Verdict in Springfield

In the dark summer of 1932, over the violent protest of the workers involved, President John Llewellyn Lewis of the United Mine Workers of America signed a contract with Illinois coal operators reducing the basic daily wage from $6.10 to $5. Whatever justification for this dictatorial procedure there may have been, the reaction of the miners was direct and immediate. A large group revolted, setting themselves up as the Progressive Miners of America, an organization with 30,000 members in the bituminous fields of Illinois and Indiana, which this year joined up with Mr. Lewis' enemy, the A. F. of L.

The longstanding war in Illinois between the rival miners' unions makes Labor's current internecine strike look like a taffy-pulling contest. The Progressives maintain that John Lewis imported 10,000 miners to crush the revolt. The Progressives themselves on one occasion massed 15,000 for a march on Franklin County. Pitched battles were fought with as many as 300 armed miners engaged. Hundreds were wounded in open conflict and no less than 21 Progressives were murdered. Trains were dynamited, a bridge burned, and bombings became as common as rain. The state of law enforcement in the Illinois coal fields apparently is such that little attention is paid to shootings or murders. Last month 41 Progressive Unionists and sympathizers were brought to trial in Springfield, Ill. on Federal charges of conspiring to blow up trains and thus interfere with 1) the mails and 2) interstate commerce. Four of the defendants were dismissed, another had a heart attack. Last week a jury found the rest guilty on both counts. The maximum penalty is four years in the penitentiary and total fines of $20,000 each.

The tale told in the Federal Court in Springfield of union corruption, corporate connivance, espionage, counterespionage, death, terror and double-dealing made it apparent that morally if not legally the United Mine Workers and the coal operators were as guilty of fomenting civil war as the Progressive Miners of America.

Defended by Arthur M. Fitzgerald, able, liberal Springfield attorney, the miners could not deny the dynamitings but they vigorously denied responsibility for them. Behind the Government's prosecution they saw the heavy fist of John L. Lewis. Testimony showed that expenses of many a Government witness were paid not by the Government but by unknown persons, and the Progressives suspected John Lewis' United Mine Workers. One Government witness, a convicted murderer, could boast that John Lewis had intervened to get him paroled. Among the defendants there was also a convicted murderer. The Government produced a witness who was a confessed counterfeiter. A son testified against his father--that among other things he had seen him cleaning a machine gun. A mother & father, Government witnesses, took the stand to testify against their son--that no one could believe a word he said.

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