The Paducah evening sun. [volume] (Paducah, Ky.) 1906-1929, 1908-02-17

lers, will be instituted at the April
term of the Ballard circuit court. II
Is said that this will be the policy In
levery western district county. Such
legal methods add dignity to the char.
Iacter of the pool; they have re-
lstraining force on those, who join
hereafter; the effect is just as salutary
as that of physical intimidation, with
Tout the train of Ills that follow law
lessness and injure the lawless as well
as the law-abiding.
| If the western district tobacco
planters have patience to abide by
their agreement and await the results
lof legal actions, and exhibit honesty
I'm their dealings with the purchasers
Iof their tobacco, they will find them
lselves in a favored section of the
Black Patch, with prosperity at a
premium, life and happiness undis-
HURRIED, and ready market for their
product.
The east side Of the rivers presents
an example, that should be warning
to the western district. If such a thing
is ever needed by the character of
people who inhabit the Purchase.
lStarting with plant bed scraping. and
progressing through barn burnings TO
town raiding. the night riders now
find il necessary to perpetuate their
Organization and take risks. riding in
to towns and intimidating people. who
talk too much And it is risk. for
two night riders met their death in the
lHopkinsville raid. and none of them
ever knows that he will not be the
next luckless victim of pot shot. "
They forfeit all right to mercy, who
take the law into their own hands.
| It's an easy step from whipping
buyers to whipping men who talk
/ too much" Men. who burn other
peoples property and assault them,
are sensitive about their regulations.
II will be a shorter step from whip
ping men who talk. to warning peo-
pie, whose conduct in other matters
does not conform to the social theo-
ries of some members of the night
riders. Soon, We fear. the band will
find itself led into all sorts of COM
plications by the fndiscretions of its
members.
Landlords and employers have Deen
warned to get rid OF the negroes. Per-
haps, some of the night riders do not
own ground. but work for others, and
they think with the negro eliminated
as an industrial factor, the demand
for labor will increase and wages will
reach fancy figure. All sorts of
crimes and outrages will be laid at
the door of the night riders, and those,
who are tired of 1t all, and repent
their initiation into lawlessness, will
be swept on by the current into which
they have voluntarily launched, find
ing II necessary to perpetuate their
compact and association with disso-
lutte and reckless characters for their
own protection, outlawed and unable
to moor at any bank.
Property values in Hopkinsville and
the other towns of that section are de-
moralized, and men, who would sell
their farms and get out of the country,
can not find purchasers at anything
like the natural value of the land.
Every mans hand is against every
other man in that country; for when
men band together on some unlawful
mission. the spirit of brotherhood can
not abide with them, regardless of
their futile oaths. II is only a mutu-
|ality of fear that holds them together.
II is that haunting fear that sent them
to Eddyville to whip those citizens;
but sooner or later an oath will be
broken, perhaps in the cups, and then
there will be murder. Thus feuds
are begot, and a hundred years may
not seen the end of the outrages In the
Pennyrile, and the last shot may be
fired and the last torch applied, when
men have forgotten how the trouble
Originated.
There is no crime more hideous
than incendiarism. There is nothing
that calls into the ascendency the
brute instinct, more than does destruc-
ton of life and property. A man may
steal to relieve a necessity and never
steal again; but active participation
in the work of destruction awakens a
frenzy that often proves not easily as
|suaged.
Better stay within the law. Where
in the association is right, it will
Eventually triumph; but 1t must be by
right methods. Planters are asking
the protection of the law against the
|aggressions of the tobacco trust. So
they should keep.within the law them
selves. Some planters for various
reasons have not seen fit to join the
Organization; and so physical violence
has been resorted to in the effort to
induce such men to unite their fort
unes with the pool. But while this
system of coercion was widening the
sphere of the association, and elm
mating the independent planter from
the situation, 1t was also alternating
the sympathy of a great mass OF law
abiding citizens and newspapers, OF
the state, which otherwise would have
Isunnnrtpd tho nlanfars and creating