"Its early demise is a certainty."

Here is an excerpt from UMWA President, John L. Lewis' public statement issued September 4, 1932, just one day after the Progressive Miners of America was founded:

"The formation of the so-called Progressive Miners of America at the Gillespie meeting, will serve to materially clarify the situation in the mining districts of Illinois. The meeting at Gillespie was merely representative of local unions already in insubordination and in violation of the wage agreement with the Illinois Coal Operators Association. Such a meeting could only legislate for the comparatively small number of men engaged in a hopeless rebellion...


The organization of this so-called union will enable the malcontents and enemies of the United Mine Workers to become members of their own model union. It will also enable the loyal members of the United Mine Workers of America to fulfill their contractual obligations and provide for the wants of their families. The United Mine Workers of America, at an early date, will move to purge its membership rolls of all those individuals responsible for the formation of this dual organization. It will also move to punish those individuals guilty of misappropriation of the funds of the United Mine Workers of America through expenditures in behalf of the conspiracy to organize, aid and continue this dual organization.

The so-called Progressive Miners of America will indubitably suffer the same fates as a long list of its predecessor dual organizations, which, from time to time, have been organized by short-sighted men to displace the United Mine Workers of America. This so-called new union is without competent leadership, wage contracts, administrative funds or logical policies. It lacks even the confidence of its founders. Its early demise is a moral certainty. Those who elect to follow its fortunes will become merely dupes of a few designing men who lack capacity for leadership and who, in the end, will betray their deluded followers."