Chemical Companies G o South η ρ ο SAY THE SOUTH is rising again
(in-
*· dustrially) is stating the situation mildly! Below the Mason-Dixon line industrial planners are having a hey day getting ready for $225 million worth of n e w chemical plants, as they watch companies put the finishing touches on units under construction valued at $555 million. In all direc tions, the southern glad hand is out t o welcome expansion. Only a casual reference to chemicals creates a gleam in the eye of an industrial development official. By adding new plants at the rate of $ 2 million a day, Dixieland is stem ming the tide of southerners moving North; it has brought many "step children" back home. (The influx of Yankee plant managers alone makes an impressive list.) Southern college graduates are staying nearer home, realizing that scientific research and executive management will eventually fall into their hands if they bide their time. The Old South. Textiles sparked the southern industrial revolution that got its start in the early twenties, following a pattern set some 100 years earlier in England. Cotton mills migrated south from N e w England t o take advantage of cheap labor conditions. Chronically in debt to the company store, mill workers labored 12 t o 15% longer hours per week at 20%? less total pay. T h e South*s cheap labor turned out to b e one of its greatest blessings—textiles now consume 209c of all chemicals pro duced in the nation, many of which come from the Texas-Louisiana Gulf Coast. At the turn of the century, N e w Eng land had 757r of the industry's spin dles, but the shift southward had placed half of the spindles in the land of cotton b y 1926. T o b e sure, cotton was t h e South's most important prod uct, the cornerstone of its economic structure. But even King Cotton has given ground to other important agri cultural activities in recent years. (Last year poultry income in Georgia took first place away from cotton and it now ranks second in Alabama farm income. ) Industrial expansion began to falter throughout the South during the thir ties, except for the birth of a f e w chemical plants. T h e N e w Deal had put a floor under cheap labor and a ceiling on long working hours; N e w Dealers encouraged organized labor to a point where unions began to worry 2884
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POLYETHYLENE
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SYNTHETIC RUBBER
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CRUDE PETROLEUM
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7 5 % OF THE NATION'S POLYETHYLENE 7 0 % OF THE NATION'S SYNTHETIC RUBBER G8% OF THE NATION'S NATURAL GAS 5 4 % OF THE NATION'S PETROLEUM
NATURAL GAS
A PETROCHEMICAL PARADISE
southern mill owners. Until shortly before World War II, the South was in large part still a sleeping giant sur rounded by cotton and tobacco, share croppers, and farm mortgages. The South paid through the nose for two freight bills, shipping out many of its raw materials which were converted into finished goods in the North and then returned to southern consumers. This was t h e Old South—32
