The Bridgeport evening farmer., 1913-06-06
HOW "DAvY" LEWIS HELPED
 PARCEL POST
Something About the Rev Head of the Congressional Labor
 Committee
Ry Our Staff Correspondent.)

NDJ OdI oLd1I SOTTSSpOnQ0nL.)
 Washington, June 6.-In naming Da- vid J. Lewis, of Maryland, as chair man of the House Committee on La bor, the Democratic House has done great service for the American work ing man.
 The action is being acclaimed on all sides in Washington, where 1t is gem orally recognized that MT. Lewis is the one man in Congress Attest to head this important committee He will prove a tower Of strength for Amerf- can labor in Washington.
 Represen ntative Lewis is ''Davy'' Lewis to all who know him. When he approaches legislation affecting the in- terests of the working man, 1t is not the analytical lawyer, but as the man who has experienced the toll, the struggle, the sweat and dust of labor and it's hopes and ambitions.
 He knows. the needs of labor from long and painful contact Davy Lewis himself was a victim of the cruelest form in which human beings are ex- plotted by capitaI-the child labor treadmiI1
 Born of Welsh percentage, when Da- " Lewis was nine years old, >the pow erty of his parents sent him to work as a helper to his father in the coal mines of central Pennsylvania. De- prived of the play and sunshine by which most children develop, and rob- bed of opportunities for schooling, Da- wy Lewis spent his entire boyhood in the grime and darkness of the coal mines.
 It stunted his body, but 1t could not quell it's spirit. Like a moth trying to escape from it's cocoon. Lewis strug- gled for IA long years to get to the sunlight. And when he finally did emerge it was to display a body, dwarfed and thick of muscle, but a mind rare among intellects.
 How he effected his escape, learn ing to read in Sunday school. then reading ravenopsly all the books and publications he could get, finally studying Latin and law simultaneous 1y, much of it by the light of the min- CTS lamp on his cap, will not go into here. Nor how, as a struggling lawyer at Cumberland, Md, he began the study of railway, express and post office statistics and economies as a hobby.
 The fact is that he mastered the subject as it has seldom been mas tered, and when he made his first speech in Congress about two years ago. it stamped him instantly as the greatest authority on parcel post who had ever served in Congress. Even the last Republican administration ac- know1edged his superior wisdom on the subject.
 See how things come about! Lewis studied railroads and express compa- nies, and finally the post office, purely as a diversion-because it interested him. He was elected to Congress- the same Congress that passed the parcel post law. And the knowledge that Davy Lewis acquired in those long years in his dingy little Cumber- land law office placed in the present parcel post law every good feature 1t possesses.
 As the bill was drawn by Senator Bourne. who rates himself as a Pro gressive, it forbade the carrying of farm produce by parcel post. Due to the insistence of Lewis, farm products were admitted; but most important of all, a paragraph was inserted giv- ing the Postmaster General full power to change at will all rates, zone limits and classifcations, making complete postal express entirely possible with out another act on the part. of Con gress
 Such has been the public service of Davy Lewis, in one term of Congress. And now at the beginning of his sec ond, he finds himself at the head of the important Labor Committee His interest in labor legislation is natural 1y intense, and in that big, brainy head of his he has many plans for legislation to make the burden of la Dor lighter.