Montana labor news., 1946-06-06

Juitu. many VI tltll 50 bduis iHtt tHtN
are thrown on the industrial scrap
heap. by mine disasters-an appalling
ly great number Of them p~reventabIe.
When you remember that only about
100. 600 skilled men are AT work at
the face" of the coal, actually eX-
tracing il by ponderous machines or
deity swung picks. and that il is at
the face where explosions take their
greatest toll, you can understand what
a military man had in mind when he
said:
casualties we would take them out Of
combat-and quick.
A group OF marines. returned from
Bataan. were hoped up by The hate
stories printed against Lewis and his
miners during the wartime strikes of
the miners. They decided 10 go see for
themselves what coal-mining was like
before carrying out their intentions
Of beating up that so-and-so John l..
Lewis. as they We're advised by the
antiminer rropagandists in both the
capitalist and many Of the so-called
liberal papers as well. t"Lewis Must
Co was sprawled across the front
page of Pm when John was battling a
communist inspired strike i'll 1912.
This was a wildcat affair in brazen
,-i,l,tia, sc III, .,ntrn,t l,,t tho
operators and the miners. and Lewis
always keeps his c~ontracts.) The Devil
Dogs came up out OF the pit. through
which they had been conducted. a
badly shaken bunch of youngsters.
we have it easy" said one of the
vets. compared to those poor devils
down there"
Incidentally they did not beat up
John-nor. for that matter, did the
two derranged veterans who escaped
from ST. Elizaheth's Hospital in Wash
ineton and invaded the mine union
headquarters for that purpose. In
stead. after hearing from Lewis about
the real conditions under which his
men worked. they broke down and
were taken back to the hospital in
Johns automobile. This despite the
fact that the Washington papers print
ed o sensational story about the beat
ing which the vets had given Lewis.
and printed a touched-up picture of
him with a bullying black eye. ! saw
hin, IA, ,,.xt DIV, aud unt thn t,na
story.
Is it any wonder that Lewis is con
temptuous Of the press which. after
lionizing him as the mighty "Samp-
son of Labor" in the early days when
he was regularly winning strikes as
leader of the CLIO. turned on him dur
ing the war and could find no words
vituperative enough to express their
hate for this man,
When he is accused of disregarding
public opinion he quite %pertinently
asks what public and how is that
public's opinion moulded? When the
cartoonists and editorial writers por-
trayed Lewis as stabbing American
soldiers in the back. and doing the dir
ty work for Hitler and Hirohito in
the course of the wartime strikes, he
simply shrugged his big shoulders and
kept on pressing his demands that the
miners get pay equal at least to the
minimum paid war factory workers in
their neighborhoods. AS a result the
average wage was raised from around
$50 Of take-home pay to more than
$50 a week.
Opinion among The membership OF
the UNIV and Of countless other UNI
ions outside the miners organization
is that a man who can bring home the
bacon in this victorious name is a
pretty good leader OF labor. Not since
the far-off days when the brainy and
militant John Brophy ran against him
has I.ewis's reelection TO the presi-
dency been threatened. And %re-elec-
ton is the pay-off so far as the rank
and file are concerned
Men who dig coal are not the silly
utlitN ivy "t i'lutNu " ft. ivy
are pretty good judges of character.
And while Lewis has many bitter en-
cmies inside his W organization.
and was the target Of merciless criti-
cism Ivy his own co-workcrs in the
Go. figure his place in labor history
will be a high one. when the final
count is IN.
Not that | agree with all Of Lewis's
policies. past or present. He is a con
sentative of the conservatives, by ma
ture and intellectual conviction. AS a
rule he votes the straight Republican
ticket. He was one of the few out
standing labor leaders who refused TO
back Bob LaFollette's father in the
glorious crusade Of 1924. He had and