Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1900-05-10
THE KENTUCKIAN.
Gentlemen of the Blue-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 to the Century a timely study
Of The Kentuckian.
When | take up my morning paper
and read in great headlines, Duel to
the Death or some other lurid an
nouncement to like effect, l shudder
and say to myself, Kentucky again. -
Pretty nearly always-almost seven
times in ten-my forebodings are &C
curate. Then l read of a congress
man killing constituent, a colonel
killing lieutenant, an ex-minister to
a foreign 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 | am discussing.
The mountaineers of Kentucky are, to
a great extent, the descendants of the
conyicts 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
semi-savage people, at once ignorant
and defiant Of law. Before railroads
penetrated these mountain Businesses
to bring out the iron and coal and
timber, we did not often hear of these
feuds. When we did we were not dis
turbed by them. We paid no heed to
these people and their quarrels. but.
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
responsible now for making each of
these encounters between mountaineer
outlaws appear to be an affair be-
tween Kentucky gentlemen. II is not
accurate, but insomuch as Kentucky
gentlemen do not behave with self
restraint, the result to their reputa-
ton 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. 1 will not say that such men
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, relnstate a man completely,
not only in his political rights, but
in his social privileges. 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 hav-
ing for the chief executive of the COM
a man who had taken the
law into his own hands to the extent
Of killing a felloW-man. The fact,
however, did not appear to make him
an entire impossibilfty, as it no doubt
would have done in almost any other
state in the union. | need not go on
giving proof of the humiliating fact
that in Kentucky, even among those
who hold political and social position,
there is a singular disregard of the
sacredness of human life. 1t is a re-
suit of their peculiar evolution, and
the penalty must be paid until that
evolution goes a step or so forward, |
and makes of the Kentuckian some |
thing different from what he is to-
day.