The Washington bee., 1908-12-19
THE NIGHT RIDERS
AIDED KENTUCKY
Original Organization Did Away
with Toll Gates and Brought
About Good Roads.
COMPANIES DISOBEYED THE LAW
Grimes Committed Now Are by
Gangs Hiding Behind Name of Old
Association Which Caused the
Adjustment of the Turnpike Com
Panies.

Louisville, Ky.-Tbere has not
been, it is said, q crime of mob vio-
lenCe committed in this State, in
Tennessee. or. in fact. in any of the
Southern States or in any of the
Middle Western States in the past
several years, with the exception of
the occasional lynching of a negro
by mob, that has not been should
cred on the Night Riders.
The Night Riders were an organ
ICED body back in 1900, when the
State Legislature passed 2 law do
ing away with private ownership of
State roads. For months the turn
pike corporations refused to obey
the State laws. They appealed to
the State Supreme Court, then to
the Court of Appeals, and lastly TO
the United States Supreme Court,
and on each appeal they would get
: stay. which made II possible for
them to continue running their toll
gates and charging two cents a mile
for every horse or vehicle that passed
over their property.
Because of the laws delay the
condition of the roads became inn
passible. The owners of the turn
pixies would not expend one cent
for improvements as long as there
was question Of their losing their
property by q final court decision,
but they did not cease to mUlct trav-
ellers. All this while they refused
to accept the fair price offered by
the State for their roads
1t was then that the Night Riders
we're organized The organization
spread from Shelby County to every
part of the State, and one night in
the late fall men rode from their
homes and began burning toll gates.
There is no record Of a toll gate
keeper being injured unless he show
ed resistance. Then he was taken
from the house, and If he continued
to be defiant he was logged In
ninety-nine cases out of a hundred
the tOle gate keeper was glad to give
up his job and let the gate burn.
Night Riders undoubtedly brought
the turnpike corporations to terms.
There was not toll gate left stand
ing in the State of Kentucky by the
following spring. Had the taxpay-
ers and farmers been cOntented to
allow the law to take its never end
ing course the chances are that toll
gates would still be holding up ira
vellers on the State roads to-day,
and that the roads would have been
worse now than they were when the
Night Riders became organized.
The Kentucky roads now are
among the best in the United States.
There are not millions of dollars OF
watered stock on which to pay int
crest, and the State tax has imprOv-
ed them and even made it possible
for almost all Of them TO be spTin-
killed. with oil during the summer
season, thus laying the dust.
The success of the Night Riders
in the war against toll gates led to
an organization of a similar char
acter when the fight was waged
against the American Tobacco Com
pany, But out Of this last Organiza-
tion there grew a body Of violent
men, who live on excitement and
thrive on lawlessness. Then spTang
up, too, lawIess bodies of men in
many of the Southern and Middle
Western States, who chose to call
themselves Night Riders. though the
probabilities are that 80 per cent Of
the men didn't own so much as a
horse to ride.
If a list of the original body of
Night Riders could be had the
chances are that the names of many
men who figured in the operations
Of the old Ku-Klux gang would be
found, and if this list were sifted
down it would show that many prop
erty-owners and men of prominence
had resorted to violence because of
their belief that action was their
only safeguard against ruin, and
that a defiance of law had to be met
by a like defiance.