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Transcript on deposit at The Southern Historical Collection, The Louis Round Wilson Library
Citation of this interview should be as follows:
“Interview R-0194, in
the Southern Oral History Program Collection #4007,
Southern Historical
Collection, The Wilson Library,
University of North Carolina at Chapel
Hill”
Raised in Smithfield, North Carolina, as the son of a tenant tobacco farmer, G. Sherwood Stewart knew at the age of ten that he wanted to become a tobacco auctioneer. Enamored with the level of skill required of auctioneers, Stewart put his passion for the career to early practice, learning the skill from local auctioneers C. E. "Snoxic" Stevenson and Jimmy Jollet. At the age of fifteen, he auctioned off some of his father's tobacco and within the next few years, he had carved out a decisive niche for himself. Often surprised by his youth, tobacco warehouse owners from Georgia to South Carolina to North Carolina to Kentucky came to know his talent as an auctioneer. From the late 1950s until the turn of the twentieth century, Stewart honed a unique auctioneering chant, combining clarity with elements of comedy, and garnered an impressive reputation throughout the Southeast as a particularly skilled auctioneer. Throughout the interview, Stewart offers numerous engaging anecdotes about his experiences as an auctioneer. Researchers steeped in the history of the tobacco industry will be particularly interested in Stewart's insider perspective on the relationship between buyer, seller, and auctioneer. Additionally, he stresses the centrality of the auctioneer to the sale of tobacco, focusing on their unique role of providing balance to tobacco sales and ensuring fairness to both buyers and sellers. Stewart offers some brief ruminations on the impact of the gradual transition away from auctioning tobacco towards the sale of tobacco via contract, suggesting that the quality of tobacco might have been adversely affected as a result.
G. Sherwood Stewart grew up in Smithfield, North Carolina, during 1940s and 1950s. The son of a tenant tobacco farmer, Stewart determined at any early age to become a tobacco auctioneer. By the time he was in his late teens, Stewart was honing a unique auctioneering style and had begun to establish a formidable reputation as a successful auctioneer throughout the Southeast. In this interview, he offers an insider's perspective—based on several decades of experience—regarding the unique role of the auctioneer to the tobacco industry.
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
Okay, it looks like we're moving. Today is September 21, the last day of summer.
It seems like a fitting day to be at Duke Homestead, in Durham, North Carolina, and talking about auctioning tobacco. We're here today with Mr. G. Sherwood Stewart.
Right.
Welcome, Mr. Stewart. Thank you so much for coming.
Good to be here.
Mr. Stewart made a lot of contributions in our panel discussion this morning, so we're following up with an interview. I want to thank you, and I was hoping you would tell me a little bit about your career as an auctioneer and how you got into it and where you came up and what's your story?
Well, first, I was born and raised in Smithfield, North Carolina,
Johnston County. My daddy was a tobacco farmer, tenant farmer. Raised on
the farm, just a little country boy. And uh, he would go to sell
tobacco, probably I was ten years old. When he went to sell tobacco, I
went with him. It just fascinated me: the auctioneer would go down the
row selling tobacco. It just — at the age of ten! A lot of people [they
may say] that couldn't have happened. Yes, they did happen. I, uh, my
Dad was a friend of a tobacco auctioneer that was doing the auction that
day. And uh, everywhere this auctioneer was
So, he helped you out all right!
And I got out with Daddy's tobacco — sold good. They did. They helped me out. When we got through I got to go on back to the warehouse and they — every now and then — they put me in and let me sell a little bit of tobacco. Daddy's [tobacco], anyway. Every time he sold tobacco, I'd get in there and sell it, you know.
You bet. That's so neat. He must have loved that.
Well, Daddy, he really wanted me to be a tobacco auctioneer. My mother wanted me to be a preacher. But, I'd get in there and I'd go down the row and I'd sell and I got better and better at it, you know? I got right much better. Well this gentleman who was here today was Jimmy Jollet. You remember him?
Oh yes, very well.
He sold tobacco in Smithfield. I said, I didn't know, uh, who was—. I
didn't probably think there was but two tobacco auctioneers in the
world: Snoxic Steveson and Jimmy Jollet. So I go up to Jimmy Jollet and
some of the tobacco buyers on the sale said, "Jimmy, you got an
auctioneer back there." Well, he looked back at me and went on.
You were young. By the time you were working with Jimmy and by the time you started visiting the other [markets], like Henderson, how old were you then?
Still in my teens — eighteen, nineteen. I think I was about twenty-one years old when I started selling regular.
Anyone else that young working at that time?
No. I was not working, but understand, I was getting in there practicing to sell tobacco.
Yeah, get a line or two.
My Daddy, he always hauled tobacco for different farmers. So, he loaded
up two big truckloads of tobacco and went to Henderson. I went with him.
We had a guy that worked with us on the farm. He'd always start
That's pretty far to go, too.
Well, I was living in Smithfield. I went to Georgia and sold there a year and then came back to Greenville. Mr. Dixon Wallace told me, he said, "You know, Sherwood, Greenville's a big market. Most auctioneers start on a little market and go up to big markets. But you're starting your first job on a five set market." He said, "I'm just—. I feel for you." He said, "It's tougher than it is on a smaller market." I said, "Well, you know Mr. Wallace, the man offered to hire me. It's his own doing. They hired me to sell tobacco there and I'm going there to sell tobacco and do my best." I went there and sold it. I came back to Smithfield and he said, "How did you get along in Greenville?" I said, "Just fine." I said, "I had no problem at all." I said, "You know, I believe it's better to sell in a big market than in a little one." He said, "You know something, we should have hired you in Smithfield." It almost happened. He was trying to hire me back from Greenville. Then I got another job in Greenville, a better job.
Did you say there were five sets in Greenville — five sets of buyers?
In Greenville, at that time, yes. Well, see, Wilson was five sets.
Durham was three.
Right. But Wilson always sold the most tobacco. I came back and I told
Mr. Wallace, "You know something? I'm starting in Greenville, you know
it might just might make Wilson." And I used it as a—. Somebody would
tell me on a Saturday night, "You're doing good, Stewart. You're doing
fine." I said, "I'm going to make Wilson." I used to say that when I was
young. When I was just a young man I said, "I intend to make Wilson, the
biggest market in Georgia. I intend to make Lexington, Kentucky. I'm
going to hit them all." Well, I made most of Georgia. That was the
biggest. I made Wilson, North Carolina, that was the largest haul. I had
the opportunity to go to Lexington and I turned it down. I was willing
to sell tobacco or anything, but I didn't work that way 'cause,
actually, the job I had away from there was better than what I got at
[the warehouse?]. So, I never did go to Lexington, but I did sell in
Wilson twenty-eight years. When I went to Wilson, it was tough. I mean,
from Greenville I went to Winston. Sold one year. From Waynesville to
Wilson. How it happened — I went to Wilson. I went up to Centerbrick
[brook?] warehouse in Wilson and was selling tobacco. They was
interested in hiring me to sell tobacco at Centerbrick. They sold more
tobacco than any other warehouse.
Okay, you clearly love doing it.
Being I love it. I certainly did.
Okay, what made you so good?
What made me love it so good?
No, what made you such a good auctioneer? I know that loving it was a very important factor.
Well—.
But there's some joy in it for you, too. Where does that joy come from?
Well, maybe it's this: I like the entertainment of it. I like being, I
guess, in the limelight, certainly. I always try—. I said, "I intend to
be the tobacco auctioneer. I don't want to be the second best. I want to
be the best." There's auctioneers that might be better. but I did feel
this way. When I learned how to sell tobacco like, I felt like I could
go down the road. I could do it as well as anybody. In my mind, I didn't
show it to people. I always congratulate: "You're the best." I felt
like, when I'd go and sell tobacco, I wanted to do my best. I wanted to
be the best tobacco auctioneer. And I loved
They like it. The farmers like the auction. The auctioneer makes a lot of difference in selling tobacco. So, I perfected [my work] and as I was coming up as a young auctioneer—. I like Jimmy Jollet. I saw him and I would try to imitate him. And Les Hobb, I run into him. I tried to imitate him. Billy Clarke, in Greenville—. When I went there to sell tobacco, I said, "Wait a minute. This guy's tremendous." I said, "Maybe I ought to push Billy Clarke mine." But Billy was a comedian auctioneer. One of the finest I ever seen. He had a chant that would just entertain you. Somebody asked me one time, "you know something—" I said, "I've tried Jimmy Jollet. I tried to auction like different ones and be like them, but I decided there ain't but one thing to do: be one style, Sherwood Stewart. So, I became Sherwood Stewart's style.
And has somebody imitated you?
Yes, oh I had them. I had a guy to walk up to me one day and he tells me—. I was helping him. He said, "You know, "I want to be just like you. I try my best to sound just like you." I said, "Don't do it, friend." I said, "I appreciate that, but the best thing you could do is take in, adopt, your own style." I said, "Every auctioneer—. I have never seen two that was exactly alike. Basically, we do the same thing, but there is different styles." I said, "You adopt your best way of selling tobacco that is your style." They all got different styles.
So tell me about your style.
My style? Well you know how other people describe it? I have people saying, "You're the best entertainment auctioneer I've followed. You're not boring." Tobacco buyers tell me, "I'm not bored following you." Said, "I like your style. You are clear. You can understand it. I know where I'm at buying tobacco all the time and I know where you're at."
But are you injecting little things as you go along. Can you give me an example?
Oh yes, yeah. Well, I pick this from an auction. Like, I'll be saying,
"Ninety-two something." I'll be trying to buy: "Dollar ninety-two, two,
two, two, buckle my shoe,
So there's endless variations. I think you're right, the more you put yourself into it, the more you own it, the more you can do with it.
I had my style selling tobacco. I mean, my style is still there.
You were quite young when you [figured out] what that style was going to be. Did you have fun when you were a kid and you were practicing on it, just sticking stuff in? When you were really young and you were working on that chant, did you play with words some?
Yes, yeah. I tell you something, I did. Excuse me, I'm going to take a drink of water.
Please.
I tell you something, I did. Catching bids—. When a tobacco buyer bids, they're quick. Well, you try to make it bid catcher. That's what makes a good tobacco auctioneer. I would get in front of a mirror and bid for myself. I talked to this guy one day. He said, "How you practicing catching bids?" I said, "I get in front of the mirror and bid for myself." He said, "Don't do that." He said, "I know a guy who did that and the only way he could sell tobacco was he had to have a mirror to look at himself." I know he told me that as a joke, but I said, "Well ok, I'd better quit that then because I don't want no mirror there," You know, the basic thing is style. To be a good tobacco auctioneer, is your style and your chant, your voice. That's what makes good and settles disputes. When something happens on the sale, like, you know—.
Can you give me an example?
Well, sometimes a tobacco buyer along will say, "Hey, you missed me on that pile of tobacco." Could have happened. It could have not happened. He could have missed me, too. Sometimes, like they have it—. Like, the way to sell tobacco and something happened, well you say, "Now wait a minute, here." I told them one time, "The school I went to didn't teach it that way." So there was a lot of things that—. Sometimes I could be wrong, but when I was wrong, I corrected it. I would tell them, "Yeah, I make mistakes." I did tell a bunch of tobacco buyers one day, "You know I've been trying to—." It just hit me all at once. I said, in Wilson, North Carolina, "If you walk down these rows," I said, "I see tobacco buyers making mistakes all the time." I said, "Sometimes they buy tobacco wrong and I have to go over there and sell it over and give them a straight line." I said, "A ticket marker will mark one wrong." I said, "It's all right, you know, change it, everything's ok now." The sale's fine. I said, "The warehouseman started wrong and if I can't even sell tobacco for one hour and all at once I haven't made one mistake, the whole sale blows up."
That's right, everyone comes down on you.
I said, "Why? Why?" Everybody stood there and looked at me. Then they'll ask. So I went on and started selling tobacco. But things like, like getting along, and you know—.
Yeah, well I guess the auctioneer is supposed to be kind of the ultimate in fairness.
Yeah, right.
So the expectation is that if you make a mistake, then you're not being fair.
Right, well, you know sometimes if there are people there that's got just as much of an important job, like a ticket marker, as auctioneers. But he is the star of the sale and I don't say that because I was a tobacco auctioneer. If somebody come from California and never seen a tobacco auctioneer, their focus is always on the tobacco auctioneer. They didn't pay any mind to anybody else. Companies oversee that everything is bought by the buyer. The auction — sixty percent, I think — was entertainment. Another thing I did — always liked to use it — I liked singing. I sing with bands. My wife is sick right now. She told me one time—. Of course, I was an auctioneer when she met me and married me and when she found out I did a little singing with bands, she told me, "Well I can tell you something, if you just went out and put as much energy into being a country music singer as you have did a tobacco auctioneer, you'd be one of the best." I said, "Well, I'm glad you feel that way, but that ain't what I want to be." You want to be something. You know, some people wants to be a ball player. Some people wants to be a guitar player. Some people wants to be—. I want to be a tobacco auctioneer. I size it up. If you take a baseball and you lay it out there on the ball diamond, it's nothing but a baseball. It's just sitting there. If you line up the players, the first baseman, and the pitcher, and you put them all in there, you got a team. So, that little ball, it's nothing but a baseball.
I think I understand. I think the role of the auctioneer, from what I've been able to gather from listening this morning and from things that I've read, is that the auctioneer, like you said, settles disputes, you know. You're the one that keeps it even.
That's right.
[Keeps it even] between the price the farmers can get and the price the buyers want, the amounts, and who's spent all this much already and deserves to, you know, who bought the bad stuff so now they deserve some good stuff. you got to keep all that balanced.
Yes, you got to keep all that.
I think that it is a pretty important role in the whole tobacco exchange.
Yes, it is. Well, I work with a man that owns
How do you do that?
It's the tobacco seller and the auction allocation. A lot of people don't understand it when they talk. It stays that way. Sometimes it'd change. Might change next week to a higher price, could change to a lower price, but ever since I've been selling it, you auction it. Most of those things that's going, farmers using machines and everything, because that's more of the same type. It used to be laid out in different grades. It's because this is when I was in the allocation and I knew that row of tobacco being auctioned at allocation and I knew who I knocked the first one to and who I knocked the second one to and who I knocked the third one to. He said, "I'll tell you what I'll do. If you'll put down on a piece of paper how many, in seven piles of tobacco, I'll bet you a steak supper you can't. It ain't right." I said, "I'll bet you I will." So I wrote them down and he went out there and a man went out there and said, "Tommy, you just better take him out to eat, because he's right." I said, "I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll go fifty piles. How many piles of tobacco in the first row?" He says, "There's a hundred and two on the first row." I said, "I'll tell you what I'll do, I'll go over to the other end and I'll give you a chance to get that steak supper back." I said, "I'll sit down here in my office. I'll figure it out. I ain't going to say I'm going to get them all right, but I won't be eight piles off."
Out of a hundred and two?
Yes.
From twenty-four hours ago.
Yeah, well—.
And after another thousand?
Yeah. He said, "I'll tell you what to do. Give me the first—. Do it on
Twenty-five." I said, "No, twenty-four." I went out there and they both
come back and I got the twenty-four of them right. He said, "I see you
want to go all the way. What if you went at this rate, you won't be able
to go the whole sale because there's eight hundred on that whole sale. I
said, "Well, I doubt I could get all eight hundred, but I remember that
the first row of tobacco was good tobacco. It's the reason I can do it.
It's top grade tobacco." I said, "You got to remember when you're
selling tobacco, how much, who bought what, the whole sale. If you're
going down the row—. The man said, "I remember one year, out of
Kentucky, all the tobacco in my market brought the same
Give it to the ones that have already bought—.
That's right. You know, you try to—. You keep them because if you didn't—.
They kind of paid their dues.
They was buying all the tobacco. You know, you got the controversy going now. But what grows a lot of tobacco is—. I told a man one day, "I never sold tobacco but one year that started on it." But that was in burley. The first pile brought the same price on opening day as on closing day and everybody bid the same amount. That's the first time I ever done it. Never did manage—. The hurricane came through and destroyed a part of the flue cure. It brought a dollar ninety-two. It never started off. As I tried to tell somebody, I started on one year tobacco bring a dollar seventy-seven. It eventually went to a dollar eighty. It was the auction system that carried it there, you know. So, although I believe it's the best way to sell tobacco—always have believed [in] it, the price support system. I've always believed in that. It's a good way. The farmer has the best thing in the world going for him. I hope it continues what it's going to, but I don't think it will. But, it's being a tobacco auctioneer, I don't regret it, no.
Oh, it doesn't sound like it!
No. I'm not doing it now. Last year was my last year selling tobacco. Not because I wanted to. I knew I was getting close to the time that I could retire. But, it's the time that they started contracting. I probably could've hung over a few little sales, but it wasn't enough. I just stepped out of it. It mean, it was more easier for me to step out than it was for some younger guys. You know, they're thirty-five, forty years old—ain't old enough to draw social security. We didn't have retirement. We don't have all that stuff. As far as being a tobacco auctioneer, I don't have any ill will against the companies or farmers, either one. The companies drawed a contract. The farmer made the choice. If it's better for him to contract, then I understand. He can get more money out of a contract than [if] he is under auction. If the auction would give him more money, then I say he's a fool to sell under contract. That's the way it is. Now what's going to continue after the tobacco auction is gone? I don't know.
I guess I'm curious about what it will do to perceptions of quality.
Quality—. Well, I think, really and truly, that's what the company can do, is trying to be closer to the farmer under contract to produce a better quality tobacco and foreign matter free. In fact, I'm with a company now. I'm with Universal Lee [League?]. My job is looking for foreign matter in tobacco. They call me a NTRM specialist. That is, non-tobacco related material. There's a lot in there.
Is there really?
Yes, sir. They—. Yes, ma'am.
Is that because of the mechanization now?
Yeah, a lot of it is mechanization. A lot of it, I assume, they don't care. They just dump anything in there. I find a whole lot of it. Now they are recording and checking it out if the farmers have got it in it. [There is] more than I really thought was in it, 'til I got in this job looking at it. That's what I do now.
But when it was all out on the floor in piles, that would just be so obvious.
It was in it then.
It was in it then to the same degree, do you think?
Well, not as much, because they sold more tobacco in the sheets. But they did put it in there. It got in there. But then the company had a right to reject it on the floor. But somehow, enough of it didn't get rejected all the time, you know. Then they went to bale tobacco. There's no person, in the world, that can stand there, and look at a pile, a bale — a eight hundred pound bale of tobacco — and tell what's inside of it. I tried telling people that. You can't. You can bust it open or the man who packed it, he can tell what's in it.
So, how would you salt something because you'd want the outside to look solid?
Right.
And it goes through a baler, right? So you'd have to feed it into the baling machine, or something?
Yeah, but there's a way you can put the stuff in the middle. I'll tell you something that happened this year. [Was] a lot of this tobacco dry weather tobacco this year? It's hard to judge it in bales because them balers leave the tails of tobacco out, and the stems in. A lot of it looks good, and the bale gummies it up, it's green halfway to the leaf that you don't see in them bales. That's one thing, the pile of tobacco looks good outside, but when you open it up, it's half is green. It's a bad crop this year. We've got a mean tobacco crop.
You think—. Is that [because of] the drought?
Drought — that's right, a lot of it. There's a lot of farmers farming tobacco out there that don't look at it. They've been around for years and years. When I was auctioning tobacco, you run into the farmers that really took care of it and looked at it. They had good tobacco, all the time. You had the same farmers just about every year that had bad tobacco. They're going to have bad tobacco. It don't make no difference, they just know how to mess it up. I mean, they don't take the pride in—.
But they get different prices for their tobacco?
Yeah. Well, they have in the past.
They have in the past, but with this contracting—?
[With] this contracting, they want the same thing the others get. I don't know how, what's going to keep on going. You always had the price support system to go back to, which you don't have that under contract with the company. They are turning down some of these tobacco contractors now. Turned down a lot of them on the auction market, because it's not good. But the auction system was put in—. I think baling it up in big bales hurt the auction system because you can't, don't even looking at it, you know.
Well, how does it get inspected if it's baled?
Well, the government graders grade it and inspect it. Just like I said a few minutes ago, there's nobody here. He grades it the way it looks in them bales.
Just in the bales.
But he don't see everything that's in it. But the farmer's not supposed to put it that way.
yeah, but they weren't supposed to salt the kegs in the 17th century either, but they did.
Yeah, as that man said when he was talking about nest tobacco and everything, "You don't put good apples on top and the rotten ones in the bottom." But, it really—. And a lot of things — green stems in tobacco. Well I had someone, a man said, "How about green stems?" I call them "spoiled stems." I said, "That's what rotted, that pile of tobacco." I said, "They were put in there green. They weren't cured out." And he said, "Well, why would they put it in there?" He said, "Do you think it was deliberate to put it in there?" I said, "Well, you know, if you keep finding tobacco with green stems in the middle of a pile, how come it always end up in the middle? Sometime it ought to end up on top, or somewhere." He said, "Well, that's a good answer." I said, "Well, you know, if you put them in the middle of that pile, it's going to get hot and rot that pile of tobacco. It will do it every time."
Yes. I reckon because I had—. I'm not, you know, bragging on myself, but I must say you got to the top. You got it all. Now I could walk in a tobacco sale, I see auctioneers that, it's a good auction. I went to one the other day, good auctioneer, you know, knows the mechanics. He knows everything, but he don't have that voice.
He wasn't putting the spirit in it.
Right. He can't. I mean, he just don't have it. When he did, lot of people don't think he's good auctioneer, but he is. He knows the chants and he knows how to do it, but he don't come over.
It sounds like you put that little extra spark of yourself that probably in another age, in another setting, you would have been a stand-up comedian, or you would have been a government orator. You could have been a speech maker, or you could have been—. It sort of sounds like you have—. Or [you might have been] a great entertainer. It sounds like part of you, really enjoys that exchange with your audience. You know, the more they react to you, the more you react to them. You create something between you, sort of.
I think there's some days, you know, I could have not not sold tobacco. Just everything follow my way. I mean, it just looked like everything come to me like you would want it to. And I had days that don't, you know.
Well, tell me about a good day. What a good day would look like?
What, selling tobacco? It's a day when you walk out on that floor, on that warehouse floor, to sell tobacco, and—.
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE A]
[START OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
— everything's just falling your way. Tobacco selling [is] good. You turn around and them farmers is smiling. They're happy. The warehouseman's happy. Everybody's happy and you walk out there. That's a good day. But if you go out there and the prices is dropped, the farmer, he says, "What's happened?" You know—.
Everybody's under stress.
That's a sad day. You change. I've seen you do it all at once. I've walked up to sell a day of tobacco selling and everybody happy. You go back the next day and all at once tobacco is ten dollars less than it was the day before and the farmers is just, you know—. You look at them. They're sad, but as long as it's selling, you and they're happy. I told somebody sometime, "When I get in the rhythm of selling tobacco, it's like doing a dance. [It's] like the waltz or something." I've had buyers about here about dancing, me selling tobacco, sometimes. I had one, one day; he was the supervisor for the company. He came in and we're selling tobacco just that moment, you know, and he got in the sale, tobacco and everything, seventy-six cents, a dollar seventy-six, something like that. All at once he just took up seven and I knocked it to him. Then he go to eight and I knocked seventy-eight. Well he was buying it all. About halfway down the row, everybody else said, "Well why in the world would he do it?" The supervisor would tell me, "What in the world is going on here? I ain't set seventy-eight for that buyer." He said, "I ain't got the seventy-six." He said, "I'll tell you what." He said, "The ticket marker said you bought half of the row, seventy-eight or seventy-six, He said, "I don't know what it is man. I'm going to put the man back in here then I'm going to get out." He said, "I'm going to have to go back to take it" and the warehouseman took it back. But he said that he got in the sale and my chant just got—. I got the auction. I had everything I wanted and the first thing you know he just, he started—. He said, "I know, I had all my mind focused on you all at once."
He couldn't resist it. He just had to get in the act.
He got in it and didn't realize what he was doing, he told me. He says, "You know—."
Well, what's the longest—? I don't expect you to really answer this, but [what is] the longest you've gone just selling without it being stopped or pulled or anything, just going?
I've near about sold whole sales that we didn't stop. Then I've sold sales which stopped ten times on the row.
And there's no way to predict?
When the demand is going and the tobacco's clean, there has been these tobacco crops. In other words, we've had two years in a row that the tobacco has been good and those kind of crops when you got them, you can't hardly make a mistake buying. That's easy. When you got a crop like, this man had rain down the road and this man didn't, he has dry — like it is this year - it slows things down. It's not the same. Still, I enjoy doing it. That's another thing, when you go to selling these crops, auctioneers that can get down and move it on, he becomes a good tobacco auctioneer. Of course, I would learn something everyday. You don't never learn it all.
Towards the end of your career, what kind of stuff were you learning that—?
Well, there's something new about it. You pick up something right on,
because everyday changes. You know, I hear so much about tobacco bring
the same price. You know, the farmer put tobacco on the floor and if he
got practically the same grade of tobacco—. I'd seen this, that the
tobacco companies, he'd have two piles didn't bring much. Hey, it's the
same thing. Just like the other one. Well, sometimes they will put it on
and make it bring the same thing after it's been sold. They didn't have
to, but they would. Then a lot of times they wouldn't, if it weren't
same. According to the farmer, it was the same, you know. But, [I've
seen] a whole lot of things. I'll go back tell you that
Now I find this really, really interesting because a part of this I heard this morning, and now from you. Part of the auctioneer's kind of authority, you think, comes with age? People don't expect a young man to be able to maturely judge who's got what and how to play it out and be fair? That only could come with years of experience?
Experience. Some learn quick enough.
You seem to have been a quick study.
Well, if you say quick, I was up there. I didn't go to work on the market until I was nineteen years old. The selling that I did, you know, as a fact, was just practice selling. I was selling, doing the job, but I didn't—. I wasn't responsible. Actually, I was about twenty-one or two when I started selling regular. I had it just about pat myself before I had a job selling - [before] I could sell it. And in fact, I didn't ask for the job. They asked. They wanted me, so I started selling. You know, selling at twenty-one—. I believe I started at twenty-one. You start at a young age and age selling tobacco. I had picked up a whole lot and was ready when I started, you know. I had sold four or five years in flue cure. I looked young. I always looked young to what I was.
Actually, you were probably more experienced than a lot of people older than you.
Right, right, that's true.
Starting at fourteen, really seriously studying the business.
Well, round it to fifteen years old when I started selling the first now.
I even was chanting and practicing before that. The funny thing was, I
had started selling tobacco in Statesboro Georgia. There was a tobacco
buyer down there named George Ruffin. He was from Roxboro, Oxford, I
believe. Might have been that. Well, I had been down there waiting that
year and I was selling in Greenville at that time. When the market
closed one day in Greenville, I went up in Oxford to see him sell
tobacco. They weren't closed. George Ruffin was one of the sale's
tobacco buyers. It was in this old man's warehouse. He says, "Stewart,
what are you doing up here?" I said, "I just come in to see the sale."
He said, "Well, we're closed." He said, "Well, auctioneer sales is just
not here. He's out. But the man they got in there, he ain't no
auctioneer." I said, "Well, I don't know about that." He said, "You want
to sell a row in here?" I said, "I don't know. They might not let me
sell tobacco here." He said, "Well, I'll get you in to see him." So this
old man run the warehouse. I'll never forget it. He said, "Look, I'm
going to get you into the sale and I want you to fake it on the first
pile." I said, "What do you mean? Just fake it like I didn't even know
how to do it?" And he said, "We're not going to cost the farmer
anything, because we don't—." He said, "Nobody here knows you, but me. I
know you can do it." So he asked the warehouseman to let me sell
tobacco. He says, "He wants to sell a row." The warehouseman looked at
me and said, "Oh George, I can't do that. We're not running a school."
He said, "I'll tell you what I'll do: I promised that boy, that kid,
down there to sell tobacco." He said, "Buying for American, there's a
lot of good American tobacco there at the end. I'll go and tell you it
will sell all right, if you let him sell it." He said, "I want him to
sell tobacco." He said, "Well, if that's the case, when the man that had
the buyer sell it, let the man sell it. The man want to sell it." So,
the old warehouseman, Mr. Curry, he said, "Get on in here, young man.
We'll see what you can do." He said, "You know these buyers?" I said,
"Well, I think I do." He says, "Well, let me tell you this. Take your
time. They always start just like you did." Me, I'd already been selling
tobacco five years by that time. You know, he said, "get down there and
do your best and take your time." I started you know, on the first three
or four piles,
Well, I think that's a really wonderful closing statement. That's great! Well, we're really pleased to get a chance to talk to you. Is there anything else you want to add or want to continue—?
Well, is there anything else you want me to—?
Not unless you've got some salty stories you wouldn't mind sharing that I don't know!
Well, I'll tell you one more. I been selling tobacco, I reckon, in Greenville seven years. Probably on Wilson about five years at that time. I paid a visit to the border belt just to see the market open. It was opening the week before we opened the next week. I went to Fairmont and I went over to Mullins, South Carolina. Bud Janet was selling. It was kind of hot that day. He come out at the end of a row and he saw me. I'd made him a fool. He said, "Stewart, how about selling a row for me?" He said, "You get to practice up for Wilson." So I said, "Well, okay." I got in the sale. I started selling. I went down to the end and sold back. He thanked me and said, "I needed a rest." There came this young guy up to him. Come up to him and said, "Look, I wanted to talk to you." He said, "You know something, I believe that you'll make an auctioneer." I said, "You do?" And he says, "Yeah." He says "I'm learning—."
[END OF TAPE 1, SIDE B]
[START OF TAPE 2, SIDE A]
Can you hold that thought? Can you pick up where you left off, do you think?
Yeah. He walked up to me and told me that he was going to be—. He learned to be a tobacco auctioneer himself. He said, "I certainly believe you could make one," He said, "because I'm sure that's what you're doing, learning." I said, "Well, I learn something every day, but I been selling tobacco in Wilson five years. I sell tobacco and I'll be selling next week." I thought well, you know, a young man, he's kind of let me down. He thought I was learning, too, you know.
Well, he probably didn't have the skills to recognize your skill. He saw you just coming in and doing a row like he sometimes got to.
I did have one in Georgia. I was sitting at a motel that had good food. I
sat there eating one night and an engineer for the Coast Line Railroad,
he came in and sat down to eat and he said, "Fellows, I'm going to tell
you about something I did something today. I visited tobacco sales.
There's no way in the world that nobody can understand what that
auctioneer is saying going down the row." He was talking [and] two
auctioneers come talking to the man who was talking to me. I said, "Oh
yes, we do. We know what we're saying." And he said, "There's no way."
He got to arguing with us. Said, "There's just no way. I can't
understand none of it." Well the ticket marker came in and he had told
us right much about it. He said, "Fellows, I'm going to tell you, I
can't get nothing out of it." Well, the ticket marker came in and he
said, "Look, fellow, you see two of the guys we got here?" He said,
"They're tobacco auctioneers." And he said, "They've convinced me that
they know what they're saying when they're selling tobacco." He says,
"Oh." He says, "They do." He says, "You know what? I'll write down what
they say." He says, "Excuse me, fellow. I'm leaving from here right now.
I don't want to even get talking with you if you write down what they
say." He was ready to get out of there! He says, "I don't want to talk
to you." One time they had two of us in Georgia and there comes some
tourists in. They was from California. I got to walking behind. I won't
say I jumped to
Well you know there is a real aura about the auctioneer. I'm sure a lot of it is the "Lucky Strike," but the verbal facility really is remarkable. It really is admirable. It clearly comes from a lot of skill and ability. I mean, you don't stumble over your tongue?
No, not much. It's really clear. I tell you what those people are. They go into the warehouse and they listen to the ring of the chant. They're not concentrating on—.
They can't hear the words.
Right.
They really don't know.
It is nothing but words spoke fast. As I say, we speak five hundred words a minute. That's probably right. When you put them together into a chant, I mean, it comes out that way.
You can get more out for a longer period of time if you have a structure that you can always follow and plug to.
It's like you say: "Ninety-one, one, one—." I say, "Ninety-one,
ninety-one, I mean a one, ninety-one, ninety-one." I'm bid
It really sets the pace, though.
Right.
It really is the pace setter, because there is no—. I can't see them using just straight speech to get people to act that quick, you know. They have to follow the rhythm of the song and there's places for them to insert themselves with bidding. Once you know that and you're familiar with that, it's—.
You know, I talked with a man — I believe it was the University of Kentucky or somewhere — one time and he said, "What is it that makes you think?" I said, "I don't know. I cannot walk down this row of tobacco and put it, like just talking to you. But, there's something, when I start, chanting, that I can just think, something's happening here [points to head]. I think that makes me think. I don't know what it is."
Well, you know there have been theories about thought. I'm probably going to get this all wrong, but the whole idea—. It's been studied by people who study trance, what they call trance. If you can keep a certain motor activity, like almost on auto pilot, it sort of frees the brain to do a lot of thinking. So with your chant, you can connect everything together, but your brain is free to dictate it, to observe and to calculate.
Right. You know, there's a lot of time when I'm selling tobacco, and if someone got my attention, I might be looking right across the row, and I not even see them, because I'm concentrating on what I'm doing.
That's right. You have such—. You know, it's sort of like something like typing or driving. Once you've learned it, you can just do it and you can do a lot of other stuff at the same time. You can do that with your aural language.
That's right. It's a great profession. It's been a great tradition.
Well, what do you think is going to happen to it?
I wondered [that] myself. I think that when it's all over and done, someday the farmer will look back and wish he had it. I do think that probably the tobacco auction drew foreign trade to this country. I probably been—. Friends from all over the world — different places — send me things. From Germany, they showed me on TV in Germany and different places. It's something that just went with tobacco. I don't know, I couldn't say—.
There's a lot of mystique around tobacco, you know — a lot of romance.
Oh yeah, it's a money product. From the farmer, there isn't anything a farmer can grow that returns as much money as tobacco.
And you don't—. You can do it in a family context.
That's right. There's hardly any jobs—. Or, when I come along, you had to get tobacco beds. That's why I went to tobacco auction. In other words, it was to make money. That's the name of the game.
Oh yeah, it's a way you could make that money without having to farm all the time.
And be somebody. To answer that question, you be somebody that you're doing something, that everybody's looking at you, you know?
Hey this man—. I mean, people do this. I've had people to come to me—.
You know they have a film of me here? They
Isn't that funny.
Really, that was true. I run into things like that. I have a lot of people—. You know channel Five had me on TV the other night. Did you see it?
I didn't. I heard about it.
I had people come up to me—. My wife said they said that film which they
showed of me was sixteen years old. I mean, sixteen years ago. My wife
looked at it and she said, "There's no way that film's older than that
because you didn't look that young
It doesn't take very long for certain things to change, no.
So I reckon that's about all. I probably think a whole lot more, but that's about all.
Well, you know, we'll come back another time. We'll get more. I really want to assure you that, if anybody asks you, "Has anybody ever interviewed you about your career? You can say, "Yes, but there's still more to say." But, I think this is about all we have time for today. I want to thank you so much for coming.
Okay, do you got anybody else?
No, I think that's it.
Well, it took a long time, didn't it? We're going to sit here and tell all day.
Are all auctioneers good storytellers?
Well, they should be. Some of them don't want to.
Well, they've probably seen enough to tell some good stories. Well, thanks again.
Okay, well, I enjoyed it.
END OF INTERVIEW