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

Photograph of Alexander Howat

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Who was Alexander Howat? Alexander McWhirter Howat was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on September 10, 1876. At the age of three, Howat emigrated with his parents to Troy, New York, moving from there to Braidwood, Illinois, and finally to Crawford County, Kansas, where he attended public schools until the age of ten. He then worked in the mines until he was twenty-two. Alexander Howat, president of the United Mine Workers of America, District 14. Howat's activity in the mines soon lead him to membership in the United Mine Workers union. In 1902 he was chosen as a union official and was elected to the board for District 14 of the United Mine Workers of America (UMWA), covering the state of Kansas. In 1906 Howat was elected president of District 14 of the UMWA, retaining that position until 1914, he refused re-election due to charges of having accepted bribes from mine operators. Following investigation of this corruption charge, which led to Howat's exoneration, he was returned as the president of District 14 UMWA in 1916, remaining in this position till 1921.

As President he was responsible for the organization of a powerful and aggressive union which successfully defeated the Kansas Court of Industrial Relations, which was going to pass the Kansas Industrial Relations Act in 1920, which banned strikes, picketing, and the use of boycott in favor of a binding Court of Industrial Relations for the resolution of labor disputes The Industrial Court Law made all disputes between labor and management a matter of negotiation, taking away the right to strike, which was the only way that labors could make employers listen to them. The Kansas experiment in enforced negotiation faded into history when it was found unconstitutional by the U.S. Supreme Court and consolidated with the Public Utilities Commission and the State Tax Commission as the Public Service Commission. This defeat came about largely because of Howat's challenging the Court, although doing so meant he would be heavily fined and forced to serve three years' imprisonment.

Howat and District 14 lead a general coal strike in 1919 and a strike against the Kansas Industrial Court Law to discredit it. After calling for the strike in defiance of the law, Howat was sent to jail in Girard, then in Columbus, and in Ottawa. The officers of the International United Mine Workers of America ordered him to call off his strike and when he refused, he was expelled from the Union in 1921.

Howat began a series of other jobs, working in the 1930s and 1940s as a Kansas state border guard, editor of a labor newspaper, and gaining employment as a city employee of Pittsburg, Kansas. Alexander Howat died in Pittsburg, Kansas on December 10, 1945.
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.