The Washington times., 1918-07-31
LEWIS, HEAD OF
WIRE SYSTEMS,
WAS COAL MINER
BY FoNTAINE FOX.

Forty-nine years old, energetic, op-
timistic, former coal miner. lawyer
and politician-that's David j. Lewis,
who at midnight assumes the direct
responsibility OF administering the
great wire systems of the country
under Government control.
His life, now crowned with one OF
the greatest tasks in the war govern
ment, has been for the most part, one
of toll He learned the point OF view
OF labor when for fourteen years he
mined coal. He learned the wire bust
ness from the ground up by studying
it for many years. Today he is chaEed
with applying his knowledge of the
worker to his views on wire opera
tion, to develop an efficient system
that will bring about the realization
of his government wire control
dreams.
Went To Work In Mine.
Lewis. at the age OF seven. went to
work in a coal mine in Clearfeld
county. Pa, his birthplace.
His 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 six
teen a contract miner, the youngest
in the district. When he was twenty
he was working in fire clay mines at
Mount Savage, Nd.
Whn them
stepped in and changed his career.
Lewis was a fluent speaker, a gift he
learned from his father. who had
been a Welsh Baptist preacher. He
went to Cumberland as a labor dele
gate, and after speaking there a
newspaperman said TO him, You
Should be a lawyer and not a coal
miner"
Given Copy of Blackstone.
The idea appealed to the young
man, and he was introduced to 3. A
Richmond, a lawyer. who gave him a
copy of Blackstone. He read the 500
pages in a week. But 1t took only a
minute to convince him he knew lit
tie. 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 il day and
night for four years. Then he was
admitted to the bar, and with little
money and few friends. began prac-
tice 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 '90s, he prepared
a brief in favor of naturalization
which went through thirty-three edi-
tions.
Changed His Politics.
Lewis was a Republican, but
changed his views and Joined the
Democrats. then in a minority. He
tackled politics with the same spirit
that he did law.
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
election followed in the next cam
paign.
One OF the biggest Jobs he did in
Congress was in connection with the
parcel post law. Friends say he
read every bit of literature available
in all languages. Finding fundamen-
tai theories lacking, he evolved his
own from the mass of data he col
lected.
Began Study of Wires.
Then he started intensive study of
wires. a subject that had previously
interested him, and for two years
read and studied the experience OF
Europe. AT the end of that time he