The Birmingham age-herald., 1924-08-24
THE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE


 THE MOUNTAIN PEOPLE
 John Fox, Jr., in Kentucky; Will N. Harben, in Georgia, and Mary N. Mur- free, of Tennessee, whose pen name was Charles Egbert Craddock, have written interesting and well of the mountain folk of the South. The mountaineers are a kindly people, and even yet, are little understood. Perhaps the purest Anglo Saxon stock to be found anywhere in America, for generations, they have lived in a world apart; and civilization has left them so far behind that, notwithstanding the "opening up" of the mountain coun- try, the establishment 6f schools for chill dren and adults and the incursion of writers from the East, seeking to inter pret" them, the mountaineers are but lit- tie different from their forbears.
 Strong in body, shrewd and intelligent, although they may be able neither to read nor to write; hospitable to strangers who do not meddle in their private af- fairs, among others the making of illicit liquor, the mountain people have many good qualities. In the centers of culture the criticism is often made that the mountaineers are "rough-uncouth crea- lures who would as soon shoot you as not" Other city-dwellers refer to them gravely as a ''lawless lot" given over to whisky drinking and feuds. But one who really knows the mountain people likes them. A peaceable stranger is safer in the mountains than on the sidewalks of a great city, where the pickpocket, the gunman and criminals of many other types ply their trade in defiance of all the complicated law machinery man has been able to devise for society's protec- tion.
 The mountain people take the law into their own hands sometimes, but that is caused more by their environment than anything else-their habits of life and thought and the primitive instinct that leads men who dwell far from towns to settle their differences and protect them selves and their possessions without re- course to the courts. There is nothing strange about this. It is a characteristic of pioneers and adventurers, the men who pave the way for civilization to fol- low. The vigilantes precede the police force, and the ,feud antedates prolonged litigation ifrscourt, with lawyers instead of the principals doing the fighting in bloodless verbal wars. ;. . The mountaineers, making due allow ance for whatever improvement in their condition has been caused by contact with civilization, are much the same as they were half a century ago. Minus his coonskin cap and long-barreled rifle, the successor to "Davy" Crockett may be found today in the mountains of the South. Many hardy mountaineer needs only to put on the costume of Daniel Boone to represent that invincible pio- ueer to the life, thinking withal, even in these progressive times, much as Dan- iel Boone did. People who are invariably poor. who dwell in their lives in a semi solitude, enjoying practically none of the comforts and pleasures that brighten the lives of the average citizen of the United States. are likely to be different from dwellers on the plains and in the cities. Not only does this difference exist in personal appearance, manner of speech and mode of living, but in the fundamen- tals of character.
 :. No man ever clupg faster to his ideals of right and wrong, of honesty and Jus tice. than the rnountaineer. If neigh bor does him an injury, the affair rests between them and their families, though the feud run through generations and lead to the extermination of one family or the other. But nowhere, neither in this nor in any other land, may be found a people who respond moro quickly to fair treatment than the mountaineers. They believe so strongly in the square deal that the sacrifice of their lives is as nothing compared to it, and their in- dependence is equally dear to them.
 An incomparable soldier in war, and, in peace. a better citizen than most of us would be were we subject to the same limitations, the mountaineer|s virtues much commend him; his faults are venial.