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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview
H-0158, in the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern
Historical Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina
at Chapel Hill”
Former mechanic and streetcar foreman Loy Connelly Cloniger recalls the 1919 Charlotte streetcar strike by the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. He was present for a shooting that killed five strikers, though as night foreman, he did not participate in the strike. The strike accomplished nothing: soon after the shooting the strikers returned to work without the raise they demanded. Though perhaps not useful as a source of detailed information about the strike, this interview could be important as an eyewitness account of the 1919 strike and first-hand memories of streetcar work in early twentieth-century Charlotte.
Former mechanic and streetcar foreman Loy Connelly Cloniger recalls the 1919 Charlotte streetcar strike by the Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen. Though five strikers were killed, the strikers soon returned to work without the raise they demanded.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
When were you born?
June the seventh, 1893.
What did your parents do?
My dad was a contractor.
Built houses?
Yes.
What about your mother?
She didn't do any work.
How many brothers and sisters did you have?
There was five girls and four boys.
So your mother looked out for all the children and cooked and washed the clothes and kept house.
Yes.
When did you come here to Charlotte?
1917.
What did you do?
I first started off oiling the motors on the streetcars and switching the cars in at night when they come in. Had eight tracks out there. Then I worked up to night foreman. That's when the strike took place, when I was night foreman.
How did you get that first job?
I had a brother; he was streetcarring.
He worked for the streetcars.
He rode a bicycle from Gastonia
What was his job?
He was a streetcar man.
A conductor?
A conductor, yes. Well, he'd run the motor and conduct sometime. One-man car, he acted as the motorman and conductor.
And so he helped get you the job?
Yes. And my sister's husband used to wind the armatures, the motors. And he was the master mechanic here, too, over the streetcars.
What was his name?
W. V. Osborne. He's dead now. He's got a son that's a lawyer here, Wallace Osborne.
Did most of the people who worked for the streetcar company come from around this part of the country?
Different sections, and different towns around.
What do you remember about the strike?
I had charge of it at night.
Of the car barn?
Yes. And I was standing right in front of the streetcars; they was all in the barn. The policemen had cushions out of the cars, down between the streetcars, sitting on them. I was standing right in front of the guns when the shooting took place. They killed an engineer. Found him down there at that laundry. Another boy was killed in front of the streetcar. Found him under a big tree over there. There used to be a big two-storey home; a Lethco had it and owned the laundry. I forget how many was killed that night.
About five all together.
I was standing right there when them guns went off.
The police were on the outside?
The police was between the streetcars, only they had cushions out of the streetcars, setting on them.
They were outside of the barn.
Yes. They were right in the front. The ends of the streetcars were right in the front of the barn. They were setting between there. That was a mess, I'm telling you, boy.
Where were you, exactly, in front of the policemen?
Standing right in front of a streetcar. And shooting
Who started the shooting?
Walter Orr was chief of police, and a fellow Wilson from north Charlotte—I think he was kind of a rough guy—was out there, and some policeman knocked him down with his gun. When he did, why, there was a crowd around the lightpost in front of the barn there. Chief Orr said, "Get back, every damn one of you." And they commenced running, and the police commenced shooting.
So the police started the shooting first.
They was the only ones [that] shot, as I know of. Wasn't nobody [that] shot out there; they run.
They were running away from them.
Yes. Getting scattered out.
Why did the police shoot them?
I don't know. To break it up, I guess.
What did you do when all that was going on?
I just stood there right in front of a streetcar. Some of the police that was in the car had the windows down, shooting in windows. They'd lower them windows.
Why was it that the Wilson man came to the car barn?
He come out of the crowd out there.
Why did he come over there?
See, we had strike-breakers back there, too.
Where were they from?
Oh, all over the North somewhere.
They weren't from around here.
No. They had regular strike-breakers at that time. And they slept in the paint shop back there and [would] eat up in the powerhouse. The powerhouse was right next to the streetcar barn. A lot of people wanted to say they done the shooting. It wasn't them; it was the police done the shooting, because they was back in the paint shop.
Did Mr. Wilson work for the streetcar company?
No, he was from north Charlotte.
What was he doing down there?
I don't know. He just come down just like the crowd.
Just because there was a crowd.
He wanted to see what was going on.
Were any of the men that worked on the streetcars in the crowd?
No. Wasn't none of them out there.
Why was it, you reckon, that crowd got together? What caused that crowd to form?
I don't know. Just because the strike was going on, and them
strike-breakers was down there or something. Somebody said something
about, they said they was going to go back there and get the
strike-breakers, but man, they had all kind of guns and everything.
They had a Hindenburg Line.
Yes.
Why did that happen in north Charlotte?
They were in favor of the streetcar men.
There were lots of the textile workers over there in north Charlotte.
Yes. They had textile mills over there.
And they were supporting the streetcar workers.
Yes.
Do you remember there being a textile strike before the streetcar strike, in north Charlotte?
No, I don't remember nothing about that.
This
I believe that was his name.
And he was just a kind of a trouble-maker sort of a character?
Yes, they figured he was kind of a rough kind of guy.
It says the policeman knocked him down.
Yes, hit him down. Hit him with a gun, and Walter Orr, the Chief of Police, was standing there with that bunch at the light, right in front of the barn. Oh, as far as from here to that lamp over there. And he said, "Get back, every damn one of you." He was talking to the crowd. When they started running, he run back to the streetcar before they commenced shooting.
This story that we have here says Clem Wilson came out and the policeman knocked him down, and then the Wilson boy's brother came out to see the chief.
Yes, he come out there, too, I think.
A little later on.
Yes.
One of the people that died was an engineer for the Southern Railway.
Yes. They found him over there at the laundry. It was kind of a little low place. They found him laying down in there. And they found one across the street under a big tree. And they commenced loading up what was shot in the legs around and getting them to the hospital in cars.
Did you know any of the people that were killed?
No, I didn't know them.
What did you think about all this union business while it was going on then? What side were you on?
I belonged to the union. But I was night foreman, and they let me work on.
You didn't go out on the strike.
No. They agreed for me to stay there, because I was night foreman.
Who agreed?
The union, all the men.
Who was the leader of the union?
I don't remember now.
Did you ever hear of this man named A.E. Jones?
No.
He's the name that we have as one of the organizers that came with the Amalgamated . . .
I didn't know
And there was a John J. Williams. Do you remember anybody named John J. Williams?
No.
What led up to the strike? What kind of conditions, or why was it that the workers wanted to have a strike?
I think they wanted more money, so they got organized and then the
company got strike-breakers in here.
The strike-breakers.
Yes.
So they didn't support any kind of violence.
No.
Were all the streetcar workers pretty much together?
Just a few of them didn't join the union. We had a boy that died here
just a few weeks back. He wouldn't join, a mechanic. He lived back over
here at
Did the black and the white workers both join the union?
Yes.
Did the black and white workers meet together?
Yes.
Was there any race problem over that?
No.
This is a union button I got here a while back.
What does that say?
Twenty year.
Which union?
The Brotherhood of Railroad Trainmen.
Why did the strike end? After those people were killed, then what happened?
The company officials and the men got together and agreed to go back to work, is all I know.
Did the union feel like it had won or not?
No, I don't believe they did.
Do you remember what you got out of the strike?
No, I don't remember whether they got a raise or what. I don't think we did, though. I think they told what wanted to come back to work to come; what didn't, why, they fired.
One of the things that the union wanted, as I understand it, was to be a part of the national union, the Amalgamated Association.
Yes.
But they didn't get that. Mr. Taylor and those people wouldn't go along with that.
No.
Do you remember that?
Yes. Old man Z. V. Taylor was president at that time.
What did the union workers think about him during that time?
I don't think they liked him much
After the strike was over, did a lot of the men go back?
About all of them, yes.
Did the company fire any of them that were union leaders?
No, I don't think so.
What was your job?
I was night foreman at that time.
So you stayed on as night foreman.
Yes.
What were your other jobs?
I used to wind them armatures in motors. Did all kind of electrical work on the streetcar, controllers and all that stuff. Go out and put them on the track when you'd get off and everything.
How long did you work with the streetcar company?
I worked forty-one years in all, but I forget now how many years I worked
for
So you stayed with that same company all the time that you worked. You never did any other kind of work?
No.
When did you retire?
When I was sixty-five.
And you retired from the City Coach?
Yes.
What were you doing then?
I was winding armatures, winding them motors. They had a meeting down
there, and old man Dunket(?) was over all the streetcar boys. And Duke
Power turned over $700,000 to City Coach for retirement
money. Me and Ashe retired from City Coach. We get our retirement checks
from
Was work on the streetcars in any way a dangerous kind of work to do?
Oh, yes. A fellow King got killed when this trolley fell out here next to Lakewood. We had pick-ups insulated out of fiber to pick the wire up and had a rope to tie it up somewhere. He got out and was trying to pick it up and got a-hold of it, and it killed him. I've been stuck hundreds of times on top. Grab a pole and get it all. 550. I expect I had it a hundred times.
Can you remember anything else about that time when the strike was going on that you hadn't talked about?
Only thing, Mr. Ramseur was the inspector over the streetcars, and he was there that night the shooting took place, standing behind one of them brick columns between the tracks. Old man Sutton was the claim agent for Duke Power. He had me and Mr. Ramseur up there in his office. And we told him just exactly what we thought, and he didn't have us back no more.
What did you all tell him?
We told him just what happened, about Chief Orr telling them to get back, every damn one of them, and the police started shooting. We told him all that. He didn't call us back any more.
Do you think a lot of the people who were in that crowd were from north Charlotte?
I don't know where they were from.
Were you and Mr. Ramseur the only streetcar workers that were there?
Yes, me and him was the only ones that was there.
Where did you live when you were working then?
When I moved to Charlotte, I moved up here at the second light, right
next
How long did you live there?
I don't remember, but I moved down then on Eustis Avenue, across from the streetcar barn.
Why did you do that?
I don't know. [laughter]
Was it so you could walk to work?
The rent, I believe, was cheaper. Then I moved back over there right off of South Tryon, and I bought that place out younder in 1920 and moved out there. I've been out there, it'll be sixty-one years, I believe, in August.
How would you get to work when you lived out there?
I had a Harley-Davidson motorcycle. [laughter]
Tell me a little bit about your wife and her family and how you met her. What was her name?
Her name was Ellen Morris.
Where was she from?
She was born out from Old Fort. They had a farm out there, and they sold it and moved to Cliffside, I believe they called it. And you know what they got an acre for that land?
A dollar?
A dollar an acre.
What did her family do?
They raised stuff on that farm in the mountains. There was eleven girls and no boys in her family. There's one living now in Gastonia, and ten dead.
What did they do when they moved to Cliffside?
I think they worked in the mill up there in Cliffside.
All the children went to work in the mill.
What was old enough, yes.
How did you meet her?
My youngest sister lived there in Gastonia. They built them a house. Her husband is dead. And I met my wife at a Seventh Day Adventist tent meeting. I took her home from that tent that night. That's when I first met her, right there where my sister lives now.
How long did you all go together before you got married?
I guess it was two years or over. All the boys tried to get her from me. My wife was a beautiful woman.Old rich boy(?) over there wanted to know how Cloniger ever got that pretty little Morris girl. She was a good Christian, too. Her mother was church-going and a Christian.
What religion did they belong to?
I believe her mother belonged to the Lutheran Church.
What were you brought up as?
A Methodist.
When did you all get married?
1915. My wife was seventeen, and I think I was about twenty.
Did you go off to World War I?
No, I had one child, my oldest boy. I went up and registered up here at the courthouse, and they put me in Class IV, and I missed it. If they'd went on just a little longer, they'd have got me.
Do you remember the company giving you all a couple of little pay raises in 1918, before the strike took place?
No, I don't remember nothing about that.
The cost of living got to be higher while the War was going on. Do you remember?
No, I don't remember. I know I was working carpenter work in Gastonia. Two dollars a day was top pay for a finished carpenter. I come over here and went to work for $1.75 a night, thirteen hours a night, seven nights a week. And they offered me nine dollars a day to go to City Point, Virginia, to carpenter. Some of the boys went. I didn't go. They was building a powder plant for World War I at City Point, Virginia. But I was kind of glad I didn't go. That was a fly-by-night thing, [would have] been over with. But that was some money, nine dollars a day, go from two dollars to nine.
How many children did you have?
I've got two girls and two boys.
What did they do when they grew up?
The oldest boy worked up here for Duke Power in the office a few years, and then he went to Salisbury to that power plant out there, Buck(?) Steam Plant. And he was chief clerk out there, and he was with them about forty-two years. He retired here a while back at sixty-two. The other boy . . .
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
He worked over in the streetcar stock room a while. He joined the Navy. When he come out, he rode on the county police(?) seven years. He went back up there then and was assistant court clerk for about twelve years, and the city took the county court over. And he went to dispatching, taking calls and sending cars out. He had twenty-some years, but he retired at fifty-seven. He's single, and he stayed with me. I lost my wife in '72.
What became of your daughters?
One of them works for a movie outfit up here now. She's got an office to herself, up on South Tryon. And the other one's over the ladies down at Stylecraft Packing, down here at the old Shell plant.
Going back to this strike business one more time, were there any hard feelings after that was over with in the company, from the workers?
Not as I know of.
Do you remember when the electricians were going to join the strike, and somebody cut the power off and had a blackout back then?
No, I don't remember that.
Do you remember some of them, after all this was over with, trying to have a recall election to vote out the mayor that they had while the strike was going on, McNinch, and have a new election?
No, I don't remember nothing about that.
Did the union that you all belonged to keep on going and help the streetcar workers out after the strike was over and everybody went back to work?
I don't remember. I think it fell through after a while.
Do you remember any strikes in the textile mills here in 1929 or 1934?
It seemed like there was a mill over there at north Charlotte that was on strike.
But you weren't involved in any of those.
No.
When the streetcars wasn't running, the city let the people with
automobiles pick up people and charge them a dime apiece and take them
where they wanted to go.
Just ordinary people with cars.
An old T-Model's have eight or nine hanging on it. Old running boards on
there all full, and they're hanging on the side.
Did the public get mad at anybody during the strike?
Not as I know of.
END OF INTERVIEW