The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-11-25
w Drsw Pearson

letter from banker r !. xAsmnn of Che xA1man Corr poralion New York, stating that "a man ny Ms name ne Klshoff lessee of mine, b paying aNnlaA Of Sao00 to the owners Of tho mine at apEingtled, m There is something very peculiar about this sitna~ tion of which you would like to Do informed. think one union is paying rental to keep enc wcrker cf
 oresn at that time wag the hated rival og Lewis. The latter he'd left the AWfA and was calling Green nll sorts Of names. However, Green oid nothm9 ex- cent pass fAsanS letter to the Prosressve Minefs
 How close Eamundsen and Lewis were at thas tn,a s shown hy the way Edmundson, then pfesdent of District i2 appeared before mine locals % squech had had no idea this amount of money was being taken out of their dues to pay mine operator Co stay closed for two years and half n iscs. they tild not know t until the secretaS of tho Treasury started his income tax probe Of Lewis.
 when word finally leaked out, however the rank and file of the United Mine Workers were sore, esq pecialy n Illinois where they had been asked in Che FAll of ieao to vote an assessment or . PCT cent Though they did not know t. this was to pay the sSoOOOO hush fund given to mine owner Mshoff.
 This extra assessment was voted down However six months later, without vote, Lewiss controlled executive board, acting through Edmundson, went over the heads of the miners and levied the assess ment anyway. Thus Illinois miners in May, ieAl. un- helnownst to them were called upon to pay S300000 spent three years before by Lewis and Edmundscn to keep mine closed in order to throw 500 other miners out of work.
 when Us E. local members of the United Mine Workers hit the ceiling. -
 "Tts hell of policy to hand over our dues to a mine owner," remarked Robert MaEtiny head of Local @.
 Had this come before the executive board would have opposed it." said John Glasgow, member of District l2s executive board Advancing money to mine owners isn't my idea of square unionism"
 However, by that time there was nothing the miners could do about it. Furthermore i later leaked out that Lewis had given an additional s50OOO0 of mners' dues to Josephine Roche, former Assistant Secretary of the Treasury and operator of the Rocky Mountain Fuel Company. None of this probably would have come to the attention of the rank and file miners if the Federal Government had not stated its income tax investigation.
 Yet later when Ray Edmundson, the man who had been Lewss close buddy in putting across these secret deals, decided to run for president of the United Mine Workers. he not even allowed to set foot on the floor of the Cincinnati convention, but was expelled from the union.
 Such are the dictatorial tactics of the man who now accuses the U. s. Government of dictatorship.
 Secretary of State Byrnes had closed-door meet ing with UNfeRA boss LaGuardia in New York last week at which he fatly rejected LaGuaras idea for an international organization to take over UrREAs work. With UNRRA out of the way and the United States solely responsible for relief ir the U S. of Germany Byrnes wants to cut down the number of displaced persons living in camps-simpy by cutting off relief.