Abstract

The Miners' Rebellion

This article presents the author's views on the 450 miners to who came to Springfield, Illinois, on March 10, 1930 to reorganize the United Mine Workers of America. Over in Indianapolis John L. Lewis, still claiming to be president of the union, presided over what he called "the thirty-first consecutive constitutional convention." The "All-High," as the miners like to call Lewis, had been defied. The men had at last broken out in open rebellion. The immediate causes of the revolt are not such as to arouse the deep interest of a progressive, nor did they play the most important part at the Springfield convention. The basic reasons were continually heard, however; the tyranny of John L. Lewis and his callousness to, if not collusion in, the running down of the union.