Iron County register. [volume] (Ironton, Iron County, Mo.) 1867-1965, 1900-04-19
THE KENTUCKIAN.
Evan the Gentlemen of the B1nes
Grass Region Are Careless
of Human Life.

John Gilmer Speed, a granddaughter
of the poet Keats, and himself a Ken
tuckian by birth and breeding, con-
tributes a timely study of The Ken
tuckian."
when 1 take, up my morning paper
and read in great headlines: Duel to
the DEATH or some ether lurid an
nouncement to like effect, l shudder
and say to myself: Kentucky again.
Pretty nearly always-almost seven
times in ten-my foreboGsngs are ac-
curate. Then l read of congressman
killing a constituent, a colonel killing
a lieutenant, an eX-minister to for
eign court killing an internal-revenue
collector, and so on through the whole
horrible list. | must say, however,
that in most instances these private
quarrels which lead to murder are
among the mountaineers. who are in
no sense the kind of Kentuckians
whose characteristics l am discussing.
The mountaineers of Kentucky are, to
a great extent, the descendants of the
convicts who were sold into slavery in
colonial Virginia, and escaping from
the plantations. fed into the noun
tains, where they have continued from
generation to generation a wild and
seni-sayage people, at once ignorant
and defiant of law. Before railroads
penetrated these mountain Businesses
to bring out the iron and coal and tim
Der. we did. not often hear of these
feuds. When we did we were not dis
turbed by them. We paid no heed to
4Ioco I,1,<
unwisely perhaps, left them to their
own devices, upon the theory that the
more they killed of one another the
better off the world would be. News
paper extravaganza of statement is re-
sponsible now for making each OF
these encounters between mountaineer
outlaws appear to be an affair between
Kentucky gentlemen. 1t is not ac-
curate, but insomuch as Kentucky
gentlemen do not behave with self re-
straint, the result to their reputation
is in that degree not undeserved.
Even the gentlemen of the blue
grass region are careless of life, and
there is no city, and few villages, in
which there does not walk free some
man with human blood upon his hands.
Will not say lldl SUCH HleH ENJOY the
entire confidence and respect of the
whole community in the same measure
that those DO who have been blameless
in their life. But acquittal by jury
does, in the opinion of many. reinstate
a man completely, not only in his po-
litical rights. but in his social priv
ileges. Only just now we have had as
candidate for governor one who had
killed his man. 1t is quite true that
very many of his own party revolted at
the idea of having for the chief eXecu
tive of the commonwealth a man who
had taken the law into his own hands
to the extent of killing fellow-man.
The fact, however, did not appear to
make him an entire impossibility, as it
no doubt would have done in almost
any other state in the union. I need
not go on giving proof of the humiliat
ing fact that in Kentucky, even among
those who hold political and social po-
sition. there is singular disregard of
the sacredness of human life. It is a
result of their peculiar evolution, and
the penalty must be paid until that
evolution goes step or so forward,
and makes of the Kentuckian some
thing different from what he is to.