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RE: JOHN L. LEWIS, ET AL b? Cc INTERV] ey "In 1938 I was electod a of the Pit Committee, together with ¥ - : - and it continued ) was part of the duties of my office o attend all meetings looking forward to negotiations with a contract with Els- hoff in the settlement of grievances. JI remember going out to the mine with and other member 5 of the Pit Committse sometime in Februery, 1938, and concerning retroactive pay for certain of the men, namely, , and possibly others, who had continued to work et the mine on Mey , » I later returned in the sane month with and the Pit Committee at this time t-lking to Elshoff and Falcetti. As I rew esl} was more or less the spokerman for our group es this would naturelly be his job as Board Nember. Elsnoff and Falcetti were approached reletive to the opening of the mine and recognition of the contract. To the best of my recollection, Elshoff's answer was that the mine wes shut down and there was no business so why sign a contract. "In March of 1938 we received word thet seme work w.s going on at the mine ond that 3 were being brought up out of the mine. I went out to the mine with Qa: ae Sen ca re ce eee wes along. 4s we drove up E) met us and asked us whit we were qOLNE out there and if we did not know that there was on injunction. We said that surely we could came out there on business. We went in to talk to Falcetti, stating that if there wes any work going on at the mine we were clniming it for members of Progressive Local Now 54. I enn recsll seeing Frank sustin at the mine that dny. Falcett. told us that there w.s no work going on at the mine nnd thr:.t these mules were to be used by Frank Austin, ond they were simply performing thrt work as pay- ment. There was te be no remuneration for the work they were doing outside of the fuct that they were to get to use the mules. We noted at the time that the f-n of the mine wis in operation. We went into Springfield and reported whet we had found tc "T ean also recsl] going out to the mine at lengs: 2 couple of tines after thet with members of the Pit Committee to discuss te opening of the mine und signing s contract with Elshoff. The :nswer wis always the same -- there is mo business end the mine is shut down. I ennnot recnl] the exact : dutes of these conferences. My office wns necessarily taken over by' a a the summer of 1939 during my absence, cond I had nothing to do with grievences and troubles arising at Mine B when it opened in the fall of that year. "with respect to the Mine A situation end the switch on the part of enployees of that mine from Progressive to UMW of 4, I can remember attending at east one 5 meetir ~ in the PNA Hel) vo September of 1941, Beveral men, namely, _ ag prarrep arenes aces: took the + 421 ~