's elites,familiar names like the Inmans, the Elsises,
and even a candler. Oscar Elsisjoined his gentile elites as one of
(21:44):
the first Atlanta jews with a covetedPeachtree Street address. FYI. This building
miraculously is still standing and is ingreat shape. It looks just like it
did when it opened more than onehundred years ago. It sits directly Caddy
corner to the Fox Theater in Midtown, so be sure to check it out
(22:04):
if you ever visit the area.One of the most celebrated features of the
Pontsteleon apartments was its rooftop gardens.Fancy galas were often held on the rooftop,
and I can imagine Oscar standing withfriends, looking south and proudly pointing
to the smoke stacks of the FultonBag and Cotton Mill in the distance.
(22:30):
However, while the Elsi's family wassettling into their new luxury lifestyle in Midtown,
a very different story was playing outunderneath those smokestacks back in Cabbagetown.
In the thirty years since it hadbeen opened, the mill village had been
gradually degrading into what could only bedescribed as a slum. Through decades of
(22:56):
poverty and neglect, Cabbagetown had becomea full blown public health crisis. Children
as young as six were hooked ontobacco. There was no trash collection,
there was no plumbing, so thesmell of feces filled the streets. Diseases
like typhoid, fever, malaria,tuberculosis, and smallpox were common in the
(23:17):
overcrowded houses. One section of houseswas known as chinch Row because they were
all infested with bedbugs. When thesun went down in Cabbagetown, an army
of moonshiners and prostitutes invaded the streets, eager to make a buck off the
factory's desperate workers. Multiple brothels operatedin Cabbagetown, and STDs spread like wildfire.
(23:44):
Over time, a cottage industry ofsaloons, bars, and brothels set
up shop along the neighborhood's northern borderalong present day Decatur Street. Over the
years, the mill had become theanchor of Atlanta's red light district, and
its people were its best clients.The harsh reality was that, even after
(24:04):
thirty years, these workers recruited fromthe Appalachian Mountains, they just hadn't adapted
to city life that well. Thiswas a community of proud mountaineers in downtown
Atlanta, working in harsh factory conditionsfor very little pay. This social experiment
was starting to look very very bad. One of those mountaineer men of Cabbage
(24:32):
Town was a guy by the nameof John Carson. When Carson moved to
Atlanta, he brought his Appalachian musicwith him, and the key ingredient to
Appalachian music a fiddle. Back then, they actually had fiddling championships, and
(24:53):
Carson was declared the Grand Fiddling Championof Georgia on seven different occasion. This
eventually earned him the moniker Fiddland JohnCarson. Most people think country music got
its start in Nashville, Tennessee.However, that's not exactly true. Country
(25:17):
music really got its start in CabbageTown when Fiddland John Carson recorded what many
believed to be the first ever recordingof country folk music. Now that all
happened in the nineteen twenties. Innineteen fourteen, John Carson was just another
worker at the Fulton Bag and CottonMill, though he'd entertained with his fiddle
in the alleyways and saloons whenever hecould. It's worth mentioning here that Fiddland
(25:44):
John Carson could be a real asshole. He had at least one super racist
song as well as a song calledIt's a Shame to whip your wife On
Sunday why you may be wondering,was it a shame to whip your wife
on Sunday? Just listen a gameyour wife Sonday? If the game your
(26:10):
wife Sunday, when you got Monday, body that in your game? Wife?
Yeah, so there's that. Aroundthis same time, we know that
Fiddland, John Carson wrote another songabout a certain murder mystery in Atlanta.
(26:37):
Man. This is the Ballad ofLittle Mary Fagan, written by John Carson,
vocals by his daughter Rosa Lee.Leo Frank's about to get called out.
(26:59):
Listen Leo the lyrics. Leo Frankmet her with a brutely heart.
(27:27):
We know. He smiled and said, little Mary, you'll go home no
more. Sneaked along behind her tillshe reached the metal room. He laughed
and said, little Mary, youhave met your fatal doom. Now.
I'm pointing this out to highlight amajor social disconnect in Cabbage Town, the
(27:48):
tension between the mill's poor Appalachian workersand it's wealthy Jewish owner managers. The
economic rift between low paid wage workersand wealthy elites isn't exactly unique. That
happens in lots of big companies,But what was unique then was the added
layer of anti Semitism floating around Atlantathat made it even worse. As the
(28:11):
Atlanta papers continually demonized Leo Frank HisJewish faith and heritage was often mentioned,
and these correlations fed into a lotof stereotypes. That anti Jewish bias eventually
crept into Cabbage Town and was easilytransferred over to the factory's Jewish ownership,
who many of the workers already despised. It seems likely that there was some
(28:37):
unwarranted tension there. However, therewas some warranted tension as well, and
that seemed to be caused by oneperson, Oscar Elsis. Remember Oscar's dad,
Jacob, was an orphan immigrant whocame from nothing. He knew what
it was like to be dirt poor, so when he walked the floors of
the Fulton Bag and Cotton mill,he likely felt some kinship with his poor
(29:02):
Appalachian workers. He could see himselfin them, simple hard working people just
trying to get by. But hisson, Oscar, yeah, he was
different. Remember he was the sonof a millionaire. He couldn't relate at
all with these mill workers, nordid he try. He often called them
the help and viewed them as justgenerally shiftless, irresponsible, and inherently immoral.
(29:30):
He had nothing in common with them, so he didn't really care to
get to know him. Oscar alsoemployed the largest office staff of any mill
in the South, and they sortof served as a buffer between him and
his blue collar workforce. Oscar's managementstyle was also very different than his father's.
(29:51):
He was a heavy handed autocrat knownfor belligerent fits of rage. He
had a short fuse with the workerswho viewed as low class simpletons. Descriptions
of work inside the mill under Oscarsound like a living hill. I'm drawing
(30:11):
here from the work of Clifford Coonand Gary Fink, two historians who've done
amazing research on the mill. Oscarauthorized a sixty hour workweek, which kept
workers on their feet for eleven totwelve hours straight. He was obsessed with
efficiency, so lunch breaks were limitedto thirty minutes or less. Fink describes
(30:33):
the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill asa fortress surrounded by tall walls studded at
the top with spikes and broken glass. The windows of the mill were made
of smoked glass. That way workersdidn't waste time by looking outside. Conditions
inside the mill were just generally toxic, so workers got sick a lot.
(30:56):
Some said working in the mill waslike working in an oven, and they
suffered from chronic pain, fatigue,and migraine headaches. Workers also reported that
managers spoke to them like they weredogs. Women claimed sexual harassment was a
common occurrence. Now, maybe allof this would be bearable if the pay
(31:17):
was good, right well, payrecords show workers in the card room made
about eight bucks per week when adjustedfor inflation and sort of spread out over
the year. This equates to amodern day salary of about nine thousand dollars
annually. But even that wasn't guaranteed. Due to Oscar's crazy finding system.
(31:42):
At Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill,you could be fined for anything, breaking
equipment, showing up late, oreven taking an unauthorized water break. Of
course, you could have your finesforgiven simply by reporting fellow employee ease for
shoddy work. Oscar rewarded tattling,knowing that this would keep workers suspicious of
(32:07):
each other, a slide tactic designedto undermine employee unity. One of the
most hated aspects of working at FultonBag was the dreaded contract that employees were
forced to sign for one. Employeescould be fired for any reason, had
any time. Furthermore, after workingyou had to wait a week to receive
(32:29):
your pay. You were also requiredto give a week's notice before quitting,
and if you didn't, you forfeitedthat week's worth of pay. Now this
might not sound like a big deal, but for very poor people with no
savings and no other means to provide, this could be financially devastating. It
could mean that your kids don't eatfor an entire week. This last point,
(32:51):
the one about withholding worker's pay,was quite unusual, because no other
mill in Georgia had a clause likethat. Over time, Oscar was criticized
for it, and some even questionedwhether it was legal for him to enforce
it. His response a direct quote, I have made up my mind on
the subject, and I will notchange the contract system until hell freezes over.
(33:15):
I would sooner shut down these millsand keep them so until moss and
any other kind of vegetation would growover their windows than agree to change my
attitude upon that question. Yeah,Oscar not one for mincing words. Perhaps
Oscar's greatest shame lied in his useof child labor. This was the mill's
(33:39):
dirty little secret. Company records showthat about twelve percent of the workforce was
between the ages of ten and sixteen. These children worked the same sixty hour
week as everybody else, and itreaked havoc on their health. One mom
reported that her young daughter had breathingproblems, constant headaches, and walked with
(34:01):
a stoop. Over time, themills oppressive work environment took its toll.
How bad was it well, inone year, ten thousand people worked in
a factory that only had twelve hundredjobs. That's ten thousand people for twelve
(34:22):
hundred jobs. That's a turnover rateof more than eight hundred percent. As
a matter of comparisons, similar millsaround Georgia reported turnover around twenty five percent.
When confronted with that stat Oscar saidthat the other mill owners, yeah,
they're just cooking the numbers to makethemselves look better. This. All
(34:45):
of this was building as the angergrew, As the desperation grew, Rumors
began to spread through the back alleysof Cabbage Town and in the pubs over
onto Cater Street frequented by Fulton bagworkers. A storm was coming, and
even in his Ivory tower on PeachtreeStreet, Oscar Elsis would not be able
(35:07):
to avoid it. By February ofnineteen fourteen, Leo Frank had settled into
his cell at the Fulton Tower,having resigned himself to make the best of
a bad situation. He kept hiscell neat and tidy. He exercised daily
(35:30):
and received visits from friends and familywho'd bring him food, coffee, and
newspapers. When the Constitution caught windof this, they published a story about
it shocker headline, Cell now likeliving room. Behind the scenes, efforts
were made to build a coalition ofwealthy and influential Jewish supporters from across the
(35:53):
nation to help fund and promote Frank'scause. However, even amongst these Jewish
leaders, this effort was met withskepticism. Some worried that if they interfered
too much in the case, therecould be a big public backlash anger that
Jewish outsiders, or worse yet,Jewish Northerners were meddling with justice in the
(36:15):
South. Nevertheless, several big namesthrough their hat in the ring, deciding
that the pr risk was worth tryingto save Leo Frank from the gallows.
Having been denied a new trial byJudge Rone, Frank's legal team escalated their
appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.They restated their case and yet again attempted
(36:39):
to fix the blame on the factorysweeper Jim Conley. After listening to the
arguments and then weeks of reviewing thetrial's transcripts, the Georgia Supreme Court rendered
their decision in a fourd to twovote. They declined to grant Leo Frank
a new trial, another devastating loss. However, in the wake of this
(37:04):
disappointing ruling, Frank's legal team chalkedup a handful of winds, at least
with public perception. It was revealedthat the strands of hair found on the
machinery in the middle room did notin fact match the hair of Mary Fagan.
Furthermore, some cried scandal when itwas revealed that Solicitor Hugh Dorsey,
Yeah, he knew about this theentire time during the trial and never said
(37:29):
anything about it. There were alsoseveral notable retractions. In early nineteen fourteen,
a handful of witnesses who testified againstLeo Frank came forward and said that
they either flat out lied about it, or they were coerced to lie.
One particular madam was one of them. Nina Formby had claimed that leoh Frank
(37:51):
was a regular of hers at herhouse of ill repute. She said that
on the day of the murder,he called her looking for a place to
store Mary Fagan's body. However,Madame Formby later retracted her statement, saying
she didn't even know Leo Frank andthat she'd been coerced to say that by
some Atlanta detectives. Another one,George Epps. This was the kid who
(38:15):
allegedly rode the street call with Maryon the day she died. Well.
He admitted that his story was alsomade up and that Detective John Black put
him up to it. The defensewas feeling better by the day, and
they had a right to be,especially when they found out that one of
the biggest names in American journalism wouldbe unofficially joining team Frank. Adolph Oakes
(38:40):
was the powerful publisher of the NewYork Times. He was also a Jewish
Man who'd been raised in the South. In February of nineteen fourteen, the
Times ran multiple front page articles aboutthe Leo Frank case and appeals process,
and all of them were favorable towardsFrank. At one point they interviewed Luther
(39:02):
Rosser, one of Frank's attorneys.They asked him why Frank was convicted in
the first place. Here's Rosser's response, The Jewish population of Atlanta is not
large. Frank came to Atlanta astranger and engaged in a new enterprise.
He knew hardly anybody who was notof his own religion, being closely occupied
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with his business, and this factrather counted against him. I really believe
if Frank had been the son ofa reputable gentile, he would never have
been arrested. What had been duringthe trial a mostly regional story was now
becoming a national story. Around thissame time, another influential Jewish man came
(39:50):
to Frank's defense. Albert Lasker wasa wealthy and seasoned advertising maven from Chicago.
Though he attempted to remain off theradar, it's no secret why Lasker
came to Atlanta to help reshape thepublic opinion of Leo Frank, and over
time it seemed to work. Morepapers around the country began covering the story,
(40:12):
and most of them were pretty positive. Towards Leo Frank. Two of
the biggest names in American history evenlent their names to the cause. Thomas
Edison and Henry Ford publicly stated theirbelief that the Frank trial was rotten and
that he deserved a new one.Now. Albert Lasker did more than just
(40:34):
lead a pr effort, He alsoquietly hired the most famous private eye in
the world, William Burns. Burnswas a larger than life character with international
fame. He was mythical, almostlike a real life Sherlock Holmes. He
traveled the world investigating famous burglaries,salacious murders, and unbelief vabal heists.
(41:01):
When the press found out Burns wastaking up the Frank case, they lost
their minds with excitement. A celebrityinvestigator was coming to Atlanta to once and
for all solve the Merry Fagan murdermystery. When William Burns arrived at Atlanta's
(41:21):
terminal station, he was besieged byreporters and photographers. In the following weeks,
they followed him everywhere he went aroundthe city. Burns boasted several times
that, unlike the others, hewould be able to crack the case.
Burns and his team got to work. Despite a few positive developments in the
(41:45):
case, Frank's legal team was runningout of legal options. Days after the
Georgia Supreme Court ruling, Frank appearedback in court. It was time to
once again schedule the execution. Thejudge made his pronouncement Frank would now die
on April seventeenth, nineteen fourteen.Coincidentally, or perhaps not, this date
(42:10):
was Leo Frank's birthday, his thirtiethbirthday. In February, there was also
news with Jim Conley. On thetwenty fourth of that month, Conley was
sentenced to one year on the GeorgiaState Chain Gang for his role as an
accomplice in the murder of Mary Fagin. However, that wasn't all. After
(42:35):
a few weeks on the job,Detective William Burns made a bombshell of an
announcement. He had acquired a seriesof love letters written between Jim Conley and
his jailhouse lover, a lady namedAnna maud Carter. It was something like
forty pages of handwritten letters. Now, the papers refused to print the content
(42:59):
of these letters because they were justso vulgar. By the way I've read
some of these letters, and Ican confirm they're pretty saucy, even by
today's standards, So I can imaginewhat someone in nineteen fourteen must have thought.
What did these letters prove? Burnsexplains, they show, beyond apparent
(43:24):
adventure of a death, that Conleyis an abnormal man, just the vile,
degenerate creature that I have heretofore picturedhim. Burns believed that this was
proof that Conley was a monster,a twisted sexual pervert fully capable of killing
Mary Fagan. Detective Burns also hiredmen to analyze the handwriting and syntax of
(43:51):
the letters. He claimed that itwas an identical match to the murder notes
found near Mary's body, but thenthe real zinger This from the New York
Times. Detective Burns also said thathe believed he would be able to prove
that Conley is the Jack the Ripperwho murdered about twenty Negro girls in the
(44:15):
last three years. Each of thesewomen was mutilated, and by the body
of each the murderer left a note. Some of the notes bear marked resemblance
in words and handwriting to those foundby Mary Fagan's body. This was a
spectacular accusation a potential bridge between twoof the biggest news stories in Atlanta's history.
(44:43):
Could it be that Jim Conley wasnot only the killer of Mary Fagan,
but also the killer of all thoseyoung black women from a few years
earlier? Could it be that JimConley was the Atlanta Ripper. Well,
I'll say this one red flag concerningthe accuracy of this article is that Atlanta
(45:07):
police did not in fact find amurder note by all the bodies of the
Ripper victims. For my research,I only found a couple of instances where
a note was left. So unlessAtlanta Police had been withholding this knowledge from
the media, I'd seriously question thatclaim. So I'm not sure where the
(45:27):
New York Times got that from.I will say, like many of the
other women, Mary was murdered ona Saturday night, but that circumstantial at
best. Now I'll go ahead andspoil this by telling you that nothing else
really came from the William Burns conlyas the Ripper accusation slash conspiracy theory.
(45:53):
I've spent considerable time looking into this, and I can't really find much beyond
this initial report that he sort ofmade that claim After all this, the
Anna Maud Carter letters, Oh,they would be discussed much more, and
Dorsey would claim that Burns had forgedthem. They were fakes, he said,
well, Burns would counter that itwasn't a fake. At one point,
(46:15):
Carter Conley's jailhouse lover claimed that Conleyhad privately confessed to her that he
had killed Mary Faken, but thenshe later retracted her statements, saying that
someone had told her to say that. It's all really exhausting when you dig,
really start digging into this case.All the claims and counterclaims and retractions
(46:37):
are really just a huge cluster ofconfusion. It'll make your head spin.
By the beginning of April, itwas crunch time for Leo Frank's attorneys.
They filed a new motion in theFulton Superior Court that was well received.
Frank's execution was pushed back yet again, this time to January of nineteen fifteen.
(47:04):
This bought Frank and his attorneys severalmore precious months to continue building their
case towards his innocence. However,with more time comes more costs. By
April, the costs associated with Frank'sdefense had become enormous. The fees of
the lawyers, the private investigators,and others were north of fifty thousand dollars.
(47:27):
At this point, a push wasmade to raise funds, and several
wealthy men, mostly Jewish, cameto Frank's aid with sizable donations, and
one of those men president of theFulton Bag and Cotton Mill, Oscar Elsis.
(47:50):
While Oscar Elsis was certainly keeping aneye on the Leo Frank drama,
that was the least of his worries. By the spring of nineteen fourteen,
room of a strike at the FultonBag and Cotton Mill were out of control.
For the previous few months, Oscarhadn't been dealing with all kinds of
worker drama, and most worrisome ofall, the U word was being tossed
(48:14):
around for a wannabe robber. Barredin the nineteen tens, there was no
dirty your word then. Union employeesat Fulton Bag were strictly forbidden from unionizing,
and even talking about it could getthem fired. From the end of
nineteen thirteen through the beginning of nineteenfourteen, Elsis had been on a quiet
(48:37):
hunt, routing out anyone known tobe a union sympathizer. He fired dozens
of people he suspected of stirring upunion talk. As the rumors of the
discontent and Cabbage Town swirled, wordsomehow reached officials with United Textile Workers UTW
for short. UTW was a tradeunion that advocated on behalf of workers in
(49:01):
the textile industry. Over the years, they'd been very successful in helping low
wage workers organize into unions that couldapply pressure on factory owners. However,
their efforts had been successful mostly inthe North. Previous attempts to organize labor
unions in the South had been metwith fierce opposition. Charles Miles had organized
(49:25):
several of those successful pro union movementsand cities in the North. However,
he'd been recently tapped as the utw'snew Southern organizer. Miles attempted to organize
at other mills around the South,but they all fell flat. After that,
he shifted his focus to the FultonBag and Cotton Mill in Atlanta.
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He hoped to tap into the unrestthat already existed amongst the workers. That
spring, he organized a local chapterof United Textile Workers. It would be
called Local eight six. Through Marchand April, Local eight eight six enlisted
as many Fulton Bag workers as possible. Charles Miles knew that the only hope
(50:10):
they had of making change was inrecruiting more members to the union. Has
Oscar Elsis heard of these efforts tounionize, he retaliated with even more firings.
Anyone who showed interest or attended localmeetings was instantly terminated. The remaining
workers at the mill were furious asthey saw one friend after another fired not
(50:35):
for poor performance, but for possiblybeing affiliated with the union. Charles Miles
and as fellow leaders at Local eighteight six planned their CounterPunch. They decided
to organize a citywide meeting for Atlanta'stextile workers, those at both Fulton Bag
as well as the other large cottonmill in town Exposition. They printed flyer
(51:00):
and distribute them all throughout the millvillage. You can see the actual flyer
in the vault. Here's a snapshotof what the flyer said. Big bold
text workers Attention. A special meetingof the loom fixers, weavers, spinners,
carters and other operatives will be heldin Chastain Hall Friday evening eight pm.
(51:20):
Get together, unite, organize.The time is at hand when the
cotton mill operatives must organize and securefor themselves and their families a larger share
in the prosperity and progress of theage. A decent number of workers from
both mills showed up to the meeting. Charles Miles led the proceedings, and
(51:40):
the focus of conversation quickly turned tothe possibility of a strike at the crown
jewel of the Southern textile trade,the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill. Just
a few days later, a secondmeeting was held, this one in the
odd Fellows Building down on Decatur Street. This meeting, the union enlisted even
(52:01):
more members, and once the meetingstarted, the primary topic of conversation a
strike at Fulton Bag. The pieceswere falling into place. By May the
nineteenth, the boiling point had beenreached. You might even say that a
sense of pervasive fatalism had set in. Workers met in a secretive meeting that
(52:27):
night to air their grievances and plantheir next move. They expressed deep resentment
over the firing of their coworkers forbeing associated with the union. They criticized
the dreaded labor contract. They decriedthe institution of child labor. They scoffed
at their pitiful wages, and theycursed the filth and squalor of the mill
(52:49):
village. When the dust settled,a decision had to be made. Would
they continue with business as usual orwould they go on strife. It was
put to a vote submitted by secretballot. After tabulating their results it was
nearly unanimous, three fifty votes forand just three votes against. It was
(53:17):
official. They would walk off thejob. The next morning, the people
of Atlanta's humble Appalachian Mill village wereabout to stage a revolt against one of
the largest manufacturers in the American South. This was no small matter, certainly
(53:37):
not to the hot tempered president ofthe Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill. Oh
No, to him, this wasno tepid offense. This wasn't just a
little hiccup that would be placated throughamicable negotiations. No, no, this
was a unified movement of resistance againsthis cotton empire, and to him,
(54:00):
it was nothing less than a declarationof war. Oscar Else's was not the
type of man to be caught unprepared. In fact, he already had a
plan in place and near unlimited resources. How would he respond? We'll find
out next time on Catlic. Iteased it at the top of the episode,
(54:40):
but I'm excited to announce our firstguest at our catlic Live finale,
Atlanta comic David Purdue will be joiningus as our host in MC for the
night, and I'm super pumped.David is a friend of mine and recognized
as one of the top comics inall of Atlanta. He's formed on Comedy
Central, Fuse and at comedy festivalsall over the country. Join me and
(55:07):
David and the rest of our CatolicLive Finale lineup at Polywood Place here in
Atlanta on March fourteenth. We've gotan unbelievable night planned, plus a kick
ass after party at Monday Night Garage. Go get your tickets today before they
sell out at catlick dot com.And while you're there, you can also
get tickets to our Catlick Walking tourshappening that same weekend. Once again,
(55:32):
you can find all that information atcatlick dot com. Cheers. Catlick is
recorded in Atlanta's historic Cabbagetown neighborhood.Executive producer walnut Ridge Harmon original music by
Doucel cover art by Rachel Eleanor Catlickstore manager Bret Harmon Special Thing thanks to
(56:00):
the staff at the Georgia Institute ofTechnology, Library, Archives and Special Collections.
Catolic Instagram Follower of the Week MandyGoodwin, Catlick Instagrams Story Stars of
the Week Sham Breezy and Cat Wilder. Thanks for sharing, guys. Catolic
(56:20):
Instagram Commenter of the Week Major Nateeleven, who says, my wife is
usually the crime aficionado in our house, but you have me hooked. Keep
up the phenomenal work. Thank you, Major Nate eleven. Only four episodes
left, but I'll keep it upat least till then. Catlick Twitter Follower
(56:43):
of the Week Andrew Field. OurVault subscribers have been loving the visual artifacts
we've been posting lately. We're upto more than three hundred images and we're
adding new stuff every week. Aswe continue talking about Cabbage Town, I'm
going to be posting lots of photosfrom around the neighborhood today and I'm even
hoping to do a video tour ofthe cotton mill what it looks like today.
(57:06):
If you haven't done it yet,you can subscribe to the Vault at
Catolic dot com. Just click onvault and finally, Catolic is independently written
and produced by me bt Harmon.Signing off, I'd like to remind you
to save old buildings, build bikelanes, and vote for public transit.
(57:27):
We'll see you in the next episode.
Catolic fans, Welcome to episode eighteen. I'm super glad you're here. Our
Catolic Lie finale is coming soon.Don't forget it's March the fourteenth. The
event is already sixty three percent soldout, so be sure to get your
tickets to both the live finale andour Catolic Walking tours at catlic dot com.
(00:22):
Also, I'm going to reveal ourfirst special guest joining us at the
finale. Just stick around to theend of this episode to hear who it
is. All right, that's it. Enjoy Episode eighteen. This episode references
historical moments that are violent and attimes sexual. Listener discretion is advised.
(00:58):
On the morning of August first,nineteen eighty four, sixteen year old David
Samples slides into a phone booth atthe corner of Boulevard and Memorial Drive.
Memorial Drive is a busy road thatmarks the southern boundary of Atlanta's Cabbage Town
neighborhood. This early in the morning, the streets of Atlanta are still dark
(01:19):
and mostly empty. It's August inthe South, so it's also hot and
humid even at four am. Davidpulls a quarter out of his pocket.
He has to make an important phonecall. He's crying. That phone booth
(01:47):
at Boulevard and Memorial is, ofcourse no longer there. I walk or
drive by this intersection almost every day. It's just a couple of blocks south
of my place in Cabbage Town.By nineteen eighty four, Cabbagetown had fallen
into near anarchy. The cotton millthat had anchored the neighborhood's economy for a
century had closed back in the seventies. For the white working class people of
(02:09):
Cabbage Town, the shuttering of themill was an economic catastrophe. These generations
of Cabbagetown families had worked at thatmill, and when it closed, many
of the residents, already dirt floorpoor, had few other options. Mass
unemployment led to mass poverty, andthe poverty swept in like a plague.
(02:31):
The data show that around this time, Cabbage Town's annual income by household was
about seven thousand bucks. As apoint of comparison, that was about half
of what other households around Atlanta broughtin each year. The crime statistics were
also pretty shocking by Atlanta standards.Cabbage Town is a tiny neighborhood with a
(02:53):
really small geographic footprint, only sixteenhundred people lived there. In the nineteen
eighties, the neighborhood's crime rate wasa staggering one point seven crimes for every
ten residents. At the time,that was twice the average for the rest
of Atlanta. I suppose lots ofpeople would assume nineteen eighties Atlanta crime would
(03:15):
be mostly the work of black gangs, but the reality is one of the
most lawless neighborhoods in Atlanta back thenwas purely white. The unique thing about
Cabbagetown's crime epidemic of the nineteen eightieswas that it was driven mostly by children.
Back then, local reporters would journeyinto the neighborhood and write detailed stories
(03:38):
on Cabbage Town, often likening itto the Lord of the Flies, with
barefoot gangs of four foot tall,pudgy faced renegades wreaking havoc in the streets.
One of those reporters was the brilliantjournalist Susan Faludi, who at the
time worked for the Atlanta Journal Constitution. I'm drawing heavily here from an article
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she wrote in nineteen eighty four titledChildren of Crisis, with lots of adults
unemployed, sick, addicted, orincarcerated. The kids of Cabbage Town took
over the streets. The stories fromback then are pretty bad. One kid,
fed up with his mom's drunk livinboyfriend, smashed his head with a
brick. Another fifteen year old reportedseeing one of his friends beat his own
(04:23):
mother with a belt up reverse spankingif you will. Street fights with guns
and knives were common. In nineteenseventy eight, the Atlanta Swat Team swarmed
into Cabbage Town after reports of adouble fisting seventeen year old walking down Burian
Avenue with a rifle in one handand a shotgun in the other. One
resident said he looked like wyat herb. Substance abuse was rampant as well.
(04:48):
One kid reported that he'd been drinkingbeer with his dad since quote I was
a baby and none. Surprisingly,lots of kids were hooked on drugs.
Model airplane glue was the neighborhood nectar. It was inexpensive, easy to get,
and huffing it gave a quick high. Tragically, There was also widespread
(05:11):
child prostitution, which surprisingly attracted moreboys than girls. Men slowly cruising through
Cabbagetown looking for sex with kids hadbeen a thing for as long as anyone
could remember. An older lady namedLewis wrote a letter to the editor of
the Constitution back in the eighties.She remembered seeing men cruising the neighborhood for
(05:31):
sex when she was a Cabbagetown kidway back in the nineteen thirties and forties.
Predators are always drawn to pockets ofdowntrodden people, and for as long
as anyone could remember, Cabbagetown hadbeen veried downtrodden. In the eighties,
most of the boys drawn into prostitutionjust did it for the money, a
quick buck for kids with a fewother options. They'd also travel beyond the
(05:56):
borders of Cabbagetown to meet men towell known cruising hot spots like Grant Park
or over in Midtown off Crescent Street. Police back then called these kids hustlers,
and it was well known that theyoungest ones always came from Cabbage Town.
Boys as young as eight were oftenseen getting into the cars of older
men. David Samples our crying sixteenyear old kid in the phone booth at
(06:26):
four am. He was one ofthose hustlers. By the time he was
sixteen, David had been meeting menfor years. He learned the lucrative ritual
from his older brothers, Mike andRonnie. However, by now both Mike
and Ronnie were serving time in jail. Mike, the middle brother, was
incarcerated on charges of kidnapping. Inher article, Susan Faludi tells a really
(06:50):
disturbing story. When Mike was akid, Ronnie taught him how to torture
a chicken by holding a flame toits beak. Of the three boys,
Ronnie was the roughest. In nineteeneighty one, Ronnie was sentenced to life
in prison for murder. As thestory goes, he'd been picked up by
(07:11):
a lawyer in Atlanta one night.For whatever reason, Ronnie decided to rob
the guy instead, so he beathim unconscious and kept beating him. When
Ronnie realized the guy was dead,he threw his body into a pond in
South Atlanta. For his effort,he got eleven bucks from the guy's wallet.
So by the time David Samples steppedinto that phone booth in August of
(07:33):
nineteen eighty four, his mother,Barbara Jackson, had endured more heartbreak than
any person should have to bear withtwo sons already behind bars for serious offenses.
Sixteen year old David was her lasthope that one of her kids might
get out of cabbage Town and makesomething of himself. On this particular night,
(08:03):
Barbara Jackson has jolted out of asound sleep. She sends his trouble
no good phone calls are made atfour am. It's David, her sixteen
year old son. She can tellhe's sobbing. In an interview, Barbara
later recounted the conversation, Mama,I just called to say I love you.
(08:26):
David's voice is a bit slurred.David. Are you messed up on
any drugs? She asks, No, Mama, I'm just drinking some beer
and hanging out. She doesn't knowit, but he's lying. He continues,
Mama, I want to get lockedup so I can be with Ronnie.
(08:50):
Barbara leaps out of bed and franticallybegins getting dressed. She tells him
to hang on and that she's onher way. Dave. It hangs up
the phone as David sets down thereceiver. Atlanta Police officer John Oglesby is
(09:11):
driving by that very same phone booth. Someone had called in to report that
a young white man was walking downMemorial Drive shouting obcinities. Oglesby had been
dispatched to investigate, according to theofficer. As he approached the phone booth,
he observed a person inside, movingand motioning erratically. He rolls down
his window to check on him.He's promptly greeted by a flurry of curses.
(09:37):
David Samples is not here for afriendly chat. Oglesby parks his car
in a nearby lot, opens thedoor, and gets out. David stumbles
out of the phone booth, andas he does, he struggles to take
off his shirt. He's now walkingtowards Officer Oglesby, shirtless and shouting curses
(09:58):
and nonsense. David pauses. Helooks down and sees a bottle on the
sidewalk. He bends over to pickit up and launches it in the direction
of the officer. The boy keepsadvancing, the situation escalating with each step.
David Samples made several bad decisions thatnight, but his next one would
(10:18):
be the costliest. As the barechested sixteen year old staggers towards Officer Oglesby,
he reaches behind his back. Ogleby'straining had conditioned him for moments just
like this, his hand goes tohis holster. When David Sample's hand reappears
from behind his back, he's clutchinga pocket knife. He begins opening it,
(10:43):
but before he can, Officer JohnOglesby draws his weapon and fires five
rounds rip through David's thin frame.He falls to the pavement streams of red.
David Samples takes his last breath.Moments later, Barbara Jackson tops a
(11:07):
hill on Memorial Drive, and asshe does, she sees the blue and
red flashes of police lights. Bynow her instincts about her boys are rarely
wrong. She knows David, heryoungest son, is dead. The David
(11:35):
Sample's death made the local news.There was a major outcry amongst the Cabbage
Town locals accusations of police brutality.Local law enforcement released statements saying that John
Oglesby responded appropriately. An officer beingadvanced upon by an armed combatant has the
right to use lethal force. Theysaid the officer would later be officially exonerated
(11:58):
of any wrongdoing. In her writing, journalist Susan Faludi said that Cabbage Town
was under a dark cloud of quotepervasive fatalism. Fatalism defined as the belief
that all events are predetermined and thereforeinevitable. Predetermined events inevitable events. How
(12:26):
does a tiny neighborhood in the heartof a prosperous city fall into such despair
that the people just give up,resigning themselves to utter hopelessness. How do
children in an American city become gluesniffing, gun wielding child prostitutes? And
how does a mother lose three sonsviciously devoured by a single neighborhood. Well,
(12:54):
it certainly doesn't happen overnight, OhNo. Pervasive fatalism creeps like a
mold. It slithers like a snakeacross the decades and under the floorboards,
suffocating light and laying new eggs inthe dark. When people disdain people,
(13:15):
evil begets evil, greed begets greed, hate begets hate, and if no
one steps in the darkness hatches anewwith each generation. You're listening to episode
eighteen of Catlic Trouble in the CottonEmpire Welcome Back. It's January of nineteen
(14:20):
fourteen, Month thirty seven of ourstory. Leo Frank is imprisoned at the
Fulton Tower as his legal team continuesthe appeals process. Meanwhile, our focus
has shifted a mile or so eastof downtown Atlanta to an area we call
cabbage Town. Now, for thesake of historical accuracy, I must acknowledge
(14:43):
here that Cabbagetown wasn't always called Cabbagetown. It didn't pick up that name until
about the nineteen forties. There aretwo competing stories for where the name came
from. The first is that onetime a truck full of cabbages overturned in
the neighborhood. The locals flooded thestreets, gathered them up, and retreated
back to their homes before being caught. The second, which is the story
(15:07):
that I sort of prefer, isthat the people of Cabbagetown were so poor
most of them could only afford cabbagefor dinner, and so when other Atlantins
would pass by at dusk, theirnoses would be greeted by the unmistakable pungent
odor of cabbage boiling in all thehomes. Before it was called Cabbagetown,
most people around the city referred toit as factory Town or just the mill
(15:30):
village. But for the sake ofsimplicity, I'll just be calling at Cabbagetown.
In the last episode, I introducedyou to Jacob Elsis, an orphaned
Jewish immigrant who moved to Atlanta afterthe Civil War with the goal of starting
a business. Based on what weknow about him, Jacob Elsis was a
brilliant entrepreneur. He started multiple businesseswith various partners in the eighteen seventies,
(15:54):
and by eighteen eighty one he'd raisedenough money from investors to buy some land
east of downtown, the area wenow call Cabbage Town. In eighteen eighty
one, the first bricks were laidfor the Fulton Cotton Spinning Company. The
main product of this new cotton millwould be fabric bags. Before the widespread
(16:14):
use of plastic and cardboard boxes,most things were stored, carried, or
shipped in large cotton bags. Elsi'sspotted a gap in the market and knew
the demand was there. Atlanta coulduse a bag manufacturer of its own.
Despite the opportunity, Elsis had onemajor hurdle to overcome labor In a pre
(16:38):
robotics world, Staffing these giant factorieswas a pain in the ass. Hundreds
and hundreds of bodies were needed tooperate the mill and avoid interruptions in production.
Other manufacturing facilities around Atlanta had beencrippled by labor shortages in the late
eighteen hundreds, so Jacob Elsis hatcheda plan. He'd syndrome recruiters far north,
(17:00):
beyond forsythe County into the Misty Mountainsof North Georgia. The Southern Appalachian
Mountain Range loosely begins in North Georgiaand then stretches up the eastern coast of
the US all the way to Maine. The Mills recruiters landed in what's called
the Piedmont region of the Appalachians.This is a rugged, densely forested area
(17:22):
today, so you can imagine whatit was like in the late eighteen hundreds.
The Piedmont was an economically depressed area, so when recruiters from Fulton Bag
showed up promising steady jobs in thebig city, people listened. Of course,
this wasn't an isolated thing. Thiswas happening all over as the industrial
revolutions swept across America, people uprootingtheir lives on rural farmsteads and relocating to
(17:48):
cities and urban factories. Well,the recruitment plan was successful and entire families
began migrating to Atlanta to begin theirnew lives. Elsis arranged for simple wood
framed houses to be built on theland around the factory. Back then,
it was fairly common for large industrialoperations to provide on site housing for their
(18:11):
workers, and when you drive throughCabbage Town today, you'll see some of
these same shotgun style houses that werebuilt more than a hundred years ago.
By eighteen eighty one, the factorywas fully staffed and open for business,
and within several years it was booming. By the eighteen nineties, Elsis was
(18:33):
adding more buildings to expand his productioncapacity. Around this time, they also
renamed the facility. It was nowthe Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill. With
the proven process and place, FultonBag began expanding to other cities, opening
up more mills in New Orleans,Saint Louis, and beyond. All of
this growth in the eighteen nineties andinto the nineteen hundreds began to make Jacob
(18:57):
Elsis one of the wealthiest men inall of Atlanta, and he often used
that wealth for good. He dispatchedhis wealth to make Atlanta better, making
sizable donations to help establish the GrandOpera House, the Hebrew Orphans Home,
as well as Grady Hospital in theGeorgia Institute of Technology to landmark Atlanta institutions
(19:21):
that are still around today. Bynineteen ten, the Fulton Bag and Cotton
Mill in Atlanta was a massive operation. By revenue, it had become one
of the top five hundred corporations inall of America. Around twelve hundred people
packed into the mill each day,moving, cutting, spinning, sewing,
and processing cotton into bags and avariety of other products. By nineteen thirteen,
(19:47):
Jacob Elsis had been at the helmof the mill for more than thirty
years, and he was planning hisretirement. By then, he'd already decided
on his successor, his son,Oscar. The oldest of eight children,
the son of a millionaire, OscarElsis attended some of the finest schools in
Europe. His dad was helping startGeorgia Tech, so he came back to
(20:11):
Atlanta to finish university as part ofTech's first graduating class in eighteen ninety one.
After finishing school, he worked forhis dad at the Fulton Bag in
Cotton Mill. By the time ofhis father's retirement, Oscar was a vice
president and the seasoned executive in thetextile industry, so by nineteen fourteen,
he was the natural choice as Jacob'ssuccessor and heir to his cotton empire.
(20:37):
Oscar officially took over as president inJanuary of that year. Now Oscar lived
a grand life, rolling into theoffice every day in a shiny black automobile
driven by a personal chauffeur. Aroundthe time of his transition, he moved
(20:57):
his family into a penthouse that thenewly opened Ponts Delion Apartments. The Ponts
Apartments were unlike any other residences inthe city, Rising twelve stories over Atlanta's
posh thoroughfare Peachtree Street. They includedall the latest amenities elevators, heating,
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maid service, mechanical refrigeration, sleepingporches, and even a European style cafe
on the first floor. By nineteenfourteen, the building's tenant list read like
a who's who of Atlanta's elites,familiar names like the Inmans, the Elsises,
and even a candler. Oscar Elsisjoined his gentile elites as one of
(21:44):
the first Atlanta jews with a covetedPeachtree Street address. FYI. This building
miraculously is still standing and is ingreat shape. It looks just like it
did when it opened more than onehundred years ago. It sits directly Caddy
corner to the Fox Theater in Midtown, so be sure to check it out
(22:04):
if you ever visit the area.One of the most celebrated features of the
Pontsteleon apartments was its rooftop gardens.Fancy galas were often held on the rooftop,
and I can imagine Oscar standing withfriends, looking south and proudly pointing
to the smoke stacks of the FultonBag and Cotton Mill in the distance.
(22:30):
However, while the Elsi's family wassettling into their new luxury lifestyle in Midtown,
a very different story was playing outunderneath those smokestacks back in Cabbagetown.
In the thirty years since it hadbeen opened, the mill village had been
gradually degrading into what could only bedescribed as a slum. Through decades of
(22:56):
poverty and neglect, Cabbagetown had becomea full blown public health crisis. Children
as young as six were hooked ontobacco. There was no trash collection,
there was no plumbing, so thesmell of feces filled the streets. Diseases
like typhoid, fever, malaria,tuberculosis, and smallpox were common in the
(23:17):
overcrowded houses. One section of houseswas known as chinch Row because they were
all infested with bedbugs. When thesun went down in Cabbagetown, an army
of moonshiners and prostitutes invaded the streets, eager to make a buck off the
factory's desperate workers. Multiple brothels operatedin Cabbagetown, and STDs spread like wildfire.
(23:44):
Over time, a cottage industry ofsaloons, bars, and brothels set
up shop along the neighborhood's northern borderalong present day Decatur Street. Over the
years, the mill had become theanchor of Atlanta's red light district, and
its people were its best clients.The harsh reality was that, even after
(24:04):
thirty years, these workers recruited fromthe Appalachian Mountains, they just hadn't adapted
to city life that well. Thiswas a community of proud mountaineers in downtown
Atlanta, working in harsh factory conditionsfor very little pay. This social experiment
was starting to look very very bad. One of those mountaineer men of Cabbage
(24:32):
Town was a guy by the nameof John Carson. When Carson moved to
Atlanta, he brought his Appalachian musicwith him, and the key ingredient to
Appalachian music a fiddle. Back then, they actually had fiddling championships, and
(24:53):
Carson was declared the Grand Fiddling Championof Georgia on seven different occasion. This
eventually earned him the moniker Fiddland JohnCarson. Most people think country music got
its start in Nashville, Tennessee.However, that's not exactly true. Country
(25:17):
music really got its start in CabbageTown when Fiddland John Carson recorded what many
believed to be the first ever recordingof country folk music. Now that all
happened in the nineteen twenties. Innineteen fourteen, John Carson was just another
worker at the Fulton Bag and CottonMill, though he'd entertained with his fiddle
in the alleyways and saloons whenever hecould. It's worth mentioning here that Fiddland
(25:44):
John Carson could be a real asshole. He had at least one super racist
song as well as a song calledIt's a Shame to whip your wife On
Sunday why you may be wondering,was it a shame to whip your wife
on Sunday? Just listen a gameyour wife Sonday? If the game your
(26:10):
wife Sunday, when you got Monday, body that in your game? Wife?
Yeah, so there's that. Aroundthis same time, we know that
Fiddland, John Carson wrote another songabout a certain murder mystery in Atlanta.
(26:37):
Man. This is the Ballad ofLittle Mary Fagan, written by John Carson,
vocals by his daughter Rosa Lee.Leo Frank's about to get called out.
(26:59):
Listen Leo the lyrics. Leo Frankmet her with a brutely heart.
(27:27):
We know. He smiled and said, little Mary, you'll go home no
more. Sneaked along behind her tillshe reached the metal room. He laughed
and said, little Mary, youhave met your fatal doom. Now.
I'm pointing this out to highlight amajor social disconnect in Cabbage Town, the
(27:48):
tension between the mill's poor Appalachian workersand it's wealthy Jewish owner managers. The
economic rift between low paid wage workersand wealthy elites isn't exactly unique. That
happens in lots of big companies,But what was unique then was the added
layer of anti Semitism floating around Atlantathat made it even worse. As the
(28:11):
Atlanta papers continually demonized Leo Frank HisJewish faith and heritage was often mentioned,
and these correlations fed into a lotof stereotypes. That anti Jewish bias eventually
crept into Cabbage Town and was easilytransferred over to the factory's Jewish ownership,
who many of the workers already despised. It seems likely that there was some
(28:37):
unwarranted tension there. However, therewas some warranted tension as well, and
that seemed to be caused by oneperson, Oscar Elsis. Remember Oscar's dad,
Jacob, was an orphan immigrant whocame from nothing. He knew what
it was like to be dirt poor, so when he walked the floors of
the Fulton Bag and Cotton mill,he likely felt some kinship with his poor
(29:02):
Appalachian workers. He could see himselfin them, simple hard working people just
trying to get by. But hisson, Oscar, yeah, he was
different. Remember he was the sonof a millionaire. He couldn't relate at
all with these mill workers, nordid he try. He often called them
the help and viewed them as justgenerally shiftless, irresponsible, and inherently immoral.
(29:30):
He had nothing in common with them, so he didn't really care to
get to know him. Oscar alsoemployed the largest office staff of any mill
in the South, and they sortof served as a buffer between him and
his blue collar workforce. Oscar's managementstyle was also very different than his father's.
(29:51):
He was a heavy handed autocrat knownfor belligerent fits of rage. He
had a short fuse with the workerswho viewed as low class simpletons. Descriptions
of work inside the mill under Oscarsound like a living hill. I'm drawing
(30:11):
here from the work of Clifford Coonand Gary Fink, two historians who've done
amazing research on the mill. Oscarauthorized a sixty hour workweek, which kept
workers on their feet for eleven totwelve hours straight. He was obsessed with
efficiency, so lunch breaks were limitedto thirty minutes or less. Fink describes
(30:33):
the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill asa fortress surrounded by tall walls studded at
the top with spikes and broken glass. The windows of the mill were made
of smoked glass. That way workersdidn't waste time by looking outside. Conditions
inside the mill were just generally toxic, so workers got sick a lot.
(30:56):
Some said working in the mill waslike working in an oven, and they
suffered from chronic pain, fatigue,and migraine headaches. Workers also reported that
managers spoke to them like they weredogs. Women claimed sexual harassment was a
common occurrence. Now, maybe allof this would be bearable if the pay
(31:17):
was good, right well, payrecords show workers in the card room made
about eight bucks per week when adjustedfor inflation and sort of spread out over
the year. This equates to amodern day salary of about nine thousand dollars
annually. But even that wasn't guaranteed. Due to Oscar's crazy finding system.
(31:42):
At Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill,you could be fined for anything, breaking
equipment, showing up late, oreven taking an unauthorized water break. Of
course, you could have your finesforgiven simply by reporting fellow employee ease for
shoddy work. Oscar rewarded tattling,knowing that this would keep workers suspicious of
(32:07):
each other, a slide tactic designedto undermine employee unity. One of the
most hated aspects of working at FultonBag was the dreaded contract that employees were
forced to sign for one. Employeescould be fired for any reason, had
any time. Furthermore, after workingyou had to wait a week to receive
(32:29):
your pay. You were also requiredto give a week's notice before quitting,
and if you didn't, you forfeitedthat week's worth of pay. Now this
might not sound like a big deal, but for very poor people with no
savings and no other means to provide, this could be financially devastating. It
could mean that your kids don't eatfor an entire week. This last point,
(32:51):
the one about withholding worker's pay,was quite unusual, because no other
mill in Georgia had a clause likethat. Over time, Oscar was criticized
for it, and some even questionedwhether it was legal for him to enforce
it. His response a direct quote, I have made up my mind on
the subject, and I will notchange the contract system until hell freezes over.
(33:15):
I would sooner shut down these millsand keep them so until moss and
any other kind of vegetation would growover their windows than agree to change my
attitude upon that question. Yeah,Oscar not one for mincing words. Perhaps
Oscar's greatest shame lied in his useof child labor. This was the mill's
(33:39):
dirty little secret. Company records showthat about twelve percent of the workforce was
between the ages of ten and sixteen. These children worked the same sixty hour
week as everybody else, and itreaked havoc on their health. One mom
reported that her young daughter had breathingproblems, constant headaches, and walked with
(34:01):
a stoop. Over time, themills oppressive work environment took its toll.
How bad was it well, inone year, ten thousand people worked in
a factory that only had twelve hundredjobs. That's ten thousand people for twelve
(34:22):
hundred jobs. That's a turnover rateof more than eight hundred percent. As
a matter of comparisons, similar millsaround Georgia reported turnover around twenty five percent.
When confronted with that stat Oscar saidthat the other mill owners, yeah,
they're just cooking the numbers to makethemselves look better. This. All
(34:45):
of this was building as the angergrew, As the desperation grew, Rumors
began to spread through the back alleysof Cabbage Town and in the pubs over
onto Cater Street frequented by Fulton bagworkers. A storm was coming, and
even in his Ivory tower on PeachtreeStreet, Oscar Elsis would not be able
(35:07):
to avoid it. By February ofnineteen fourteen, Leo Frank had settled into
his cell at the Fulton Tower,having resigned himself to make the best of
a bad situation. He kept hiscell neat and tidy. He exercised daily
(35:30):
and received visits from friends and familywho'd bring him food, coffee, and
newspapers. When the Constitution caught windof this, they published a story about
it shocker headline, Cell now likeliving room. Behind the scenes, efforts
were made to build a coalition ofwealthy and influential Jewish supporters from across the
(35:53):
nation to help fund and promote Frank'scause. However, even amongst these Jewish
leaders, this effort was met withskepticism. Some worried that if they interfered
too much in the case, therecould be a big public backlash anger that
Jewish outsiders, or worse yet,Jewish Northerners were meddling with justice in the
(36:15):
South. Nevertheless, several big namesthrough their hat in the ring, deciding
that the pr risk was worth tryingto save Leo Frank from the gallows.
Having been denied a new trial byJudge Rone, Frank's legal team escalated their
appeal to the Georgia Supreme Court.They restated their case and yet again attempted
(36:39):
to fix the blame on the factorysweeper Jim Conley. After listening to the
arguments and then weeks of reviewing thetrial's transcripts, the Georgia Supreme Court rendered
their decision in a fourd to twovote. They declined to grant Leo Frank
a new trial, another devastating loss. However, in the wake of this
(37:04):
disappointing ruling, Frank's legal team chalkedup a handful of winds, at least
with public perception. It was revealedthat the strands of hair found on the
machinery in the middle room did notin fact match the hair of Mary Fagan.
Furthermore, some cried scandal when itwas revealed that Solicitor Hugh Dorsey,
Yeah, he knew about this theentire time during the trial and never said
(37:29):
anything about it. There were alsoseveral notable retractions. In early nineteen fourteen,
a handful of witnesses who testified againstLeo Frank came forward and said that
they either flat out lied about it, or they were coerced to lie.
One particular madam was one of them. Nina Formby had claimed that leoh Frank
(37:51):
was a regular of hers at herhouse of ill repute. She said that
on the day of the murder,he called her looking for a place to
store Mary Fagan's body. However,Madame Formby later retracted her statement, saying
she didn't even know Leo Frank andthat she'd been coerced to say that by
some Atlanta detectives. Another one,George Epps. This was the kid who
(38:15):
allegedly rode the street call with Maryon the day she died. Well.
He admitted that his story was alsomade up and that Detective John Black put
him up to it. The defensewas feeling better by the day, and
they had a right to be,especially when they found out that one of
the biggest names in American journalism wouldbe unofficially joining team Frank. Adolph Oakes
(38:40):
was the powerful publisher of the NewYork Times. He was also a Jewish
Man who'd been raised in the South. In February of nineteen fourteen, the
Times ran multiple front page articles aboutthe Leo Frank case and appeals process,
and all of them were favorable towardsFrank. At one point they interviewed Luther
(39:02):
Rosser, one of Frank's attorneys.They asked him why Frank was convicted in
the first place. Here's Rosser's response, The Jewish population of Atlanta is not
large. Frank came to Atlanta astranger and engaged in a new enterprise.
He knew hardly anybody who was notof his own religion, being closely occupied
(39:24):
with his business, and this factrather counted against him. I really believe
if Frank had been the son ofa reputable gentile, he would never have
been arrested. What had been duringthe trial a mostly regional story was now
becoming a national story. Around thissame time, another influential Jewish man came
(39:50):
to Frank's defense. Albert Lasker wasa wealthy and seasoned advertising maven from Chicago.
Though he attempted to remain off theradar, it's no secret why Lasker
came to Atlanta to help reshape thepublic opinion of Leo Frank, and over
time it seemed to work. Morepapers around the country began covering the story,
(40:12):
and most of them were pretty positive. Towards Leo Frank. Two of
the biggest names in American history evenlent their names to the cause. Thomas
Edison and Henry Ford publicly stated theirbelief that the Frank trial was rotten and
that he deserved a new one.Now. Albert Lasker did more than just
(40:34):
lead a pr effort, He alsoquietly hired the most famous private eye in
the world, William Burns. Burnswas a larger than life character with international
fame. He was mythical, almostlike a real life Sherlock Holmes. He
traveled the world investigating famous burglaries,salacious murders, and unbelief vabal heists.
(41:01):
When the press found out Burns wastaking up the Frank case, they lost
their minds with excitement. A celebrityinvestigator was coming to Atlanta to once and
for all solve the Merry Fagan murdermystery. When William Burns arrived at Atlanta's
(41:21):
terminal station, he was besieged byreporters and photographers. In the following weeks,
they followed him everywhere he went aroundthe city. Burns boasted several times
that, unlike the others, hewould be able to crack the case.
Burns and his team got to work. Despite a few positive developments in the
(41:45):
case, Frank's legal team was runningout of legal options. Days after the
Georgia Supreme Court ruling, Frank appearedback in court. It was time to
once again schedule the execution. Thejudge made his pronouncement Frank would now die
on April seventeenth, nineteen fourteen.Coincidentally, or perhaps not, this date
(42:10):
was Leo Frank's birthday, his thirtiethbirthday. In February, there was also
news with Jim Conley. On thetwenty fourth of that month, Conley was
sentenced to one year on the GeorgiaState Chain Gang for his role as an
accomplice in the murder of Mary Fagin. However, that wasn't all. After
(42:35):
a few weeks on the job,Detective William Burns made a bombshell of an
announcement. He had acquired a seriesof love letters written between Jim Conley and
his jailhouse lover, a lady namedAnna maud Carter. It was something like
forty pages of handwritten letters. Now, the papers refused to print the content
(42:59):
of these letters because they were justso vulgar. By the way I've read
some of these letters, and Ican confirm they're pretty saucy, even by
today's standards, So I can imaginewhat someone in nineteen fourteen must have thought.
What did these letters prove? Burnsexplains, they show, beyond apparent
(43:24):
adventure of a death, that Conleyis an abnormal man, just the vile,
degenerate creature that I have heretofore picturedhim. Burns believed that this was
proof that Conley was a monster,a twisted sexual pervert fully capable of killing
Mary Fagan. Detective Burns also hiredmen to analyze the handwriting and syntax of
(43:51):
the letters. He claimed that itwas an identical match to the murder notes
found near Mary's body, but thenthe real zinger This from the New York
Times. Detective Burns also said thathe believed he would be able to prove
that Conley is the Jack the Ripperwho murdered about twenty Negro girls in the
(44:15):
last three years. Each of thesewomen was mutilated, and by the body
of each the murderer left a note. Some of the notes bear marked resemblance
in words and handwriting to those foundby Mary Fagan's body. This was a
spectacular accusation a potential bridge between twoof the biggest news stories in Atlanta's history.
(44:43):
Could it be that Jim Conley wasnot only the killer of Mary Fagan,
but also the killer of all thoseyoung black women from a few years
earlier? Could it be that JimConley was the Atlanta Ripper. Well,
I'll say this one red flag concerningthe accuracy of this article is that Atlanta
(45:07):
police did not in fact find amurder note by all the bodies of the
Ripper victims. For my research,I only found a couple of instances where
a note was left. So unlessAtlanta Police had been withholding this knowledge from
the media, I'd seriously question thatclaim. So I'm not sure where the
(45:27):
New York Times got that from.I will say, like many of the
other women, Mary was murdered ona Saturday night, but that circumstantial at
best. Now I'll go ahead andspoil this by telling you that nothing else
really came from the William Burns conlyas the Ripper accusation slash conspiracy theory.
(45:53):
I've spent considerable time looking into this, and I can't really find much beyond
this initial report that he sort ofmade that claim After all this, the
Anna Maud Carter letters, Oh,they would be discussed much more, and
Dorsey would claim that Burns had forgedthem. They were fakes, he said,
well, Burns would counter that itwasn't a fake. At one point,
(46:15):
Carter Conley's jailhouse lover claimed that Conleyhad privately confessed to her that he
had killed Mary Faken, but thenshe later retracted her statements, saying that
someone had told her to say that. It's all really exhausting when you dig,
really start digging into this case.All the claims and counterclaims and retractions
(46:37):
are really just a huge cluster ofconfusion. It'll make your head spin.
By the beginning of April, itwas crunch time for Leo Frank's attorneys.
They filed a new motion in theFulton Superior Court that was well received.
Frank's execution was pushed back yet again, this time to January of nineteen fifteen.
(47:04):
This bought Frank and his attorneys severalmore precious months to continue building their
case towards his innocence. However,with more time comes more costs. By
April, the costs associated with Frank'sdefense had become enormous. The fees of
the lawyers, the private investigators,and others were north of fifty thousand dollars.
(47:27):
At this point, a push wasmade to raise funds, and several
wealthy men, mostly Jewish, cameto Frank's aid with sizable donations, and
one of those men president of theFulton Bag and Cotton Mill, Oscar Elsis.
(47:50):
While Oscar Elsis was certainly keeping aneye on the Leo Frank drama,
that was the least of his worries. By the spring of nineteen fourteen,
room of a strike at the FultonBag and Cotton Mill were out of control.
For the previous few months, Oscarhadn't been dealing with all kinds of
worker drama, and most worrisome ofall, the U word was being tossed
(48:14):
around for a wannabe robber. Barredin the nineteen tens, there was no
dirty your word then. Union employeesat Fulton Bag were strictly forbidden from unionizing,
and even talking about it could getthem fired. From the end of
nineteen thirteen through the beginning of nineteenfourteen, Elsis had been on a quiet
(48:37):
hunt, routing out anyone known tobe a union sympathizer. He fired dozens
of people he suspected of stirring upunion talk. As the rumors of the
discontent and Cabbage Town swirled, wordsomehow reached officials with United Textile Workers UTW
for short. UTW was a tradeunion that advocated on behalf of workers in
(49:01):
the textile industry. Over the years, they'd been very successful in helping low
wage workers organize into unions that couldapply pressure on factory owners. However,
their efforts had been successful mostly inthe North. Previous attempts to organize labor
unions in the South had been metwith fierce opposition. Charles Miles had organized
(49:25):
several of those successful pro union movementsand cities in the North. However,
he'd been recently tapped as the utw'snew Southern organizer. Miles attempted to organize
at other mills around the South,but they all fell flat. After that,
he shifted his focus to the FultonBag and Cotton Mill in Atlanta.
(49:46):
He hoped to tap into the unrestthat already existed amongst the workers. That
spring, he organized a local chapterof United Textile Workers. It would be
called Local eight six. Through Marchand April, Local eight eight six enlisted
as many Fulton Bag workers as possible. Charles Miles knew that the only hope
(50:10):
they had of making change was inrecruiting more members to the union. Has
Oscar Elsis heard of these efforts tounionize, he retaliated with even more firings.
Anyone who showed interest or attended localmeetings was instantly terminated. The remaining
workers at the mill were furious asthey saw one friend after another fired not
(50:35):
for poor performance, but for possiblybeing affiliated with the union. Charles Miles
and as fellow leaders at Local eighteight six planned their CounterPunch. They decided
to organize a citywide meeting for Atlanta'stextile workers, those at both Fulton Bag
as well as the other large cottonmill in town Exposition. They printed flyer
(51:00):
and distribute them all throughout the millvillage. You can see the actual flyer
in the vault. Here's a snapshotof what the flyer said. Big bold
text workers Attention. A special meetingof the loom fixers, weavers, spinners,
carters and other operatives will be heldin Chastain Hall Friday evening eight pm.
(51:20):
Get together, unite, organize.The time is at hand when the
cotton mill operatives must organize and securefor themselves and their families a larger share
in the prosperity and progress of theage. A decent number of workers from
both mills showed up to the meeting. Charles Miles led the proceedings, and
(51:40):
the focus of conversation quickly turned tothe possibility of a strike at the crown
jewel of the Southern textile trade,the Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill. Just
a few days later, a secondmeeting was held, this one in the
odd Fellows Building down on Decatur Street. This meeting, the union enlisted even
(52:01):
more members, and once the meetingstarted, the primary topic of conversation a
strike at Fulton Bag. The pieceswere falling into place. By May the
nineteenth, the boiling point had beenreached. You might even say that a
sense of pervasive fatalism had set in. Workers met in a secretive meeting that
(52:27):
night to air their grievances and plantheir next move. They expressed deep resentment
over the firing of their coworkers forbeing associated with the union. They criticized
the dreaded labor contract. They decriedthe institution of child labor. They scoffed
at their pitiful wages, and theycursed the filth and squalor of the mill
(52:49):
village. When the dust settled,a decision had to be made. Would
they continue with business as usual orwould they go on strife. It was
put to a vote submitted by secretballot. After tabulating their results it was
nearly unanimous, three fifty votes forand just three votes against. It was
(53:17):
official. They would walk off thejob. The next morning, the people
of Atlanta's humble Appalachian Mill village wereabout to stage a revolt against one of
the largest manufacturers in the American South. This was no small matter, certainly
(53:37):
not to the hot tempered president ofthe Fulton Bag and Cotton Mill. Oh
No, to him, this wasno tepid offense. This wasn't just a
little hiccup that would be placated throughamicable negotiations. No, no, this
was a unified movement of resistance againsthis cotton empire, and to him,
(54:00):
it was nothing less than a declarationof war. Oscar Else's was not the
type of man to be caught unprepared. In fact, he already had a
plan in place and near unlimited resources. How would he respond? We'll find
out next time on Catlic. Iteased it at the top of the episode,
(54:40):
but I'm excited to announce our firstguest at our catlic Live finale,
Atlanta comic David Purdue will be joiningus as our host in MC for the
night, and I'm super pumped.David is a friend of mine and recognized
as one of the top comics inall of Atlanta. He's formed on Comedy
Central, Fuse and at comedy festivalsall over the country. Join me and
(55:07):
David and the rest of our CatolicLive Finale lineup at Polywood Place here in
Atlanta on March fourteenth. We've gotan unbelievable night planned, plus a kick
ass after party at Monday Night Garage. Go get your tickets today before they
sell out at catlick dot com.And while you're there, you can also
get tickets to our Catlick Walking tourshappening that same weekend. Once again,
(55:32):
you can find all that information atcatlick dot com. Cheers. Catlick is
recorded in Atlanta's historic Cabbagetown neighborhood.Executive producer walnut Ridge Harmon original music by
Doucel cover art by Rachel Eleanor Catlickstore manager Bret Harmon Special Thing thanks to
(56:00):
the staff at the Georgia Institute ofTechnology, Library, Archives and Special Collections.
Catolic Instagram Follower of the Week MandyGoodwin, Catlick Instagrams Story Stars of
the Week Sham Breezy and Cat Wilder. Thanks for sharing, guys. Catolic
(56:20):
Instagram Commenter of the Week Major Nateeleven, who says, my wife is
usually the crime aficionado in our house, but you have me hooked. Keep
up the phenomenal work. Thank you, Major Nate eleven. Only four episodes
left, but I'll keep it upat least till then. Catlick Twitter Follower
(56:43):
of the Week Andrew Field. OurVault subscribers have been loving the visual artifacts
we've been posting lately. We're upto more than three hundred images and we're
adding new stuff every week. Aswe continue talking about Cabbage Town, I'm
going to be posting lots of photosfrom around the neighborhood today and I'm even
hoping to do a video tour ofthe cotton mill what it looks like today.
(57:06):
If you haven't done it yet,you can subscribe to the Vault at
Catolic dot com. Just click onvault and finally, Catolic is independently written
and produced by me bt Harmon.Signing off, I'd like to remind you
to save old buildings, build bikelanes, and vote for public transit.
(57:27):
We'll see you in the next episode.
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On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!
NFL Daily with Gregg Rosenthal
Gregg Rosenthal and a rotating crew of elite NFL Media co-hosts, including Patrick Claybon, Colleen Wolfe, Steve Wyche, Nick Shook and Jourdan Rodrigue of The Athletic get you caught up daily on all the NFL news and analysis you need to be smarter and funnier than your friends.
The Joe Rogan Experience
The official podcast of comedian Joe Rogan.