The Hartford republican. (Hartford, Ky.) 18??-1926, 1906-12-07
THE PRINCETON RAID.
Presents a Problem Worthy of
Attention - Participants
Actuated by Bad Motives.
[speelal to the RrrunLIeAx.I

The burning of two large tobacco
stemmeries by mob of three hun
dred men at Princeton last Saturday
presents problem well worthy of
attention Of all thoughtful citizens,
The deed is shocking example of
law'essness and the perpetrators,
we will allow, should be apprehend-
ed and punished, but the incident
challenges attention by its unusual
features. 1t would be rash pre-
sumption that so large number of
criminals at heart could be gotten to-
gether in Caldwell county. 1t must
be allowed that these men were actu-
ated by misguided notions of pro-
tecting their own interests. 1t is
far from my purpose to become the
apologist for midnight incendiaries,
but it cannot be improbable to look
this incident in the face, and call a
spade spade. For several years
the tobacco trust has been piling up
unneeded millions, taken by force
from the tobacco growers of Ken
lucky, and now these tobacco grow
ers, educated to the manner of the
theft, are retaliating in kind to the
point of wasteful destruction of
property.
The womb of oppression is ever
quick with revolution and the Prince
ton incident is but an example of
the operation of law of human
conduct as ancient as the history of
the human race. The tobacco trust
has oppressed. through the power
of money and the potency of organ
ization, the tobacco growers to the
verge of bankruptcy, and goaded by
the law of necessity to the invention
of The Tobacco Growers Associa-
ton as a protective agency. The
Associations work of education has
gone on until the growers, inham-
med by awakened consciousness of
their oppression and emboldened by
recently acquired knowledge of their
power, run the common course Of
human nature to Violence. John
Brown has come again to Harper's
Ferry-heart right, head wrong,
apostle of revolution. In a period
ofprosperity, perhaps never before
paralleled, the tobacco growers seem
to be the last to come into his share,
and to those accustomed to look at
human nature as it is, rather than
as it ought to be, as the common GUS
tom is, see little cause for surprise,
though much for regret, in the
Princeton riot. Frankly my life is
too short to waste my sympathy on
the tobacco trust in its pecuniary
loss at Princeton, where it has sown
the wind and reaped the whirlwind,
though l recognize. that the preser-
walton of social order renders it inn
perative to apprehend and severely
punish these disturbers of the pub
lie peace. The fight of the farmers
against the tobacco trust can and
must be won by peaceful means
and the fanatical crusader must be
taught that the wanton destruction
of property strikes. not only at the
tobacco trust, but at the very foun-
dation of social order, which the
State must sustain at whatever cost,
and yet, those responsible for the
maintenance of social order should
not fail to see in these instances of
danger signals along the
line Of modern methods of organ
lied wealth. Not until cause is
eradicated can results be expected
to wholly disappear.
JOHN HENRY THOMAS.
Narrows, KY, Dec. 5, 1906.