Montana labor news., 1946-06-06
BY McALISTER COLEMAN
Martha's Vineyard. Mass.


What makes me tick?"
John Llewellyn lewis. head of the
United Mine Workers of America since
1918 when. as vice president, he
took over the duties of the ill-starred
Frank Hayes. was in an unusually In
question of a group of newspapermen.
Among them was Dale Kramer who
has recorded it.
Am Saint Francis Lewis doomed
on. feeding the little black birds
on am | Genghis Khan. or who am r.
When a news photographer the 9th.
or day got a picture Of this 6i-year-
old leader OF the men from the pits,
by all odds the most battling public
figure of Il times. he caught Lewis
Unexpectedly smiling. And Lewis's
smile can light up "A
Mr.. Lewis" asked the photogra-
pher why do you usually scowl
when you have your picture taken?'
Lewis took his cigar from his
mouth. glowered at the newsman and
muttered. "Scowling. is my business
And he has plenty to scowl about.
Despite the enormous gains in status,
wages. and work conditions made by
the coal-digsers of this country since
they were organized, East. West.
South, by the brilliant but belated
campaign waged by Lewis in 1885 I'm
der the shadow of the wings of the
Blue Eagle of the NRA. life in the
camps around the 5000 soft coal mines
and the hundreds of anthracite pits
is no smiling matter.
A half million American citizens
and their families who constitute one
OF the largest units Of the worlds in
dustrial workers still live in daily
dread of death and disaster in com
munities where the going is so rugged
that it may be said today as Thoreau
said of the workers Of his times.
Most of them lead lives of quiet des-
peration."
To the casual reader of the kept
press, or listener to the kept radio.
Lewis may sound absurdly melodra-
matte when he damns the operators
for the ca%llousness they show towards
their workers. To anyone who has
lived in a smoke-hung mining camp
with its forlorn. little shacks huddled
on cinder heaps at the mouth of the
nminnIIC nit tho ShnEncnnarian Cd
~jectiyes applied by Lewis in his thun-
behring's at the operators seem particu
larly apt. 1t is truly a Caliban-like ex-
istence for the run Of the rank and
file diggers. AS is usual with poets,
Louis Untermeyer had the authentic
words on coal mining in his "Caliban
in the Coal Mines" the last stanza
Of which runs.
Nothing but blackness above,
and nothing that moves but the
God, If you wish for our love.
Fling us a handful of stars"
OF course there are exceptions to
these remote desolations which are
tut uuih VI tue mime camps To-Day. Ill
The United Mine Workers Journal
the KOppers companies. one of the
largest operators in the Southern
fields, get a hand now and then for
their efforts to bring the ordinary
amenities of American life to their
employees and their families. And
when X. c. Adams. the Journals acer-
bic editor, gives any operator a hand,
nothing less than a miracle has been
passed.
BY and large, however. as these sta.
tistics show. the ordinary mining camp
and by that | mean a community of
some 800 persons. hidden away among
the mountains Of West Virginia. max
ing a rural Stun in Pennsylvania. or
swept by the fierce. prairie winds of
lllinois-is no place for any but the
most durable and courageous of men
and women with pioneering blood in
them. Look at these figures:
Every year some 1900 coal miners
are killed, some 10000 to 10000 in