The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1888-02-11
PALATKA. FLA. FEB. II, 1888.
ANARCHY ON TIE BIG SANDY.

with all the attendant scenes of murder
and cruelty are repeated in our days
within the borders of the United States. |
Yet the mountain country through |
which the line betweed West Virginia |
and Kentucky runs is the seat of most |
destructive warfare of families. These
sanguinary feuds began during the war.
Tug Fork of Big Sandy. There have |
been enough men, women and children |
murdered in the feud between the Hat
fields and the McCoys to have extin-
guished two ordinary families. But the
cabin of the mountaineer swarms with
children generally and all the members
OF these fami les know how to shoot,
from the stripping to the old grandfather,
or grandmother, for that matter. Sex
makes but little shade of difference in
character among these rude mountain
GERS
The attention of the outside world is
occasionally called to these murders by
a deed of unusual ferocity, as when
three of the Mccoy boys, one only four
teen years old, were caught by gang
of Hatfields, tied to bushes and tied
hand to hand, then shot down in cold
blood the child being killed last of all.
Another atrocious deed was committed
a snort time ago. raid was made at
midnight upon family of the McCoys
by party of the Hatfields and young
girl, and young man were shot dead
while an old woman was Drained by the
light of their burning home, and an
other girl went crazy by the corpse of
Der brother.
Reporters of various Western and
Eastern papers have taken their lives
in their hands at various times and gone
into these mountain wilds to get at the
truth of these stories, to separate truth
from rumor. They have had to face
visible, tangible danger to do so. Their
reports agree in one thing-that there is
a condition of affairs in those mountains
which are shame TO American civiliza-
ton. Lying between such States as
v y. D.
sylvania and Ohio, this state of anarchy,
where the officers of law belong to
either one gang or the other and justice
is laughed at, the scenes of barbarity de-
scribed in these correspondents letters
are set within the very heart of our Long
settled territory, not in Alaska or the
wilds of the Rockies.
The New York World and the New
York Herald each devoted about page
of their recent issues to the Hat
field-McCoy feud and describe graph
caliy, not only the bloody battles and
massacres, but also the disorganized
state of society in the upper regions of
the Big Sandy valley. Curiously enough,
the two stories form pendants" to each
other. The New York World cores
pendent has the Hatfield side of the
story, the Herald man has the Mccoy
side.
As travel through the region is entirely
suspended by the decree of the murder
GUS gangs, as the United States mails
have been interfered with and Kentucky
county authorities have made several
raids into West Virginia territory to cap
ture members of the Hatfield gang, it is
possible that the National government
will be called upon 10 restore order. The
Kentucky State authorities have often
called out the militia to suppress these
bloody murderers. Quiet reigns until
the militia returns home, then the war
breaks out again. 1t may be said. in
passing. that no State has had more use
for its militia during the last ten or
twelve years than Kentucky. 1t might
also be remarked that these troublesome
mountaineers of Western and Southwes-
tern Kentucky are Republicans by a
large majority.
West Virginia has done little to sup
press this warfare. The present Coy
ernor of that State has done nothing, ex-
cept to endeavor to procure the custody
of the prisoners captured by the authori-
ties of Pike County, Ky. If he intends
that these gory-handed Hatfields shall
be released after mockery of trial he
is preparing a lasting disgrace for his
State. But as a matter of law he is
right-the prisoners made in these raids
into West Virginia are held without a
shadow of right.
The only hope for the wiping out OF
tins disgrace to America is that the Gov
ernors of the two States of Kentucky
and West Virginia shall agree to declare
themselves unable to put down this in.
surrectlon against all law and humanity
itself and call for United States troops OF
that the National authorities shall take
measures to protect the mails. Even
then there is little hope of permanent
peace until drastic measures are taken
1t will require wholesale hanging ano
the incarceration for life of every one
connected with these murders, either as
principals or abettors-and that means
the conviction of hundred or two OF
men and some women.
Nor is the task of capturing these
mountaineers, desperate men acquainted
with all the Businesses of the mountains
a small task. The Big Sandy country
is exceedingly broken and the move
ments of even small bodies of troop.
difficult there. When Mr.. McCreary
now in Congress, was Governor of Ken
lucky, he sent several companies o
militia into Breathitt County TO sup
press the vendetta there. The noun
taineers played hide-and-seek with th
young men from the cities when sent GU
in squads to serve warrants on the ring
leaders and sent them word of the man
occasions on which they might hav
nickad off the rpaxaar;arcs.i o;t;,o