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house, but one for each six houses. At the foot of this hill was the only water supply. It was impossible not to draw the conclusion that the drainage from these privvies must drain into the water supply. It was shocking. Father Ligutti was working out there then. He was the parish priest in the nearest town. He was Italian. I can't remember the name of the town now, though it's outside of Des Moines. We drove out of Des Moines for about half an hour, or three quarters of an hour. The people who worked in the mines were a few Italians, but mostly Slovaks and Bohemians. There were very few of the Scotch, English and Welsh types, or so he told me. Therefore, most of them were members of his Roman Catholic parish, which they wouldn't have been if they had been Scotch, English and Welsh.
He'd been sent there as a parish priest, but he's a very remarkable man. He had developed this technique for working in a kind of cooperative way with these people. He was the first person to apply to Harry Hopkins for some kind of help under the WPA which would give him a chance to build something. He got money from the agricultural people and help from them.
He was setting up in this town an agricultural cooperative. There was no hope for there people except that they all got a little piece of land. He was getting for them some little acres of land. These people weren't even half employed or
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