The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1918-07-31
Mines TO Wires
Man Who VIII Run Wire Sys-
tenn Once a Coal Miner.
Started With Pick and Shovel
at the Age of Seven.
HE DECIDED TO STUDY LAW
Could Read, but Could Not
Xrite-Had To Learn.
Became Student, Congressman
and Authority on Telegraph.

Washington, July Shorty nine
years old, unusually small in stature,
energetic, optimistic, unschooled,
former coal miner, lawyer and poll
tician-that's David j. Lewis, who at
midnight tonight assumes the respon-
sibiIity of administering the great wire
systems OF the country under govern
ment control.
His life, now crowned with one of
the greatest tasks of our government,
has been for the most part one of toll
He learned the point of view OF labor
when for fourteen years ne mined
coal. He learned the wire business
from the ground up by studying it for
many years. Today he is charged
with applying his knowledge of the
work and his views on wire operation,
TO develop an efficient system that
will bring about the realization of his
government wire control dreams.
Went to Work at Age of Seven.
Lewis, at the age of seven. went to
work in coal mine in Clearfield
county. Pennsylvania, his birth place.
lis parents, Welsh immigrants,
were poor and needed his help, SO he
shouldered pick and shovel-little
ones his father made for him-and
marched to work with his father.
After four years at this he ran
away from home. his mother having
died. He became breaker boy at an
thracite mines and at the age of 16 q
contract miner, the youngest in the
district.
When he was 20, he was working
in fire clay mines at Mount Savage,
Md
1t was newspaper man who then
stepped in and changed his career
Lewis was fluent speaker, a thing he
learned from his father who had been
a Welsh BantiSt nreacber
He went to Cumberland as a labor
delegate and after speaking there a
newspaper man said to him:
You should be lawyer and not a
coal miner"
The idea appealed to the young man
and he was introduced to B. A. Rich
mond, a lawyer, who gave him a copy
OF Blackstone. He read the six hun
dred pages in a week. But it took
only minute to convince him he knew
Ittie. He could read but not write
and OF Latin he knew nothing. So he
started the study of Latin and of law
and kept at it day and night for four
years. Then he was admitted to the
bar and with little money and few
friends began practice at Cumberland.
His studies led him into the field
of economics and he read every book
he could lay hands on. When the
fight against the railroads was under
way in the '90's he prepared brief
in favor of naturalization which went
thru thirty-three editions.
Lewis was a Republican, but
changed his views and Joined the
Democrats, then in a minority.
In 1908 he was nominated for con-
gress as a "forlorn hope and ran
against his law partner. He put up
such a spirited campaign that his cleo
ton followed in the next campaign.
Studied Parcels Post.
One of the biggest jobs he did in
congress was in connection With the
parcels post law.
Friends say he read every. bit of
literature available in all languages.
Finding fundamental theories lack
ing, he evolved his own from the mass
of data he collected.
Then he started intensive study of
wires, a subject that had previously
and studied the experience of Europe.
he had learned all he could on the
subject and began his fight IN con-
gress for federal control. Wires. he
said-and still believes-are a natural
monopoly and should not be in private
hands. He thought the house was
willing to adopt his ideas, so ran for
the senate in the hope he might con :
vert that body. But he was defeated
and later was appointed to the tariff
commission by President Wilson
When the government recently as
sumed control. Lewis doomed as the
man best acquainted with the uues-
tons which arose. and his selection