The Waterbury Democrat., 1946-11-30

John L Lewis President
 The United Mine WorkefA
 Washington, D. c.
 Dear John.
 Co me ehe ether day. what he said represents the viewpoint og a lot of young men, and thought you might be interested h hearing N
 T don't know who caused the depression" he said. ~But know didn't m was only n years old when 1t started and as e result couldn't 60 so college. Instead went out to support the family at ie with my ambition to be mechanical engineer
 ~f don't know the answers on the war ssshus. But Hitler was In Poland before was old enough to vote, SO don't think started it FzoweveE had to take four years of my life to help finish t. And when came home. my wife and had grown % Tar apart that our marriage Topped
 "An that may have been inevitable. and I'm not complaining about the past. cont begr0dse the ,S Ss snS my whss m S's % S where we go from here And judging ny the strikes and general attitude of shins. we aren't going anywhere fast"
 Your own boy Mfr Lewis was iuckier than that You were WDle to send him to the Woodbury School tn Virginia, then to Princeton, then to medical cole leee Which is all right He is fine boy, and deserved all the education he could get But there are thou sands of others who were not so lucky as your boz And they are asking the very same question as my friend-where does the country gc from herea And why do certain leaders keep on muddying up theif iives7
 E They too have a cOntsact-a contract with Mfe- to do for the world as they are done by 1t may not be written in black and white your contract with the Government, but it's there just the same. And without quibbllng legal oopholes they want to make something Of that con.ract-just as your boy does Many Of them have spent their best years ful- filling their end of the contract-aIl the way from 0uadalcanal to Normandy-and now what they want is period without Impressions anc without wars to collect some dividends.
 And they know--far more than you and realize what broken contracts will mean in this highly integrated highly sensitized world
 They know, for instance, tha: when you broke your contract with the Government. the Government in turn had to break its contract with Frafee for coal That means several million people in France because my brother and his four kids over there and their ration for all last Winter was one ton of coal. This year they were hoping to do better but thanks to a broken contract they won't
 However, they can buy wood ct $50 q cord And much more important are millions of others in France who can't buy wood and who are going to say: 'The. United States broke it's contract" More important also are the French industries which won't operate and finally the growing number Of people now leaning toNard Communists Russia and away from the kind of democracy Jointly founded by America and France.
 All your life, gohn Lewis you have been she sworn enemy of Communism was looking up your speeches made back in the Wilson Administration and even then 25 years ago you were denouncng the Reds just as vigorously you have been since agree with you this But righs now you yourself have become the greatest single contributor to the growth of Communism in the entire United States.