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Soil Pipe Workers

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called him. He is my "boss now. We was a pipe rammer then. If you are going to write anything, say something about what a fine man and a fine boss he is. He is the finest boss in the world to work for, and he sure has made money, too. I don't get no easy work, I have had to work hard for everything I have gotten, but the pipe shop is a mighty fine place to work at. When I worked by Tobe Hamilton we both were starting out, and we worked at the Central Foundry Company. I worked for twenty-six years there without stopping. Well, first thing I knowed Tobe Hamilton come to me and said, 'Bill, I'm gettin' a job at Mr. Rudisill's Foundry. He is making me a foreman.'

"I said, 'Be careful now, Tobe, be sure you are gettin' a better job.' ' I will try to be,' he replied. Soon Tobe had started a pipe shop of his own."

"I hear that Mr. Hamilton's business has prospered quite a bit, " I said.

"Yes, indeed it has ," he replied.

"Well, you know the price of iron went up," his wife said.

"The whole white way of New York City was made at the shops right here in Anniston; also, the white way in many another large city was made here, " he said. "Anniston makes more cast iron soil pipes than any other place in the world, they say.

"Once I had a chance to be made a foreman, but I figured that a man like me without no education had better not take it. I was afraid I couldn't handle it right, and that the men might cheat me on their time. All I wanted to be was a good honest workman.

"I wanted to live right too. I am a Methodist, and I think that and the Presbyterian Church is the finest churches there are. But it is really how good you are that counts. I don't take much part in politics, I vote and that is all.

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