Southward Ho!

For more than 50 years in picture-postcard North Dighton, Mass. (pop. 1,500), Mount Hope Finishing Co. has been the town's only employer. Its 17 1/2-acre, ivy-covered plant, largest textile-finishing mill under one roof in the world, is ringed with a park and the pleasant, trim houses of its 800 workers. Under 76-year-old President Joseph K. Milliken, Mount Hope never had a union, but paid its workers the going wages for the industry. It practiced the kind of old-style, New England paternalism that made "J.K." a popular boss. If sickness struck, he always tided employees over with a loan, sent them off to Boston hospitals in company cars.

But last summer North Dighton began to stir restlessly. The company, hard hit by the textile slump, abolished its bonus plan and revised vacation pay schedules to cut costs. Workers began to grumble and sign up with the C.I.O. Textile Workers Union. When Milliken fired 191 employees, the plant struck, and the strikers fought with those who refused to walk out. During the 54 days of trouble, fearful company executives and other townspeople took out pistol permits. In one attempt to bring peace, President Milliken called the strikers to the front lawn of his ten-acre estate, urged them to go back to work. Later he said he would have to close if the union came in and raised his costs.

After the union won an NLRB election, Milliken made good his threat. Last week, with the plant shut down for good, it was offered for sale. It looked as if Mount Hope Finishing Co., like many another New England textile manufacturer, would head South where labor is cheaper and raw material closer at hand. Though Milliken denies having relocated in the South yet, Milliken's personnel manager went to the Creedmoor Co., a small finishing plant in Butner, N.C., to supervise the installation of machinery from Mount Hope. Meanwhile, more than 20 ex-employees of Mount Hope have already migrated South themselves to work in the Creedmoor mill.

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