Macon beacon. [volume] (Macon, Miss.) 1859-1995, 1916-03-24

oA(SV0op anu LICK LCd(uC0
out their hands for a new weapon.
Back In the old days. when Ken.
lucky was not q state but a county,
land patents had been granted by
Virginia to men who had never
claimed their property. For two hun.
dred years other men who settled as
pioneers had held u~ndisturbed posses
sion, they and their children's chill.
dren. Now into the courts piled multi.
tudinous suits of eviction In the names
OF plaintiffs whose eyes had never
g the broken skyline of the Cum.
berlands. Their purpose was deceit.
since 1t sought to drag through long
and costly litigation pauper landhold-
ers and to impose such a CALLING bur-
den upon their property as should
drive them to terms of surrender.
Men and women who owned, or
thought they owned, a log shack and a
fitting cornfeld found themselves fac.
ing a new and b%ewildering crisis.
Their untaught minds brooded and
they talked violently of holding by
title Of rife what their fathers had
wrested from nature. what they had
tended with sweat and endless toll.
But Anse Havey and Milt McBriar
knew that the day was at hand when
the rife would no longer serve. They
employed lawyers fitted to meet those
other lawyers and give them battle in
the courts. and these lawyers were
paid by Anse Havey and Milt Nc
Briar.
The two stood stanchly together as
a buffer between their almost help
less people and the encroaching ten
tacles Of the Icy octopus, while Juan
ita, looking on at the forming Of the
battlelines. was torn with anxiety.
In Bad Anse Havey the combination
of interests recognized its really most
formidable foe. In the mountain
phrase, he must be "man-powered out.
en- Their way" And there we're still
men in the hills who, If other means
failed, would sell the service Of their
"ri1e-guns" for money.
With such as these 1t became the
care of certain supernumeraries to es-
tablish an understanding. In the last
election a thing had happened which
had not for many years before hap
pened In Ke%ntucky-a change of par
ties had swept from power in Frank.
fort the administration which owed
loyalty to Havey influences.
Bad Anse Havey was indicted as an
accessory to the murder of young Cal.
win and he would be tried, not In Peril,
but in the Blue Grass. The prosecu-
ton would be able to show that he
had warned the surveyors off his own
place and had picketed his fence line
with ridemen. They would be able to
show that he was the forefront of the
fight against innovation and that
lesser mountain men followed his
counsel blindly and regarded his word
as law. But. more than that, the Jurors
who passed on his question of life
and death would be drawn from a com
munity which knew him only by his
newspaper-made reputation.
So 1t was not long before Anse
Havey lay in a cell in the Winchester
Jail. He had been denied bond and
fronted a dreary prospect.
When the trial of Anse Havey be.
gan there was one spirit in the land.
Here was an exponent of the unjusti.
fable system Of murder from ambush.
In the cemetery at Lexington, where
sleep the founders of the western EN-.
pire, lay a boy whose life had just be-
gun In all the blossom and sunshine
Of promise-and who had done no
wrong.
The special term Of the court had
brought to Winchester a throng of
folk and onlookers. Their
horses stood hitched at the racks
about the square when the sheriff led
Anse Havey from the Jail to the old
building where he was to face his &C.
cusers and the judges who sat on the
bench and In the Jury box.
He took his seat with his counsel AZ
elbow and listened to the pre-.
liminary formalities Of impaneling a
Jury. His face told nothing, but az
man after man vas excused because
he had formed an opinion. he read lit.
lie that was hopeful in the outlook.
He calmly heard perjured witnesses
from his own country testify that he
had approached them. offering brides
Tor the killing of young Calvin which
hey had righteously refused. He knew
that these men had been bought BY
Jim Fletcher and that they swore for
he hire of syndicate money, but he
only waited patiently for the defense
70 open. He saw the scowi on the
in the jury box deepen into con.
viction IS witness after witness took
he stand against him, and he saw the
in the body Of the room mirror
that scowl.
Then the prosecution rested. and as
few Of its perjuries were p%unctured.
he faces in the box lightened their
;cowl a little-but very little. The tide
had set against him, and he knew 1t.
Unless one of those strangely psyche
ogical things should occur which
sweep juries suddenly from their
oaarl,-, 80 GyoJ aDir;an b. -.r1s ~