History of Columbiana County, Ohio and representative citizens, Part 23

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 912

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Associated with George S. Harker during the earlier years of the existence of that old

firm had been James Taylor. George S. Harker died in 1864, but shortly before that time Mat- thew Thompson had bought out Taylor's in- terest, and the latter had gone to Trenton, where, with Henry Speiler, he built the first pottery there and became prominent in the in- dustry in the East. Benjamin Harker, Jr., was then associated with the old firm, and at the death of George S. Harker, David Boyce, who was afterward for many years president of the First National Bank (his incumbency expiring with his death in November, 1904), was ap- pointed administrator of the estate, and acted as manager of the pottery for some 12 years. George S. Harker's two sons, William W. and Hal N., having in the meantime become mem- bers of the firm, Benjamin Harker in 1877 left the concern and built a 2-kiln factory further east along the railroad, conducting the business as Benjamin Harker & Sons until 1881, when it was bought by Joseph Chetwynd and H. D. Wallace, the firm name being Wallace & Chet- wynd. In 1899 George C. Meredith secured an interest in the concern and shortly after- ward Chetwynd retired. In 1903 it was merged with the East Liverpool Potteries Company, and a year later withdrew, becoming the property of the Colonial Pottery Company.

By 1879, eight firms, with a total capacity of 28 kilns, were making white ware-William Brunt, Jr., & Company, with 5 kilns; Homer Laughlin, 4; Knowles, Taylor & Knowles, 5; Brunt, Bloor, Martin & Company, 4; George S. Harker & Company, 4; Godwin & Flentke, 2; John Wyllie & Son, 2, and Vodrey & Brother, 2. Thirteen other firms were making yellow or cream-colored ware, making the total capacity of the potteries of the town 63 kilns. Mack's history of the county, published in 1879, says of the industry :

'The potteries employ 2,000 people-men, women and children-to whom the money dis- bursed for wages aggregates $20,000 weekly. Pottery is now produced . at this point to the value of about $1.500,000 per annum."

EVENTFUL LABOR BATTLE OF 1882.

In the decade following 1879 the city's manufactures underwent a wonderful meta- morphosis. Year after year the older plants

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added to their capacities. In 1880 John Mount- ford and Ambrose Massey built a plant at the foot of Union street which was later occupied by Rowe & Mountford, and still later as the George C. Murphy Pottery Company. In 1881 N. A. Frederick, Jacob Shenkel, A. B. Allen and George C. Frederick organized the firm of Frederick, Shenkel, Allen & Company, later the Globe Pottery Company, and built a plant east of the Harkers'. John Horwell be- came a member of this firm in 1896. Robert, George W. and Oliver Burford had established a tile works in 1879 on West Market street, adjoining the Brunt, Bloor, Martin & Com- pany pottery, but the enterprise had been a failure, and in 1881 the brothers rebuilt the factory and went into the then popular manu- facture of cream-colored ware.

But the industry came to almost a complete standstill in 1882, being well-nigh prostrated by the first serious labor trouble in the history of the town. The historic "lock-out," the re- sult of the refusal of the manufacturers to allow their operatives to organize under the auspices of the Knights of Labor, kept the fac- tories either idle or at best running in an irreg- ular way, for the best part of the year.

It is not the purpose of this work to recall old quarrels long since settled; but history de- mands that some of the incidents of those years, the contests over the relative rights of each side in the great controversy of capital and labor that involved almost the entire land dur- ing the few years that followed, be set down here in a calm, dispassionate manner. The status of manufacturer and operative in the pottery industry was first raised at that time, and the story of the dispute is told at this late day without intent to reflect on the motives of any one concerned.

The potters had been organized, in an im- perfect and unsatisfactory way, as District As- sembly No. 160, Kniglits of Labor. John O'Neill was master workman. There was con- stant friction between employers and em- ployes. Even the men seemed to be not more than half-hearted in their loyalty to their organization. Then the majority of the manu- facturers-including nearly all the larger con-

cerns-signed and posted what was known as the "iron-clad" agreement, being an ultimatum to the men that no member of the Knights of Labor could be permitted to work at the plants. Most of the men quit work, and it was months: before the potteries again secured anything like full crews. It was in the midst of the 1882 congressional campaign, and Mckinley was a. candidate for reelection. Two operatives, Wil- liam Beardmore and Joseph Barlow, were ap- pointed a committee to see the congressional candidate and arrange to have a speech from him in East Liverpool in which he was to ex- press his judgment as to the right of the men to form and belong to labor organizations. Mckinley came, but, having been detained by other engagements. it was only on the eve of the election that he, in Brunt's Opera House, expressed himself in unequivocal terms in favor of labor organizations. Practical potters® in the audience that night gave public expres- sion to their satisfaction with Major. McKin- ley's views, but feared it was too late to stem the tide of opinion against him among the locked-out men. And so it proved to be; for the champion of protection was defeated for that term of Congress by a small plurality, through the disaffection among the East Liver- pool operative potters. Trades unionism lan- guished in East Liverpool for several years --- many of the men going back under the "iron- clad" agreement to their benches before the close of the year, the business gradually reviv- ing, until the organization, in 1890, of the National Brotherhood of Operative Potters (mention of which is made later). Through the administration of the latter organization, coupled with the liberal spirit shown by the employers after the great strike of 1894 ---- which is also referred to later-and the work- ings of the uniform scale with its harmonizing features, a condition of peace and good feeling had existed, up to 1905, which was an example to be followed in other lines of industry the country over.

FORTUNES MADE UNDER IIIGH TARIFF.

In 1883 a tariff scare, in the attempted re- duction of earthenware duties by Congress ..

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caused a momentary panic ; and the following year the great Ohio River flood of February, 1884, caused large losses in the factories along the river. But these misfortunes failed to check materially the onward march of the trade, and the later '80's and the first few years of the 'go's saw probably the largest profits realized in pottery manufacture on the capital invested that the history of the industry in America will ever show. Men rose from poverty to afflu- ence in little more than a decade. Plants ran to their utmost capacity. It was the period of high protective tariff, without the hard compe- tition which in later years reduced profits so materially.

The tariff of 1861, though a protective measure, levied no high duties on foreign earthenwares, the American industry at that time being of small importance. In 1868, however, an amended act secured for the new interests substantial protective duties. Reduc- tions in duties by the acts of May I and June 6, 1872, had proved a hard blow to the trade, and these were not remedied until two years later, when earthenware became a strongly protected industry. In 1882-83, under the commission appointed by President Arthur to revise the entire tariff system, the earthenware schedule was again threatened, but the manu- facturers rallied strongly to the support of the then existing rates. William Mckinley, then representing this district in Congress, fought the battle for the pottery manufacturers, as- sisted in the Senate by John Sherman of Ohio. The high duties established some years before -55 and 60 per cent, ad valorem-remained on imported earthenware and china, and the industry flourished.

In 1888 a substantial cut was made in the earthenware tariff; but the Mckinley tariff which followed in 1890 restored the rate to 55 and 60 per cent. Under its influence profits of the American potters sailed to extravagant figures in 1892, and then the landslide whichi swept the Democratic party into power in that year and the year following placed the entire industry again at the mercy of the threat of a tariff reduction.

As a consequence of this constant tariff agi-

tation, East Liverpool was during the later '80's one of the most solid protectionist towns in the country. An extract from a speech de- livered by Senator John Sherman to an open- air meeting in the town in June, 1887, gives an insight into the feeling of that day on the tariff :

"Several years ago I came among you, but I was not then as familiar with the great indus- try that has given you wealth and a name throughout the land as well as abroad as I am now. I believe that the manufacture of pot- tery or chinaware first assumed large propor- tions here in 1861 and 1862, but at that time it met with discouragements and did not pros- per. At that time all, or nearly all, the white china used in this country was imported from England. The English manufacturers, hear- ing of your efforts and your success, through their representatives, made strenuous efforts to keep off a duty on their goods. You came to Congress, and asked that a reasonable duty be placed upon imported white ware and decorated china. It was there that I first learned of the great industry you were pursuing.

"At that time this business was scarcely known in the United States. With the English competition and the cheap labor in that country you could not succeed. All the people of the West used common brown pottery because they could not afford to pay the high price asked for imported ware. I have eaten my meals many a time from the brown plates or from the tin- ware in the homes of good and honest men who could not afford to buy the English china. Owing to the encouragement given to the tariff after the war, this industry grew and you prospered. And in 1883, when an attempt was made to break down the tariff on these goods, with your true friend, Major Mckinley and others, we stood by you and the tariff was con- tinued. A gentleman said to me. 'East Liver- pool cannot compete with England, and the attempts of the potteries in that place will be futile'-and argued that it was better to break down the tariff and depend upon Eng- land. * * * The result of the protection given you has driven much of the English goods from our market, and it has brought

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English labor into your midst, skilled workmen who are making finer and better goods than England can make and selling them cheaper."

At that time William McKinley, who 10 years later was to attain the presidency of the nation, represented the district in Congress, and East Liverpool manufacturers considered him their special champion in the battles for pro- tective measures. In a speech delivered years later during his first presidential campaign, Major Mckinley declared that he owed to East Liverpool his tariff record-the early plight in which he found the pottery industry in Colum- biana County having induced him to take up the study of the protective tariff system as a specialty.

With the growth of the potteries in the upper part of the city came the demand for better transportation. The city had grown de- spite, not because of, the shipping facilities offered by the Pennsylvania Company; for the railroad, having the manufacturers of the place absolutely in its grasp with scarce a hope of a competing line, had not made favors to ship- pers the rule. In 1887 the manufacturers on the north side of the city and the Cleveland & Pittsburg Railroad officials agreed on a survey for the "horn switch," a branch from the main tracks, starting at the western end of the city and taking advantage of the depression through which flowed Carpenter's Run to con- nect with the leading firms "on the hill." The survey gave direct connections with what were later the West End Pottery, the Dresden and the Burford, Standard Pottery Company, God- win, McNicol, Wyllie & Son and Knowles, Taylor & Knowles plants. The proposition, despite the need of additional shipping facili- ties, raised great opposition in the City Council, on account of the fear that the new switch would shut out a cross-country railroad sur- vey which was then being made into East Liverpool; and it was only after H. S. Knowles, who was one of the strongest advo- cates of the new branch, had threatened not only to drop all plans for the building of the new Knowles, Taylor & Knowles china works then in contemplation, but remove the plant the company was then operating away from the

city, that the railroad finally was given per- mission to proceed with the laying of the tracks. Even after the main switch had been laid, the building of a spur, in 1888, to connect the Godwin, McNicol and Wyllie plants was bit- terly fought, the Fire Department being called out to prevent the work of the track gangs in Apple alley. The building of this spur was only accomplished by an emergency construc- tion crew, which laid the tracks over the route in dispute during the dead hours of night, treating the members of the city government to a surprise when they awoke the following morning.

THE STRIKE OF 1894.

The defeat of the advocates of the protec- tive tariff and the election of President Cleve- land in 1892 brought to a close the 10 years of prosperity with a suddenness that threatened disaster to the entire industry. The Wilson tariff bill, which passed the Senate and became a law August 13, 1894, reduced duties on earthenware from ·55 and 60 per cent. to 30 and 35. Though the new law did not go into effect until the summer of 1894, the trade had been in a pitiable condition of stagnation for months before the close of 1893, in anticipation of the tariff cut; and in January, 1894, the manufacturers announced a reduction in wages ranging from 12 to 25 per cent. The new scale was first presented to the employees of the Laughlin pottery on January 22nd, and the following day the strike in East Liverpool and the other pottery cities of the West became general. Within a few days the employees of the general and sanitary ware potteries of Trenton and the East also struck against a like reduction.

Four years before, in 1890, the National Brotherhood of Operative Potters had been formed in the Western factories, with head- quarters in East Liverpool; and when the strike was declared the men's organization proved itself strong enough to tie up practically every factory in the West. The National Brotherhood was affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, and Albert S.

THE NEWELL BRIDGE OVER THE OHIO AT EAST LIVERPOOL

AYLOR & RAMALES CO. POTTERS.

-----

----

POTTERY PLANT OF THE KNOWLES, TAYLOR & KNOWLES COMPANY, EAST LIVERPOOL

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Hughes, of East Liverpool, was president. Nearly all the manufacturers, East and West, stood firm for the reduction, the only excep- tions in Columbiana County at the opening of the strike being the Standard Pottery Com- pany and the West End Pottery, at East Liver- pool, both of which concerns were controlled largely by the operatives. These operated throughout the strike at the old wage rate, and early during the struggle a number of opera- tives also organized the Union Pottery Com- pany on a cooperative plan, and, purchasing the idle Wyllie plant (the old Great Western Pottery) began its operation. The struggle lasted exactly six months, during which time the 6,000 operatives in the city were almost entirely idle. There was little disorder, not- withstanding the bitter feeling, and not a death by violence during the six months' battle. The men's campaign throughout the West was managed from the East Liverpool headquar- ters of the organization by President Hughes and the national advisory council, which held daily sessions. In July the manufacturers, after many attempts at a settlement, offered a compromise on a 121/2 per cent. wage reduc- tion, with the absolute promise of the restora- tion to the men of the old wage rate whenever the tariff should be restored to its former fig- ure. Despite the strenuous protests of the more beligerent of the operatives, this off r was accepted on July 19th, and on July 22nd, six months to a day after the strike had been declared, the men went back to their work throughout the West. The Trenton operatives accepted the same terms a week or two later.

Among the manufacturers who were given the largest degree of credit for the settlement at the time were Col. John N. Taylor, of the Knowles, Taylor & Knowles Company ; H. A. McNicol, of the Potters' Co-Operative Com- pany, and W. E. Wells, of the Laughlin China Company. It is a fact worthy of note that the manufacturers lived up to their promise when the new tariff went into effect, in 1897, the old wage rate being restored on December 25, 1897, after many conferences by scale commit- tees on both sides. Thus closed the most nota- ble wage incident in the history of over 60 years in the industry in America.

COLLAPSE OF A BUDDING "TRUST."

Following the victory of the protective tariff forces of the nation in the election of President Mckinley in 1896, came another. era of development, during which the invest- ments in the pottery industry in the East Liverpool district increased by millions of dol- lars in a few years' time. Great firms grew up in months, instead of years, and modern equipment and buildings with the consequent economy in methods fostered a keen competi- tion that led to one attempt after another at consolidation on a far-reaching scale. It was the age of "combines" and "trusts" in many industries, and in the last days of 1898 the de- tails were perfected for the organization of the American Potteries Company, which was to in- clude almost every general ware pottery in the country.

To the greed of the New York promoters, who over-capitalized the project and prepared to take $5,000,000 or more of stock as their share, was laid the blame for the ultimate col- lapse of the "trust" idea. John R. Dos Pas- sos, a New Yorker in the employ of J. P. Mor- gan & Company, did the earlier work and secured the options on the plants, both East and West. Twenty-three out of 26 general ware potteries in East Liverpool had been op- tioned up to the last week of December, and the manufacturers turned in their stock certi- ficates at New York, and actually started oper- tions January Ist inder, the name of the Amer- ican Potteries Company, which had been in- corporated under the laws of New Jersey.

Originally the "combine" had been capi- talized at $12,000,000: but the New Yorkers afterward decided to place the capital at $20,- 000,000-one-half of it to be preferred stock, guaranteed to pay 71/2 per cent .. the other half. common. Each plant was optioned independ- ently, and purchase prices on all of them re- mained a secret with the projectors. With the prospect of a vastly "watered" corporation the manufacturers began drawing out, and within two months after the first of the year the nice structure reared by the promoters had crum- bled. The death of the project was hastened by injunction suits begun during January by

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the Bell Pottery Company, of Findlay, in the United States Court at Cincinnati, and by rep- resentatives of the labor organizations, in Columbus.

A second attempt at consolidation on a smaller scale bade fair for a time to be more successful. In July, 1901, the East Liverpool Potteries Company organized, with George C. Murphy as president, with six factories. In the organization were Murphy & Company, then operating the plant formerly owned by Mountford & Company; the Globe Pottery Company, which had organized in 1881; the Wallace & Chetwynd Company; the East Liv- erpool Pottery Company, operating the old West, Hardwick & Company plant; the East End Pottery Company, controlled by E. J. Owen and Gus. Trenle, which had built a smail plant in the East End in 1894; and the United States Pottery Company, of Wellsville, which had been organized by John J. Purington, Robert Hall and S. M. Ferguson in 1898, and had built a handsome plant at the West End of Wellsville. The combination lived but a short time, however. The Murphy & Company plant burned in 1904 and was not rebuilt, George C. Murphy going into the pottery busi- ness at Barberton, Ohio; the old Hardwick plant became the property of the Hall China Company ; the East End Pottery Company re- organized as a separate concern, while the Wallace & Chetwynd plant became the prop- erty of the Colonial Company, with G. W. Meredith as president, and Will A. Rhodes, formerly with the Knowles, Taylor & Knowles Company, and Henry P. Knoblock, for sev- eral years secretary of the Potters' Co-Opera- tive Company, largely interested.

YEARS OF EXPANSION.

Homer Laughlin retired in August, 1898, removing to Los Angeles, California. He had not been active in the management of his prop- erty for several years prior to that date. On the organization of the Homer Laughlin China Company, L. I. Aaron, of Pittsburg, became president, and W. E. Wells, who had become Laughlin's manager several years before, sec-

retary. The Aarons immediately gave the company unlimited backing, and became large factors in the business. A second plant was im- mediately built in the East End, beginning: operations on January 1, 1900.

In 1900 J. R. Warner had left the Union Potteries Company, and, organizing the Na- tional China Company, had built a modern pot- tery in the East End, adjoining the new Laugh- lin plant ; and by a trade, the Laughlin Com- pany on January 1, 1903, secured this new works of the National in exchange.for the or- iginal Homer Laughlin plant further west. The- Homer Laughlin China Company continued to enlarge until in 1905 it possessed a total ca- pacity of 32 kilns.

In the years following the opening of the. new Ohio River bridge connecting the city with the West Virginia side of the river, two large plants were also established at the new suburb of Chester-the Taylor, Smith & Taylor Com- pany, 8 kilns, built by W. L. Taylor, Homer J. Taylor, J. G. Lee, and C. A. Smith; and the. Edwin M. Knowles China Company, 6 kilns .. And following the opening of the second bridge in 1905, connecting the city with Newell on the' west, ground was broken in that suburb, for a plant of 30 kilns, by the North American Manufacturing Company, which had been or- ganized with a capital of $1,000,000.

RISE OF THE SEBRINGS.

It was just as the wave of prosperity in the later '80's was at its height that, in 1887, five brothers,-Oliver H., George E., Ellsworth H., Joseph and Frank Sebring, sons of George A. Sebring, an early potter-entered the trade. The brothers, with S. J. Cripps and George W. Ashbaugh, bought the old Agner, Foutts & Company plant at the corner of Second and Market streets, which had stood idle ever since the failure of the original firm in 1882. Two of the Sebring brothers, George and Oliver, were practical potters, employed at the Knowles, Taylor & Knowles works, while two others were interested in the grocery business on a small scale. They had little financial back- ing, even for running capital. The price paid'

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for the original plant was $12,500, and the new firm was compelled to virtually rebuild the old pottery, which had a capacity of four kilns. Three of the four kilns were torn down and re- built, and all the old machinery had to be torn out. The firm started to make ware with a modest debt on its shoulders, but soon began spreading out. Cripps and Ashbaugh with- drew from the firm after a few years. In 1893 the brothers leased the old East Palestine Pot- tery Company's plant, at East Palestine, run- ning it on a percentage basis. In 1896 the brothers obtained a small bonus at East Pales- tine, built the Ohio China Works, a 5-kiln pot- tery, and continued to run the three plants. In 1898 the brothers gave up their commission deal at the old East Palestine plant, and, tak- ing advantage of a land company deal at the extreme East End of East Liverpool, built there still another pottery of six kilns, which for years was popularly known as the "Klon- dike Pottery."

In 1899, however, the company negotiated for and bought a large tract of land in Mahon- ing County, west of Salem, just across the Col- umbiana County line, for a new town site, and in the same year the Oliver China Works were built on the tract. The new town was named Sebring, and in the succeeding four years three more big plants were built there by the mem- bers of the family-the Sebring Pottery Com- pany's works in 1900, and the French China Company's and Limoges China Company's in the succeeding years. As the new works were built the brothers disposed of their other fac- tories one by one-the original "Number I" plant in East Liverpool being sold in 1900 to the Sevres China Company, composed of H. A. Keffer, W. T. Tebbutt, W. H. Deidrick and Frank Crook; the East End plant being dis- posed of in 1901 to the Smith-Phillips Com- pa* ; , headed by J. T. Smith and William Phil- lips. The Ohio China Works at East Palestine were sold in 1902 to the Ohio China Company, a company composed mostly of East Palestine capital, headed by O. C. Walker. In 1905 the total capacity of the four plants at Sebring was 25 kilns, employing 1,200 men, the capitaliza- tion of the plants being over $1,500,000-all

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History of Columbiana County, Ohio and representative citizens, Part 23

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844 Publication date: 1905 Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 912

Author: McCord, William B., b. 1844
Publication date: 1905
Publisher: Chicago, Ill. : Biographical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 912