The dingy yellow brick union hall at Monongah, W. Va. was thick with tobacco smoke, the smell of close-packed bodies and the growls of discontented men. "My wife told me this morning to let's have us a showdown and with that I am agreeing," shouted an Italian coal digger. "Let's strike in the old wayno contract, no work." The 1,500 miners packed into the tawdry room and another 500 clustered outside in the cold afternoon air cheered robustly.
The miners around Monongah, as in many other shires of John L. Lewis' coal kingdom,...
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