The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1949-08-11
They Swing For
Lewis But Look
Who Is Coughf


brought up. That's Styles Bridges,
standpat Republican from New
Hampshire.
Bridges, who once had an eye
out for the COP presidential nom
nation, got caught in lariat that
his anti-labor colleagues had swung
to catch President John l.. Lewis
Of the United Mine Workers.
1t all happened at a hearing be-
fore a subcommittee of the Sen
ate Banking Committee, headed by
Senator A. Willis Robertson, a
leading "Dixiegop", who's nominal
ly a Democrat of the Byrd mac
nine in Virginia, but who votes as
Republicans do.
II Robertson was out to smear the
Mine Workers welfare and retire
ment fund, but the hearing back
fired when the issue Of pay for the
funds three trustees arose. The
trustees are Lewis, for the miners;
Ezra Van Horn, for the coal oper-
lators, and Bridges, the neutral"
member.
Josephine Roche, administrative
director of the fund, was on the
stand at the time. On the matter of
the trustees pay, Senator John
Sparkman Cd, Ala.), who is friend
| ly to labor, took over the ques-
tioning. Skillfully, he drew out the
facts.
The trustees are entitled to cal
lowances" of $4,000 a year, if
they choose to accept, Miss Roche
told Sparkman. Who chooses to ac-
cept? he asked. 1.-TWO trustees,
she replied, "and Mr. Lewis is not
one of them"
In other words, while Lewis isn't
drawing a dime, the other two
trustees are helping themselves to
the $4,000 each, in addition to
their regular salaries.
There were lot of raised eye
brows around Capitol Hill at the
news, and many an off -the-record
crack about Bridges taking $780,
900 on top Of his senatorial income
of S12,500 year, plus $500 in
taxfree expense money.
For a while, Bridges ducked
newsmen who wanted an explana-
ton, but the senator finally came
up with the alibi that he had to
use a lot of the $4,000 for sex
penses" and for the cost of coun-
sci he hired to advise him in his
trusteeship. Bridges wouldn't say
how much went for that purpose,
but his colleagues muttered some
thing about it being a mice setup,
if you can get away with it."
Miss Josephine Roche, former
mine-owner, former assistant Sec
retary of the Treasury, and now
director of the UNIV Welfare
Fund, told the Senators that bene-
fits totaling 100000 had been
paid to miners and their families,
with administrative costs consum-
ing only 112c of each dollar ex-
pended.
Fantastic" was the label Miss
Roche applied to some of the
charges that Robertson attempted
to make against the welfare fund
which is paid by the operators
in the form of a royalty levied on
each ton of coal mined, and is ad-
ministered by a three-man union
operator-public board.
Meanwhile, negotiations continue
for new contracts under which the
miners union hopes to obtain
larger fund with which to aid dis
abled members, widows and victims
Of mine accidents.
In the last fiscal year, Miss
Roche reported, the fund has spent:
for death benefits, S5,546,853 paid
to 31,958 widows and dependents
of deceased UNIV members; for
disability and widows assistance,
$64, ,206,596 paid to 292,811 bene-
ficiaries; for pensions, $30,366,264
paid to Al, ,848 benefciaries; medi-
cal and health care, S4,761, ,071 paid
to 26,4S0 UNIV members and their
families.
Miss Roche brought tears to the
eyes of spectators as she read
some of the letters which come to
her office - some from miners
whose backs were broken in mine
accidents and who lay uncared for
except by their families for years,
who now receive through the Fund
disqualification and re-training in
how to get around and even in
some cases to become self-sup-
porting.
State workmen's compensation
laws often allow the operators to
beat the miners out of receiving
adequate compensation for mine
injuries, she insisted.
Turning to Robertson at one
point, she said, "You and |, as coal
operators, know how miners are
often beaten out of their compen-
sation." The exchanges with Miss
Roche brought out the fact that
Robertson, besides stooging for
he southern operators by staging
he hearings, is himself a former
,oal mine owner.