Lewis versus Howat: An Analysis of Labor Rhetoric, Education, and Class Privilege in Early Twentieth Century Mining Politics

Conclusion

Looking at the letters and responses between John L. Lewis and Alexander Howat, at that the same understanding the background of both individual and the reasons why they were fighting, to help understand working rhetoric of the time. Both Lewis and Howat worked in the mines in their younger years and join the United Mine Workers of America, but while Lewis was more democratic and became President of the UMWA, Howat went more on the attack side, organizing strikes to gain workers’ rights. The men disagreed about the way of doing things and it started with the Kansas Industrial Relation Act in 1920 that banned strikes. Within the Hearl Maxwell Collection, there are letters, correspondence, and minutes between Lewis with Maxwell on his side, and Howat and by studying the words or subjects used and their relation to other words or subjects. The main goal is to examine the political dynamics between John L. Lewis/ Hearl Maxwell and Alexander Howat. Using the voyant took, cirrus, on a reply by Howat to Lewis to see Howat’s critique of Lewis’s ideas, with the main words being “conditions,” “workers,” “district,” and “Lewis” and by understand the use of the words and where relations to other words to see Howat’s overall influences and to show how bold Howat was. The looking at the trend of words including “president,” “mr,” “dear,” “sir,” and “brother.” These words indicate a certain level of formality and give the notion of a chain of authority to show that while Lewis and Howat disagreed they still had and showed respect to one other. Then looking at the two words with the largest connection to “workers” are “district” and “Lewis.” This shows the union workers first identity with what district they work under and then to the United Mine Workers of America, which Lewis was the president of at the time.  The feud is mapped on a timeline that show when the feud started and end and when each man responded to the other. While the map of the mines, showed areas and mines there were the main focus on the Lewis/Howat feud. The two annotated video shows John L. Lewis dealing with mining problems and gives a better understanding of Lewis as a man and politician. As acting president in 1919, and president in 1920, by which time the UMWA had become the largest trade union in the United States. He would remain the UMWA’s leader for the next 40 years. Lewis led a successful national coal strike in 1919, but during the 1920s the UMWA’s membership shrank from 500,000 to fewer than 100,000 as unemployment spread among UMWA. The two video show Lewis’ change over time from democratic talking to more action. Our Scalar project shows how two men influences each other so much, in addition to depicting the manner in which class effects political action.
 

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