The Salt Lake herald. [volume] (Salt Lake City [Utah]) 1870-1909, 1900-05-09
KENTUCKY TRAITS.
Lawless Mountaineers and the States
Bad Name

y
Bad Name.
John GiImeF Speed. a granddaughter
of the poet Keats. and himself a Ken
tuckian by birth and breeding. contrib
utes to the April Century a study OF
The Kenuckian.
When ] take up my morning paper
and read in great head lines, Duel to
the Death, or some other Iurid an
nOuncement TO like effect. I shudder
and say 20 myself. Kentucky again"
Pretty nearly aiways-almost seven
times IN ten-my fOrebOdings are ac-
curate. Then l read of a congressman
killing constituent a colonel killing
a lieutenant, an ex-minister To a for
eigu court killing an internal revenue
collector, and so on through the whole
horrible list. I must saw however.
IhaJ IN most instances these private
quarrels which lead to murder are
among the mOUntaineers, who are in
no sense the kind OF Kentucklans
whose characteristics am discussing
The mountaineers OF Kentucky are. to
great extent. the descendants of the
convicts who were sold into slavery in
colonial Virginia, and escaping from
the plantations. fed into the noun
ta1ns, where they have continued from
generation to generation a wild and
Seml-savage people. at once ignorant
ana 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 need 20
these people and their 0uaFreIs. but
unwisely PERHAPS left them to their
own devices, upon the theory that the
more they killed of one another the
better of the world would be. News
paper extraVag ance of statemen is re-
sponsible now for making each Of these
encounters between mountaineer out
laws appear to be an affair between
kentucky gentlemen. 1t is not accu-
rate, but insOmuch as Kentucky gen
tlemen do not behave with self
restraint. the result to their reputation
Is in that degree not undeseryed.
Even the gentlemen Of the bluegrass
region are careless Of life. and there is
40 city, and few villages, in which
there does not walk free some man
with human blood upon his hands. L
viii 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 d jury
does, in the opinion of many, Teiustate
a man NpALlE4ElElgs ilDt bIllF III Ills
political rights, but. in his social priv
ileges- Only just now we have had as
a candidate for governor. one who had
killed his man II is quite true that
very many Of his own party TevOlted
at the idea Of having for the chief eX-
ecUtive Of the commonwealth a man
who had taken the law into his own
hands to the extent Of killing a fellow
man. The fact, however. did not APP
pear to make him an entire impossible
ity. as it no doubt would have done in
almost any other state in the Union. 1
need not 90 on giving proof of the
Illuminating fact that in Kentucky,
even among those who hold political
and social position. there is d singular
disregard Of the sacredness of human
life. 1t is a result of their peculiar evo-
luton, and the penalty must be paid
until that evolution goes a. step or so
forward, and makes of the Kentuckian
something different from what he is
today.