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Re: JOHN L. LEWIS, ET al. of -” August 29 1943 as interviewed at his residence, Springfield, Illinois, om was bom ts 1: Sy He and came to the 0. S. in get his citizenship papers He adviscd he had no c¢ record, f He is presently employed at Panther Creek Mine #4. understands English fairly well but has difficulty in speaking it, He has a good _ memory and thinks coherently and with the help of a translator [ . he would make a good witness. The following signed statement was ob- tained from SIRI and “Springfield, Til. 29, 1943 ingfield, Tll., "I, t a _make the following a - statement Siianie 23 whom I know to be Special agents of tne Feder eau of Intestigation. JI make it without fear of threat, force or promises of any kind, v4 fT wee ion —e ye Gia: boca (ee cree Soa ngfield, Ill. in ay "I first started working in the mines in Springfield in = and became a member of the United Mine Workers Union then, about ti started working at Mine 'B', Sprinefiela. "In 1932 John L, Lewis came in, or the Uli? came in, and held an election to see whether we wanted to work wnder a contract with the company or not. we voted no but Lewis had the ballots stolen and the UMi signed the contract. So the whole UM local decided to form a new union and the Progressive Miners of America Union Local #54 was organized and I joined that. in "Befure we changed to PM, I newer noticed Elshoff, Falcetti, or anyone in the company bother anyone in this union. They seemed to got along all right with the wnion when it was UM’ and when it changed to PMA in 1932 they still seemed to get along all right. They never tried to get me to change one way or the other. "Between 1932 and 1937 I never noticed anyone from the company = try to change us to UM/ and there wore no strikes, slowdowns or closedowns during that timc, i - 387 -