John L. Lewis From ConservapediaJohn Llewellyn Lewis (1880-1969)
was a long-time leader of the United Mine Workers labor union
and founder of the Congress of Industrial Organizations. He was
the most prominent union leader in the U.S. after the death of
Samuel Gompers in 1924. Lewis dominated the coal miners union
(the United Mine Workers, UMW), 1920-1960, and created the
Congress of Industrial Organizations (CIO) in the 1930s. A
leading liberal, he played a major role in helping Franklin D.
Roosevelt win a landslide in 1936, but as an isolationist broke
with Roosevelt in 1940 on foreign policy. Lewis was a brutally
effective and aggressive fighter and strike leader who gained
high wages for his membership while steamrolling over his
opponents, including the United States government. Lewis was one
of the most controversial and innovative leaders in the history
of labor, gaining credit for building the industrial unions of
the CIO into a political and economic powerhouse to rival the
AFL, yet was widely hated