In Southbridge

Nearly one-fifth of the people of Southbridge, Mass. (pop. 14.000) had nothing to look forward to but the dole last month when 104-year-old Hamilton Woolen Co., unable to settle a strike, voted to shut up shop (TIME, Jan. 28). Last week Southbridge was jubilant once more. The cloth designers had been called back to prepare their patterns for autumn. That could mean only one thing: the mill was not to close. That day Hamilton Woolen's President Richard Lennihan announced that arrangements had been made to sell the company to U. S. Bunting Co. of Lowell, operated by J. P. Stevens & Co., big highly-respected New York commission merchants. Hamilton's 1,000 workers, most of whom returned to the mill temporarily last month to complete orders on hand, were to be reemployed. But on the fundamental issue which had produced the crisis, open shop v. closed shop, the new owners were last week stonily silent.

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