United Mine Workers of America

The United Mine Workers of America is presented through the national coal strikes led by John L. Lewis and the resulting confrontations with Harry S. Truman’s administration. Its importance in this account lies in the reach of its members’ collective action: when Lewis called a strike, miners followed, and the effects spread from the mines to steel production, transportation, and electricity. The episodes reveal both the union’s capacity to exert economic pressure and the government’s attempt to contain that pressure through legal authority.

Organization and Labor Power

The account does not offer a formal history of the United Mine Workers of America or describe its internal structure. Instead, it establishes the organization’s influence through the loyalty of the miners represented by Lewis. When he called for a strike, hundreds of thousands of miners stopped work. Their allegiance is described as exceptionally strong: Lewis spoke as their leader, and his decision to strike was enough to bring them out. The union’s leverage therefore appears not as an abstract measure of size, but as the practical ability to halt the production of coal on which other industries depended.

That power made a dispute over miners’ welfare consequential well beyond the mines. In 1946, the proposed welfare fund was to be financed by a royalty of five cents for every ton of coal produced. The disagreement over this arrangement became a national labor confrontation. The issue was not simply whether miners would receive a benefit; it was also whether the proposed fund was lawful and how the union could pursue its demands. Truman focused on the legality of the plan, while Lewis challenged the President’s standing to pronounce on the law. Their opposed positions turned a labor dispute into a test of authority and public argument.

The 1946 Strike and Its Wider Effects

On April 1, 1946, Lewis called a nationwide coal strike. Its timing coincided with a wider period of labor unrest that the book describes as the longest and most costly siege of labor trouble in the nation’s history. More than a million workers were out on strike at one point. The coal stoppage intensified the crisis because fuel shortages forced industries dependent on coal to cut back or close.

Steel plants banked their furnaces again for want of coal, while Ford and Chrysler were forced to close. Freight loadings fell by 75 percent, and Chicago ordered electricity use cut in half. These effects show how a strike in one industry could travel outward through the national economy: without coal, production and transport faltered, and the public faced restrictions on power. A separate settlement of the steel strike had already brought higher wages and higher steel prices, adding to inflationary pressure without restoring the administration’s standing. The coal dispute thus unfolded amid accumulating economic strain, not as an isolated disagreement between Lewis and Truman.

Truman’s personal hostility toward Lewis sharpened the confrontation. He remembered Lewis’s bluster and arrogance before the Truman Committee, as well as strikes Lewis had called during the war. Privately, Truman judged that Franklin D. Roosevelt would have been justified in treating Lewis as a traitor. That severe private view contrasts with the administration’s public and legal argument over the proposed welfare fund. Lewis, in turn, responded to Truman’s concern about legality by questioning the President’s knowledge of the law. The clash joined policy, personal antagonism, and the larger question of whether a labor leader could bring essential industries to a halt.

The Post-Election Showdown

After the November elections, another threatened coal strike brought the conflict to a decisive head. At Clark Clifford’s urging, Truman challenged the legality of the threatened action, and this time described the contest as a fight to the finish. The administration’s case rested on the Smith-Connally Act, which prohibited strikes against government-held facilities. The coal mines were still technically under government seizure, giving the government a legal basis to seek an injunction against the union’s action.

The administration took Lewis and the union to court. An injunction was served, but Lewis allowed the strike to begin on November 20. A federal district judge ordered him to stand trial for contempt; Lewis refused. On December 4, the judge fined the United Mine Workers of America three million dollars and Lewis personally ten thousand dollars. The penalties made the confrontation a direct contest between the union’s leader and the authority of the federal courts, rather than only a dispute over the terms of a labor settlement.

Truman spent several days at the Key West naval base and returned to a dispute that remained unresolved. On December 7, Lewis ordered the miners back to work pending an appeal to the United States Supreme Court. The return ended the immediate stoppage, but not the legal case: in March 1947, the Court upheld the contempt ruling, although the fine against the union was later reduced. The episode demonstrated that the administration could use the courts to compel an end to the strike, while the union’s ability to stop work had made the enforcement of that authority a matter of national consequence.

Political and Narrative Significance

The account uses the United Mine Workers of America to show the scale of the labor problem confronting Truman: a strike could impair production across multiple industries, while an effort to end it could expose the President to accusations of overreach or legal ignorance. The contrast between the spring stoppage and the post-election showdown also marks a change in the administration’s posture. In the earlier confrontation, Truman’s public concern centered on the legality of the proposed welfare fund; later, he backed a court challenge to a strike against mines still under government control.

The outcome became a political turning point for Truman. The court action, the fines, and Lewis’s eventual order to return the miners to work amounted to a resounding victory for the administration. Truman was praised for standing firm where Franklin D. Roosevelt had, in the book’s account, met Lewis halfway. The organization’s role is therefore double-edged: its capacity to mobilize miners exposed the vulnerability of the industrial economy, but that same confrontation gave Truman an opportunity to assert presidential authority and take a more decisive public stance.