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Show THE SEARCHLIGHT Phe Fe Foor: Welcomes Lewis (Comtinued Executive from preceding Council page) to promote business. It is so because he agreed with me. his I told insurance him so and Explore Tom Rickert’s mind, of the United Garment Workers, who was on the negotiating committee? I did, and here is what was in his mind. He said he did not propose to let the Amalgamated Clothing Workers it. into the A. F. of L. if he could “I said 000 a year to him:that he was graft out of the help getting $20,- advertising mo- nopoly in the American Federation of Labor, and I had a paper in my hand to prove it. He knew it and agreed to that as true. And I thought then that I had explored his mind enough. “Explore the mind of Bill Hutcheson? I did. There wasn’t anything there that would do you any good. So what? Waste more time “But on unprofitable it just happened explorations?’ that some of those organizations that they (the AFL) willing come back in themselves, to let by were and unsupported, are not willing to desert** and betray the other organizations. The United Mine Workers of America is one of those organizations.” “William Green came to their convention and pleaded with them to abandon the Committee for Industrial Organization (the CIO). And when they refused to do so William Green abandoned the organization that had supported him and fed him and honored him for forty years.” And now, after dishing out deseriptive epithets to Green personally and to the AFL *kWe do not believe that all the deserting a cause should be borne Lewis. His United Mine have move. associates Workers accorded in the ignominy by John leadership are equally to blame. unfailing support to every of of L. the They Lewis hierarchy for eight sizzling years, comes John lL. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers—whom he rules with an iron hand—and pleads abjectly to be taken back again—pleads to be favored with the domination of the men he has professed to despise and abhor. His United Mine Workers—what of them? In convention assembled, on their honor, they pledged the unions comprising the Committee for Industrial Organization that thef ‘‘would not desert and betray the other organizations’’ by returning to the A. F. of L. by themselves, in the absence of general labor peace. The coal miners are now about to consummate that desertion—that infamy. How do they reconcile their present actions with their manly attitude expressed so forcibly three and four years ago? How can they meet their former comrades in the struggle to organize the their heads? unorganized without hanging Today they are looked upon with contempt by large sections of the American Federation of Labor as they approach the gate and whine for re-admittance. Indeed, during the last twelve months the steps of the Federation building in Washington have worn slick with the bellies of Lewis and his associates crawling there in search of a warm spot behind the f'ederation’s kitchen stove! And William Green. What of him? Will he lose his head in his hour of triumph over his eringing enemy? He will not. Bill is made of better stuff than John. He showed a certain magnanimity toward his beaten foes. In well chosen words Bill Green assured the coal miners who expelled him, abused him, and impugned his honor that, ‘‘I’ll stand at the door of the back. ’’ house of labor and welcome them But did William Green tell Mr. Lewis the whole story? Did he neglect to say that just behind him at the door, in battle array, the old-time bosses of the A. F. of L. would be poised with stout jurisdictional clubs to give the coal miners a startling and rigorous initiation upon their re-affiliation? |