The Indianapolis journal. [volume] (Indianapolis [Ind.]) 1867-1904, 1903-06-28
IN KENTUCKY MOUNTAINS.
Where the Feud Arises and Makes It's
Home.
Brooklyn Eagle.

Brooklyn Eagle.
Kentucky to the rest Of the country is the
home of moonshine and of murder; for the
rest Of the country calls deliberate killing
murder. 1t is the home of beautiful women
and of beautiful horses. To the select few
who are interested in educational endeavOr
perhaps II is the home Of Berea College. In
a general way it is just at present the most
talked about and the least understood State
In the Union.
In spite of Charles Egbert Craddock and
John Fox. jr, and William E. Barton it is
just dawning upon the general comprehen-
sion that there is in the United States
highland people distinct from the rest of
the country in customs, manners, ideals and
almost as distinct in dialect as the Scottish
highlander is from the lowland man. And 1t
country is indebted for its illumination on
the subject. particularly TO Berea's presi-
dent. William Goddard Frost. whose maya,
zine titles, Appalachian America" and
Our Contemporaneous Ancestors" have
stuck In the public mind, aroused public
discussion and set the extent and the i'm
portance of the mountain realm and the
character of its people before the outside
public in a new light
The rifle, the feud and the ''moonshine"
still have made the fierce and lawless side
of mountain life in Kentucky all too ia
miliar. 1t is hard for the centers of civiliZa-
ton, where they rarely appeal to either, TO
understand people whose first appeal In
time OF trouble is to the rifle, and whose
second is to the throne OF grace. Breathitt
county-"Bloody Breathitt." where the
troops have recently been sent to insure the
lawful trial of a man who shot down a
political enemy on the courthouse steps In
broad daylight-is three counties away from
Berea. The 'moonshine" still hourishes
much nearer. The telegraph has told all
there is to tell about the feudist and the
moonshiner. The features of mountain life
which balance it's violence are not easily
made into news, so that murder, violence
and sudden death have been forced into the
foreground of the picture to the utter de-
struction of the perspective and the falsifi-
cation of the representation as a whole.
This Appalachian America, which has
been called the backwards of six States, has
an estimated population of perhaps 100000.
Large families are the rule. The mountain
err's wife bears thirteen children In Ken
lucky cabin to-day just as cheerfully as
the pioneers wife did in New England and
the Western reserve a century ago. And
greater portion of the Kentucky brood lives
to grow up than survived among our
grandmothers, because the climate is mild
or. All of them have typhoid fever and
diphtheria from insanitary conditions, just
all our fathers and grandfathers' fami-
lies did. But there are more months in the
South during which doors can be left wide
open and the mountain air and the sunshine
pull more of the patients through than was
the case in the pioneer days of the North.
And in this swarming Southland 1t is
Berea and Berea alone, that holds open
the door of the opportunity and progress
Timber and mules are the two great
sources of the mountaineer's wealth. The
former goes to market, the latter take 1t
miles and miles of oak of divers varieties.
The chestnut oak yields bark for tanning
from 81 to So worth per tree, and the de-
mand in excess of the supply. The white
oak makes barrel slaves AS a result,
wherever a road leads back into the noun
tains from the railroad the chestnut oaks
are felled, stripped, and left to rot. The
wood is nearly good lumber as the white
oak for floors and furniture, but you can
haul a load Of bark down hillside where
1t would be impossible to snake the log from
c. H. 49,
shippers work far back into the hillsides
from the highways and are stripping these
Southern hills as ruthlessly as the steam
sawmills have those of New England and
much of New York. Last year they stripped
and left to rot 5000 chestnut oaks in the
country tributary TO Berea, while the stave
makers are working an equal devastatio
among the white oaks. Chestnut oak makes
good floors, but is not used for barrel
slaves, so that the two varieties are cut
together one for the bark, the other for the
wood.