OCR Text |
Show I REAL COMMONER OF THE CABINET The real commoner of President Wilson's cabinet is William B. Wilson, Wil-son, secretary of labor. He was never in school except a few days when he was a child. He began helping his father dig coal in a Pennsylvania Penn-sylvania mine when he was eight years old. His father had a lame back and could not lift a heavy piece of coal, but he could He on his back on the bottom of the shaft and iunder-cut iunder-cut the coal seam, and he used to do that, and little "Billy" Wilson loaded it into the cars. He dug coal until he was nearly forty years old and then he got a position with the United Mine Work-I Work-I ers of America at $2,000 a year, and later was elected to congress. A newspaper of Washington, writing writ-ing about William B. Wilson when the president appointed him secretary secre-tary of labor, said: "The Wilsons have a beautiful country estate at Blossbure. Pa." it f4 The coal miners of this country, all of whom know and love Billy Wilson, will laugh at that. And so will Billy himself. His "beautiful country estate" consists of a few acres of rough, rocky land, with a little frame house of five rooms on it, and that is the home of Wilson and his wife and nine children. |