The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1928-04-03
SMASH CORRUPT
OFFICIAL GANG
AT ONCE, PLEA
Program to Be Urged
Among Unorganized
miners of the state.

miners OF the state.
When fighters in the union have
dared to protest against these out
RACES, Lewis and his agents, assisted
by the coal operators, have brutally
expelled and blacElisted them. Many
of the best fighters the union pro
duced, such as Alex Howat, Duncan
Macdonald, jim McLachlan, and hun
dreds of others have suffered this
fate. In all the big industrial CEN
tiers are to be found groups of fight
ing miners expelled from the union
and driven out of the industry by
Lewis terrorism. Henry Corbishly
was framed and sent to Jail in Him
ois for fighting the infamous Far
rington, then an ally of Lewis, Camp
bell, Reilly, and Lillis were murdered
and Sam Greece almost fatally
wounded in District l for opposing
the equally infamous tool of the oper-
ators, Cappelini, and the special con-
tractors supported by him. This war
against the real fighters in the union,
inaugurated by the Lewis regime, has
done much to kill the spirit of the
union and to weaken its whole posi-
ton.
Lewis handling of the present
strike and the events Immediately
preceding it constitute a crime
against the miners. At the time of
the anthracite strike in 1925 the
Pittsburgh Coal Company and many
other operators in Districts 2 and 5
were already openly violating the
Jacksonville agreement. Manifestly
the indispensable thing to do was to
pull out the soft coal miners on strike
with the hard coal miners to stop
these menacing violations. This
would have nipped the employers at
tack in the bud and re-established
the union. But Lewis did nothing ex-
cept to fill the air full of empty COM
plants against the operators.
Then, to make the situation of the
union worsa Lewis made no prepara-
ton for the present decisive strike.
With the union controlling only 80
per cent of bituminous production
great campaign should have been put
on to organize the unorganized. But
again nothing was done; Lewis or
ganizers even openly opposed the or
ganization or striking of unorganized
miners. They sent many non-union
miners back to work who did strike.
The union went into the struggle
criminally unprepared.
Lewis further weakened the power
of the union in the strike by his
throwing overheard the principle of
the Central Competitive Field agree
ment and inaugurating the system of
individual and district agreements.
Thus his policy amounted to allow
ing the operators to use not only the
great masses of unorganized miners
against the strike but also large sec
tions of the union itself. How could
the union make an effective fight I'M
der such circumstances The brave
miners of central and western Penn
sylvania, Ohio and West Virginia
were isolated by Lewis and sentenced
to desperate struggle in the face Of
overwhelming odds. The operators
were allowed to concentrate their at
tack upon the most vulnerable point
of the union That is why the organ
ization is now in a life and death
crisis.
The Lewis machine has systematic
ally fought against all real efforts to
mobilize the power of the miners for
the strike. Instead of bringing the
unorganized masses into the fight, in
stead Of throwing the whole union in
to the struggle, instead of carrying
through campaign of mass picket
ing and mass violation Of the many
injunetions leveled at the strikers,
Lewis men have Systematically play
ed down and denounced mass picket
ing and all real mobilization of our
forces. Only recently, under pres
sure of the Savc-the- Union movement,
have the officials grudgingly made a
few empty gestures toward mass pick
citing. They have as a matter Of pol
icy isolated the strikers and placed
their reliance in futile appeals to
Coolidge and the senate investigation
committee, who are manifestly allied
with the coal operators and who can
only serve as a screen to cover the
open shop policy being launched with
new vigor Meanwhile the union slips
deeper and deeper into the crisis.
The reactionary Lewis machine, COR
rupt to the core and bound with a
thousand ties to the coal operators
and the politicians of the republican
and democratic parties Of the bosses,
is strangling the miners union. Bit
ter enemies of everything progress
sive, they look upon the labor move
ment primarily only as q means for
their personal enrichment. They have
no trace of working elass spirit. Their
measure can be taken from the fact
that while hundreds Of thousands of
striking miners and their families are
literally starving on q dollar or two
g week relief money, these fake labor
leaders have been drawing their fat