Licking Valley courier., 1918-03-28
PLOT TO DISCREDIT STATE AD-
MINISTRATION EXPOSED.
Reports Of LawleSSness in Lee
County Unfounded.

Representative R. C. Musick
OF Breathltt county, introduced g
resolution in the Lower House oil
the General Assembly of Ken.
lucky, March 10, in which he de.
nounced as untrue, unjust, un-
warranted and unpatriotic the re-
ports Of lawlessness in the Lee
county oil fields, which were re
Gently published in several Ken
lucky papers.
The reports in question were
to the effect that such a state of
laWlessness existed in Lee county
that investors in oil properties in
that field were prevented from
operating and developing their
holdings; that the people had
been terrorized, property destroy
ed and bloodshed, and that the
local authorities were unable to
cope with the situation. A COM
munlcation was addressed to Gov
ernor Stanley at Frankfort ask
ing that troops be sent to that
county at once, and TIE Govern
Or, judging from newspaper re-
ports and the request sent him
from that county, believed that a
serious situation existed and i'm
mediately wired the proper au.
thorlties, asking that Federal
troops be sent to the scene.
Fortunately the facts in the
matter became known before
soldiers could be sent, if soldiers
we're available to be sent at all.
The truth, as it developed
later, was that there was no law
essness in the Lee county oil
.ield at all. Two farmers, living
some distance from the oil field,
aad a dispute and one of them
killed the other. An oil tank
collapsed of its own weight and
It's contents were lost. From
,hese two circumstances un-
usual ones-the whole fabric of
awlessness, murder and de-
Struction of property, was patch
ed up.
A careful analysis of the
scheme leads one to believe that
1t had double purpose. Its in
itigators evidently wanted to get
hold of something in that coun-
ty, presumably oil and gas ter
ritory, which heretofore they
had been unable to acquire. Also
It must have been their aim to
put Governor Stanley in a bad
light by working an imposition
and having him send troops to a
place where no troops were need
ed.
The scheme is not unusual. 1t
is an old game, differing only in
detail from those which have
been practiced in Eastern Ken
tucky for half a century. The
same thing has been practiced
IN Morgan county not once, but
latest evidence of
which was the plugging of the
Morgan County Heat, Fuel &
Light Company's gas wells last
winter. 1t is a damnable, das-
tardiy scheme to retard develop
ment and get the peoples proper
ty for nothing. And behind it
all there is a Master mind: one
whose Vaccinations compare
favorably with those of old Rod
in, the star william in Eugene
Sues masterpiece.
But in the Lee county affair
the effort to discredit Governor,
Stanley and the State administra-
tion was rather feebly staged.
1t evidently had its conception in
the brain of some underling who
acted without consulting the
Master mind" Governor STAN
ley is too shrewd TO be trapped
by such tactics, and too courage
Gus to be browbeaten and bully
ragged by any set of men, be
they millionaire oil operators or
what not. Acting upon the best
at his command he
asked that soldiers be sent to Lee
county, but when the imposition
was discovered he hastened to
correct the error.
Representative Musick is to be
upon the stand he
took in the matter. His resolu.
tion wnS ndontad without a die