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f S. M. MILUKEN C ;i' ????? DEDICATED of wm. F. GREENE. G1 BUILDING OF THE MILL?T KEN, CALLED THE REA The address follows: It is more than a quarter of a cen tury since the Abbeville Cotton Mill was organized. We meet at the end of that period, in the heyday of the mill's progress and prosperity to turn over to the operatives, tv the em-j ployees, and to the officers of the mill, and to the people of this mill villatrp. this beautiful building, erect *d by the mill authorities for the comfort and convenience, for the social and educational advantage of the people who live here and from year to year make the village for ketter or for worse. All of us owe much to those directors of the mill who reside away from Abbeville fori this evidence of their benevolent pur poses towards us and our city, as well as for many other evidences of their good-will. Especially are we indebted to Mr. Hatch, the president of the mill, for his constant and earnest de I sire to promote at all times the best interests of the people who help to make this corporation. But while we owe much to him and to the others who are more largely interested in the mill from a financial1 standpoint, it has seemed to us that^ it would not be out of place today, to speak for a little while of the men I who built the Abbeville Cotton Mill, i who made it a going concern, who guided it over its financial breakers xnd finally developed it into one of the best equipped mills in the state, as you have made it one of the best manned mills in the state. The mill was incorporated in 1896, with a capital stock of $65,000. Thei incorporators were G. A. Visanska, W. C. McGowan, W. A. Templetpn, Frank B. Gary, J. Fuller Lyon, R. M. Haddon, J. R. Blake, Jr., J. Hayne McDill and-J. C. Klugh. All of these tut three have gone, we trust, to a better country. On their application the charter was granted Feb. 24, .tSSSf with the following directors: J. C. Klugh, who was made the first president of the mill, W. H. Parker, who was secretary, G. A. Visanska, P. L. Grier, W. A. Templeton, Hugh Wilson, B. F. Bailey, G. A. Neuffer, and C. P. Hammond. All of these er cept two have crossed to the other eide of the river. The other two did not long continue as members of the Board of Directors. The early bur den bearers of the mill are all of the ?au.eui Almost from the beginning the corporation experienced financial difficulties. A, contract was let for the buliding when there was not ^ enough money to complete even if. In June of the same year 1896, it became necessary to increase the cap ital stock, the amount of authorized capital being made $200,000. On the certificate of increase, the name f Benj. S. Barnwell, who became ne of the staunchest friends and sup porters of the enterprise, occurs as a J: * ? r? iV. uiicuuui avi uic uiat uaic. I Mr. B. F. Bailey, who had during the summer made a considerable in vestment in the stock of the com pany and on account of being at that time the largest stockholder of the corporation, succeeded J. C. Klugh as president, the latter soon after being ?lected a Judge of the Circuit Court of the State. But the money contrib uted to the corporation by the issue of new stock was soon exhausted and there was no visible means of carry ingr iorwara tne project to comple tion. The corporation had borrowed iaoraiy on its notes, endorsed by the directors. I recall vividly the declara tions of my old law partner, Hon. Wm. H. Parker, who always declared when: asked to endorse another note, j Cfur: he had already endorsed to such! an extent for the mill that he felt! fre<.- and easy to make any other on- ] dorsement demanded of him. The point had been reached at' length where somebody else must <2?>me to the rescue, or the Abbeville Cotton Mil! faccd an inevitable re ceivership. It was at this time that Mr. Stephen Greene, of Boston, one if the architects of the building:, dis covered for the directors a man ca pable of leading the mill out of the wilderness of its financial troubles. This man was S. M. Milliken, the * ?.! bu!Hi?r of the Abbeville Cotton (IMMUNITY BUILDING MAY 23, 1922. iVING SOME FACTS ABOUT THE RIBUTE TO SETH M. MILLI L BUILDER OF THE MILL (Mill and the developer of this mill village. This was in 1897. Mr. MHIUcen was then sixty-one years of age. He was born in 1836 in a small town in the state of Maine. His father was a country store-keeper, a farmer and a miller. He was adescendant of the sturdy Scotch stock who came to America as a land of promise and who looked forward to the new home as a place for development, and for , building. He thus came of the same ^ stock as largely did the people who ( in after life he so-greatly'served in this section. He was educated in the village school. After a few terms he became the teacher of the school, passing on to others what he had ^ learned of the three "R's" reading, . (w)riting and 'rithmetic. i In time the country store and the^ mill of the father fell to the son. i Here he laid the foundation of his j future- career. The country store I 1 ?- J J ' J 11 aIi I wnere ne comnuiiceu, um uu?, resemble the great store in New York where his career was closed. In the j former he sold everything from eggsj^ to dress goods; likely he drew all! the contracts between the farmers' j and their tenants in his neighborhood, J and as a country merchant, it must ( have been his duty to interpret the': law for his neighbors on all subjects.! Certain it is that he was frequently j( called on to settle neighborhood dif- J Acuities. One of these difficulties!, which he liked to tell about was a i l< misunderstanding between Hiram; Brown and Mr. Brown. Hiram came', ' ' ^ ? ^ ? f nH Pflir. l CO tnc siore-Aecj;ei iui wnkc, ^ ing, "Seth, Mrs. Brown and I have decided to divide the house. She cal-| culates that I shall have the outside! and she will have the inside." But! Seth closed the country store long enough to compromise the differences between the two good people and per- j suade them to start again from the j point where they were before the ^ division of the house was approached. He gained, too, from his contact with ] the people a large insight into the ( selfishness and other traits of hu man nature. He liked to tell another ^ anecdote; A farmer and his wife had come to the country store to buy a ( birthday present for the wife, who was named Maria. Everything in the store was priced and much considera tion given to the subjejct, when the { husband finally "guessed" he would take six yards of cotton cloth so . Maria could make him a new night shirt. His example in buying a birth day present for the wife is said to # < be followed largely to tms day oy t some of his Scotch cousins in Due , West. The country store from the ex perience of its keeper and on ac count of its being the gathering place of the neighborhood, thus be came the center of every kind of business in the community and the keeper became a distinguished per son there because of his proprietor ship. But Mr. Milliken was not the kind of merchant to be satisfied with what other country merchants did and were doing in other like communi ties. He had good judgment, he knew how to make money. But he ( was more than this?he was a man . of imag'nation in business?he had \ the power of vision, the sine qua non ( of success in any calling. < And because he was a man of im- i agination in business he decided to 1 put his ship out to sea, so to speak, i One day he bought a large amount < of potatoes from the farmers of his j community and instead of bartering { them in the community and in near- i by towns, he shipped them to New'] York, following by rail. The pota-. 1 toes were sold at a profit. The visit-1 i or wa? imnrssod with the city. He de-' sired to investigate'its possibilities; and to see all of the sights of the!. M.'Cr.t city where so much of his later, life was to be spent. No doubt he I saw it all. Me was accustomed to tell j one incident of his first visit to thej metropolis. One day as he was sight-j seeing he came upon a great crowd. He edged himself towards the centcr' of the crowd where interest seemed' to be focused. When he had gotten! well into the crowd he discovered a fight in progress and almost immedi taught him not to be inquisitive about crowds, he said, and in after life he preferred to be far away from the maddening throng. After his visit to New York, along with his partner, he. opened a store in Maine under the style of Deering, Milliken & Co., which soon became a business factor in that city. The firm moved to New York in a little while where it began business in a small w?v. Mr. Milliken, it is stated. had a dry goods box for his desk anl acted as his own porter, office boy, salesman and bookkeeper. He was not afraid of work and the business grew. In time William Deering, his partner, retired from the firm to be come the head of the harvesting ma chinery business in Chicago, which bore his name. Hither he would have had Mr. Milliken also go and a great merchant he would have become in the windy city of the Golden West, but in his mind he had visualized the :areer of a great merchant in the greatest city in the world and he :hose to remain for the accomplish ment of his vision. It was about this time that the hum of the spindle began to be heard in the South. The great product Aim flnlrlp Vi,qrl fVion Koonin fn Ko jsed and to be made into cloth at the edges of the fields whence it was gathered. Mr. Milliken at once de fined the possibilities of the young enterprises of this section and he de eded to become and did become a sioneer in Southern textile manufac ;uring. It was about this time as already ndicated that Mr. Stephen Greene Erected his a/ttention to the Abbeville Dotton Mill. An investigation wasj nade and he determined to help the < mterprise. And though it had many storms to weather and much rough "oads to travel, he guided it from :hat day to the day of his death un erringly toward success. It was his enterprise and its success was all his iwrnnnlicitimprit. It was his vision ;hat foresaw the way to success and it was left to him to blaze the way jut. He bought largely of the com mon stock of the mill and urged oth ers to buy. He caused the first issue sf preferred stock and then the sec ond issue to be offered to the pub lic, offering to loan to worthy stock tiolders, on long time and at easy terms,'the money with which to pur chase their share of each issue, and finally bought himself all of both is sues which others would not buy. I recall that some of the directors at :he one time or the other doubted the tvisdom of issuing more preferred stock and that at other times some loubted the wisdom of other ilans which he made for the nill. That has been a con siderable time ago, and looking back low over the road which the mill has Tavelled, as the oldest director now >n the Board, in point of service >nly, it is a pleasure for me to say is others who know would gladly say ;hat his advice always proved sound, ;nat nis pians always wuri\.eu uuu iv naturity and that with us he made 10 mistakes. In his dealings with js, he was never over-enthusiastic jut he was never pessimistic. When le had blazed a road to travel he cnew that it led up the hill to prog *ess whatever the difficulties en :ountered. And having blazed a road ;o travel, he traveled it. While Mr. Milliken was doing so nuch for the Abbeville Cotton Mill, le was all the while directing his >wn large business in New York City ind was likewise interested Ln many >ther Southern mills similar to ours, is well as in Northern mills. And as le directed the destinies of these :orporations in the North and in the South and continued to manage the hTairs of Deering, Milliken & Co., -"e developed into a tower of strength n his adopted city. His marvelous success with his own business, his far-sightedness in business matters generally, his sound judgment, but most of all his high character and proven integrity made of him a man to whom people instinctively turned in the day of their troubles. At one time he saved a great bank in New York City from failure by iiiing the presidency and actively participating in the management ' frVi lin u-ys 11I1 vc'/Vll 5 V unn'ilfi fr? undertake so huge a task, as it seem ed io some of his associates. It was only a few years airo that one of the !n Spartanlwvcr county, in thi state, was enveloped by a flood and swent away in swift disaster. Its ob ligations at that time were such that if pressed the stockholders would have lost heavily and the employees v >ukl have suffered great hardships from being turned out of their homes. But the stricken mill was a Milliken mill. The banks which held its obliga tions were quietly told to send their notes to him as they matured and they would be paid. Some idea of the confidence men had in him is to be gained from the statement that not one of these notes was presented to him for payment. The mill and its owners were saved ana csetn m. mu liken was the bulwark that saved them from a financial flood as por tentous as the flood which destroyed the physical plant. Mr. Milliken was what we of the South would call a stern Maine Yan kee. His Scotch ancestry, the place of his birth, and the many and varied duties which he performed, had com bined to give to him perhaps his stem exterior self. Those who knew him casually judged him to be aus tere, a somewhat cold and calculating business man, without emotion and not affected in business by humane considerations for others. But while he was thinking always of the finan cial affairs of his mills and of success in their development, those who knew him best tell us that he thought also of the men who manned his en I terprises; that he thought of those, who arose early, ate the frugal meali by the lighted candle and went down' to the turning wheels while it was| yet dark. Better living conditions,! better lives, better homes, recreation 1 after working hours, good schools! and fine play grounds?these could | not come in his day because his mills were still struggling for their exist ence. The mortgages had not been! paid off, which will tell us of the1 South the real conditions. But those! ivho have been left to provide these ad vantages for this mill village today would have you know that they are f doing so not alone of their own mo-j tion and desire, but because S. M. I Milliken so willed it and because he I would have done so had he lived to I this good day. ' And because of his great interest! in the Abbeville Cotton Mill, because! he carried the burden of its financial: troubles until it could walk alone, because of his faithful labor in build ing this community and gathering together in this beautiful village the people who make it because of his unfailing friendship for the people who thought and worked here and whose thoughts and efforts combined in some measure to help him in hip endeavors?because of all these things it has pleased the officers of| the corporation to open to the peo ple of the village this building today and to set it aside for the benevolent purposes for which it is intended, and it pleases them equally well and theyj have thought it proper at the same: time to make some public acknowl-1 edgement of the services of the real I benefactor of this community. So in his honor and as our testimony to his work and worth it has been de cided that henceforth it shall be the "S. M. MILUKEN COMMUNITY BUILDING." Above the main entrance to the building is a marble slab bearing this name. We unveil it today in his memory. And as the years pass and the of ficer and employee of this corpora tion, the husband and wife of this village, the gallant swain and the pretty sweetheart, and the little chil dren pass in and out of these doors and under this slab, is it too much to hope that we all may learn some-( thing from the history of his life; may we not hope to catch at least the spirit of thrift, of self reliance,) of constant and unfailing effort in all our enterprises, which he exhib ited in his life and in his work? May we not all try to make our lives out standing as his was for fair dealing and high character, strict integrity and for helpfulness to others? He who built this mill, who caused this beautiful village to grow where be fore there was nothing but hills and a valueless waste, the man who thought it all out while other people slept, so to speak, has gone from amongst us, but in his going he has left us in other kindly hands. God speed them in all good works for this village and this people. May the house which he planned grow strong er with the passing years, and may his tribe increase. FIRE CHIEF TAKES REST tV,o AKWIIIn Ti,.., Department Grover Wilson left yes terday for Columbia, Savannah and points south for a vacation of abou! ten days. Copyright 1922 Hart Schaffi What yc this i 1 The Best 2 Finest Qui 3 Good Va 4 Personal 5 Satisfactic Hart Si & Marx take car first tw< we take 1 ' J the rest TK^.o fix reasons wh; ought to con THE R0SENB1 EISJ2JSI3J3MSISiSJ5ISi3?3I3I5I3M3JSJ3J3M3M3I MRS. DRAKE WILL RUN FOR OFFICE She Enters The Race For State Superintendent of Edu cation Bennettsville, May 24.?Mrs. Bessie Rogers Drake, who has 'been o<ut of town for several days, was asked tday if she had definitely de cided to enter the race for the of fice of State Superintendent of Education. Heir reply was ,"Yes, I will make the race." She further said, "I think I should say that the requests which have come to me from some of# the ladies educa tors of the state to run, hav? in creased my confidence in the idea that I can be of service to the ~ * * * * * iLoi State at tnis time, i am sure uwi my friends will realize that the de sir? to serve the educational inter ests of the State prompts me to take this step. I am not unmindful that arduous duties and great re sponsibilities face me. I trust I may prove myself not unworthy of the kind expressions contained *in let ters and telegrams which I have re-! ceived from these friends." The Marlboro people are much1 interested in Mrs. Drake's an-j nouncement. She will have the en_ j thuisastic support or tne men ana' women here who know her so wall for they i*ecognize her worth and j ability. rutACH FOR PRESBYTERIANS flov r. R. Williams of Due West; will preach in the Presbyterian! church Sunday morning. ier & Marx >u get at store Style, ality. ilue. Service. >n. chaffner .clothes e of the 9 items; care of re good y you le here RG MER. CO. sjaiaajsiaisji WANTS POTATO SLIPS FOR SALE?Porto Rico potato slips for sale, pulled fresh from the bed as ordered. R. S. McComb, Phone 405. 5,12tfc. FOR RENT?Four up-stairs rooms with all convenience?. Apply to Mrs. R. C. Wilson, 19 Haigler st., phone 375-3. tf. col. FOR SALff?Eggs at 30 cents a dozen. tf. Phone 1. Mrs. D. A. Rogers. We are the EVERSHARP Pencil ser vice store all EVERSHARP part* are renewable. We have therti also full line of Eversharp pencils and lead. THE ECHO. 3, 13tf. BISHOP KILGO ILL Memphis, May 24.?The condi tion of Bishop J. C. Kilgo of the Methodist church Was reported to night "by phyisicians to be serious. He has acute indigestion. He was en route to Charlotte. DR. L. V. LISINBEE OPTIMETR1ST ...Office Over...