03709_0052: Coal Miner

AL-49

Alabama Sam Brakefield (White) N.S. McDonald

COAL MINER

"If I had it all to go over with again," Sam Brakefield said, "I'd have a business of my own. I'd have that, even if it was nothing but a peanut parcher. Since I was fourteen years old I've been a coal miner; and it's a hard, uncertain sort of life. It's always a 'feast or a famine;' living good when wages are high, and doing without when times are bad." He sat on the edge of a ditch he had been digging, slowly scraping the red clay off his high rubber boots. Beside him was a gun and a bucket of water. The gun, he explained, was to shoot hawks that had been molesting his chickens. "You can see by what I'm doing today---digging this ditch across my land --- that I'm something of a farmer too. But I sure ought to be able to tell you about coal mining. When I was a boy growing up, I talked my dad out of letting me leave our hillside farm that was so poor we couldn't even raise enough for the cows and pigs to eat. That was back in '87, and I soon went to work at the Gamble Mines." Pausing to light a stubby pipe, he removed his hat and ran strong fingers through his graying, sandy hair. "Oh, but I felt like a man," he laughed. "I remember, they paid me eighty cents a day, and a day in those times was from sunup to sunset. At first they put me to digging coal, but when I learned a little more, they gave me a

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job 'shooting'. That means drilling holes in the coal and then using powder to shoot it loose so it won't be so hard to dig. It was a right responsible place for a strip of a boy; you've got to understand this 'shooting' business, else you might have a terrible accident. "I tried to do everything just like they told me, working as hard as I could. You know, that's the way to get ahead at anything. It wasn't long before they raised my wages a little, and then in 1903 they made me a foreman and began paying me a straight salary of $75 a month. "I did pretty well with that much money, but living was costing me more. You see, I had married several years before, and my wife and me had five children to bring up. That's a job, but I'll tell you how we did it; we only paid five dollars a month for house rent, and we saved on groceries. You see, all the salaried men at the mine got their groceries at cost, plus ten percent." He shook his head slowly, his eyes intent upon the task of removing the clay from his boots. His face was serious when he spoke again. "I guess I used what you might call business sense in those days. I never did like the thing I did, but I wanted to give me family a good raising; I always put my family in front of everything. "You see, lots of miners just can't make one payday stretch to the next. It's 'come day, go day' with lots of them. And back in those days it was worse than it is now, for the companies just paid off once a month, and the wages were pretty bad. Then, again, some of the wages were kept in the office, so sometimes it would be as much as two months before a man could draw his first pay.

"The company had worked out a plan where a man could cash in his salary at eighty cents on the dollar. That is, they would advance him eighty cents

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worth of 'clacker' money for every dollar's worth of time he put in. 'Clacker' is made out of copper, and it came in five, ten, twenty-five and fifty cent, and dollar sizes. The worker could use it just like real money at the company commissary, but it was no good anywhere else. "Well, when a fellow wants cash money to spend in town, he'll do about anything to get it. That's why the miners would get 'clacker' from the company, giving up twenty cents on every dollar, and sell it to me in exchange for cash. I would always pay my grocery bills with the 'clacker', and together with my discount, this made my food come pretty cheap. "What do I think about campany stores? Well, they've got better during the years, just like the system of paying workers has got better. But they were mighty bad up to a few years ago. A man that didn't trade at the commissary was fired just as soon as the boss found out about it. If he bought anything away from the company store, he'd better not tell it. If he sent a mail order away for something the commissary handled --- and they handled about everything --- he had to slip around to get his package when it came; he never could tell when a tattler was watching him. You see, the companies always managed to have a few men around who got a big kick out of reporting anything to cause trouble. "But it ain't for me to be knocking the commissaries. I'm telling about my own self. When I started at the Gamble Mine it was owned by the Tennessee Company, but later it was taken over by the Pratt Mines. When that happened I was raised to $85 a month, and I began right then to save a little money. "I never did give up my idea that when a man does the very best he can, he will be treated all right. I think that was proved to me, because when the mine was abandoned in 1930, I was making $125 a month. You can see that I had lots to be happy about, but I don't guess we can be happy all the time. My luck had

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held up too good for it to last always.

"When the old mine played out, I went over to Barney Mine, about eight miles away, and I tell you, I didn't like that place. I had a good reputation and I wanted to keep it, but you can't mine coal with just a reputation. The trouble over at Barney was that they didn't give me any tools to work with. They were old, and their cars were run down; on top of that. I just got disgusted with that sort of business, so I made up my mind I wouldn't stay there.

"That's why I quit and went over to the Flat Creek district. It was a better place, but still not as good as my old place back at Pratt. They had put me to work as inside preparation man, and that means just what it says. I had to look after the drilling of all those holes, getting them in shape for the shots of powder that would knock the coal loose. I also had to direct the undercutting. Machinery did most of that, but I had to know where to place the machine to loosen the earth, and to do the job in the shortest time possible.

"Ma and me were bringing up a good-sized family by this time. We had thirteen children, all told, but we didn't raise but eight of them. That family gave me something to look forward to; giving them a better future than I had had, and keeping them and Ma in comfort. I always tried to talk with my children in a sensible sort of way that would help them in later life. I reminded them as much as I could that there is plenty of room at the top of the ladder, but that it's mighty crowded at the bottom. I kept telling them to get a good education. When you're trained for a job, they come looking for you, but if you're not, why then you're always looking for somebody to take you on.

"After I had been at Flat Creek more than three years, I went over to Number Ten mine as foreman. I was still managing to put a little money aside, but when I look back now, I wish to God that I had saved ten times more than I did.

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I had enough by 1932 to buy this farm --- 46 acres all told --- and build the house you see over there aways. It ain't a grand place, but it's strong built. It's meant for service more than looks, and that's another one of my ideas; it's better to do fine than to look fine. We've got three bedrooms, besides a living room, dining room and wash room."

Mr. Brakefield stuffed the tobacco down into the bowl of his pipe and looked thoughtfully across his newly plowed acres. At last, he went on: "The old house gets a little too big and lonesome now, being that all the children have gone; but it's mighty nice to have a place for them when they come on holidays. It's nice to have a secure place for Ma, too, because she deserves the very best in the world. She's worked with me side by side since we married. She's a good woman; the Lord knows she is.

"But talking about her ain't talking about my work, is it? Well, it's funny about a coal miner. He's always either up or down. A long time ago, it seemed like there was two jobs for every miner, but now it's just the other way around. And I tell you, if a miner ain't got some other trade to follow, he's in a pretty bad mess.

"I saw this thing coming a long time ago, I surely did. I just seemed to know the electricity, gas and machinery would replace coal, taking men's jobs away. Why, ten years ago Alabama produced twenty million tons of coal, and in 1933 she put out just ten million tons. That's why I got busy and took up farming sorter as a sideline; I saw this time coming.

"But I'm not grumbling about mining. Things are a whole lot different from what they used to be; working conditions and wages are better beyond comparing. There's more safety now, too, and all the mines have first-aid departments. That's helped them to bring the number of explosions and accidents down

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