It would be erroneous to conclude that the history of Kentucky's
famous, or notorious feuds is completed here. The material at hand has,
unfortunately, not been exhausted by any means.
While the Hatfields and McCoys fought to the death in Pike County,
Kentucky, and along the borders of West Virginia, a bloody drama
was being enacted in Rowan County. While the French-Eversole war
raged in Perry County, many other counties suffered similarly during
identically the same period. The eighties were a decade of blood, for
during those years Harlan was in the clutches of murderers and anarchy
reigned supreme. Letcher, Bell and Knott passed through like bloody
experiences. In Clay County feudal wars raged for years and never
disappeared completely until the close of the last century. The list
of counties drenched with the blood of their citizens might yet be
extended. To describe all the feuds in detail would, however, prove
repetitive, even monotonous, and be only cumulative. To lengthen the
list of assassinations could serve no beneficent purpose.
Some years ago we published an edition of Kentucky's Famous Feuds and
Tragedies. We closed the volume in the belief that feuds had ended once
and for all times. But the worst period in all the bloody history of
Breathitt was since then.
At the time of the publication of the first edition (from which some
writers have quoted freely without giving us credit), we were charged
with defaming the State, although it was admitted that the truth had
been faithfully portrayed. It was not our intention then to malign the
State, nor is it now.
We have simply compiled from facts a history of past events. Of what
use is any history but to record past events that future generations
might take lessons therefrom and be guided thereby?
Ignorance of true conditions does not, and never did bring about
correction of evils.
The crusade against commercialized vice, the liquor traffic and other
body and soul destroying evils can succeed only through full and
complete publicity.
This history furnishes a study for the psychologist as well as for the
criminologist. We cannot study crime and its manifold phases or point
out remedies by studying the lives of saints. To find the original
causes of social and political diseases we must go where these have
existed or still exist. It would be silly to attempt to prove the
result of the drink habit by the lives of teetotalers.
There are those who would be overcautious, who believe in the policy
enunciated by the proverb: "Never mention a rope in the home of a man
that has been hanged." Had this principle at all times been adhered to,
reforms would have been few. People will not rise to battle against
evils until they are first made acquainted with the fact that the
evils exist. It was due to the publicity given by the newspapers of
conditions in Breathitt County that a thorough clean-up was inaugurated
there.
If it be proper and right to publish nothing of a criminal or degrading
nature, then we must of necessity put the ban upon the Bible.
What was the crucifixion of Jesus Christ but a bloody tragedy. The
Bible gives us a detailed account of the awful, cruel, lawless
conspiracy to do murder upon an innocent being. Judas prepared the
ambush, as it were. He had the decency to go and hang himself, although
he had nothing to fear from the authorities who had hired him to betray
the Master.
The story of David and Absalom is the bloody history of a family feud
on a large scale.
The murder of Abel by his brother Cain is taught the children at Sunday
school, not for the purpose of entertaining them with bloodshed, or to
encourage them to go and do likewise, but to make crime odious.
The history of the Moabites and other races and tribes is one long
chapter of outrages. Crimes of unnamable character are recited at
length in the Holy Book.
The history of the reformation is one of blood and crime. To exclude
secular or sacred history because they narrate crimes and bloodshed and
horrors, would mean the withdrawal of the greatest weapons with which
modern progress fights its battles in shaping the minds of men.
We may gain invaluable lessons from this history if it be read with
that intention. It is an appeal to people everywhere to be true to
their citizenship. That Kentucky has furnished suitable material with
which to illustrate and demonstrate the results of a weak, unpatriotic,
disloyal citizenship, is not the fault of the historian. The facts were
at hand, they were apt, and were used.
Just now there is a nation-wide appeal made for a true Americanism. The
fact that the appeal is being made, seems to us an acknowledgment that
true Americanism has deteriorated and needs ingrafting anew.
We join in this appeal, and shall add that had true Americanism
prevailed in the feud-cursed sections of Kentucky, this bloody history
could never have been written--there would have been a total absence of
material for one.
What is true Americanism? It is not place of birth. It is nothing more,
but nothing less, than undivided loyalty to country.
What is loyalty? When is a citizen loyal to his country? Waving his
country's flag and cheering it on a Fourth of July is but an outward
demonstration of loyalty. A citizen is never loyal until he becomes and
is faithful to the law; when he upholds and assists others in upholding
the lawful authorities unswervingly. That is loyalty. There is no other
definition for the word. So the citizen who refuses to obey the law
himself in the first place, and makes no efforts to assist others in
its enforcement, is not loyal to his country. When he has ceased to be
loyal he becomes disloyal, and disloyalty is treason.
The true American, therefore, is loyal and has the courage to prove
that loyalty whenever occasion arises.
One need not put on a uniform and fight battles against a foreign
enemy to prove his patriotism. The patriot--the truly loyal citizen
serves his country well by exercising that loyalty at home.
Good citizenship carries with it more than the simple right to vote.
That right has obligations attached to it. The chief obligation is
loyalty.
The moment loyalty weakens, a wedge of social and political corruption
enters; once that wedge is driven deeper government must totter and
fall, and anarchy steps in its place.
During the Civil War hundreds of thousands of Americans gave up their
lives "that the nation might live." The nation is an aggregation of
States, the State a union of communities, and communities are formed by
families.
To preserve a nation healthy that it may live, the States must also
be so. But a State cannot be so if portions of it are diseased with
social and political corruption. When a sore spot appears it ought to
be cauterized at once without waiting for it to develop into an eating,
destroying cancer.
The spirit of loyalty must be revived and kept alive in the minds and
hearts of all citizens. Only through it can the evil impulses of the
criminally inclined be controlled.
The citizen who is loyal should always reflect, when he begins to lose
courage, that the good citizens are in the majority, and that the
vicious element is almost universally cowardly. The criminal has the
fear of the law although he defies it for a time.
We have narrated at great length the stealthy preparations made by the
murderers of Callahan. The cool and apparently deliberate manner with
which their plans were executed would lead one to believe that they
feared no law.
Yet we have seen how a moment after the crime had been committed and
its perpetrators realized that they were murderers in fact, they
"stampeded," the proof shows; they trembled with fear, though no one
was on their tracks then. Their hearts turned to water. What did they
fear? Punishment.
The bloody dictators of Breathitt County had abrogated the law, as
they believed, yet feared the law they pretended to despise. This is
clearly established by the methods with which they killed off their
enemies. They resorted to secret assassination in each case because it
would make discovery and punishment difficult, if not impossible. Each
assassination had been shrewdly and carefully planned. Notwithstanding
their temporary power and supremacy they lived in constant fear and
dread, believing that punishment would and must sooner or later
overtake them. This belief was strengthened by the fate of other
criminals elsewhere.
If, then, the criminal fears the arm of the law, it requires very
simple reasoning to come to the conclusion that the criminally inclined
can, by the sure guaranty of swift, condign punishment be intimidated
and forced into abstaining from following that inclination, and be so
put in fear that he will think twice before he gives his atavistic
tendencies free rein.
This history was written to teach a moral. The remedies suggested here
for lawlessness and contempt for the law, may be applied with equal
benefit where mob spirit is rampant. The mobist, to coin a phrase,
that starts out to do murder upon a defenceless prisoner, is on a
par with the bushwhacker--even inferior to him in courage. For mobs
are courageous only through mass numbers; or when under strong and
aggressive leadership. Mobs have been known to slink away ignominiously
when confronted by one or two loyal citizens.
Disloyalty has been at the bottom of all great social disturbances.
Let the spirit of true Americanism, which is loyalty to country,
return and with it will come the courage to uphold the law at whatever
cost. Then and not till then is our flag the true symbol of American
liberty; then and not till then will the phrase "American citizen"
cease to be a banality, as it now is with many, and become what it is
intended to be, a badge of honor, the most precious a man can wear on
this earth.