Evening star., 1937-05-31
The Story %]oM L. Lezvy

| p>"SS ASiSACd' n ptdCc LIldG was
shared by industrial unionism, as
exemplifled by the United Mine Work.
ers, and trade unionism, as exempli-
ned by the American Federation of
Labor. And these two, as will be
seen later. are implacable enemies.
The life of one means inevitably the
death of the other, and any peace
between them can be no more than
a truce.
1t is quite certain that Lewis devel-
oped no comprehension of the large
forces at work through the country
and had no desire to think about them
until they were ready to explode in his
face. At 81, pick Singer in Lucas,
he still had not found himself.
Marriage Changes Things.
Speaking of those days, he says he
wanted to wander, have experiences
taste America" and find out what
1t held for him. He pulled up stakes
and went West, learned language as
a mule driver, hacked copper out Of
Colorado, hacked silver, coal and gold
out of Montana, once Drained a vi
clous mule that had tried for weeks to
XIII him and at last got him cornered
in mine corridor. Lewis let it have
the Sprag of a coal car, stuffed its
wounds with clay and, to keep his job,
TOLD the foreman the mule had died
OF heart disease. In 1905 he helped
dig some of the 400 corpses out of
the great mine disaster that shook
Hannah, Wyo
AT the age of q, when most men
have found the rut they will travel to
the grave, Lewis was still content to
PICK up money with the muscles of
his back and fritter away his free
time
Then he was back in Lucas, still A
digger. On June S, 1907, he took
unto himself "a wife and the respon-
sibilities attached thereto" She was
the shy little school teacher, Myrta
Edith Bell, who could have been a
d. A. r. If she had wanted to- Even
now they make strange couple-a
sort of box hedge and oak tree combi-
nation.
Time to Get Ahead.
Il saw" says Lewis, that It be-
hooved me to get ahead now" The
union offered the only escape from
the pits for the mine worker. and
Lewis, shifting his luck to Panama.
Ill, lifted his great horn voice In
behalf OF union politics. There was
no 4aealism attached to the move
and none of the holy spirit that has
made other men turn to a cause"
1t was, as Lewis himself will tell
you, purely practical.
His rise was rapid, but otherwise en-
tlrely orthodox He started in 1903.
Three years later he was a local hero
and his local run by the Lewis
orothers) sent him to the convention
In indianapolis. The same year
lsl1-he took job as organizer for
the American Federation of Labor
and soon became the pet of Sam
Gompers. For six years he studied
tactics under the shrewd Dutch-Eng-
llsh Jew. fighting in every sector of
| the labor front. from steel to cigar
wrapping. He learned much, but he
hadn't learned yet on which side his
and the miners-bread was but
tered
Back to the United Mine Workers
he went, and now he knew the game
OF climbing. AS in most large organi-
zatlons, democracy goes only so far
IN the U. M. W., and the nearer the
| top you 90 the further you travel from
the ballot box. Lewis climbed by ap-
polntment. He went soaring on up
ward as statlstician OF the union, as
Its vice president, under the fire.
quently camatos Frank L. Hayes, as
its acting president and finally as its
president
Beaten by Gompers.
In 1919 he pulled his first big
strike, calling out 4ll,O0O men when
the price of coal was high and could
ride higher on the crest of demand.
President Wilson broke it, declaring
the country was still technically at
war and ordering Attorney General
Palmer to get an injunction under
the Lever food control act Lewis
ordered his men back to work. but
with n per cent wage increase
less than half of the so per cent rise
demanded.
In 1921 he ran against Gompers Tor
presidency Of the A. F. of L. One
hundred twenty thousand miners,
dissatisfied with his 1919 settlement;
the craftiness Of Gompers and the un-
solicited support Of William Ran
dolph Hearst (always a kiss OF death
in labor convention), combined to
defeat Lewis,
But the beefy, slugging scholar OF
coal was riding high and gaily. Alex
Howat, roughneck. fervent Kansas
Socialist, and Frank Farrington,
burly, razor -witted; Len Small Re-
publican from Illinois, had led the
Lewis dissidents. Lewis broke them
both. Howat made the mistake of
running a strike from a Jail cell in
protest against Kansas compulsory
arbitration law. Lewis excommuni-
Gated him and his followers for call
ing an illegal strike and made the ex-
communication stick. Farrington's
union career was ended when Lewis
produced a 25,O0O-a-year contract
that the Illinois leader had signed
surreptitiously with the Peabody Coal
Co.