Twin city review. [volume] (Champaign, Ill.) 19??-1929, 1922-09-01
Observation-Disclosures,
BLUFFING A BOSS
Observation-Disclosures,
(By John II. Walker, President, ILL.,
nOis State Federation of LabOr)

(By John II. Walker, President, ILL
nOis State Federation of LabOr)
During the time that was organ
izer in West Virginia in the New
River field, | had a good deal of OPP
position from John Lang, who was
then general manager for his COM
pany, with mines at Rushrun and Red
Ash, and two other places, don't
just recall their names now. His
home was in Red Ash, and he made
extraordinary efforts to keep the or
ganization from being established
there.
| had hel two or three meetings
In that vicinity, most of them very
scantily attended, and some of them
rather stormy as a result of contro-
versy between myself and Lang. |
was determined to organize the place
If it was possible for me to, accord
lngly, kept ON trying to get up meet
ings for that purpose.
l billed a meeting one evening to
be held in sort of a hollow at the
foot of the mountains close to the
railroad where, in the laying of the
railroad, the construction company
had taken out a large amount of dirt
to fill in another portion of the rail-
road where they were building a tres
tie. This hollow formed a sort of
natural amphitheatre and was lust at
the outskirts of Red Ash.
On the day previous to the meet
ing Lang's emissaries had notified
every man there that if they attend
ed the meeting they would be dis
n IN hot 4 A
there, along about 1880 that evening,
there was no one there except the four
boys who came over with me from
Berry which was just across the river
from Red Ash.
When we got to the amphitheatre
we saw there was no one there, but
having noticed that at practically
every house we passed, there was
some one looking and watching, we
knew that all the men were interested
and wanted to come to the meeting,
and that if something could be done
to get them started, the chances were
they would come and we would be
able to organize a local So | said to
those boys from Berry, "in the hollow
between the mountains, it carries a
human voice a long way and the
echoes keep reverberating. know
that If we can make those folks be-
lleve we have good meeting here,
they will come out, so | am going to
start and speak as loud as | can and
| want you to applaud as Justify as
you can. to create the impression that
there is a large meeting out here"
They agreed and | started speaking
in a loud voice that carried to some
of the homes in Red Ash. The four
clapped their hands, laughed loudly,
etc. | asked the men to stand up on
the outside and rive the women their
seats TO make it appear that there
were women there as well as men.
John Lang, who was waiting close
by, soon had some emissaries tell him
that we had meeting on. John hur-
ried down on his rubber-tired gaso-
line railroad motor car to break up
the meeting q suppose by threaten
ing to discharge the men if they did
not leave Immediately and large
crowd of the men followed him 10
watch what took place.
When John got there and saw that
there was nobody at the meeting at
all but five of us the humor of il
struck him so forcibly that he started
70 laugh himself and went away and
left us. Nearly every man in the
camp came out to that meeting and
We organized a local union before we
left.