Page:William Z. Foster, James P. Cannon and Earl Browder - Trade Unions in America.djvu/34

 struggle has crystallized around the Progressive Miners' International Committee, of which the T. U. E. L. militants and the Communists are the leading spirits.

When Lewis succeeded in fraudulently expelling Howat, in the convention of March, 1922, just before the last great miners' strike, the lines within the union were not yet clearly drawn. At that time the oustandingoutstanding [sic] champion of Howat's rights in the union was still Frank Farrington of Illinois, an arch-faker who was using Howat's case as a club in his fight for position against Lewis. The beginning of clarification came in the latter part of 1922, after the main strike was settled, and Lewis betrayed the miners of Fayette County, Pennsylvania. This began a big struggle in which the T. U. E. L. militants were the only organized leadership of the left wing in the U. M. W. A. During that period, also, the miners of District 26, Nova Scotia, Canada, elected a complete left-wing slate of officers and engaged in a bitter struggle against the mine operators, the British Empire Steel corporation.

A tendency among hot-headed and impatient elements in the rank and file to split away from reactionary unions has been one of the things the left wing has had to fight against everywhere. This fight has been very successful so that today the only splitters of any influence are the reactionary bureaucrats. In the beginning of the miners' left wing a serious struggle was required against the splitting idea, however, and it was the T. U. E. L. that carried it out successfully. A threatening split in the anthracite region in 1923 was overcome by the T. U. E. L. influence; while in Canada the pernicious influence of the O. B. U., a small dual union, has been successfully overcome.

The Progressive Committee, the center thru which the strigglestruggle [sic] has been carried on for a fighting miners' union and to correct the mistakes of the militants and unify them upon a realistic program, was launched at a conference in Pittsburgh, Pa., in February, 1923. This pre-