In one Company the Negroes weren't allowed to use the same table as the white firemen used. In many companies they weren't invited to use the table but could use it by themselves if they were so bold as to use it. In other companies the colored firemen weren't allowed to contribute money for the commissary---the common stock of sugar, milk, butter, coffee, tea, salt, pepper, mustard, etc.; and other company owned goods. In many of the houses the most menial porter-type of work was assigned to the Negro fireman. This is the work necessary for the maintenance of quarters. The toilet cleaning, furnace tending, ash removal or whatever work that was considered uninviting was surely to be assigned to the colored fireman. This pattern was followed when assignments to positions on the apparatus were made, and it was an unwritten law that no Negro should drive or be a tillerman high up on the rear of the ladder truck; nor should he operate the pump, neither should he carry certain tools. One of the toughest jobs on the hook and ladder truck is the assignment to the extinguisher, known as the "can". Filled, it weighs close to thirty-five pounds. Considering the weight of a man's boots, heavy work coat and helmet, the extinguisher becomes a formidable load to run up five flights of stairs, and then into a smoke and heat filled room to try to put out a fire. This was almost inevitably the assignment for the Negro fireman." However, in many companies there were white firemen and officers who would not participate in this discriminatory conduct. By December of 1937 there were 20 black firemen; by the Fall of 1940 there were fifty-odd black firemen. There was fierce competition for the $3,000 per year job and all but the most qualified Black men were eliminated. Young Blacks with the depression era still fresh in their consciousness, who would have become professionals in a healthy economy, turned instead to the fire department and the civil service for employment. At first, when the new group of Black firemen experienced psychological tyranny and emotional brutality, Chief Williams visited their respective officers and tried to enlist their aid to correct injustices through moral persuasion. The Chief was performing the Herculean task of ambassador; without portfolio. It was abundantly clear that the course of action to follow was the formation of an organization of black firemen. Chief Williams said, "The men must organize and fight their battles themselves. I was the only officer at that time and did not want the weight of my office to overshadow the will of the body."