Charles LeRoy Lewis - Special Collections - University of Baltimore

LEWIS:099 II:2:62
people won't vote against it, and they raise hell because
their taxes went up. And it's . . . one of the things that
I'm so opposed is these school loans. If they want to build
a school right now -I88 that will be on the ballot
by the lean, now by the time that school is built, half that
money's gone. And I say they shouldn' t be allowed to
borrow money for two years. In other words, you want to
build a school in '$1, we're going to buy it this year.
Harvey: In 1938 they had the celebration out here; the fifty-
yeas celebration. Was there any attempt at that t ime to
form a political organization?
Lewis: No . . . you see, back in the twenties after World
War I things started to happen. World War XI finished it off.
You had all these organizations - Junior Order of
Woman of the World, Red Men, Odd Fellows, and everybody
belonged to a lodge. That was the only activities the men
had at night, see. See, your prohibition was on - you could
go to a speakeasy, but you don't >now whethex that was going
to get raided ax not. Nobody wants to stay in a speakeasy.
And that's where politics was talked ever, and one thing
and another. You" 90 in them organizations and talk polities,
well, this man belong to organization and in those days all
them organizations had ; and everything else,
see. You take Junior Order of United American Mechanics
up to World War I had ta call them Junior Mechanics. They
used to train them with rifles and everything else; they
used to have two weeks down to Betterton same as the National