Evening Star Newspaper, May 31, 1937, Page 28

The Story of John L. Lezwis Iv. BY IRA WOLFERT. (Copyright, 1937, by the North American Newspaper Alliance. Inc.) T WAS ‘“enlightened” capital, ac- cording to W. Jett Lauck, econ- omist of the United Mine Workers" Union, that started the union on Its way while John L. Lewis was still | roaring runs home on a base ball lot in Lucas, Iowa, and the portly, frock- coated president-maker, Mark Hanna, was the first to see “the light.” Boss Hanna ran coal mines in Ohio In the ripped-up heart of the central bituminous field. Coal was a good business in those days, except that every man in it thought the best way to get the business was to take it away from his competitor. Hanna changed that. He brought to the industry a rough- and-tumble philosophy—if you can't kill your enemy, make him a partner. Just before the turn of the century, when the country was down in Cuba | remembering the Maine, when the | frontier had disappeared and mass pro- | duction and trustification of indust: had taken its place as the molder of | the new American life, Hanna called | his enemies in and made them partners. In words that have been lost to posterity, he preached the wis- dom of spreading the cake around That way everybody could eat without | getting indigestion. Unions Pegged Labor Cost. These were wily men that Hanna ‘was preaching to, and if some of them took plcasure in loving humanity they did not let pleasure come before bus mess. So the text of Hanna's sermon ran something like this “Labor is 60 per cent of the cost of a ton of coal. If we peg that rmt‘ at a known point and arrange that there will be no chiseling, then we can all be gentlemen together and epend our time selling coal instead of cutting each other's throats.” To peg the major cost item and | arrange that there should be no chisel- ing, the fleld went union with a bang end signed a wage contract. Now, if any individual started to chisel, he'd have to take skin off labor's back. Yhe field felt it could rely on the union—voice of labor—to howl about that and throw the individual back into line. | In those days bituminous coal was | Yocalized and the problems of one' mine were pretty much the problems | of all mines. So Hanna's plan worked fine for a few years and everybody had more or less equal leverage on the | handle of the cake knife. Then, once ®gain, the knife disappeared into the back of the operators. The South had come in and was roaring like an Oklahoma gusher. New fields, restless, striving operators, hungry for | business. The South had a longer | haul to the big consumers in the | North. They had to do something ®bout that, and the old throat-cutting Etarted. Long and Short Hauls. With the feverish blessing of the | central field in the North, the United | Mine Workers went plunging down | below the Mason and Dixon Line, | snd from 1908 to 1916 fought a battle that—its veterans will tell you—makes the trigger-fingered deputies of today's Harlan County look like croquet players. | While cracked skulls and lacerated | skins (the operators were fighting for | their lives, the miners for theirs) | sprouted thick in the grimy land- rcape, the railroads were waging their | ©wn war for business. Long hauls xere what they grew rich on and ¥rom their desire for long hauls de- veloped the fantastic haulage differ- entials. Kentucky found it could lay peace reigned. A peace that was shared by industrial unionism, as exemplified by the United Mine Work- ers, and trade unionism, as exempli- fled by the American Federation of Labor. And these two, as will be seen later, are implacable enemies. The life of one means inevitably the death of the other, and any peace between them can be no more than a truce. It is quite certain that Lewis devel- oped no comprehension of the large forces at work through the country and had no desire to think about them until they were ready to explode in his face. At 21, a pick slinger in Lucas, he still had not found himself. Marriage Changes Things. Speaking of those days, he says he wanted to wander, have experiences, “taste America,” and find out what it held for him. He pulled up stakes and went West, learned language as a mule driver, hacked copper out of Colorado, hacked silver, coal and gold out of Montana, once brained a vi- cious mule that had tried for weeks to kill him and at last got him cornered in a mine corridor. Lewis let it have the sprag of a coal car, stuffed its wounds with clay and, to keep his job, told the foreman the mule had died of heart disease. In 1905 he helped dig some of the 400 corpses out of the great mine disaster that shook Hannah, Wyo. At the age of 27, when most men have found the rut they will travel to the grave, Lewis was still content to pick up money with the muscles of his back and fritter away his free time. Then he was back in Lucas, still a digger. On June 5, 1907, he “took unto” himself “a wife and the respon- sibilities attached thereto.” She was the shy little school teacher, Myrta Edith Bell, who could have been a D. A. R. if she had wanted to. Even now they make a strange couplé—a sort of box hedge and oak tree combi- nation. Time to Get Ahead. “I saw,” says Lewis, “that it be- hooved me to get ahead now.” The union offered the only escape from the pits for the mine worker, and Lewis, shifting his luck to Panama, I, lifted his great horn voice in behalf of union politics. There was no idealism attached to the move and none of the holy spirit that has made other men turn to a “cause.” It was, as Lewis himself will tell | v practical. His rise was rapid, but otherwise en- tirely orthodox. He started in 1908, Three years later he was a local hero and his local (run by the Lewi brothers) sent him to the convention in Indianapolis. The same year— | 1911—he took a job as organizer for the American Federation of Labor and soon became the pet of Sam Gompers. For six years he studied tactics under the shrewd Dutch-Eng- lish Jew, fighting in every sector of the labor front, from steel to cigar wrapping. He learned much, but he | hadn't learned yet on which side his —and the miners'—bread was but- | tered. | Back to the United Mine Workers he went, and now he knew the game of climbing. As in most large organi- zations, democracy goes only so far in the U. M. W,, and the nearer the top you go the further you travel from the ballot box. Lewis climbed by ap- pointment. He went soaring on up- ward as statistician of the union, as its vice president, under the fre- quently camatos Frank L. Hayes, as its acting president and finally as its president. Beaten by Gompers. In 1919 he pulled his first big strike, calling out 411,000 men when THE EVENING STAR, WASHINGTON, D. (. MONDAY, MAY 31, SEVENTH, EIGHTH and E STREETS Savings Like These Just Once a Year! 7 Unfurred Tailored Coats 3 Tunic Suits 14 Jigger Suits 6 Dressy Coats 11 Casual Coats 5 Ballerina Coats Misses Sizes Only in This Group District 575 “Intimate Hour” Face Powder 59¢ Discontinued 1.50 sizel Soft, fine powder deli- cately scented. Lans- burgh's only. Scott’s Toilet Tissue 12 rolls, 89c Each roll has 1,000 sheets. Exceptional at this special price. Large Size Trejur Talcum 19¢ A famous talcum, fresh and deliciously scented. Prevents, chafing, too. 1937. 7 (o) — = ) Lady Esther Cream 89¢ And that IS a saving. It's the large size jar of this famous all- purpose face cream. Jergen’s Bath Tablets 12 for 59c¢ In delightful scents of Geranium, Rose, Car- nation, Almond, Oat- meal. Long lasting and creamy. Zipper Manicure Set 69c Contains everything for the manicure. Handy for traveling for home and for the office. Rainkow Cleansing Tissue 3 for 1.00 300 sheets to pack- age! Soft. extra large sheets. Very absor- bent. Wristley’s Water Softener 59c¢ 5-pound bags in Bou- quet, Pine, Lavender and Gardenia odeurs. Especially fine for hard water. Hair Brushes 79c Firm, long lasting bristles that go right through the hair to the scalp for special stimulation. Lansburgh’'s—Toiletries—Street Floor FREE Lansburghs Summer Toiletries Sale Our Annual “Shower” of ST. DENIS Savings on one of the most famous bath prod- ucts . . . a shower of fragrance and so many ways of making bathing a grand luxury you'il want them all. Choose any of these in Gar- denia, Lavender, Lilac, Violet, Muget. THREE-PIECE DRE SET. Mirror, brush comb, in green, black, cream, blue or rose.. HOUBIGANT TALCUM. In luscious Quelques Fleurs and Ideal odeurs. Dis- = continued $1.10 sizes ')9c PERFUME BOTTLES. ORIGINAL BOTTLE COTY Beautiful designs in crystal, PERFUME. In L'Origan, rose, champagne or blue. L'Aimant, Emeraude, Paris, Elaborate stop- 69 A $5.20 value, at c 1 5 pers o regular 65c dram (= ’ price ___ = $2.95 S BYZANCE PERFUME sealed dram bottle, witn complimentary bottle of Eau de | Cologne -, - 31.00 & GALLET BATH TABLETS. Regular 45c size in Geranium, Violet, Ver bena, Eau @ for $1.35 de Cologne. Caveal 3-Length Silk Slips HEALTH its coal into New Orleans cheaper |the price of coal was high and could | than nearby Alabama could and found | ride higher on the crest of demand. Blso that Pennsylvania could cross|President Wilson broke it, declaring 225 two States into Illinois for less money than Kentucky could go next door to the same market. The South could haul 1,000 miles to New England's fac- tories for less than the North could haul 300 miles. And the North could haul 500 miles to the Middle West for less than the South could haul 100 miles to this huge market. When ‘“enlightenment” returned to the industry and coal men began to realize that war may be all right for a quick speculation, but is rotten | for investment purposes, it was this | congeries of freight rates that gave them their most violent headache. And it is these freight rates that Played an important part in the tidal the country was still technically at war and ordering Attorney General Palmer to get an injunction under ! the Lever food control act. Lewis ordered his men back to work, but | with & 27 per cent wage increase— less than half of the 60 per cent rise demanded. | In 1921 he ran against Gompers for presidency of the A. F. of L. One hundred twenty thousand miners, dissatisfied with his 1919 settlement; the craftiness of Gompers and the un- solicited support of William Ran- dolph Hearst (always a kiss of death in a labor convention), combined to defeat Lewis. But the beefy, slugging scholar of Buy Now for Fall and Next Spring! 2 Three-Pc. Furred Suits LECTURES Margaret Richardson Short? . .. No more fretting, no more attempts at shortening bias slips! Your slip’s here in YOUR length! Medium? . . | Just right for the average figure. Adjustable shoulder straps, t0o, to adjust them to the various lengths of your frocks. . The hardest of all to o worry about how you'll lengthen slips that just can't be lengthened. Theyre CUT TO FIT! All made of fine pure-dve French Crepes with perfect fig- ure molding lines. Deep shadow= wave of strikes that engulfed bitumin- | coal was riding high and gaily. Alex ous coal in the 1920s, while strictly | Howat, roughneck, fervent Kansas localized anthracite remained nearly | Socialist, and Frank Farrington, peaceful, burly, razor-witted; Len Small, Re- publican from Illinois, had led the proof panels. V-tops, bias cut. Tearose, white, navy, black. Sizes 32-44. Lansburgh’s—Lingeric— Third Floor (Size 12 only) 10 Wolf Trimmed Swagger Suits World famous authority on health and keeping fit these days of frenzied activity. Be sure to listen to her special lecture on “REJUVENA- A Peaceful Quiet, But soon, under the impetus of | Lewis dissidents. the European war, everything shud- dered into a profitable quiet. As long as the war-time control boards | held and, more important, as long as | the seller’s market continued to ab- gorb the rising cost of labor, the| Bouth accepted unionization, however tentatively. With unionization all over the map to keep the operators In the same boat, with money every- Lewis broke them both. Howat made the mistake of running a strike from a jail cell in protest against Kansas’' conpulsory arbitration law. Lewis excommuni- cated him and his followers for call- ing an illegal strike and made the ex- communication stick. Farrington's union career was ended when Lewis produced a $25,000-a-year contract that the Illinois leader had signed 3 Tailored Sports Coats 4 Casual Daytime Coats 11 Dressmaker Coats 3 Velvet Coats 21 Furred Dressy Coats Misses and Women's Sizes Included Lectures Daily TION,” based on research in Europe and the Orient. 10:30 a.m. 2:30 p.m. 4:45 p.m, Where to remove the temptation to | surreptitiously with the Peabody Coal rock the boat, the era of the merry | Co. Bridge loses 1ts fun SREedvAChen sty e 16-Element Diet ® Care of the Feet o Firming Facial Tissues ® Acidosis We planned the 4:45 p.m. lectures especially for the convenience of Government employees. Don’t miss any of them. Not only are they vitally inter- esting, but of importance to every one concerned with better health. Just take any of the elevators to the Third Floor. Seats are free. Lansburgh's—Third Floor, (eyn fatigue) GETSiYOU Do your eyes tire after a few rounds of bridge? “Eye Fatigue” may be the reason! Come in for an _eye examination tomorrow. Amazing Savings on Finer Coats and Suits 4 Three-Piece Suits 5 Bengaline Jacket Suits 3 Furred Dressy Coats 13 Finer Unfurred Coats 2 Reefer Coats 6 Casual Coats 13 Dressmaker Coats 10 Town Suits Handmade Gift Handkerchiefs Ideal for Brides 2 and Girl Graduates c Made of beautifully sheer fine Irish Linen Lansburgh’s—Daylight Coat and Suit . . . entirely handmade. Cut out hems, SR e oot spoke stitched hems, appliques and em- 4 broiders. All white. OPTICAL 87 sTReet DEPT. FLOOR ] e e eaT oo ON THE THIRD FLOOR ALL WEEK! Miss Lillian Wainwright, McCall Stylst. Consult Her About Your Fashion Problem! Sizes for Misses and Women Included —A new style white gold-filled folding $ Oxford with white, single vision lenses for this price. Complete Use your charge account or our Convenient Payment Plan » - A ?