Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1912-03-22
THE VIRGINIA MOUNTAINEERS.
Primitive People Who Dispute Author
ity of Law.


Sss4aes*s*S4es+eS
The murder of judge, prosecut-
ing attorney and q sheriff by a prison.
er and his friends as a climax 10 d
trial In a court room back in the Vir-
pinia mountains has served to empha-
size to the rest of the United States
that a race almost entirely different
from the people living around them
has grown up in the southern noun
tains That the conditions leading up
IN the outrage In the Carroll county
court house were not new, but the
product Of years of development is
also likely understood by few persons,
The people who have taken foot
hold in that portion of the Blue Ridge
lying in Virginia, North Carolina, Ken
lucky. Tennessee and Georgia are not
unlike in spirit to the Indians whose
rule they succeeded, and on whose foot
prints they trod closely in settling the
mountainside. All that they ask Is
personal liberty, the right to live their
own lives as they want to among the
peaks and coves of the mountains that
they consider theirs by right.
Unfortunately, it happens that the
chief expression Of this personal liberty
must be in the manufacture and sale
of whisky, regardless OF the restric-
tions In the shape Of revenue taxes
placed on that traffic by the govern
ment. The firing Of their stills and the
marketing of the product Is to the
mountaineers the first OF their God-
given rights, with which no man has a
right to meddle And it was a moon
shining" charge that lay back OF the
arraignment of Floyd Allen, the pris-
oner whose pistol shots killed Judge
Massie.
To understand the conditions IN the
southern mountains 1t Is necessary 10
go back to the beginning Of these peo-
ple who live there now. This mountain
race had its origin in all Of the riff
raft of the white stock OF the soutn
during the period in which the insti-
tuition of slavery was being establish
ed. The wealthy took possession OF all
of the fertile land between the noun
.tains and the sea on the one hand and
the mountains and the Mississippi on
the other, and the poor were forced
gradually into the barren hill country,
where they settled, mostly as squat
ters, and proceeded to make the best
of a bare existence, which was at least
free.
BY the time that the civil war shook
sthe-countT-y- this-separate mountain
race-for it had indeed grown to be
such, so different were it's people from
the plantation owners surrounding
them-was as distinctly developed as
it is today. Indeed, in many parts or
the mountains the inhabitants have
changed little since the SOS. And the
first expression Of their love for free
dom was in their hatred of slavery, not
because of principle, but on account Oh
the fact that wherever they came into
contact with slave labor they suffered
by competition. The poor whites or the
southern mountains were united in
their sympathy with the northern side
of the war for the preservation of the
Union.
1t is the irony Of fate indeed that the
Union which they supported in that
conflict should have become RESPONSE
BILE for their troubles since. The tax
on whisky was adopted as a war tax,
and It hit none harder than the inhab-
itants of the mountains, whose chief
means of livelihood was the turning IN
to spirits of the corn raised on the hill
side patches. They rebelled against
the tax on what they considered
their vested right, the "moonshine"
still replaced the open manufacture OF
the staple and the clashes with author
ity and the spilling Of blood began. In
spite of the best the revenue off1cers
could do. the whisky tax has never
been more than nominally enforced in
the southern mountains.
The law having endeavored to de-
prive them Of what they considered
their chief right, the mountain people
view it as a curse and have sought to
evade it in every possible fashion.
They have shut themselves up in their
own corner and refused to recognize
the law except where it's arm has been
strong enough to compel them, and
then it has been a surly submission at
hest. State laws that harassed them
i'm smaller particulars have been treat
ed with contempt altogether. These
mountaineers have recognized only the
Federal law and are proud only of be-
ing citizens of the Unlon. State pride
has no meaning to them.
This attitude toward the outside
world has bred suspicion in the noun
tain folk. Strangers are unwelcome
and are likely to be roughly treated on
intruding into the moonshine coVes II
they are suspected of being represen-
tatives of the law Education is un-
necessary. from the mountaineer view
point. 1t is something that the faith
ers got along without and so why
should the children be trained in book
learning" And teachers are particu-
larly suspected on account of the
stories that members Of their profess
sion have carried to the outside world
i'm the past regarding the benighted
state of the mountaineers. The pride
of a mountain boomer" is not to be
trified with.
Altogether the condition of life
among the natives of the southern
mountains has been for a half century
that of a primitive people. The stock
largely English, has retrogressed since
the original squatters took up their
abode in the mountain Businesses. But
i'm spite OF their defiance Of the law OF
the the land the people do not live in
state of complete anarchy. There are
unwritten laws which must be observ-
ed il the mountaineer wants to keep
his residence in a community, and II
these are recognized he is likely to be
looked upon as a fairly creditable citi-
zen regardless of sporadic indulgence
I'm e1ln Dlay when he has taken too