ACN Volume 3 No 3 Fall 1990

	A Common Man of Greatness
                               by Michael Hauben

(Editor's Note: Following is the Eulogy presented to honor 
Amateur Computerist writer Floyd Hoke-Miller at the memorial 
service held in his honor on July 14, 1990.) 

    "You just don't have any constitutional government in 
America (today). You got laws, but nobody shows any respect 
or regard." It's rare that such honest words are spoken. 
They came from a proven 91 year old rebel in an interview 
done on January 11, 1990 a few months before his death. This 
rebel had written a poem called 

      The Critic and the Rebel. It reads:

  We've had our rebels, both good and bad
  From Attila the Hun, to Ivan the Mad.

  We've had Crusaders for the Carpenter's cross
  That history records as a religious loss.

  We've had soap-boxers stand for human rights
  Only to be martyrs for their courageous fights;

  But none like those with the Barons of Barter
  Where Labor fought Capital for a Magna Carter

  So let the critics rant and let them rave
  We are all destined to some sort of grave;

  And if the rebel's maligned as totally rotten,
  He'll be remembered when the critic's forgotten.

  Whether history calls him a hero or a heel
  There is one thing it can not conceal --

  He was a Rebel!

     This rebel was our Floyd Hoke Miller. Most importantly he 
was a labor poet who "wrote for the downtrodden" (what he called 
workers). He wanted to "educate to emancipate instead of 
dominate." Floyd was also an active participant in the 1936/37 
Flint Sitdown strike that won General Motor's recognition of the 
UAW as the chevrolet workers' bargaining representative.
     Floyd was born in Fort Mayberry, Arkansas in 1898. He said 
about his birthplace, "It was just a small jerkwater, all purpose 
town. That had everything from a factory on down to just 
everything in it. It was a one man town... I was brought up there 
in a condition of oneness of the pioneer spirit." 
     When, in 1927, a huge flood destroyed his home, Floyd 
traveled to Flint, Michigan in search of work. Upon reaching Flint, 
Floyd found work as a clerk for the Canadian Pacific Railroad. 
Railroad work was in the spirit of one of his heroes, Eugene V. 
Debs, who also started out a Railroad worker. Floyd's union spirit 
grew and developed while he worked for the railroad. He joined the 
Brotherhood of Railroad Clerks and always carried his BRC card with 
him. Floyd later landed a job in Chevy Engine plant number four. 
That was in March or April of 1930.
     Even before World War I, Floyd started to write poetry as a 
hobby and a possible source of income. Floyd told me he didn't 
start to write labor poetry until he was 35 in 1933, when a lady 
interviewed him and read some of his poetry. Floyd asked her if he 
should go into a specific field. She said definitely, you should 
write labor poetry, and the Poet Laureate of the Flint Labor 
movement was born.
     Floyd explained, "I am writing for the downtrodden. I was 
writing on the form educate to emancipate...So in other words, 
educate the man so he can understand what is going on, to look at 
and see what's happening." Floyd said he wanted to leave a better 
world than he found it. Floyd explained why he wrote poems for the 
common man in his poem, 

        The Laborer, Yes!.

  You ask me why I praise his kind
  And why I seek to rouse his mind
  To thoughts beyond his daily task,
  Wherein the chains that daily bind
  Are shrouded lies to keep him blind –
  And those are the things you ask
  About the man the Gods don't bless,
           The Laborer, Yes!

  I'll tell you why I take this stand
  To praise the one with hardened hand;
  With daily drudge and sweaty smell,
  He's the greatest one in all the land
  But yet, the least one in command
  Of all the goods the traders sell
  And take the more and give the less
  The Laborer, Yes!

     As he advanced in years, Floyd said his goal was, "To 
leave the torch for someone else to pick up and carry. 
Because when one man lays it down, somebody else has to pick 
it up." His idea of this torch included many things. Some of 
them were: the struggle of and for the common man, the 
struggle for the open press, and the struggle for a six hour 
day with no loss of pay.
     Floyd often used Eugene Debs's famous saying, "When I 
rise it will be with the ranks, and not from the ranks." 
Laura Miller, Floyd's wife for 67 years, clarified what Floyd 
meant. She said, "Floyd is a good man, a common man." Floyd's 
poetry is by a common man, for and about the common man.
     Floyd used various nom de plumes, like Vicky Vann and 
Evelyn Pierce. He had two main reasons to use them: he wanted 
people to think his poems were the ideas of many and not just 
one, and he wanted people to focus on the ideas in his poems 
and not that he was the poet. He was trying to spread the idea, 
not the man. Floyd also found that it wasn't safe to publish 
under one's own name during WWII. He explains some of this in 
his poem 

                My Obsession:

  'Tho I may use some pseudonyms,
  A nom de plume or phoney,
  I never stoop to downright whims
  of writing pure baloney.

  I know that workers make the works
  By brains and muscles toiling
  And taken by the class that shirks
  Whose object is despoiling

  That's why I strive in all my rhymes
  To paint the picture clearly
  Of how there can be better times
  If workers plan sincerely.

     While he was working in the "Chevy" auto plant, he 
inspired others to write labor poetry and prose. Floyd felt 
he was obligated to as he said, "I had to try to make 
another poet, and so I made a few down the line (fellow 
workers on the assembly line) writers. [I] tried to get 
somebody else to do it, because it's the idea that counts. 
The man will be gone and forgotten, but the idea won't be 
forgotten. It lives on forever. It is the premise, not the 
person (that counts.)"
     A friend of Floyd's expressed to me his opinion that 
Floyd was an example of the universal man. When you spoke to 
Floyd you heard references to current American literature, 
European literature, ancient Greek literature, and Roman 
literature.  His grasp of the historical and intellectual 
content of our age was immense. He read continuously 
throughout most of his life, and through his reading 
examined everything; he took in the essence of it all. As a 
poet he studied the meaning of words. He had an extremely 
broad vocabulary and was forever finding the right word to 
convey just precisely the image he wanted. Writing poetry 
made him into a more articulate and clearer thinker. He had 
the ability to look at current world problems and cut 
through to their essence.
     Floyd will be deeply missed as he was a treasure and 
an inspiration to us all to keep on looking for solutions. 
In his memory we are holding this memorial to continue this 
inspiration to others. We hope you all take something away 
from this memorial to keep in your thoughts. Floyd would 
have wanted the pieces of his torch picked up by others.

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