The evening leader. (Tarpon Springs, Fla.) 191?-19??, 1919-05-22
RELIGIOUS PACIFIST GREATEST
INDIVIDUAL FIGHTER OF WAR
corporal york; Battling for the Lord" Slew "a Germans in Machine
Jun Nest, and With Five Assistants Captured 1872 Of the
Enemy, Including Four 0ffcers-Wa W1Enu
to Drill but Not KILL 4~"/


ways for the head. They also hunt
foxes here, running them with dogs
and bringing down the swift quarry
from stand" On autumn nights
coon hunting is in order. The coon
is chased up tree by the dogs.
In the old days the tree was then
always chopped down, so that the dogs
and the coon could fight it out, NO mat
ter who owned the tree or how valu-
able 1t was. Recently, owing to the
high price of lumber, sentiment
against cutting down a $40 tree to get
81 coon has developed, and this is
regarded with contempt by the old
timers as sign of the degenerate mod
ern mercenary spirit.
The law in this section Is whatever
local custom approved, and it does not
approve of restricting mans personal
freedom. This is a fact of prime
Importance to the understanding of
Corporal York. Every man here car
ries gun, and is prepared as a mat
ter of course, to shoot anyone who
presumes to trespass on his prem
Uses.
Men Make Their Own Liquor.
Every man who wants to do so
makes his own whisky, keeps 1t in his
house and drinks it when he pleases.
Stills are operated somewhat quietly,
in Difference to federal regulations, but
the revenue officer does not intrude
much. 1t would be impossible here
to enforce the Mann act, the Harrison
drug law, the prohibition law, or any
other law which involves opening bag
gage and invading premises. These
people stand by the Constitution as it
is written, not as it is interpreted.
Their creed in brief is that as long as
a man does not interfere with anyone
else, no one has a right to interfere
with him. That was the gist Of Pat
rick Henry's bill of rights.
Like most men who value their lib
erty, these mountaineers have strong
sense of justice. They believe in the
proper use of liquor by responsible
persons. When a couple of bootleggers
came into the neighborhood and began
selling whisky to boys, a posse was
organized and the bootleggers disap-
peared. The law was not invoked.
Mountaineer Is Religious.
Next to his personal freedom, the
thing that mountain man takes most
seriously is his religion. He believes
in the Bible as the source of truth, and
as a guide for human conduct.
In these regions the church is a
place of sincere worship, place of So
cial gathering and an emotional expe-
rience. No doubt in all remote~re-
gions the church takes somewhat the
place that the theater, the movie, the
parade and other similar stimulantS of
emotion take in cities. That is one
reason why the camp meeting, with its
wild crowd emotionalism, is found in
all backwoOds sections. 1t also prob
ably explains in part the appeal of
such sects as the Holiness church.
York's father was Methodist, and
he was brought up Methodist, but
he and his mother and sisters became
converts to the Holiness church. The
belief of this church seems to be that
if a mortal neither does wrong nor
thinks wrong, he is already, in effect,
an angel, and may taste on earth some
thing of the bliss of heaven. At it's
meetings there are brief readings from
the Scripture, then periods Of silent
meditation, then shouting of great joy,
as the full glory of their triumph over
sin and trouble burst upon the con-
gregation, all at once. These alternate
periods of silent meditation and fren.
Zied rejoicing often extend far into the
night, and throw the congregation into
state of religious ecstasy.
York took his new faith seriously. 1t
satisfied some cravings of his nature.
He still carried arms. He was still
prepared to fight when need arose.
But when he heard of the war and the
draft law he realized that he faced a
great crisis. He believed in fighting
for the right, but he did not see how,
as an angel on earth, he could kill a
fellow who had never as an individual
done him any harm.
Willing to Drill, Not Kill.
York and his mother went to S. E.
Frogge, merchant and farmer liv-
ing near them, who was their repre-
sentative in the state legislature, and
begged that Frogge try to obtain an
exemption for York. The young man
said that he could never kill in war.
Frogge, of course, could do nothing. A
few days later York left for the first
time in his life the little clearing and
the cabin and the wild woodlands
which had heretofore been all the
world to him. He took his convic-
lions against war with him mistaken.
As soon as he reached camp he said
that he was willing to drill, but not to
fight. He made his position perfectly
clear to the captain of his company.
In having this captain, York was for
tunate. If he had been imprisoned,
hazed or mistreated, as other conscien-
tious DIRECTORS were, he would almost
certainly have spent the period of the
war in prison. But this captain was
a man Of Ha cow that vorIy