The daily sentinel., 1913-07-30
LEW|SM0DELMAN
FOR JOB, SAYS
TAVENMER
by Cong. Clyde II. Tavenner.

Washington, July 30.-In naming
David J. Lewis, of Maryland. as the
chairman OF the house committe on
/ labor, the democratic house has done
a great service for the American
workingman.
The action is being acclaimed on
all sides In Washington, where il is
generally recognized that Mr.. Lewis
Is the one man in congress fittest TO
head this important committee. He
Will prove a tower of strength for
American labor in Washington.
Representative Lewis is "Dayy"
] Lewis to all who know him. When
he approaches legislation affecting
the interests of the workingman, II
is not as the analytical lawyer, but
as the man who has experienced the
toll, the struggle, the sweat and dust
OF labor and its hopes and ambitions.
He knows the needs OF labor from
long and painful contact Davy Lewis
himself was victim of the cruelest
form in which human beings are ex-
plotted by capitalize child labor
treadmill.
Born of Welsh parentage, when
Dayy Lewis was nine years old, the
poverty of his parents sent him to
work as helper to his father in the
coal mines of central Pennsylvania.
Deprived of the play and sunshine by
which most children develop and rob-
bed of opportunities for schooling,
Davy Lewis spent his entire boyhood
in the CRIME and darkness of the coal
mines.
1t stunted his body, but it could not
quell its spirit. Like a moth trying
to escape from its cocoon, Lewis
struggled for IA long years to get to
the sunlight. And when he finally
did emerge 1t was to display 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 ravenously all the books and
publications he could get. finally
studying Latin and law simultaneous
ly, much OF 1t by the light of the min
er's lamp on his cap, l will not go
into here. Nor how, as a struggling
lawyer at Cumberland. Md, he be-
gan the study of railway express and
postoffice statistics and economics as
hobby.
The fact is that he mastered the
subject as 1t has seldom been master
ed and when he made his first speech
in congress about two years ago, 1t
stamped him instantly as the great
est authority on parcel post, who had
ever served in congress. Even the
last republican administration ac-
/ knowledged his superior wisdom on
the subject.
/ See how things come about! Lewis
studied railroads and express COM
l panies, and finally the postoffice.
purely as a diyersion-because 1t in
terested him. He was elected to con-
gress, the same congress that passed
the parcel post law. And the knowl-
| edge that Davy Lewis acquired in
those long years in his dingy little
/ Cumberland law office placed in the
present parcel post law every good
| feature it possesses.
AS the bill was drawn by Senator
Bourne, who rates himself as pro-
gressive, it forbade the carry OF farm
produce by parcel post. Due to the
/ insistance OF Lewis, farm products
were admitted; but most important
of all, paragraph was inserted Civ
| ing the postmaster general full pow
! er to change at will all rates, zone
/ limits and classifications, making
complete postal express entirely pos
/ sible without another act on the part
of congress.
| 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 ma
turally intense, and In that big.
| brainy head OF his he has many plans
for legislation to make the burden of
labor lighter.