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John L. Lewis
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Have you ever heard someone say in conversation something so succint and expressive that you wish you had thought of it? It happens to me all the time. Today while looking through my book called "Great American Speeches" I encountered a speech by John L. Lewis who back in 1937 was probably the most powerful labor leader in the US and who was president of the CIO (Congress Of Industrial Organizations) which was a labor union of gigantic proportions. John L. Lewis was an ex-coal miner and had a rather limited education but as an orator he was almost unmatched in the mid thirties. A little background. FDR was running for his third term of presidency in 1937. He had previously been a very close friend of Labor, but in the later part of his second term he had offended labor rather rudely (I have forgotten about what--perhaps he had nationalized the railroads for a short time to prevent a strike but I am not sure) and in his present race it was not known whether labor as a bloc vote was going to support FDR or not. John L lewis was president of the CIO and ran it with an iron fist. In a speech he made during the campaign Lewis is quoted below which I think is well put. I was never in agreement with Lewis during his or my whole life but I know a great orator when I hear one even if I don't agree. Here is what he said in obvious reply to Roosevelt's actions and his reply to a press question that he was not going to take sides in a current major labor disputes. Lewis had a deep , rumbling , resonant voice and even though I was only ten years old when I heard him make this speech on the radio I can still hear his voice saying in the last paragraph of his speech:
"Labor, like Israel has many sorrows. Its women weep for the future of the children of the race. It ill behooves one who has so often supped at labor's table and who has been so often sheltered in Labor's house to curse with equal fervor and fine impartiality both Labor and its adversaries when they become locked in deadly embrace."
Does someone somewhere still make great and memorable speeches?
love
dad, granpa, ami
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