Vilas County news. [volume] (Eagle River, Vilas County, Wis.) 1896-1927, 1900-11-05
kENTucKIANs OF TWO SORTS.
And Both Appear to Be Careless CT
Human Life.

EiICs
John Gilmer Speed, a granddaughter
Of the poet Keats, and himself Ken
tuckian by birth and breeding, contrib
utes to the Century study of The
Kentuckian.
When l take up my morning paper
and read in great head lines. 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 times
in 10-my forebodings are accurate.
Then I read of a congressman killing
constituent, colonel killing a lieu
tenant, an ex-minister to a foreign
court killing an internal revenue col
lector, and so on through the whole
horrible list. I 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 I 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
tains, where they have continued from
generation to generation 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 TIM
Der, we did not often hear of these
feuds. When we did not we were not
disturbed 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 re-
sponsible now for making each Of
these encounters between mountaineer
outlaws appear to be an affair between
Kentucky gentlemen. 1t is not accu-
late, but insomuch as Kentucky gen.
tlemen do not behave with self-re-
straint, the result to their reputation is
in that regree not undeserved.
Even the gentleman 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.
I 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 a jury
does, in the opinion of many, reinstate
man completely, not only in his po-
litical rights, but in his social priv
leges. Only just now we have had as
a 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 a 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
position, there is a singular disregard
of the sacredness of human life. It is
result 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 today.