Tag: John F. Stith Sr.

Stay Out Of My Way

My Dad; his older brother, Hugh Platt Stith Sr.; and their father, Paul Jones Stith, all owned coal mines at one time or another. I don’t know about my grandfather but Dad and his brother, who was called “Bud,” did not like unions.  On several occasions when I was growing up I heard Dad rail against John L. Lewis, president of the United Mine Workers of America from 1920 to 1960.

Loading coal at Dad's strip mine in Altoona, AL.
Loading coal at Dad’s strip mine in Altoona, AL.

When I was a young boy, in the early 1950s, Dad had a strip mine and an underground mine near Altoona, AL. He told me about a time when a union organizer came to see him, and threatened him. If he didn’t allow the union to organize the miners who worked for him, anything could happen — why, his dragline might fall off the mountain some dark night. 

Dad said he asked the organizer to give him a day to think about it, which gave him time to buy what he call “sabotage” insurance. Next day, Dad said, he told the organizer to get off his property and stay off.  There was never any sabotage.

* * *

Hugh Platt "Bud" Stith Sr: Stay out of my way.
Hugh Platt “Bud” Stith Sr: Stay out of my way.

In the early 1900’s Dad mined coal for his brother, Bud, who was almost five years older.  When miners struck his brother, Dad said, Uncle Bud strapped on a .45 caliber pistol and the two of them kept loading coal.

He said Uncle Bud told strikers, words to this effect: “If you want to load coal, come back to work. If you don’t, stay out of my way. If you try to stop us I’m going to shoot you.”

In a day or two, Dad said, the strike was over.

NOTE: I have no doubt that miners who worked for my Dad and my Uncle needed a union to fight for better working conditions and better pay, no doubt at all.

Coming Monday: “Yes It Is. No It Isn’t. Yes It is!”

The Pipe

The man my Dad had challenged to a fight — I don’t know his name, I’ll call him The Fighter — was a semi-professional.

John F. Stith Sr., during his Army days
John F. Stith Sr., around 1920, during his Army days

Both men were in the Army and Dad was, in effect, his promoter, lining up fights, placing wagers, and collecting when The Fighter won, as he almost always did.

One evening, going somewhere on a train, The Fighter said something ugly about a woman my father was escorting. That was the kind of thing he could not, would not, tolerate.

When the train rolled to a stop Dad saw a pipe on the embankment beside the tracks and he told The Fighter, Let’s settle this right now, or words to that effect. The pipe would give my Dad a distinct advantage — when he had no chance in a fair fight, he didn’t fight fair.

They got off the train and The Fighter began taking off his Army jacket. Dad walked over to the embankment and grabbed hold of the pipe with which he intended to teach The Fighter a lesson he would not soon forget.

To his dismay, however, the pipe wasn’t lying on the ground, it was sticking out of the ground, and he couldn’t pull it free.

Dad said he spent several days in a hospital, recovering from the beating he took.

Coming Friday: The Love Of My Life