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canal aR ~ fe + aoe ce eg i ee Se = : 7~ a ea * et are ac “06503 Re: JOHN L. LEWIS, ET AL Lb DP .. Lb oD EWITH not wont the 12 men to go to work until the sheriff came, and after he told us that no one would go to work in the _ (continu mine until the trouble was settled, we went home. be » and ft PMA a? t+. I dontt Q ; ning th petiti 4 Gon't remember signing tn ta Va the i iad od s ry -_- dontt remember anything about it, although I might hav e signed remember siguing any petitions that summer. 1 mn in on in "During the summer of 1537 ¢ (Ph), o U.M.W,. agitator brought up from the South, who had been brought up to work in the minos @ couple of months before the strike, asked me several times to join the U.M.¥F. I saw him several times in per ne micld. Ill,, and he asked me ot those times, One day during that summer, MM case to my home ir and asked me to join the U.N ro ember Anyone else askin - I. was not threatened in any woy by these THON » "During the summer of 1937 the P.M.A. paid me my gasoline and moal expenses, and I] went around trying to keep tho members of P.M.A. together. I talked to them on the strcets, and I saw them in their homes, trying to keep them in the P.M.A, ‘we had P.M.A. meetings about once a week, and the officcrs reported to them what was going on. Most of the men felt that even though they were out of work, the officials of F.M.A. were trying to do the best they could for them, and that they should wait for word from the officials as to what should be done. As time went on however, and men could not get work, some of them began to sign up with the U.M.W. I talked to several of them after they had joined the U.M.%., and they said that they wished that they could still be in P.M.A. "In September, 1937, I received a notice from Mine B, saying that the mine would reopen, Later I received another letter from Mine B, saying that a closed shop contract had been signed with the U.M.W. Tre had a special meeting of the P.M.A. at which we decided that if the management gave the contract to P.M.A. we would work the mine, ond if thoy refused, we would picket the minc when it was rcopened, The P,M.A. cid this because we had 4 majority at that time. The men wanted to work and were: ready to work, but when the nigément would not give the P,M.A. a contract, picketing began. This had > been ducided upon by a referendum vote of the P.M.A. members, I was a picket, and all of tho pickets were men who hac worked at Mine B. The men were all in agreement that they would not work under a U.M.W. contract, "At the time of the Federal injunction I felt, and I believe that the majority of the men did likewise, that tho purpose of it was to keep the men from going to work. [| don't remember getting any notices in December 1937, or January 1938, "In the election of Becomber, 1937, held at the State armory, I voted P.M.A, because I] believed then, as I do now, that tho P.M.4, is the best