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President Truman did not deal with the UMWA because he had a love for labor, either. He feared that a prolonged strike would hurt a nation recovering from World War II, and so, he signed the fund into action with the union president.
The UMWA was crucial in settling the strike and getting benefits for the miners and at the heart of the organization was its president, John L. Lewis. Lewis had been the head of the organization for decades, and it was a powerful union. Another writer notes, "During the early 1920s, the United Mine Workers of America was by far the largest and most powerful union in the United States."
Lewis has been called an autocratic and despotic leader, who clashed with industry activists and his own staff, but had a fierce loyalty to the miners. Lewis worked in the mines when he was a teenager, so...
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