Oh, yeah. I'll never forget Ben. We took him on a tour of the areas right
around the tobacco plants, and in those days they were nothing but
slums, as you remember, or if you ever knew the country at all. But
there were, oh, some horrible places, and even horrible by modern day
slums, I mean. Some areas of the nation today … they were much worse
than that because of outside toilets, in many cases, one water spicket
sticking up between two or three houses, and
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that is what they used for water and stuff like that. And nobody could
tolerate those conditions today, I guess, or would now, but in those
days they were there, and I'll never forget what Ben said to me one day,
he said "John, you see the most amazing thing, look at those kids, look
at their teeth … so white, and so clean, they are handsome young
people." He said, "I guess the only thing that makes these people, that
makes these kids look that way, is that most of them who aren't strong
and very able, die out at an early age, and I guess there is something
to that, too. Only the strongest survive among them." Anyway, Ben was a
very compassionate guy. Ben Gold was a guy who bled every time he saw
any suffering, and he … it moved him tremendously. He put in about six
months, I don't know how much money, but for that period of time, it
would be far in excess of our International or any union today would do,
you know. Simply because when he came, when he saw, it didn't matter
then how much money he spent, you know, as long as he was able to get
it. He was that kind of a guy.