The checkoff in Danville probably would have been lost even without the strike. The basic question was whether or not the Union could create a wage movement in the South, and in order to ascertain this a strike of the organized sectors of the industry in the South was necessary. Had there been no internal fight, the decision may well have been made not to strike. Slim Boggs, in Danville, was realistic; he said Union members and a few more there could be counted on to stay out for only a week. Bill Billingsley, in Greensboro, however, said the non-Union Cone Mills workers would follow the Union on strike; he claimed the workers there were more militant than the Union. Baldanzi's attitude reflected Billingsley's Danville and Cone Mills were basically defeats waiting to happen.
