Perkins: Lewis vs. Roosevelt debate touched off at UMW’s convention
Routine program disrupted as fiery words fly thick and fast and pro and con
By Fred W. Perkins, Pittsburgh Press staff writer
Cincinnati, Ohio –
John Mascaro, a delegate to the United Mine Workers Convention from Canonsburg, Pennsylvania, touched off a hot floor debate today on the outstanding issue of whether the union’s rank-and-file should follow John L. Lewis in opposing a fourth term for President Roosevelt.
The Canonsburg delegate objected to repeated criticisms by the leadership of the Roosevelt administration.
Mr. Mascaro said:
We lost President Lewis for his courageous leadership, but we will not turn down the savior of humanity – the man who opened the gates to union organization and allowed us to build this great union.
The boys fighting this war want him, and the rank-and-file of miners want him.
Tom Farmer, Negro delegate from Morgantown, West Virginia, took the opposite side, saying: “We’ll follow Lewis, not Roosevelt.”
‘No bread under GOP’
Another Pennsylvania delegate, George Gernot, from Adah Local 6548, declared:
We are 100 percent behind John L. Lewis, but the people in our state haven’t forgotten how they couldn’t get a piece of bread under the last Republican administration.
Ralph Bartimioli, also from the Adah local, wanted to know, “What is this – a political convention or a United Mine Worker convention?”
Discussions was finally stopped by a motion to resume regular business. Applause for the two points of view seemed about equal.
Officers’ report adopted
A heated debate followed a charge by Frank Hefferly, president of UMW District 13, that the government had exceeded its authority “by permitting the War Manpower Commission to regiment United Mine Workers and the people of this country when Congress refused to give that authority to the President.”
Mr. Hefferly said:
You go to the polls next November and apply the real remedy by voting this administration out of power.
After the debate subsided the delegates unanimously adopted the officers’ report.
Meanwhile, it was learned that the leadership of the United Mine Workers is preparing a blast against President Roosevelt that will be even more startling than the charge of John L. Lewis yesterday that the President is a party to efforts to “dethrone” him.
The new attack, according to men close to Mr. Lewis, will be cut loose during the convention here of 2,500 delegates, before whom Mr. Lewis yesterday demonstrated that he is still an effective orator.
‘Rebels’ assailed
In this speech, the self-called “old man” – he is 63 – used all the stops of his pipe-organ voice in his old-time form. He skillfully placed himself on a par with the man in the mines, drew ovation after ovation, and apparently killed off any chance of success of efforts within his union to challenge his leadership of his policies.
Under one of these policies, now under attack, the district officers in more than half of the mine worker empire are appointed by Mr. Lewis and are not voted upon by the rank-and-file.
Ray Edmundson, former president of the Illinois District (there is a disagreement as to whether he resigned or was ousted) is the spearhead of the home-rule forces here.
And it was obvious to Mr. Edmundson, sitting in the back of the crowded hall, that Mr. Lewis was speaking of him when he said “no lace-pantied gigolo is going to dethrone John L., in his own organization.”
Nobody seems to know why Mr. Lewis chose this way of referring to Mr. Edmundson, who is a big, handsome fellow, fairly young, whose he-man belligerency doesn’t check with that description.
Just before that, Mr. Lewis had confided to the delegates in a tone that taxed the loudspeaker system:
Browder, Hillman and Roosevelt hired a man to come down here and throw out the old man. They gave him some money and he put out some pamphlets and he had himself interviewed by the newspapers.
Mr. Lewis referred to Sidney Hillman, head of the CIO Political Action Committee, as “a Russian pants maker,” and included him and Mr. Roosevelt among the owners of “smug faces” he would like to confound with a recital of the coal miners’ production and military performances in this war.