Doctor Leo Hayes was our company doctor
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From the big coal companies he got his pay
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For thirty-nine years he tried to cure us
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And now today on his deathbed lay.
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He called his five boys and his three daughters
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And at his bed we stood around
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We heard him tell the history of the coal miners
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And he said, "Don't let these people down."
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You are all connected with the practice of medicine
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You promise you'll keep true I know
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You will do your best to help these people
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I close my eyes for I must go.
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His youngest girl was Doctor Betty
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With her face so pretty and her smile so sweet
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She walked the coal towns of Force and Byrndale
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She saw the sewage waters flowing down the street.
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She saw the children drink the cankered water
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She saw the chickens fly up on the roof
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She saw the waters overflow the sewers
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And flood their gardens of victory.
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She went to the big shots of the Shawmut Company
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She did not beg and she did not plead
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She stood flatfooted and pounded the table
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Sewer pipes and bathrooms are what we need.
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My dady told me to fight to cure sickness
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But I can't cure sickness with sewage all around
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These germs kill people quicker than I can cure them
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We need a foundation under every house.
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We need a bathroom for every family
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Yes, you can set there and blink your eyes
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Three hundred miners are out behind me
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We will clean this town or know the reason why.
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I quit my job as the family doctor
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I nailed up my shingle and went on my own
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I carried my pillbag and waded those waters
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I set by a deathbed in many a home.
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I saw you catch rainwater in rusty washtubs
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I saw you come home dirty up out of your pits
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Watched you ride with your coffin up to your graveyard
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With not a nickel to pay your burying debt.
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On July the fifteenth from the hills around
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Three hundred miners walked down through town
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The state inspector was testing the water
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While he was working you stood around.
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One miner asked him to have a drink free
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The inspector looked out toward our pits
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He set his hat back on his head and says,
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"I wouldn't drink a drop of that on a bet."
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I think of my daddy and brothers and sisters
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When we stood around his dying bed
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When I walk the streets of the company towns
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I can hear every word my daddy said.
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The Shawmut Company is caught in its own paws
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The people not worth the money they cost
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A hundred have died, three hundred not working
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Thirty thousand tons of coal is lost.
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The Dying Doctor
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Woody Guthrie |