Watauga Democrat. [volume] (Boone, Watauga County, N.C.) 1888-current, 1927-04-07
Mountaineers Are
Just Plain Folks"
Are as Law-Abiding and Intelligent
as Amy People, Newspaper Story to
Contrary, Notwithstanding
By IR AT. JOHNSON

groups existing today from whom the
true mountalneer should pray for a
true deliverance. The first is the
group of orators and writer's that
patronizingly refer to 'the purest
Anglo-SaxOn blood on the American
continent" The other is the group
OF ultra-smart news paper and feature
writers who depict the mountaineer
as an uncOuth, unlearned, ignorant
and lawless type-living a strange
life and speaking strange tongue
am a mountaineer and my for
bears have been mountaineers for
many generations. My experience
and observation at home and abroad
have led me to the conclusion that we
are just folks" In some ways we
may be behind and in other ways,
little ahead of the procession.
study of the names of leading
families. say, in Ashe and Watauga
counties, would convince any one of
the pure poppy-cock in the "purest
Ang o-Saxon blood" myth. | am
thinking just now of the following
leading families in this section and
their ancestry as traced by reliable
historians: Holtzclaw, German; Ell
rod, French; Mast, Swiss; Ballou,
! French; Michael, Dutch; Grubb, Ger
man; Brown (at least one leading
branch), Dutch; Shull formerly
SchulD, German; DuVall, French;
DeBoard French. This list might be
! materially increased.
These are among our leading fam
! lilies. They have honorable ancestry.
They are just as high types of citi-
zenship as their neighbors of Scotch
and English descent. We have in
. these mountains fine admixture of
! the bloods of the nations of Europe.
True, we are largely free from the
tain of low-class immigrants. But we
are not uneXpurgated pages from
Chaucer and Shakespeare. We are
folks"
My little son is an average noun
tain youngster. | shall not teach him
to be an ancestor worshipper Going
back a few generations, | find in his
ancestry, Scotch, French, German,
/ Dutch, Swiss-and a few others. He
may not have a~y more Anglo-Saxon
blood than a baby born on sea-
7 shore, likely not as much, But l
: think he Is. just as good as if he did
have,
l For the second group, | have,
though it may sound paradoxical, a
deeper sympathy and more pro-
! found contempt. | write a bit for
the news columns Of newspapers and
I realize the temptation to rive for
! color, human interest, the uausual.
! Perhaps naturally, writer's see the OPP
portunity to obtain results by gro
tesque and untrue pictures of the
mountalneers, their cabins and their
moonshine stills, their feuds and cir
, "elghteenth cen ury" manners. age,
story and screen, as we'll as the col
umns of newspapers and the pages of
some of our leading magazines have
given the public recently these dis
torted pictures of our people To
prove that our people are just human,
| might say here that they resent
such misrepresentation Whether it
is in the form of propaganda or ap-
peals for funds for some mountain
mission school, whether it is the in
spirational story of some mountain
j who has won success, whether it
gripping account of some noun
tain killing" it is none the less un-
fair to great people and unfair to
the reading public which wants facts
and not flattery of the unknown or
SANDER of the unfamiliar.
A recent newspaper story describ-
ing the arraignment of Herbert S.
Wagner at Boone, Watauga county,
for double killing, occurring last
Christmas day, erred on both sides of
the ledger, according to the deliberate
opinion of many citizens of the muon-
tain section. | was present at Boone
on this occasion and while perhaps
not as observant or as well trained to
detail as the writer of the newspaper
story in question, | am convinced Of
its inaccuracy in several points. The
story was we'll written and no doubt
made good reading for the public
with its distorted conception of the
mountain people.
But there are statements in it
which demand reply, for the sake of
historical accuracy and for the sake
cf the good name of the citizenship
of Watauga county. The writer of
the story says that ''the trial :. /. is
T. L r IL 49,.