Register pressman led Alabama's union movement in early 1900s

George William Jones superintended the Mobile Register’s press room for 35 years, led Alabama’s branch of the nation’s largest union group in the early 1900s, and dabbled in national politics.

Jones was serving as president of Mobile’s Central Trades Council when the Alabama Federation of Labor elected him vice president during its fifth annual session at Monroe Park in 1905. The following year, the members of the Federation elected Jones president of the state group. The Federation’s members seem to have kept re-electing him to the post until about 1911 when Jones took on job with the pressman’s union.

As a union chief, Jones spent his time doing what you’d think a union boss would do: making unions the monopoly suppliers of labor. He pushed for recognition of closed union shops, supported laws restricting youth labor, and backed farm union groups. The Federation supported the recently passed Immigration Act of 1907 aimed at restricting the increasing number of immigrants to the United States, keeping the labor market tight and wages high. Jones also lobbied the state Legislature to spend more money on government schools and other union causes.

The Alabama Federation took a surprising step in 1907, especially for a Southern union. After 1895, the American Federation of Labor approved segregated locals within its affiliates. Excluding blacks was a way of keeping laborers who could offer lower wage prices out of the market, again keeping the market tight and prices high. The Federation’s policy often resulted in black workers being excluded from union membership. But the Alabama group’s meeting in Montgomery in 1907 included black delegates, surprising given the racial prejudice of most white Alabamians against blacks at the time.

As president, Jones led the gathering, which included committee meetings scheduled at the Capital City’s Exchange Hotel. P. J. Greer, a black delegate from Birmingham, wanted to know how black members could meet with other committee members at the Exchange Hotel, which excluded blacks. The conference members moved their committee meetings to the Labor Hall so that black and white members could meet together.

In spring 1908, Jones became involved in a new national political party, the Independence League, formed by newspaper publisher and U.S. Representative William Randolph Hearst. Sometimes it was just called Hearst’s party. An Alabama state convention at the end of April nominated Jones and 21 others as delegates to the national convention in Chicago in July. Many of the delegates were associated with unions.

The party nominated Thomas L. Hisgen for president and John Temple Graves for vice president. The party opposed corrupt machine politics and supported a list of socialist proposals:

• An eight-hour work day
• A U.S. Department of Labor
• Government ownership of utilities and railroads
• A U.S. central bank

Hisgen and Graves received less than one percent of the popular vote and the national party collapsed after the 1908 election.

Jones appears to have left the Mobile Register about 1911 to become the first superintendent of the Pressmen’s Home outside of Rogersville, Tennessee. The home was part of a complex that formed the headquarters for the International Printing Pressmen and Assistants Union of North America from 1911 to 1967. At its peak the union was the largest printing trade group in the world, with more than 125,000 members.

The isolated Tennessee headquarters had to be a self-sufficient community. The complex had its own farms, water supply, trade school, sanitarium, retirement home, hotel, post office, chapel, hydroelectric power plant, and telephone system.

At some point, Jones returned to Mobile. He died at his home on July 2, 1925, 19 days short of his 66^th birthday. He is buried in Magnolia Cemetery.

Sources

Montgomery Advertiser April 27, 1905 4; “Support withdrawn from Western Federation Miners—Next Convention at Birmingham,” New Orleans Times-Picayune April 29, 1905 14; “Alabama Federation of Labor holds convention,” San Jose California Evening News April 23, 1907 3; “Labor wants free textbooks,” New Orleans Times-Picayune April 23, 1907 3; “Will try to pass laws in July,” Montgomery Advertiser April 23, 1907 5; “Much time in talking,” Montgomery Advertiser April 24, 1907 5; “More delegates named yesterday,” Birmingham Age-Herald May 1, 1908 5:6; “Veteran pressman dies,” New Orleans Times-Picayune July 3, 1925 13:5.